Homeland chief warns against anti-Muslim backlash

(AP) – 15 hours ago

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Homeland Security secretary says she is working to prevent a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment after the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas.

Janet Napolitano says her agency is working with groups across the United States to try to deflect any backlash against American Muslims following Thursday's rampage by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim who reportedly expressed growing dismay over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The shootings left 13 people dead and 29 wounded.

Napolitano was in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday for talks with security officials and a meeting with women university students in Abu Dhabi.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j8GOiUlCCnhCsRp1Xvs94KDJh8owD9BR9GPG0

I dunno, maybe after a Muslim extremist kills 13 Soldiers while disguised as an Army officer, Secretary Napolitano might start trying to prevent anti-American sentiment...

Upon reflection, I wonder how the secretary intends to prevent sentiments? Perhaps the thinkpol will be on the lookout for crimethink at the next Tea Party where the dangerous gun-owning, government doubting, Bible-reading Veterans assemble.

Human Rights?

Point 1: "WASHINGTON: The loud sucking noise you hear? That's President Barack Obama kissing up to the Chinese.

The Dalai Lama in Washington, as Barack Obama's administration insisted it still respected the Tibetan leader. Fellow Tibetan exiles welcomed the globetrotting 74-year-old monk as he arrived at his Washington hotel.
More Pictures

At least that's what supporters of Dalai Lama would have you believe after the U.S President passed up a meeting with the Tibetan leader in Washington DC this week – ostensibly to not offend Beijing ahead of his (Obama’s) visit to China next month.

It’s the first time in ten visits to the US in 18 years that the Dalai Lama has failed to meet with the American president. The political and diplomatic slight to the man widely admired in the US as brought forth a volley of criticism against Obama, hitherto hailed a champion of human rights.

Republicans are pillorying Obama for being a pussycat before the Chinese, and there have been murmurs of disapproval from the Democrats too..

"We regret that despite escalating human rights violations in Tibet, the White House has chosen not to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama...preferring a time that will be less irritating to the Chinese government and after the president’s own trip to China. We are concerned that this time may never come," says Katrina Lantos Swett, whose late father Tom Lantos led the move to present the Tibetan leader with a Congressional Gold Medal in 2007, awarded by then President Bush at a bipartisan ceremony.

The Dalai Lama is scheduled to receive a human rights award in the US Capitol on Tuesday given by the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is a long time admirer of the Tibetan leader. President Obama is also very much in the capital. But there will be no meeting.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Obama-pilloried-over-ducking-Dalai-Lama-to-appease-China/articleshow/5092820.cms

Point 2: (Washington) The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, announced today that President Barack Obama will deliver the keynote address at the 13th Annual National Dinner on Saturday, October 10th, in Washington, D.C.

Point 3:

Conclusion: Freedom from violent political and religious oppression isn't worth his time. They are not the sort of human rights the president concerns himself with.

License for sexual and financial self-gratification IS a concern of his. And the support of a homosexual lobbying and special interest group with deep pockets IS worth his time.

Talk about skewed priorities... and less than a week after committing more time to trying to secure a windfall for his Chicago cronies than to securing a winnable strategy for the people of Afghanistan and the American Soldiers fighting for them.


"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." ...Ronald Reagan

Next week, blasphemy gets its own holiday

A friend brought this to my attention. As I read, I had difficulty getting too upset. I certainly wasn't amused but perhaps bemused. The folks quoted give me the impression of being petulant children begging for attention by making a scene about something the adults around them are doing.

Next week, blasphemy gets its own holiday

By Leanne Larmondin

TORONTO—You’ve never seen Jesus like this before: dripping red nail polish around the nails in his feet and hands, an irreverent riff on the crucifixion wounds. The provocative title of the painting: “Jesus Does His Nails.”

Blasphemous? Absolutely. Deliberately provocative? You bet.

But childish and even amateurish in comparison to the famous bit of blasphemous art perpetrated by Andres Serrano. Somehow seems kinda high school to me.

It is part of an upcoming art exhibit in Washington that will mark the first-ever International Blasphemy Day next Wednesday (Sept. 30) at the Center for Inquiry DC near Capitol Hill.

Hmm. I suppose 'international' because someone is coming down from Toronto. I doubt the contingent from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan will be very large... Like "Tom's Famous Steaks and Hoagies" I'm also impressed by their presumption that they are the first group to publicly blaspheme. Still seems like that grade-school boy who says, 'poopie' and giggles at his own trangressivity.

Artist Dana Ellyn says her “Blasphemy” paintings are a tongue-in-cheek expression of her lack of belief in God and religion. The self-described “agnostic atheist”—she doesn’t believe in the existence of any deity but can’t say for sure one doesn’t exist—says her introduction to religion was in college when she studied art history. Stories from the Bible, she says, are just that: stories.

So, Ms Ellyn isn't serious about her blasphemy, but she is organizing an art show around it. I smell an opportunist. Oh, and is it just me or is there something irrational about someone who doesn't believe in God whether He exists or not. Seems like the sort of anti-intellectualism and lack of rationalism that the Center for Inquiry would eschew. But, at least Ms Ellyn bases her opinion on a sound intellectual background of a college art history class. Certainly, that is enough for her to justify gainsaying 2000 years of theological, philosophical and intellectual history.

“My point is not to offend, but I realize it can offend, because religion is such a polarizing topic,” Ellyn said of the exhibit.

Any bets on where Ms Ellyn comes down on the 'polarizing topic' of children rescued from Abortion?

This from the Facebook page for Blasphemy Day: "The purpose of Blasphemy Day is not to promote hate or violence; it is to support free speech, support the right to criticize and satirize religion..."

So, they would probably be all in favor of this picture:

Atheists, skeptics, freethinkers and free-speech advocates around the world will mark Blasphemy Day by mounting their soapboxes—figuratively and literally—and uttering words and displaying images that may cause offense.

And they’re making no apologies.

“We’re not seeking to offend, but if in the course of dialogue and debate, people become offended, that’s not an issue for us,” said Justin Trottier, a Toronto coordinator of Blasphemy Day and executive director of the Ontario chapter of the Center for Inquiry. “There is no human right not to be offended.”

Mark Steyn has found out differently from the Canadian Human Rights Commissions. Various campus 'speech codes' also give the lie to this bit of silliness. Perhaps Mr Trottier should be asked why he isn't having his show in Toronto. And does he really expect rational people to believe him when 'Jesus Does His Nails' is one of the exhibits? Sophmoric in word and deed.

St. Thomas Aquinas described blasphemy—deliberately showing contempt or irreverence for something considered sacred—as a sin “committed directly against God ... more grave than murder.” In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”

While it may sound as anachronistic as a witchcraft trial, blasphemy remains punishable by death in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. In addition, Ireland recently introduced a defamation law making blasphemy punishable by fines up to 25,000 euros ($37,000 US). What’s more, six U.S. states (Massachusetts, Michigan, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wyoming) have laws that, in some way, prohibit or regulate blasphemy, noted Ron Lindsay, a lawyer and president of the CFI International in Amherst, N.Y.

CFI also cites efforts by the United Nations to introduce anti-blasphemy resolutions that many say would curtail free speech about religion.

These grown-up babies with more time and money than sense are really giving blasphemy a bad name. Grown-ups know that the UN resolutions are being pushed by Islamic states to protect their Islamic theocracies and to add cover for their persecution of Christians and converts from Islam. That is a serious subject. This nonsense is really nothing more than a stunt by the emotionally impoverished that is nevertheless dangerous in that it may lead an impressionable person astray. Again, I have little doubt that the organizers would be aghast at truly radical public utterances; like those of St. Francis of Assisi:

"My little sisters, the birds, much bounden are ye unto God, your Creator, and always in every place ought ye to praise Him, for that He hath given you liberty to fly about everywhere, and hath also given you double and triple rainment; moreover He preserved your seed in the ark of Noah, that your race might not perish out of the world; still more are ye beholden to Him for the element of the air which He hath appointed for you; beyond all this, ye sow not, neither do you reap; and God feedeth you, and giveth you the streams and fountains for your drink; the mountains and valleys for your refuge and the high trees whereon to make your nests; and because ye know not how to spin or sow, God clotheth you, you and your children; wherefore your Creator loveth you much, seeing that He hath bestowed on you so many benefits; and therefore, my little sisters, beware of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praises unto God."

Sept. 30 was chosen for the inaugural Blasphemy Day because it is the anniversary of the 2005 publication of the controversial Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The cartoons resulted in worldwide riots by outraged Muslims and widespread self-censorship by media.

Strange thing is, all of the religiously- oriented paintings on Ms Ellyn's web site are explicitly anti-Christian. If the impetus to this theater really is the cowardly response of the Danish government and newspapers to the violent Muslim reaction to the Danish cartoons (which they should be protecting as incidents of free speech), why has Ms Ellyn refrained from her own satire of Islam and Mohammad?

Lindsay said the Blasphemy Day events are part of his group’s larger Campaign for Free Expression, which encompasses more than protection of speech about religion. CFI, he said, aims to expose all religious beliefs to the same level of inquiry, discussion and criticism to which other areas of intellectual interest are subjected.

Judging from the subject matter I reviewed while composing my replies, I cannot fathom why CFI and the rest of the organizers would propose subjecting religious beliefs to a less rigorous level of inquiry, discussion and criticism than they have already been subject to by their adherents and their devout opponents. These witlings cannot hold a scented candle to even the most mediocre theology student.

Besides the Washington art exhibit, Blasphemy Day events include:

-- a Blasphemy-Fest! at CFI Los Angeles that will feature a talk about free speech followed by three provocative films;

-- supporters worldwide have been encouraged to take up The Blasphemy Challenge (http://www.blasphemychallenge.com) by uploading their denials of faith to YouTube. A typical recording: “Hi, my name is Ray and I deny the Holy Spirit. (pause) No lightning. Maybe next time.”

-- a Speaker’s Corner, modeled after the famed soapbox in London’s Hyde Park, and a Blasphemy Challenge at CFI Toronto;

-- a blasphemy contest held by CFI International, in conjunction with its Campaign for Free Expression, in which participants are invited to submit phrases, poems, or statements that would be, or have been, considered blasphemous. Winners will receive T-shirts and mugs printed with their winning phrases.

I have one: "There are no dead atheist!" Think about it...

Will the public events and demonstrations disturb some people? Without a doubt, said Lindsay, but causing offense is not the intention. Participants are encouraged to avoid vulgarity and profanity.

Back in the day, being intentionally blasphemous was considered vulgar and well, I suggest they look up the definition of the word, 'profane.' How does one be profane while avoiding profanity? These rationalists at CFI are awfully irrational.

“We’re stressing that we want something that is insightful and thoughtful,” Lindsay said. “The point we’re trying to make is that we’re against restrictions on speech based purely on the possibility that some people might be offended, because if you go down that path there’s no end to it.”

Indeed.
"The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which oversees the Medicare program for the elderly and disabled as well as privately run Medicare alternatives, on Monday said it was investigating a letter Humana Inc sent enrollees about efforts to overhaul the nation's healthcare system.
"CMS warned Humana it would take necessary enforcement action, and agency spokesman Peter Ashkenaz said Tuesday it is unclear when the investigation will conclude. The company has said it is cooperating with the probe."
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/09/22/afx6916781.html

"Ten-year-old Amanda Kurowski is used to being taught at home by her mother, Brenda Voydatch. Bible study was part of her curriculum until this year, when a judge ordered Voydatch to enroll Amanda in public school.

“The court has stepped in and said that this child and the mother are too religious and the child needs to be taken out of that environment and exposed to other worldviews, and that is a constitutional problem for all of us,” says John Anthony Simmons, Voydatch’s attorney.

"The judge’s order goes on to say, “Amanda’s vigorous defense of her religious beliefs… suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.”"
http://www.nhpr.org/node/26912

Seems like some speech is more equal than other. And there is one thing I'll bet all these rational blasphemers believe in:

Obey, by Dana Ellyn

Sen Warner's unhelpful answers

I mentioned in the previous post that Sen Warner's office did respond to my email regarding his positions on the medical goods and services industries.

His office sent a canned response with a letter attached. The letter was from Sen Warner and eight other senators to Sen Baucus.

Let's look at the email first:

"I share your concerns about the need for comprehensive health care reform, especially during this challenging economic time. "

Somehow I doubt that my concerns with federally designed 'comprehensive health care reform' are quite the same as his. My concern is that they get away with it. The market for medical goods and services, particularly the health insurance market could use some reform, but the stuff the Democrats are trying to impose will not fix what's broke but will inevitably make what works even more broke. It seems like they want to pour cement into an engine block to fix a leaking tailpipe.

Heritage and Cato, among others, have made actual common-sense proposals that will improve the delivery of medical goods and services and does have a reasonable chance of controlling costs while maintaining consumer freedom.

"Although I do not support a government-run single-payer health care system, I believe we need comprehensive reform to achieve a competitive, cost-effective, and efficient system. This effort should be primarily focused on ensuring that all Americans can get adequate health coverage, and the coverage must be cost-effective and based upon data-driven medical standards. We must ensure that competition remains among health care providers because it is precisely that competition that drives innovation and cost reduction in the industry. Any final reform should also include measures to promote prevention and wellness, senior navigation through the health system, health information technology ("health IT") and telemedicine."

Let's see, Since the federal government is moving out on the 'comprehensive reform;' someone, presumably the federal government will establish the 'data-driven medical standards;' and enforce 'measures to promote prevention and wellness etc.;' Sen Warner is OK with the 'government-run' part. He appears to be open on the means by which the federal government forces 300M Americans to pay for all of the new bureaucrats who will be needed to suck the remaining life out of our medical industry.

"As evidence that there is room to compromise, several alternatives are being discussed ranging from non-profit regional co-operatives to a delayed public option."

Ah, there is room to compromise between the blatantly Socialist and the merely Statist positions: should the central government run the medical industry out-right or should it merely direct how it is run by its corporate donors? Where are the Republican alternatives? Never left the committee rooms. Sorta reminds me of the alternatives given to the Melians by the Athenians: surrender and die as slaves or just die now. When Obama and Pelosi gloated, "We won" back in January, they echoed the Athenian 'negotiators,' "The strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they must accept."

"I also believe that a central focus of this effort should be cost containment. I recently led an effort by freshman Senators in which we expressed our concerns to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus about the importance of ensuring that we find ways to pay for health care reforms. I am attaching a copy of that letter in this mailing. "

And Chairman Baucus listened. His final submission trims almost 10% from the House version. So, instead of underestimating the costs with a nearly $1,000B bill, his proposal underestimates a nearly $900B bill. I'm thinking if we are already over $1,700B in debt, we can't afford $900B any more than we can $1,000B. If that's his idea of 'cost containment,' he needs to find himself another job as soon as possible, I don't want him applying that theory of 'cost containment' to the federal budget and the US economy. Let him apply it to his own private business in Virginia and see how long it lasts.

Sen Warner's unanswered questions

I took the opportunity to attend Sen Warner's town hall in Fredericksburg the other night. We were not picked to ask questions, so I emailed the questions I would have liked to ask to his office.

I received a canned email response a little over a week later. Here are the questions left unanswered by his reply:

1. Your web site and Pres Obama promise that the Democrat plans to nationalize medical services will
- insure more people
- provide better service
- reduce costs

I know of only one Person Who ever distributed more than He had collected and ended up with a surplus - when Christ fed 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes.

Neither you nor Barack Obama are Him. So, how do you really intend to finance this? Either you are being disengenous about the cost, in which case higher taxes AND higher deficits are likely; or about the services, in which case shortages, degraded care and government decisions regarding who gets what care are inevitable.

I anticipate all of the above.

2. The federal government is already involved in providing somewhere around 60% of medical services in this country via MediCare, Medicaid, Military and Veterans health care and government employees health insurance. Your statistics indicate that the current system is unsustainable. So, if the current, mostly government, system is unsustainable, why don't you think that MORE government will result in LESS sustainability? Why won't the Democrats even consider consumer-based solutions?

3. You said, "We need to control compensation." Given that you are a US Senator, I assume that by "we" you mean the US Government. Control of a producer's compensation is effectively control of his production. Do you really favor government control of the production of medical goods and services?

4. You rightly point out that our current medical insurance system is unsustainable.
Our automobile insurance system is fine.
Our Life insurance system is fine.
Our property insurance system is fine.
Our federally managed flood insurance system is broken.

Why do you prefer to reinforce proven failure by favoring federally [sic] management rather than emulating the successes of those insurance markets that do work?

5. A school teacher asked you to cite the article and section of the US Constitution that empowers you to do this. You admitted, "there is no place in the Constitution that specifically says health care.” While I admire your honesty, I do question how you can so brazenly proceed to act beyond your constitutional authority.

Does the federal government really care about my health?

Like the Left has done for decades in the Abortion debate, they are attempting to seize the rhetorical key terrain in the medical marketplace debate by choosing the terms of the argument and thereby imposing their premises on their opponents.

The front page of the 14 Sep Wapo tabloid, The Express featured a prominent article on Pres Obama's appearance on 60 Minutes to push his scheme to impose greater bureaucracy on the American medical industry. He is well on his way to succeeding in one respect. The article notes Obama's accusation that Republicans are 'trying to block an overhaul of the national health care system.' The phrase 'national health care system' is the common phrase used by both proponents and opponents of the Democrats' scheme to nationalize the medical industry.

But it is only a rhetorical trick. There is no 'national health care system' in the United States. There are national, regional and local markets for medical goods and services. There are regional and local medical systems - some public, some private, none comprehensive to anywhere near the extent envisioned by the Left and being pushed by Obama and the Democrat Party.

There are some national medical systems: The VA and Military Medical systems come to mind.

The proponents of nationalizing the medical goods and services marketplace will have already won the rhetorical battle if they are allowed to control the terms of the argument.

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) held a town hall in Fredericksburg, VA this past week. If I had the opportunity to ask questions, these are what I would have asked Sen Warner:

1. Your web site and Pres Obama promise that the Democrat plans to nationalize medical services will
- insure more people
- provide better service
- reduce costs

I know of only one Person Who ever distributed more than He had collected and ended up with a surplus - when Christ fed 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes.

Neither you nor Barack Obama are Him. So, how do you really intend to finance this? Either you are being disengenous about the cost, in which case higher taxes AND higher deficits are likely; or about the services, in which case shortages, degraded care and government decisions regarding who gets what care are inevitable.

I anticipate all of the above.

2. The federal government is already involved in providing somewhere around 60% of medical services in this country via MediCare, Medicaid, Military and Veterans health care and government employees health insurance. Your statistics indicate that the current system is unsustainable. So, if the current, mostly government, system is unsustainable, why don't you think that MORE government will result in LESS sustainability? Why won't the Democrats even consider consumer-based solutions?

3. You said, "We need to control compensation." Given that you are a US Senator, I assume that by "we" you mean the US Government. Control of a producer's compensation is effectively control of his production. Do you really favor government control of the production of medical goods and services?

4. You rightly point out that our current medical insurance system is unsustainable.
Our automobile insurance system is fine.
Our Life insurance system is fine.
Our property insurance system is fine.
Our federally managed flood insurance system is broken.

Why do you prefer to reinforce proven failure by favoring federally management rather than emulating the successes of those insurance markets that do work?

5. A school teacher asked you to cite the article and section of the US Constitution that empowers you to do this. You admitted, "there is no place in the Constitution that specifically says health care.” While I admire your honesty, I do question how you can so brazenly proceed to act beyond your constitutional authority.

Peggy Noonan

From Peggy Noonan's column in the WSJ as taken from:
http://www.patriotpost.us/opinion/peggy-noonan/2009/09/05/coruscating-on-thin-ice.htm:

"The president's biggest potential long-term problem in terms of the public part of the presidency became obvious to me only during the past week.

I watched with great interest much of Teddy Kennedy's wake and funeral, and saw in a clearer way than I had in the past a big cultural difference between the elites of the two parties, or rather the Democratic and Republican establishments. Pretty much the entire Democratic establishment was at the Kennedy services, and the level of shown affection among those in the pews and the audience was striking—laughing, hugging, telling stories, admitting weaknesses, weeping. It was Irish, and old-time. If it had been a gathering of the Republican political and journalistic establishment it would have been less emotive, with little shown affection. Polite laughter, cordial handshakes, a lot of staring ahead. A guy with his head down and you think he's mourning but he's BlackBerrying. They don't especially like each other, they compete against each other, and they don't feel the need to fake liking each other. They have the old dignity of the old grown-ups. And I suppose their style reflects some of their philosophy: Politics isn't about emotions but thoughts.

The difference between the party establishments struck me, but is not my point. This is: The president walked into the funeral and moved toward the front pews nodding, shaking hands. He hugged Mrs. Kennedy, nodded some more, shook more hands. He was dignified and contained, he was utterly appropriate, and he was cold.

He is cold, like someone who is contained not because he's disciplined and successfully restrains his emotions, but because there's not that much to restrain. This is the dark side of cool. One wonders if this will play well with the American people. Long-term it is hard to get people to trust your policies if they think you're coolly operating on some intellectual or ideological abstractions.

I don't think as a presidential style it will wear well with the center. And it may not wear well with the president's own party. They may come to see him, in time, as not really one of them. And that's when things will really get interesting."

Wow. One part of my mind recalls Robert Hugh Benson apocalyptic novels. The villain is described that way: cold, emotionless, coolly intellectual.

Another memory is jogged by the phrase, "operating on ... ideological abstractions." That would also aptly describe the perpetrators of the French and Russian revolutions and the anarchist bomb-throwers of any given decade of the last century.

Our quixotic young president occasionally reveals other glimpses of the character beneath. I have not seen anything to engender my confidence in him yet.

A big story about - Nothing

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/08/twelve-carry-guns----including-assault-rifle----outside-obama-event.php

this would be hilarious if it wasn’t kinda scary. TPM, a lefty blog, tries to make law-abiding citizens lawfully exercising their 1^st and 2^nd amendment rights sound scary. But the article is (unusually) factual – which means that the attempt at sensation is deflated by periodic admissions that – nothing really happened.

Twelve Carry Guns -- Including Assault Rifle -- Outside Obama Event

“No one was arrested outside the VFW National Convention in Phoenix” “There are no reports that the 12 were part of an organized group.” “The man spotted carrying the assault rifle and a pistol, who gave his name only as "Chris", was asked why he was armed. "Because I can do it," he said.” (BTW, despite some hysterical reports of racial overtones, Chris is clearly African American) “And that's not all. A man brought a gun to a town hall with Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) last week, without incident.” “Another man in Portsmouth was spotted carrying a gun in a leg holster outside the school. The unconcealed weapon was legal under New Hampshire law and he was not arrested. Later, when asked why he brought the gun, he replied, "That's not even a relevant question.”

No, the question is why did TPM and the MSM try to make a big deal out of it?

Don't listen to me, listen to the Left-wing Netroots

Insurers Winning Healthcare Battle - Hands Down / No Contest

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/thepeoplechoose/2009/08/insurers-winning-healthcare-ba.php?ref=recmuck

August 24, 2009, 12:08AM

According to this article in the LA Times insurers will do exceptionally well under the proposed healthcare reform package. This assessment is widely agreed to be the outcome for insurers. The reform package reduces the amount insurers pay out per premium dollar they take in. There is no good news here at all. As far as I can tell, the national healthcare bill, ie actual overall healthcare expenditures, cannot possibly decrease under this legislation.

I advise reading the entire article to get a feel for how badly citizens are going to lose this battle. I am in no way able to read the legislation and make sense of it so I don't know. If this assessment is accurate this piece of legislation may as well have been written by insurers. Jobs are never coming back to this country without reducing healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP. I don't think this legislation addresses that issue at all.

My personal assessment: This is over the top corruption. Period.

Our Socialist Leaders visit the Dean of Socialist Tyranny

CBC members praise Castro

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21008.html

“The fifty-year embargo just hasn’t worked,” CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Ca.) told reporters

(worked to do what? To keep Cuba from being inordinately influential in the Caribbean? Debatable. To cause the Castro regime to fall? True, but hardly the outcome Lee would have wished for. Attract the votes of ex-patriot Cubans in South Florida? Perhaps that is what she meant. Most likely she didn’t mean anything other than she opposes the embargo and needs to sound like there is a rational reason to end it other than her sympathy for Socialist dictators.)

(Judging from opinion printed in the Miami Herald, the visit by ‘the clueless seven’ won’t help the party in South Florida either): “The black U.S. lawmakers' concerns weren't for the 300-plus Cuban prisoners of conscience listed by Amnesty International or the hundreds of dissidents working from their homes under the watch of a totalitarian regime. Or the lack of civil rights in a country with a majority black and mixed-race population ruled by an overwhelmingly white gerontocracy.

“Their angst was for the ''Five Heroes,'' as Cuba's controlled media calls the Cuban government spies captured in Miami, including one sentenced for conspiracy to murder the four Brothers to the Rescue pilots killed by Cuban fighter planes in 1996.

“Certainly the Clueless Seven, led by Rep. Barbara Lee of California, didn't make a fuss about 50 years of the Castro brothers' rule, the human rights violations or the escalating and disproportionate number of black Cubans held behind bars. Indeed, Rep. Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther, could only show his empathy ''for the suffering of political prisoners,'' as he referred to the five spies.” http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/myriam-marquez/story/989534.html

Lee and others heaped praise on Castro

(What did Lee and others find so praiseworthy in Castro?) “According to Amnesty International, no other country of Cuba's size has held so many political prisoners for so long under such inhumane circumstances of atrocity and terror. Such inhumanity is a monstrous legacy from which the Cuban dictator can never escape.” http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/castro.thwart.html “Over the past forty years, Cuba has developed a highly effective machinery of repression. The denial of basic civil and political rights is written into Cuban law. In the name of legality, armed security forces, aided by state-controlled mass organizations, silence dissent with heavy prison terms, threats of prosecution, harassment, or exile. Cuba uses these tools to restrict severely the exercise of fundamental human rights of expression, association, and assembly. The conditions in Cuba's prisons are inhuman, and political prisoners suffer additional degrading treatment and torture. In recent years, Cuba has added new repressive laws and continued prosecuting nonviolent dissidents while shrugging off international appeals for reform and placating visiting dignitaries with occasional releases of political prisoners.” http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1999/cuba/Cuba996-01.htm#P351_12385)

“It was almost like listening to an old friend,” said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Il.)"

(I suppose Bobby would feel that way…el Comandante Fidel bringing back fond memories of when he fashioned himself as a leader of a people's revolution as head of the Chicago Black Panthers)

"Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Ca.) said Castro was receptive to President Obama’s message of turning the page in American foreign policy.

"He listened. He said the exact same thing" about turning the page "as President Obama said," said Richardson."

(Sure. Castro is in favor of turning the page in the narrative of the spread of International Socialism, which Ms Richardson no doubt is in favor of: at least the free housing part since she was an utter failure as a real estate speculator in California and has or had 3 houses in foreclosure, one declared a public nuisance and is alleged to have received preferential treatment from WaMu at the expense of the private citizen who purchased one of her homes in a foreclosure auction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Richardson has links to her real estate problems)

"There is now serious momentum in long-standing efforts to overturn the nearly five decade ban on travel and trade with Cuba. Previous efforts have been blocked by a vocal and influential Cuban American community"

(I’m ambivalent about loosening restrictions with Cuba. They haven’t had any effect on the Castro thugocracy while they have certainly been a burden on the Cuban people. 50 year old slights to Cuban expats or Dole Pineapple investors carry no weight. Consider that we have made peace with Viet Nam to the benefit of both countries. On the flip side, the totalitarian regime is certain to appropriate anything of value that might flow from the US into Cuba, so there is reasonable doubt that the Cuban people will benefit from changes in the relationship. While the regime would gain inestimable power and prestige thereby. In the final analysis, I have to pause and think hard about agreeing with something these congressional clowns are so enthusiastic about)

"In a statement following the meeting today, Castro said that the delegation had expressed to him that a segment of American society “continues to be racist,” and is at least partly to blame for the travel restrictions."

“That did not happen,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), told reporters".

(Perhaps they admire Castro for his inability to tell the truth? Or perhaps they lack that ability? There clearly is no honor among Socialist camrades)

Here is Castro’s statement: “A fourth member of the Caucus said that despite Obama’s electoral victory, the American society continues to be racist. He added that Obama represented the only opportunity that nation had to move on and leave behind all the wrongdoings accumulated by former governments.” http://www.radionuevitas.co.cu/web_english/news/Reflections_by_Comrade_Fidel_070409_1.asp

(Sounds perfectly in character for this bunch)

"The delegation is headed by California Representative Barbara Lee (co-chair CPC and current President of the Congressional Black Caucus. The delegation is also included by Melvin Watt (CPC), Bobby Rush (CPC), Marcia Fudge, Emanuel Cleaver and Laura Richardson and Micheal Honda. Legislator Sheila Jackson-Lee is expected to arrive on Monday." http://www.radionuevitas.co.cu/web_english/news/cuba_050409_3.asp

(True, they may have traveled as representatives of the Congressional Black Caucus, but more significantly, every one of them are also members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It seems, from their statements, that their visit had more to do with their political affinity for Castro's Socialist paradise than for his interest in racial harmony.

The prominence of the CPC in the current congress bodes very ill for this country)

“The largest ideological caucus in the new House Democratic majority will be the Congressional Progressive Caucus, with a membership that includes New York's Charles Rangel, Michigan's John Conyers, Massachusetts' Barney Frank and at least half the incoming chairs of House standing committees.

“The caucus currently has 64 members

“Listen to Barbara Lee, whose habit of deviating from the conventional wisdom in order get things right is now well established, when she says of Tuesday's election results, "It is important to recognize that this was not just a vote against George Bush and the Republican Congress, it was a vote for a Democratic agenda that is rooted in progressive values."” http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/139093

(“Progressive Values” like those practiced in Castro’s Cuba for the last 50 years…and condemned by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch)

(Who are big fans of the CPC? The Democratic Socialist of America. In fact, from their readiness to speak at their meetings, it also appears the CPC are big fans of the Democratic Socialists of America)

http://dsausa.org/dsa.html

“DSA recognizes that some insurgent politicians representing labor, environmentalists, gays and lesbians, and communities of color may choose to run under Democratic auspices, as in the 1988 Jesse Jackson campaign, or operate as Democrats like Senator Paul Wellstone, and the 59 Democratic members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one-half of whom are Black and Latino and all of whom possess strong labor backing and operative social democratic politics.

“DSA honored independent socialist Congressperson Bernie Sanders of Vermont at our last convention banquet, and we have always raised significant funds nationally for his electoral campaigns. At the same time, we were pleased to have Democratic Congressperson and Progressive Caucus member Bob Filner of San Diego introduce Sanders at the convention, and note that Progressive Caucus member Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) will be honored at our annual Debs-Thomas-Harrington dinner this Spring in Chicago.

“DSA is not an electoral organization, but rather a democratic socialist political organization which aims to bring socialism into the mainstream of American politics. We endeavor to do so through a two-pronged strategy of education and organizing.”

(and it is always instructive to compare the CPC agenda http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?SectionID=5&ParentID=0&SectionTypeID=2&SectionTree=5 to that of DSA http://www.dsausa.org/resources.html CPUSA http://www.cpusa.org/ and the Socialist Party-USA http://socialistparty-usa.org/platform/ just to get a glimpse of the direction we are being herded)

Camille Paglia: My Favorite Lefty Whacko

For the witlings who like to tar anything they don’t understand with bogey-man Rush Limbaugh, actual thought from Camille Paglia’s Salon blog:

"From a reader: “The liberal talk shows I've listened to are not really all that entertaining. The jokes tend to be mean-spirited personal attacks and are rarely as clever as what I have heard on Rush Limbaugh's program. I think if the left wants to have a successful talk radio platform, they should be asking people like Jon Stewart for ideas and quit trying to silence the opposition.”

Another Reader writes: “Salon reader Cecil W. Powell writes: "The failure of talkers on liberal radio is in large part due to an absolute inability to poke fun at themselves." How true! Liberal hosts like to snap and snip and chortle snidely, but they are weighed down by a complacent superiority complex, a paralyzing sanctimony. They mistake irony for wit. The conservative hosts love to rant and stomp and bring down the house. They're doing breakneck vaudeville while liberal hosts are primly stirring their non-caffeine green tea.”

If you don’t believe me, believe your own kind!

More Camille: “Yes, something very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power.”

I couldn’t have said it better or agreed with her more..

“For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent. The nut cases … on the left … sport Ivy League degrees. I'm not kidding -- there are some real fruitcakes out there, and some of them are writing for major magazines. It's a comfortable, urban, messianic liberalism befogged by psychiatric pharmaceuticals. Conservatives these days are more geared to facts than emotions, and as individuals they seem to have a more ethical, perhaps sports-based sense of fair play."

Obama at Notre Dame, in Reagan’s Long Shadow
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTU0MWRlMTc0ODYzMTM4NzA3YzkwNDZmMzJkYWQ4YWI=&w=MA

"On May 17, four months into his presidency, Barack Obama will travel to South Bend, Ind., to deliver the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. Twenty-eight years to the day, another popular agent of change, four months into his presidency, did the same. (Text here; video here.)

In a presidency full of extraordinary oratory, Reagan’s “Source of All Strength” speech at Notre Dame stands out as one of his very best, even if it is not among his best-known.

By now, the heralded Obama communications team will have read and unpacked Reagan’s Notre Dame address. The speechwriters undoubtedly understand the height of the bar Reagan set and the imperative to fashion a message of similar scope, vision, and connectedness to the American creed."

Personally, I don’t think Obama or his handlers have a grasp or even a whiff of what the American creed actually is. They, in their PoMo way, think themselves the ‘agents of change’ who are empowered to redefine America’s narrative or some such clap trap; which if true, can only be to the detriment of the people of the United States and of the whole world.

Two Trillion Tons - Sung by the Ghost of Tennessee Ernie Ford

George Will says what he really thinks about the Obama administration

I have very seldom read or heard George Will so exercised over something. This is a stem-winder of an article that is the most explicit indictment of the malfeasance of the current regime I have yet read.

The Toxic Assets We Elected
By George F. Will
Tuesday, March 24, 2009; A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302140_pf.html

With the braying of 328 yahoos -- members of the House of Representatives who voted for retroactive and punitive use of the tax code to confiscate the legal earnings of a small, unpopular group -- still reverberating, the Obama administration yesterday invited private-sector investors to become business partners with the capricious and increasingly anti-constitutional government. This latest plan to unfreeze the financial system came almost half a year after Congress shoveled $700 billion into the Troubled Assets Relief Program, $325 billion of which has been spent without purchasing any toxic assets.

TARP funds have, however, semi-purchased, among many other things, two automobile companies (and, last week, some of their parts suppliers), which must amaze Sweden. That unlikely tutor of America regarding capitalist common sense has said, through a Cabinet minister, that the ailing Saab automobile company is on its own: "The Swedish state is not prepared to own car factories."

Another embarrassing auditor of American misgovernment is China, whose premier has rightly noted the unsustainable trajectory of America's high-consumption, low-savings economy. He has also decorously but clearly expressed sensible fears that his country's $1 trillion-plus of dollar-denominated assets might be devalued by America choosing, as banana republics have done, to use inflation for partial repudiation of improvidently incurred debts.

From Mexico, America is receiving needed instruction about fundamental rights and the rule of law. A leading Democrat trying to abolish the right of workers to secret ballots in unionization elections is California's Rep. George Miller who, with 15 other Democrats, in 2001 admonished Mexico: "The secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose." Last year, Mexico's highest court unanimously affirmed for Mexicans the right that Democrats want to strip from Americans.

Congress, with the approval of a president who has waxed censorious about his predecessor's imperious unilateralism in dealing with other nations, has shredded the North American Free Trade Agreement. Congress used the omnibus spending bill to abolish a program that was created as part of a protracted U.S. stall regarding compliance with its obligation to allow Mexican long-haul trucks on U.S. roads. The program, testing the safety of Mexican trucking, became an embarrassment because it found Mexican trucking at least as safe as U.S. trucking. Mexico has resorted to protectionism -- tariffs on many U.S. goods -- in retaliation for Democrats' protection of the Teamsters union.

NAFTA, like all treaties, is the "supreme law of the land." So says the Constitution. It is, however, a cobweb constraint on a Congress that, ignoring the document's unambiguous stipulations that the House shall be composed of members chosen "by the people of the several states," is voting to pretend that the District of Columbia is a state. Hence it supposedly can have a Democratic member of the House and, down the descending road, two Democratic senators. Congress rationalizes this anti-constitutional willfulness by citing the Constitution's language that each house shall be the judge of the "qualifications" of its members and that Congress can "exercise exclusive legislation" over the District. What, then, prevents Congress from giving House and Senate seats to Yellowstone National Park, over which Congress exercises exclusive legislation? Only Congress's capacity for embarrassment. So, not much.

The Federal Reserve, by long practice rather than law, has been insulated from politics in performing its fundamental function of preserving the currency as a store of value -- preventing inflation. Now, however, by undertaking hitherto uncontemplated functions, it has become an appendage of the executive branch. The coming costs, in political manipulation of the money supply, of this forfeiture of independence could be steep.

Jefferson warned that "great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities." But Democrats, who trace their party's pedigree to Jefferson, are contemplating using "reconciliation" -- a legislative maneuver abused by both parties to severely truncate debate and limit the minority's right to resist -- to impose vast and controversial changes on the 17 percent of the economy that is health care. When the Congressional Budget Office announced that the president's budget underestimates by $2.3 trillion the likely deficits over the next decade, his budget director, Peter Orszag, said: All long-range budget forecasts are notoriously unreliable -- so rely on ours.

This is but a partial list of recent lawlessness, situational constitutionalism and institutional derangement. Such political malfeasance is pertinent to the financial meltdown as the administration, desperately seeking confidence, tries to stabilize the economy by vastly enlarging government's role in it.