by BigFurHat - March 16, 2012
ht/ frosteetoes
SHOCKINGLY wikipedia tells the story leaving out party affiliation, which only means one thing, the bad guys were democrats.
This link confirms it.
But, of course, as the lefties will tell you, THE PARTIES MAGICALLY SWITCHED. Had Cantrell been a republican, however, Wiki would have happily reported that fact with absolutely no fear of anyone saying, “hey, didn’t the parties switch? That would mean Cantrell was really a democrat.”
It doesn’t work that way in moronic and childish leftyland, where their fellow travelers are always the good guys and everyone else is the bad guy, even if it means they have to concoct ridiculous revisionist bullshit.
But back to the main thesis. This is why you cannot trample the 2nd amendment. Without it you don’t have a 1st amendment.
I almost wish Cantrell was a republican, that way we would have a glimmer of hope of getting this central point through the 6 inch thick skulls of leftards.
SOURCE: IOTW
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Who Looks Dumb Now?
By Erin Haust on Mar 16, 2012
Are you tired of being called dumb simply because you’re a conservative? Here are some interesting facts and a list of innovators that have changed the world for the better who just so happen to be… Republican!
In response to President Obama’s recent accusation that the GOP would have been part of the “flat Earth society,” Justen Charters is at it again in this video pointing out some rather famous inventors of the republican persuasion.
President Obama has spent his entire presidency mocking conservatives telling them to “grab a mop” to clean up his mess and sit in the back of the bus. He’s even referred to Tea Party goers as the vulgar term, “teabaggers.” Rather than fight on the battlefield of ideas and solutions, the president seems to fall back on ridicule and division. Thankfully, members of “Breitbart’s Army” like Justen are fighting back, not with childish playground tactics and silly quasi-comedic rhetoric, but with actual facts and historical data.
SOURCE: CDN
Are you tired of being called dumb simply because you’re a conservative? Here are some interesting facts and a list of innovators that have changed the world for the better who just so happen to be… Republican!
In response to President Obama’s recent accusation that the GOP would have been part of the “flat Earth society,” Justen Charters is at it again in this video pointing out some rather famous inventors of the republican persuasion.
President Obama has spent his entire presidency mocking conservatives telling them to “grab a mop” to clean up his mess and sit in the back of the bus. He’s even referred to Tea Party goers as the vulgar term, “teabaggers.” Rather than fight on the battlefield of ideas and solutions, the president seems to fall back on ridicule and division. Thankfully, members of “Breitbart’s Army” like Justen are fighting back, not with childish playground tactics and silly quasi-comedic rhetoric, but with actual facts and historical data.
SOURCE: CDN
Fairness Is For Suckers
Posted by streiff
Saturday, March 17th at 7:16AM EDT
Red State:
Every once in a while, despite our political differences, people of good faith can come together in agreement on major issues. Exhibit A is this New York Times op-ed by the unfortunately named Stanley Fish whom Wikipedia assures me is someone of some import though for what reason I really can’t tell.
From Professor Fish:
If we think about the Rush Limbaugh dust-up from the non-liberal — that is, non-formal — perspective, the similarity between what he did and what Schultz and Maher did disappears. Schultz and Maher are the good guys; they are on the side of truth and justice. Limbaugh is the bad guy; he is on the side of every nefarious force that threatens our democracy. Why should he get an even break?
There is no answer to that question once you step outside of the liberal calculus in which all persons, no matter what their moral status as you see it, are weighed in an equal balance. Rather than relaxing or soft-pedaling your convictions about what is right and wrong, stay with them, and treat people you see as morally different differently. Condemn Limbaugh and say that Schultz and Maher may have gone a bit too far but that they’re basically O.K. If you do that you will not be displaying a double standard; you will be affirming a single standard, and moreover it will be a moral one because you will be going with what you think is good rather than what you think is fair. “Fair” is a weak virtue; it is not even a virtue at all because it insists on a withdrawal from moral judgment.
If there is one good thing that has come out of this dust-up over the bovine Sandra Fluke and her insatiable need for free contraceptives (I’ve seen the pictures of her and her boyfriend, so I have my doubts) it has clearly exposed what Dr. Fish is talking about.
True, Fluke, who interjected herself into a public policy debate with 1) no expertise at all in the subject area outside a second X chromosome she arguably possesses and 2) hysterically spouting wildly implausible stories about the difficulties facing a Georgetown Law student in obtaining birth control pills not paid for by someone else, was roughed up a little. However, it was nothing compared to the abuse heaped upon Sarah Palin and other conservative women as a matter of routine.
No one called Fluke a derogatory Anglo-Saxon term for female genitalia as Bill Maher did Sarah Palin. And no one on the Left condemned Maher or even expressed mild consternation. Lefty politicos still trample each other in eagerness to appear on his obscure television program. Had someone on our side called Nancy Pelosi that, or even Bill Maher whose picture appears in the dictionary beside that word, we would still be getting demands to denounce it from the Left.
To a certain extent this isn’t news. Famous commie lawyer William Kunstler, who is now firmly ensconced in either the 8th or 9th Circle, used to say “I do not believe in public attacks on socialist countries, even where violations of human rights may occur.” Or rather, “what’s a little genocide between friends.” But it is significant because now the rules going forward are clearly defined.
I will not “denounce” anyone on my side because nothing anyone on my side says can come close to comparing to what the Left tosses about every day. And when saying whatever it is that gets the left’s panties in a wad, the people on my side are not trying to destroy the culture of this nation and pervert (quite literally in many cases) our laws and traditions. These people are trying to destroy Christianity itself.
How anyone can claim Rush Limbaugh calling Fluke a “slut” is even in same league with the Randi Rhodes, maybe drunk maybe not, discoursing on the religion of Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley? It isn’t. Not even close.
So I join with Dr. Fish in affirming that “fairness” is for suckers and that our first loyalty is to our allies.
Many moons ago, the inestimable Thomas Crown wrote:
Should the entire American Left fall over dead tomorrow, I would rejoice, and order pizza to celebrate. They are not my countrymen; they are animals who happen to walk upright and make noises that approximate speech. They are below human. I look forward to seeing each and every one in Hell.
That is my philosophy moving forward from today.
Saturday, March 17th at 7:16AM EDT
Red State:
Every once in a while, despite our political differences, people of good faith can come together in agreement on major issues. Exhibit A is this New York Times op-ed by the unfortunately named Stanley Fish whom Wikipedia assures me is someone of some import though for what reason I really can’t tell.
From Professor Fish:
If we think about the Rush Limbaugh dust-up from the non-liberal — that is, non-formal — perspective, the similarity between what he did and what Schultz and Maher did disappears. Schultz and Maher are the good guys; they are on the side of truth and justice. Limbaugh is the bad guy; he is on the side of every nefarious force that threatens our democracy. Why should he get an even break?
There is no answer to that question once you step outside of the liberal calculus in which all persons, no matter what their moral status as you see it, are weighed in an equal balance. Rather than relaxing or soft-pedaling your convictions about what is right and wrong, stay with them, and treat people you see as morally different differently. Condemn Limbaugh and say that Schultz and Maher may have gone a bit too far but that they’re basically O.K. If you do that you will not be displaying a double standard; you will be affirming a single standard, and moreover it will be a moral one because you will be going with what you think is good rather than what you think is fair. “Fair” is a weak virtue; it is not even a virtue at all because it insists on a withdrawal from moral judgment.
If there is one good thing that has come out of this dust-up over the bovine Sandra Fluke and her insatiable need for free contraceptives (I’ve seen the pictures of her and her boyfriend, so I have my doubts) it has clearly exposed what Dr. Fish is talking about.
True, Fluke, who interjected herself into a public policy debate with 1) no expertise at all in the subject area outside a second X chromosome she arguably possesses and 2) hysterically spouting wildly implausible stories about the difficulties facing a Georgetown Law student in obtaining birth control pills not paid for by someone else, was roughed up a little. However, it was nothing compared to the abuse heaped upon Sarah Palin and other conservative women as a matter of routine.
No one called Fluke a derogatory Anglo-Saxon term for female genitalia as Bill Maher did Sarah Palin. And no one on the Left condemned Maher or even expressed mild consternation. Lefty politicos still trample each other in eagerness to appear on his obscure television program. Had someone on our side called Nancy Pelosi that, or even Bill Maher whose picture appears in the dictionary beside that word, we would still be getting demands to denounce it from the Left.
To a certain extent this isn’t news. Famous commie lawyer William Kunstler, who is now firmly ensconced in either the 8th or 9th Circle, used to say “I do not believe in public attacks on socialist countries, even where violations of human rights may occur.” Or rather, “what’s a little genocide between friends.” But it is significant because now the rules going forward are clearly defined.
I will not “denounce” anyone on my side because nothing anyone on my side says can come close to comparing to what the Left tosses about every day. And when saying whatever it is that gets the left’s panties in a wad, the people on my side are not trying to destroy the culture of this nation and pervert (quite literally in many cases) our laws and traditions. These people are trying to destroy Christianity itself.
How anyone can claim Rush Limbaugh calling Fluke a “slut” is even in same league with the Randi Rhodes, maybe drunk maybe not, discoursing on the religion of Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley? It isn’t. Not even close.
So I join with Dr. Fish in affirming that “fairness” is for suckers and that our first loyalty is to our allies.
Many moons ago, the inestimable Thomas Crown wrote:
Should the entire American Left fall over dead tomorrow, I would rejoice, and order pizza to celebrate. They are not my countrymen; they are animals who happen to walk upright and make noises that approximate speech. They are below human. I look forward to seeing each and every one in Hell.
That is my philosophy moving forward from today.
Breitbart: Texas Planned Parenthood filed millions in fraudulent Medicaid claims, says whistleblower
March 16, 2012
by Dr. Susan Berry
Breitbart.com
A federal whistleblower lawsuit has been filed against Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, now known as Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, charging the provider of abortion services with fraudulent Medicaid claims in the amount of nearly $6 million.
The lawsuit, filed by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), on behalf of former Planned Parenthood clinic director, Abby Johnson, accused Planned Parenthood of submitting over 87,000 “false, fraudulent, or ineligible claims for Medicaid reimbursements” under Title XIX, in association with the Texas Women’s Health Program.
The Medicaid claims, filed between 2007 and 2009, were valued at more than $5.7 million. The lawsuit alleges that Planned Parenthood knowingly committed Medicaid fraud by “improperly seeking reimbursements from the Texas Women’s Health Program for products and services not reimbursable by that program.”
In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Ms. Johnson said that she filed the lawsuit to “expose the corruption” at Planned Parenthood and “to show the taxpayer how their money is being spent at Planned Parenthood.”
In her lawsuit, Ms. Johnson describes a meeting held at Planned Parenthood, in late 2008-early 2009, during which clinic directors were informed that the organization had been falsely billing the Texas Women's Health Program since January 1, 2007. Ms. Johnson claims that, when she asked what Planned Parenthood would do about the money it received improperly, her supervisor responded, "Well, we are going to hope we don't get caught."
The lawsuit alleges that clinic managers, like Ms. Johnson, were directed to continue to bill for ineligible products and services, as they persisted in purging and falsifying patient files, charging for them afterward to make them appear legitimate.
Planned Parenthood is also being investigated in a federal probe led by Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-Florida). According to the ADF, Planned Parenthood officials have been responsible for more than $100 million in waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money.
In a news release on Friday, ADF Senior Counsel Michael J. Norton said:
Americans deserve to know if their hard-earned tax money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it…everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn’t entitled to a penny of public funds, especially if it is committing Medicaid fraud.
The announcement of the lawsuit came as the Obama administration also revealed that federal funding would no longer be granted to the Texas Women’s Health Program because the state now bans affiliates of entities, such as Planned Parenthood, that perform or promote elective abortions, from participating in the Medicaid program. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that the administration would be defunding the program, leaving about 130,000 low-income women without health screenings and contraceptive services, if Planned Parenthood, a major supporter of the Obama administration, is not permitted to participate in the women’s Medicaid program.
The recent series of events involving Planned Parenthood in the state of Texas illustrate an administration steeped in hypocrisy, involved in a codependent relationship with an organization that promotes the killing of the unborn as it also soaks taxpayers. These events demonstrate all too clearly that the “War on Women” is merely a fairy tale cooked up by an administration that is desperate to regain its political clout. Sadly for both low-income women and taxpayers, the Obama administration's actions illustrate that it cares nothing for either group, primarily because they are useless to them politically, except when they can be used as pawns to achieve political gain. The mission of the unholy alliance of the Obama administration and Planned Parenthood is simply to hold fast to political power, regardless of who is in their way.
by Dr. Susan Berry
Breitbart.com
A federal whistleblower lawsuit has been filed against Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, now known as Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, charging the provider of abortion services with fraudulent Medicaid claims in the amount of nearly $6 million.
The lawsuit, filed by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), on behalf of former Planned Parenthood clinic director, Abby Johnson, accused Planned Parenthood of submitting over 87,000 “false, fraudulent, or ineligible claims for Medicaid reimbursements” under Title XIX, in association with the Texas Women’s Health Program.
The Medicaid claims, filed between 2007 and 2009, were valued at more than $5.7 million. The lawsuit alleges that Planned Parenthood knowingly committed Medicaid fraud by “improperly seeking reimbursements from the Texas Women’s Health Program for products and services not reimbursable by that program.”
In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Ms. Johnson said that she filed the lawsuit to “expose the corruption” at Planned Parenthood and “to show the taxpayer how their money is being spent at Planned Parenthood.”
In her lawsuit, Ms. Johnson describes a meeting held at Planned Parenthood, in late 2008-early 2009, during which clinic directors were informed that the organization had been falsely billing the Texas Women's Health Program since January 1, 2007. Ms. Johnson claims that, when she asked what Planned Parenthood would do about the money it received improperly, her supervisor responded, "Well, we are going to hope we don't get caught."
The lawsuit alleges that clinic managers, like Ms. Johnson, were directed to continue to bill for ineligible products and services, as they persisted in purging and falsifying patient files, charging for them afterward to make them appear legitimate.
Planned Parenthood is also being investigated in a federal probe led by Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-Florida). According to the ADF, Planned Parenthood officials have been responsible for more than $100 million in waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money.
In a news release on Friday, ADF Senior Counsel Michael J. Norton said:
Americans deserve to know if their hard-earned tax money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it…everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn’t entitled to a penny of public funds, especially if it is committing Medicaid fraud.
The announcement of the lawsuit came as the Obama administration also revealed that federal funding would no longer be granted to the Texas Women’s Health Program because the state now bans affiliates of entities, such as Planned Parenthood, that perform or promote elective abortions, from participating in the Medicaid program. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that the administration would be defunding the program, leaving about 130,000 low-income women without health screenings and contraceptive services, if Planned Parenthood, a major supporter of the Obama administration, is not permitted to participate in the women’s Medicaid program.
The recent series of events involving Planned Parenthood in the state of Texas illustrate an administration steeped in hypocrisy, involved in a codependent relationship with an organization that promotes the killing of the unborn as it also soaks taxpayers. These events demonstrate all too clearly that the “War on Women” is merely a fairy tale cooked up by an administration that is desperate to regain its political clout. Sadly for both low-income women and taxpayers, the Obama administration's actions illustrate that it cares nothing for either group, primarily because they are useless to them politically, except when they can be used as pawns to achieve political gain. The mission of the unholy alliance of the Obama administration and Planned Parenthood is simply to hold fast to political power, regardless of who is in their way.
A Call To All Women
By Teresa Wendt on Mar 16, 2012
Let me begin by telling you I am not Catholic. But today I join many who stand with the Catholic Church. Women, in particular need to speak up and take action. As you know, one part of the new Affordable Health Care Act mandates that ‘free’ contraception be provided by all employers. The Catholic Church objects to this as it goes against their teachings. Other churches and religions are standing with the Catholics in support of religious freedom.
In the meantime through, the media and feminist groups changed the narrative to all women should have the right to free birth control. Many women have been watching from the sidelines not knowing how to speak out. Here is your opportunity.
Helen Alvare JD is an associate professor at George Mason University and has been very involved in Pro-Life activities. She wrote an open letter to President Obama, Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius and Congress reminding them two things: that religious freedom is a right that is being threatened and that feminist groups do not speak for all women. Her letter can be found here:
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA, SECRETARY SEBELIUS AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
DON’T CLAIM TO SPEAK FOR ALL WOMEN
The letter has been signed by over 18,000 women to date and they want to spread the word. If we do not speak up our freedoms will be taken.
If you have friends who have only heard biased media reports there is an interview on EWTN from last week with Helen Alvare. The interview clarifies the true issue and discusses the attempt to divert the public from it. Professor Alvare’s segment begins at the 24:30 point.
SOURCE: CDN
Let me begin by telling you I am not Catholic. But today I join many who stand with the Catholic Church. Women, in particular need to speak up and take action. As you know, one part of the new Affordable Health Care Act mandates that ‘free’ contraception be provided by all employers. The Catholic Church objects to this as it goes against their teachings. Other churches and religions are standing with the Catholics in support of religious freedom.
In the meantime through, the media and feminist groups changed the narrative to all women should have the right to free birth control. Many women have been watching from the sidelines not knowing how to speak out. Here is your opportunity.
Helen Alvare JD is an associate professor at George Mason University and has been very involved in Pro-Life activities. She wrote an open letter to President Obama, Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius and Congress reminding them two things: that religious freedom is a right that is being threatened and that feminist groups do not speak for all women. Her letter can be found here:
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA, SECRETARY SEBELIUS AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
DON’T CLAIM TO SPEAK FOR ALL WOMEN
The letter has been signed by over 18,000 women to date and they want to spread the word. If we do not speak up our freedoms will be taken.
If you have friends who have only heard biased media reports there is an interview on EWTN from last week with Helen Alvare. The interview clarifies the true issue and discusses the attempt to divert the public from it. Professor Alvare’s segment begins at the 24:30 point.
SOURCE: CDN
Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate seat, WikiLeaks tweets
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to run for a seat in the Australian Senate, despite being under house arrest in the United Kingdom, the whistleblower group announced on Twitter.
Freya Petersen
March 17, 2012 01:18
Globalpost:
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to run for a seat in the Australian Senate, despite being under house arrest in the United Kingdom, the whistleblower group announced on Twitter.
WikiLeaks announced its intentions on Saturday, using the hashtag #Assange4Senate.
‘‘We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained. Julian has decided to run,’’ the WikiLeaks website tweeted.
The organisation released a document on Twitter they claimed held the answer that would allow him to run while under house arrest.
WikiLeaks also tweeted that the organization planned to field a candidate to run against Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her seat of Lalor at the next election.
"The name of the Laylor candidate and the state Julian will run for will be announced at the appropriate time," it tweeted
Assange is being detained in England facing possible extradition to Sweden, where police want to question him over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women in 2010.
He is awaiting a British Supreme Court decision on his appeal against the extradition, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Freya Petersen
March 17, 2012 01:18
Globalpost:
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to run for a seat in the Australian Senate, despite being under house arrest in the United Kingdom, the whistleblower group announced on Twitter.
WikiLeaks announced its intentions on Saturday, using the hashtag #Assange4Senate.
‘‘We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained. Julian has decided to run,’’ the WikiLeaks website tweeted.
The organisation released a document on Twitter they claimed held the answer that would allow him to run while under house arrest.
WikiLeaks also tweeted that the organization planned to field a candidate to run against Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her seat of Lalor at the next election.
"The name of the Laylor candidate and the state Julian will run for will be announced at the appropriate time," it tweeted
Assange is being detained in England facing possible extradition to Sweden, where police want to question him over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women in 2010.
He is awaiting a British Supreme Court decision on his appeal against the extradition, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
National Energy Policy? Got One Handy?
March 17, 2012
By Jim Yardley
American Thinker:
There has been a lot of talk (because it's an election year, and that's what politicians do) about a national energy policy. I hate to report this, but there has never been a coherent energy policy at any time in the history of the country.
We may have had an occasional oil policy, a natural gas policy, a coal policy, a nuclear energy policy, a hydroelectric policy, a solar power policy, a wind power policy, a "renewable" energy policy, and, for all I know, a fairy dust policy. But we have never had a coherent, integrated energy policy.
Obama's "green" energy policy is based solely on the desire to reduce coal, oil and gasoline consumption, which his administration claims will reduce hydrocarbon emissions into the atmosphere and ultimately reduce global warming.
OK, that's the chain of logic underlying Obama's green economy initiatives. Those initiatives include approximately half a billion dollars of taxpayer money used to prop up Solyndra; the money spent to subsidize Ener1, the government takeover of General Motors, which led to the design and manufacture of the Chevy Volt; the multiple billions for Obama's high-speed rail boondoggles; and the crippling of our energy production and the killing of the Keystone XL pipeline, among others idiocies.
So where's the warming? Apparently there isn't any to speak of, really, and according the British Meteorological Office, there is a possibility that the globe will grow increasingly cooler. Not quite to the level of an ice age, but pretty cool. So, now, where is the logic to kill oil and gas production? Are we supposed to heat our houses with those twisty CFL light bulbs, or allow the government and its "smart power grid" to maintain our homes at oh, say, 49ºF?
The real reason behind Obama's green economy fantasies is the deep-seated need of Liberal-Progressive-Democrats to control every aspect of our lives. It's not enough for them to recommend, suggest, educate, persuade, or sell you on an idea. No, these L-P-Ds want total control over us since, left to our own devices and due to the chance that we might make an independent decision that differs from their own, they regret the necessity of coercing us into what they, and apparently they alone, know is the right choice.
A lot of this can be seen in the drive for high-speed rail service. Now, I will be the first to admit that rail travel, in terms of commuting to work, is great. Like most things associated with the L-P-Ds and the government, commuter rail is heavily subsidized, so those who use the trains to get to the office are saving a lot on gas, maintenance of their vehicles, tolls on bridges, and so on. Of course, if you work in a large factory -- say like an auto plant -- that particular option is not usually available unless the commuter rail planners accidentally, and serendipitously, put a station within walking distance of the plant.
If, on the other hand, you commute by commuter rail into Manhattan from Connecticut, you benefit from everyone else's taxes to subsidize your ride. But the government controls where and when you can travel. Key word there: control.
The total demand for energy is not going to go down just because the president thinks that would be just a swell idea. How the total demand for energy will be satisfied is the real question. For example, electric cars still need energy. They are fashionable among L-P-Ds right now because they don't use much of that evil oil. Well, hooray for them. But what are they using to produce the electricity that they are using? How many equivalent miles per BTU (for example) are they getting on that energy that is produced by oil, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, or nuclear plants? Can solar panels located on the roof of green-loving L-P-Ds' homes generate enough energy to recharge their electric cars? Are their roofs even big enough for all the solar panels that they would need? How many windmills would it take in their backyards to recharge the batteries, if it's possible at all? Would they even be able to get a zoning variance to build a few?
We need to develop a universal measure of energy generation that will allow us to translate barrels of oil; cubic feet of natural gas; and megawatts of electricity generated via hydroelectric dams, nuclear power-generating facilities, windmills, or solar cells into a uniform exchange rate that will allow rational debate about the costs per uniform unit of energy. And I mean a rational debate among us, not just among faculty lounge lizards or Washington bureaucrats. We, not they, will be the ones paying for a national energy policy, both in terms of direct tax dollars and that pain in the wallet every time we fill the gas tank, or have oil delivered so we can keep our kids warm in December.
In a way, it might be admirable to make a fully informed decision that the inconvenience and expense of developing a personal wind farm or solar cell array is worth the cost and effort, because you'd know that you've avoided using a hydrocarbon product. It might be admirable so long as that decision affects only you personally.
But how does that decision scale up to encompass the total energy demand for a nation of 350 million people? Can that decision even be scaled up? Energy will still be needed for your two-passenger electric vehicle with a total cargo capacity that's only equal to three bags of groceries. Energy will still be needed to power your iPhone, iPad, desktop PC, the heat in your home, the lights in your workplace, or the fuel for aircraft used for national defense. The nation needs energy in vast quantities, and that need can be satisfied only by utilizing every possible means of energy-generation available. Mr. Obama's fantasy of "green" energy responding to the national demand for more and more energy is exactly that -- a fantasy.
But before we can discuss the costs and benefits of any proposed national energy policy, we need to develop a language that facilitates that dialogue. Look at the trouble we're having talking about our national debt. The major stumbling block, in my mind, is that the language is more suited to discussing astrophysics. How many of us can deal emotionally with the number "one trillion"? I mean one trillion of anything?
Yet we have to deal with concepts involving trillions of cubic feet of natural gas; millions of tons of coal; billions of barrels of oil; and some unknown measure of nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, and wind energy. Even if we should leave the "in-the-weeds" pros and cons of that debate to scientists and bureaucrats, we ultimately are the ones who must decide which side in the argument will be hired on Election Day to carry any plan out in practice. If they aren't using language that we can all understand, what kind of a chance do we have to make a rational, informed, and practical decision on whom we will vote for and what plan he or she will implement?
Of course, how many politicians actually want an informed electorate?
By Jim Yardley
American Thinker:
There has been a lot of talk (because it's an election year, and that's what politicians do) about a national energy policy. I hate to report this, but there has never been a coherent energy policy at any time in the history of the country.
We may have had an occasional oil policy, a natural gas policy, a coal policy, a nuclear energy policy, a hydroelectric policy, a solar power policy, a wind power policy, a "renewable" energy policy, and, for all I know, a fairy dust policy. But we have never had a coherent, integrated energy policy.
Obama's "green" energy policy is based solely on the desire to reduce coal, oil and gasoline consumption, which his administration claims will reduce hydrocarbon emissions into the atmosphere and ultimately reduce global warming.
OK, that's the chain of logic underlying Obama's green economy initiatives. Those initiatives include approximately half a billion dollars of taxpayer money used to prop up Solyndra; the money spent to subsidize Ener1, the government takeover of General Motors, which led to the design and manufacture of the Chevy Volt; the multiple billions for Obama's high-speed rail boondoggles; and the crippling of our energy production and the killing of the Keystone XL pipeline, among others idiocies.
So where's the warming? Apparently there isn't any to speak of, really, and according the British Meteorological Office, there is a possibility that the globe will grow increasingly cooler. Not quite to the level of an ice age, but pretty cool. So, now, where is the logic to kill oil and gas production? Are we supposed to heat our houses with those twisty CFL light bulbs, or allow the government and its "smart power grid" to maintain our homes at oh, say, 49ºF?
The real reason behind Obama's green economy fantasies is the deep-seated need of Liberal-Progressive-Democrats to control every aspect of our lives. It's not enough for them to recommend, suggest, educate, persuade, or sell you on an idea. No, these L-P-Ds want total control over us since, left to our own devices and due to the chance that we might make an independent decision that differs from their own, they regret the necessity of coercing us into what they, and apparently they alone, know is the right choice.
A lot of this can be seen in the drive for high-speed rail service. Now, I will be the first to admit that rail travel, in terms of commuting to work, is great. Like most things associated with the L-P-Ds and the government, commuter rail is heavily subsidized, so those who use the trains to get to the office are saving a lot on gas, maintenance of their vehicles, tolls on bridges, and so on. Of course, if you work in a large factory -- say like an auto plant -- that particular option is not usually available unless the commuter rail planners accidentally, and serendipitously, put a station within walking distance of the plant.
If, on the other hand, you commute by commuter rail into Manhattan from Connecticut, you benefit from everyone else's taxes to subsidize your ride. But the government controls where and when you can travel. Key word there: control.
The total demand for energy is not going to go down just because the president thinks that would be just a swell idea. How the total demand for energy will be satisfied is the real question. For example, electric cars still need energy. They are fashionable among L-P-Ds right now because they don't use much of that evil oil. Well, hooray for them. But what are they using to produce the electricity that they are using? How many equivalent miles per BTU (for example) are they getting on that energy that is produced by oil, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, or nuclear plants? Can solar panels located on the roof of green-loving L-P-Ds' homes generate enough energy to recharge their electric cars? Are their roofs even big enough for all the solar panels that they would need? How many windmills would it take in their backyards to recharge the batteries, if it's possible at all? Would they even be able to get a zoning variance to build a few?
We need to develop a universal measure of energy generation that will allow us to translate barrels of oil; cubic feet of natural gas; and megawatts of electricity generated via hydroelectric dams, nuclear power-generating facilities, windmills, or solar cells into a uniform exchange rate that will allow rational debate about the costs per uniform unit of energy. And I mean a rational debate among us, not just among faculty lounge lizards or Washington bureaucrats. We, not they, will be the ones paying for a national energy policy, both in terms of direct tax dollars and that pain in the wallet every time we fill the gas tank, or have oil delivered so we can keep our kids warm in December.
In a way, it might be admirable to make a fully informed decision that the inconvenience and expense of developing a personal wind farm or solar cell array is worth the cost and effort, because you'd know that you've avoided using a hydrocarbon product. It might be admirable so long as that decision affects only you personally.
But how does that decision scale up to encompass the total energy demand for a nation of 350 million people? Can that decision even be scaled up? Energy will still be needed for your two-passenger electric vehicle with a total cargo capacity that's only equal to three bags of groceries. Energy will still be needed to power your iPhone, iPad, desktop PC, the heat in your home, the lights in your workplace, or the fuel for aircraft used for national defense. The nation needs energy in vast quantities, and that need can be satisfied only by utilizing every possible means of energy-generation available. Mr. Obama's fantasy of "green" energy responding to the national demand for more and more energy is exactly that -- a fantasy.
But before we can discuss the costs and benefits of any proposed national energy policy, we need to develop a language that facilitates that dialogue. Look at the trouble we're having talking about our national debt. The major stumbling block, in my mind, is that the language is more suited to discussing astrophysics. How many of us can deal emotionally with the number "one trillion"? I mean one trillion of anything?
Yet we have to deal with concepts involving trillions of cubic feet of natural gas; millions of tons of coal; billions of barrels of oil; and some unknown measure of nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, and wind energy. Even if we should leave the "in-the-weeds" pros and cons of that debate to scientists and bureaucrats, we ultimately are the ones who must decide which side in the argument will be hired on Election Day to carry any plan out in practice. If they aren't using language that we can all understand, what kind of a chance do we have to make a rational, informed, and practical decision on whom we will vote for and what plan he or she will implement?
Of course, how many politicians actually want an informed electorate?
Breitbart Is There: At Occupy Midwest
by Dana Loesch
Sat. March 17th, 2012
BREITBART.COM
This photo was sent by a listener who snapped photos of these posters downtown:
Hi Dana,
I went out to grab some wine earlier and was walking home when I saw these posters. They're all over. I only took photos of the ones on my side of the street but I could make out others down the block. Breitbart is here!
Roger
The Obama Dozen by Sarah Palin
March 16, 2012
The Obama Dozen by Sarah Palin
- or- Everything I Really Needed to Know About Defeating Obama I Learned from Sarah Palin
With the current all-male Republican circle-jerk doomed to repeat itself until at least June like some gay orgy in a locker room, it is good we have Barack Obama deciding to run against Sarah Palin in the meantime. Good because it gives Sarah Palin an opportunity to remind us of the real goal: kicking this walking, talking, preening, phony disaster out of the White House and off Air Force One. Unlike Mitt, Newt, Rick, and Ron, Sarah does not take her eye off the message. Indeed she supplied everyone a couple of days ago with the 12 main talking points that seem to have gone right out of the pointed little heads of the current candidates and their supporters.
What are The Palin Points? Let’s review:
Just off the top of my head, a few of these concerning issues include:
1. a debt crisis that has us hurtling towards a Greek-style collapse,
2. entitlement programs going bankrupt,
3. a credit downgrade for the first time in our history,
4. a government takeover of the health care industry that makes care more expensive and puts a rationing panel of faceless bureaucrats between you and your doctor (aka a “death panel”),
5. $4 and $5 gas at the pump exacerbated by an anti-drilling agenda that rejects good paying energy sector jobs and makes us more dependent on dangerous foreign regimes,
6. a war in Afghanistan that seems unfocused and unending,
7. a global presidential apology tour that’s made us look feeble and ridiculous,
8. a housing market in the tank,
9. the longest streak of high unemployment since World War II,
private-sector job creators and industry strangled by burdensome regulations and 10. an out-of-control Obama EPA,
an attack on the Constitutional protection of religious liberty,
an attack on private industry in right-to-work states,
11. crony capitalism run amok in an administration in bed with their favored cronies to the detriment of genuine free market capitalism,
green energy pay-to-play kickbacks to Obama campaign donors, and
12. a Justice Department still stonewalling on a bungled operation that armed violent Mexican drug lords and led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people.
I’m sure I missed a few things, but the list is just for starters.
One would hope that, at some point, the boys in the locker room can quite snapping towels on each other’s butts long enough to get back on Palin's message. But as Lyndon Johnson once said, “I don’t want to hold out any hopes for you I don’t hold out for myself.”
The Obama Dozen by Sarah Palin
- or- Everything I Really Needed to Know About Defeating Obama I Learned from Sarah Palin
With the current all-male Republican circle-jerk doomed to repeat itself until at least June like some gay orgy in a locker room, it is good we have Barack Obama deciding to run against Sarah Palin in the meantime. Good because it gives Sarah Palin an opportunity to remind us of the real goal: kicking this walking, talking, preening, phony disaster out of the White House and off Air Force One. Unlike Mitt, Newt, Rick, and Ron, Sarah does not take her eye off the message. Indeed she supplied everyone a couple of days ago with the 12 main talking points that seem to have gone right out of the pointed little heads of the current candidates and their supporters.
What are The Palin Points? Let’s review:
Just off the top of my head, a few of these concerning issues include:
1. a debt crisis that has us hurtling towards a Greek-style collapse,
2. entitlement programs going bankrupt,
3. a credit downgrade for the first time in our history,
4. a government takeover of the health care industry that makes care more expensive and puts a rationing panel of faceless bureaucrats between you and your doctor (aka a “death panel”),
5. $4 and $5 gas at the pump exacerbated by an anti-drilling agenda that rejects good paying energy sector jobs and makes us more dependent on dangerous foreign regimes,
6. a war in Afghanistan that seems unfocused and unending,
7. a global presidential apology tour that’s made us look feeble and ridiculous,
8. a housing market in the tank,
9. the longest streak of high unemployment since World War II,
private-sector job creators and industry strangled by burdensome regulations and 10. an out-of-control Obama EPA,
an attack on the Constitutional protection of religious liberty,
an attack on private industry in right-to-work states,
11. crony capitalism run amok in an administration in bed with their favored cronies to the detriment of genuine free market capitalism,
green energy pay-to-play kickbacks to Obama campaign donors, and
12. a Justice Department still stonewalling on a bungled operation that armed violent Mexican drug lords and led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people.
I’m sure I missed a few things, but the list is just for starters.
One would hope that, at some point, the boys in the locker room can quite snapping towels on each other’s butts long enough to get back on Palin's message. But as Lyndon Johnson once said, “I don’t want to hold out any hopes for you I don’t hold out for myself.”
Texas defies Obama administration’s war on poor women.
Background: the Texas Medicaid Women’s Health Program provides mixed state-federal assistance to poor women in Texas, including cancer screening. Recently, the Texas legislature decided to prohibit Planned Parenthood from participating in the program, because then Texas would be subsidizing abortion providers. The Obama administration retorted by shutting down funding to the Texas Medicaid Women’s Health Program, primarily because Planned Parenthood is a more reliable source of checks for Barack Obama than are poor Texan women.
So what did Governor Rick Perry (R) do? Perry said fine, be that way:
Perry, who slammed the federal government constantly during his short-lived bid for the Republican presidential nomination, has directed state health officials to find the funding to keep the program going from other parts of the budget, but he has promised not to raise revenues to cover the costs.
“It is the height of political posturing for the Obama administration to put the interests of abortion providers and their affiliates, like Planned Parenthood, over the well-being of more than 100,000 low-income Texas women,” Perry said in a statement Thursday. “I will not stand by and let this administration abandon these Texas women to advance its political agenda; Texas will fund these services with or without the federal government.”
Some people reading this may be feeling confused at this moment. Please do not be alarmed; what you are experiencing right now is merely disorientation at seeing a state legislature and a state governor actually demonstrate that their stated ethical positions are not, in fact, for sale. This is, of course, a glaring contrast to the Obama administration, who apparently feels that the risk of poor minority women not getting their cancer detected early is a small price to pay for keeping Planned Parenthood sweet.
The horrible part, of course? Nobody reading this is actually surprised.
(Via Hot Air; and I think that Tina Korbe’s finding this as teeth-grindingly annoying as I am, and for the same reasons.)
SOURCE: Moe Lane
PS: If one of the four candidates still actively running for President actually wants my vote in the Maryland primary, please note: this is your new baseline for showing political courage.
So what did Governor Rick Perry (R) do? Perry said fine, be that way:
Perry, who slammed the federal government constantly during his short-lived bid for the Republican presidential nomination, has directed state health officials to find the funding to keep the program going from other parts of the budget, but he has promised not to raise revenues to cover the costs.
“It is the height of political posturing for the Obama administration to put the interests of abortion providers and their affiliates, like Planned Parenthood, over the well-being of more than 100,000 low-income Texas women,” Perry said in a statement Thursday. “I will not stand by and let this administration abandon these Texas women to advance its political agenda; Texas will fund these services with or without the federal government.”
Some people reading this may be feeling confused at this moment. Please do not be alarmed; what you are experiencing right now is merely disorientation at seeing a state legislature and a state governor actually demonstrate that their stated ethical positions are not, in fact, for sale. This is, of course, a glaring contrast to the Obama administration, who apparently feels that the risk of poor minority women not getting their cancer detected early is a small price to pay for keeping Planned Parenthood sweet.
The horrible part, of course? Nobody reading this is actually surprised.
(Via Hot Air; and I think that Tina Korbe’s finding this as teeth-grindingly annoying as I am, and for the same reasons.)
SOURCE: Moe Lane
PS: If one of the four candidates still actively running for President actually wants my vote in the Maryland primary, please note: this is your new baseline for showing political courage.
9/11 suspects on hunger strike at Gitmo -- Oh the Humanity!
By J.D. Gordon
Published March 17, 2012
FoxNews.com:
“Oh, the Humanity!”
So went the famous phrase shouted by Chicago’s WLS Radio announcer Herb Morrison as he witnessed the Hindenburg crash and burn in Lakehurst, N.J. on May 6, 1937.
Though the death of three-dozen Germans and Americans in the fiery explosion 75 years ago is a far cry from the “plight” of 9/11 suspects at Gitmo, at least two of Al Qaeda’s top operatives are trying to evoke similar emotions as they have gone on a hunger strike to garner sympathy for their cause. But curiously, press coverage has been sparse unlike in years past.
In a place where the Obama administration just forked over $750,000 to pay for a detainee soccer field overlooking the Caribbean, they’re served 3 halal meals a day, some of them watch Middle Eastern television via satellite while others play basketball or spend time with their Nintendo Wii’s, what could they possibly be complaining about anyway?
It turns out that they apparently don’t like the new rules imposed by Navy Rear Admiral David Woods who currently oversees Joint Task Force Guantanamo, as he has rightly tightened up the screening process of legal mail between detainees and their attorneys.
It seems that Al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine almost made it in the camps, complete with articles like “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”
The stricter requirements for screening legal mail has set off a firestorm between military commission defense attorneys, backed by the American Bar Association, and military authorities from Gitmo all the way up to the Pentagon who are responsible for good order and discipline within the camps.
The two hunger strikers are just playing their part in trying to leverage this tempest in a teapot for maximum public sympathy.
And while they have been on hunger strike, reportedly since January when the new rules were implemented, something is different than during previous similar periods of “voluntary fasting.”
During the Bush administration, hunger strikes were quite common. And they garnered significant attention from non-governmental organizations and the mainstream media to prove it.
While dozens of detainees conveniently skipped some meals here and there, at least a few were hardcore, and determined to starve to death. Recalling lessons from Northern Ireland, where IRA member Bobby Sands withered away in the Maze Prison and went from zero to hero in 1981, the military wisely instituted a forced feeding program to prevent an Al Qaeda martyr, aka “shahid” version.
Defense attorneys and human rights activists jumped all over it, denouncing the tube feeding system through the nose down into the stomach for a liquid diet as barbaric and painful. Never mind the facts that a) it saved their lives, and b) the tube was lubricated, flexible and only .1 inch in diameter, or about as thick as a strand of cooked spaghetti.
Tired of hearing all the complaints about the “inhumanity” of it all, the Navy admiral in charge of the camps from mid-2006 to mid-2007, Rear Admiral Harry Harris decided to personally take one tube-fed meal of Ensure to show the press it was humane.
A novel idea -- though it didn’t dampen the criticism too much. And why? Because critics already knew tube feeding wasn’t a big deal, and was standard practice in U.S. prisons and hospitals to save lives when needed.
So why all the drama?
Well, President George W. Bush was in the White House, and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ran the Pentagon -- thus tube feeding was a big deal.
So where is all the outrage about the poor Gitmo hunger strikers now that President Barack Obama is in the White House, and Secretary Leon Panetta runs the Pentagon?
It’s simply not there, as it doesn’t fit neatly into the agenda of human rights organizations and many in the mainstream media who cover them.
They cheer for this president and the steady stream of upgrades to Gitmo at taxpayer expense. Why would they draw attention to something that might possibly make this administration look bad?
And while it’s a good thing that 9/11 suspects/hunger strikers aren’t getting too much attention these days, should Republicans win the White House in November, rest assured that Moveon.org, the Occupy movement, and multitudes of human rights activists and sympathetic press will join forces to remind us of such a calamity.
“Oh the Humanity!”
J.D. Gordon is a retired Navy Commander who served as a Pentagon spokesman in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005-2009. He most recently served as the Vice President, Communications and Foreign Policy/National Security Adviser to Herman Cain’s 2012 Republican presidential campaign.
Published March 17, 2012
FoxNews.com:
“Oh, the Humanity!”
So went the famous phrase shouted by Chicago’s WLS Radio announcer Herb Morrison as he witnessed the Hindenburg crash and burn in Lakehurst, N.J. on May 6, 1937.
Though the death of three-dozen Germans and Americans in the fiery explosion 75 years ago is a far cry from the “plight” of 9/11 suspects at Gitmo, at least two of Al Qaeda’s top operatives are trying to evoke similar emotions as they have gone on a hunger strike to garner sympathy for their cause. But curiously, press coverage has been sparse unlike in years past.
In a place where the Obama administration just forked over $750,000 to pay for a detainee soccer field overlooking the Caribbean, they’re served 3 halal meals a day, some of them watch Middle Eastern television via satellite while others play basketball or spend time with their Nintendo Wii’s, what could they possibly be complaining about anyway?
It turns out that they apparently don’t like the new rules imposed by Navy Rear Admiral David Woods who currently oversees Joint Task Force Guantanamo, as he has rightly tightened up the screening process of legal mail between detainees and their attorneys.
It seems that Al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine almost made it in the camps, complete with articles like “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”
The stricter requirements for screening legal mail has set off a firestorm between military commission defense attorneys, backed by the American Bar Association, and military authorities from Gitmo all the way up to the Pentagon who are responsible for good order and discipline within the camps.
The two hunger strikers are just playing their part in trying to leverage this tempest in a teapot for maximum public sympathy.
And while they have been on hunger strike, reportedly since January when the new rules were implemented, something is different than during previous similar periods of “voluntary fasting.”
During the Bush administration, hunger strikes were quite common. And they garnered significant attention from non-governmental organizations and the mainstream media to prove it.
While dozens of detainees conveniently skipped some meals here and there, at least a few were hardcore, and determined to starve to death. Recalling lessons from Northern Ireland, where IRA member Bobby Sands withered away in the Maze Prison and went from zero to hero in 1981, the military wisely instituted a forced feeding program to prevent an Al Qaeda martyr, aka “shahid” version.
Defense attorneys and human rights activists jumped all over it, denouncing the tube feeding system through the nose down into the stomach for a liquid diet as barbaric and painful. Never mind the facts that a) it saved their lives, and b) the tube was lubricated, flexible and only .1 inch in diameter, or about as thick as a strand of cooked spaghetti.
Tired of hearing all the complaints about the “inhumanity” of it all, the Navy admiral in charge of the camps from mid-2006 to mid-2007, Rear Admiral Harry Harris decided to personally take one tube-fed meal of Ensure to show the press it was humane.
A novel idea -- though it didn’t dampen the criticism too much. And why? Because critics already knew tube feeding wasn’t a big deal, and was standard practice in U.S. prisons and hospitals to save lives when needed.
So why all the drama?
Well, President George W. Bush was in the White House, and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ran the Pentagon -- thus tube feeding was a big deal.
So where is all the outrage about the poor Gitmo hunger strikers now that President Barack Obama is in the White House, and Secretary Leon Panetta runs the Pentagon?
It’s simply not there, as it doesn’t fit neatly into the agenda of human rights organizations and many in the mainstream media who cover them.
They cheer for this president and the steady stream of upgrades to Gitmo at taxpayer expense. Why would they draw attention to something that might possibly make this administration look bad?
And while it’s a good thing that 9/11 suspects/hunger strikers aren’t getting too much attention these days, should Republicans win the White House in November, rest assured that Moveon.org, the Occupy movement, and multitudes of human rights activists and sympathetic press will join forces to remind us of such a calamity.
“Oh the Humanity!”
J.D. Gordon is a retired Navy Commander who served as a Pentagon spokesman in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005-2009. He most recently served as the Vice President, Communications and Foreign Policy/National Security Adviser to Herman Cain’s 2012 Republican presidential campaign.
DHS Terror Document Lists Yawning, Goose Bumps As Suspicious Behavior
So, this means everyone who listens to an Obama speech and yawns is a terrrorist?
Bodily functions are now potential indicators of terrorism
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, March 16, 2012
Infowars has obtained a document from the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security & Preparedness that lists banal bodily activities such as yawning, staring and goose pumps as “suspicious activity” indicative of terrorism.
The document (PDF), entitled Terrorism Awareness and Prevention, is presented as a guide for both “residents and workers of New Jersey,” along with employees of federal, state and local agencies, on how to “assist in combating terrorism” by identifying “unusual or suspicious activities and behaviors.”
The guide encourages participants to “look for signs of nervousness in the people you come in contact with.” “Signs will become particularly evident in a person’s eyes, face, next and body movements.”
The document then lists examples of suspicious behavior indicative of terrorism, which include, “Exaggerated yawning when engaged in conversation,” “glances,” “cold penetrating stare,” “rigid posture,” and “goose bumps”.
Of course, any of these behaviors could be explained by a million other circumstances and the likelihood that they are indications of terrorist activity is virtually zero.
However, as we have seen from recent literature put out by the DHS or related law enforcement bodies, the standard for being characterized as a potential terrorist is getting broader and broader all the time.
Last month we reported on the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism (CAT) program, which encourages store managers and staff of numerous different businesses to report examples of suspicious activity to the authorities.
In a flyer handed out to Internet Cafes, workers are encouraged to report people who use cash to pay for their coffee as potential terrorists.
Expressing an interesting in protecting online privacy when surfing the web in public is also characterized as a suspicious activity.
In a flyer issued to Military Surplus stores, the purchase of storable food supplies in bulk, an increasingly popular trend amongst “preppers,” is also defined as a potential indication of terrorism.
Even more chilling, the feds have also begun to characterize perfectly legitimate political and economic beliefs as those held by terrorists, effectively denouncing them as thought crimes.
As Reuters reported in February, authorities are now treating those who “believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard” as extremists who are a potential violent threat to law enforcement.
Characterizing behavior which millions of Americans engage in every day as a potential indication of terrorism only serves to breed paranoia and distrust. If anything, it actually helps terrorists to blend in and not be identified, by increasing the chances exponentially of innocent Americans being mistaken for terrorists.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
SOURCE: Prison Planet
H/T IHTM
Bodily functions are now potential indicators of terrorism
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, March 16, 2012
Infowars has obtained a document from the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security & Preparedness that lists banal bodily activities such as yawning, staring and goose pumps as “suspicious activity” indicative of terrorism.
The document (PDF), entitled Terrorism Awareness and Prevention, is presented as a guide for both “residents and workers of New Jersey,” along with employees of federal, state and local agencies, on how to “assist in combating terrorism” by identifying “unusual or suspicious activities and behaviors.”
The guide encourages participants to “look for signs of nervousness in the people you come in contact with.” “Signs will become particularly evident in a person’s eyes, face, next and body movements.”
The document then lists examples of suspicious behavior indicative of terrorism, which include, “Exaggerated yawning when engaged in conversation,” “glances,” “cold penetrating stare,” “rigid posture,” and “goose bumps”.
Of course, any of these behaviors could be explained by a million other circumstances and the likelihood that they are indications of terrorist activity is virtually zero.
However, as we have seen from recent literature put out by the DHS or related law enforcement bodies, the standard for being characterized as a potential terrorist is getting broader and broader all the time.
Last month we reported on the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism (CAT) program, which encourages store managers and staff of numerous different businesses to report examples of suspicious activity to the authorities.
In a flyer handed out to Internet Cafes, workers are encouraged to report people who use cash to pay for their coffee as potential terrorists.
Expressing an interesting in protecting online privacy when surfing the web in public is also characterized as a suspicious activity.
In a flyer issued to Military Surplus stores, the purchase of storable food supplies in bulk, an increasingly popular trend amongst “preppers,” is also defined as a potential indication of terrorism.
Even more chilling, the feds have also begun to characterize perfectly legitimate political and economic beliefs as those held by terrorists, effectively denouncing them as thought crimes.
As Reuters reported in February, authorities are now treating those who “believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard” as extremists who are a potential violent threat to law enforcement.
Characterizing behavior which millions of Americans engage in every day as a potential indication of terrorism only serves to breed paranoia and distrust. If anything, it actually helps terrorists to blend in and not be identified, by increasing the chances exponentially of innocent Americans being mistaken for terrorists.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
SOURCE: Prison Planet
H/T IHTM
Obama uses high gas prices to argue for end to ‘big oil’ subsidies
Published: 6:00 AM 03/17/2012
By Paul Conner - The Daily Caller:
President Barack Obama is seeking to leverage high gas prices into a grassroots movement pressuring Congress to end subsidies for big oil companies, a political strategy that has little to do with lowering prices.
In his weekly address to the nation Saturday, Obama sought to redirect consumers’ anger with his administration to anger with Congress for allowing companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron to receive $4 billion from the federal government every year.
“Your member of Congress should be fighting for you. Not for big financial firms. Not for big oil companies,” Obama claimed.
“In the next few weeks, I expect Congress to vote on ending these subsidies,” he continued. “And when they do, we’re going to put every single Member of Congress on record: They can either stand up for oil companies, or they can stand up for the American people.”
The us-against-them strategy is the president’s attempt to use a tough political situation for his advantage, and it clearly has little to do with bringing down the price of gasoline. A study released last May by a pair of Democratic senators and a former Obama Treasury official found that ending oil subsidies would hardly affect gas prices.
In the past, Republicans have used the supply-and-demand principle to argue that the cost of ending the subsidies would be passed on to consumers. (RELATED: Full coverage of the Obama presidency)
For the second week in a row, he tweaked Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich‘s claim that he can deliver $2.50 per gallon gasoline.
By Paul Conner - The Daily Caller:
President Barack Obama is seeking to leverage high gas prices into a grassroots movement pressuring Congress to end subsidies for big oil companies, a political strategy that has little to do with lowering prices.
In his weekly address to the nation Saturday, Obama sought to redirect consumers’ anger with his administration to anger with Congress for allowing companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron to receive $4 billion from the federal government every year.
“Your member of Congress should be fighting for you. Not for big financial firms. Not for big oil companies,” Obama claimed.
“In the next few weeks, I expect Congress to vote on ending these subsidies,” he continued. “And when they do, we’re going to put every single Member of Congress on record: They can either stand up for oil companies, or they can stand up for the American people.”
The us-against-them strategy is the president’s attempt to use a tough political situation for his advantage, and it clearly has little to do with bringing down the price of gasoline. A study released last May by a pair of Democratic senators and a former Obama Treasury official found that ending oil subsidies would hardly affect gas prices.
In the past, Republicans have used the supply-and-demand principle to argue that the cost of ending the subsidies would be passed on to consumers. (RELATED: Full coverage of the Obama presidency)
For the second week in a row, he tweaked Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich‘s claim that he can deliver $2.50 per gallon gasoline.
Dinner With Obama: First Class for One Percenters, Coach for the 'Average Folks'
March 17, 2012
Jeannie DeAngelis - American Thinker:
Whenever an opportunity is presented to live the values he professes, rather than do something nice for the 'less fortunate among us,' President Barack Obama chooses instead to cater directly to the very 1% he claims already have more than they need. Listening to him speak, one would never guess that a man who often criticizes the wealthy for not sharing enough would then turn around and warmly embrace those he disparages.
Oftentimes, struggling lower- and middle-class people contribute to causes they believe in even though money is tight, which according to Jesus is a sacrifice deserving of a greater reward. Unfortunately for the poor widow who supports Obama's reelection out of her Social Security check, the President believes the bigger the bundle, the better the bonus.
Recently, three middle-class donors from Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts contributed $3 to the President's reelection fund and were entered into a sweepstakes. After a few spins of the raffle drum, three star-struck Obama admirers were selected, and each was allowed to bring along one guest for the grand prize of "Dinner with Barack" and Michelle -- not in the elegant White House, mind you, but at a "comfortable convivial" Washington DC restaurant with a menu that features grilled hangar steak. In airline terms, the ended up with a coach dinner, not the fancy fare served up in the front cabin to the one percenters.
The excited winners dined with the first couple far from the "dramatically lit pavilion at the bottom of the South Lawn," that soon after hosted the British Prime Minister, three dozen of the President's mega-fundraisers, and a First Lady in turquoise Marchesa seated for dinner beside Hollywood heartthrob/Savior of the South Sudan George Clooney.
The truth is that despite his incessant, purely political populist rhetoric, when he's offstage Barack Obama keeps the 99% percent at arms' length. The White House doors that Michelle Obama promised would swing open wide to welcome everyone really only open just enough for Hollywood heavyweights, pop stars, and big money bundlers to quietly slip through.
Judging solely by how Obama treats "grass roots" donors as compared to coffer-cramming cash cows, one would think America's first black president fosters his own brand of segregation.
Recently, dressed in formal attire, the President merrily clinked glasses with $500K and $45,000-a-plate fundraisers, but the "average folks out there" -- as Joe Biden referred to them at a $10,000-a-plate fundraiser -- after winning dinner were greeted off-campus by a President in rolled-up shirtsleeves.
What do the affluent do to earn such favorable treatment from a President who preaches impartiality? Well, if it's evil money we're talking about, apparently quite a lot: "Thirteen of the dinner attendees raised more than a half a million dollars ... 24 raised between $200,000 and $500,000, eight raised between $100,000 and $200,000 and three between $50,000 and $100,000."
All told, the guests who got to meet Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and dine on "Kitchen Garden 'Winter Harvest,' Bison Wellington, Crisped Halibut with Potato Crust, [dessert]...and mystery wines," amassed $10.7 million of the $250 million donated thus far.
Following this year's State of the Union address, Stanley Fish commented in the New York Times on "President Obama's choice to emphasize fairness rather than equality." Fish said that rather than 'equality,' which stirs up images of income redistribution, the fairness Obama promotes is a "better mantra ...[because]... it rests on a notion of formal equality -- everyone should be treated alike -- rather than a notion of substantive equality -- everyone should have the same stuff."
Yet, apart from what he advocates when revving up his base, it seems that instead of treating everyone alike, Obama lavishes luxury upon "the more fortunate among us" -- also known as those with the most stuff -- and merely placates those who have thus far helped him raise money a few bucks at a time.
Jeannie DeAngelis - American Thinker:
Whenever an opportunity is presented to live the values he professes, rather than do something nice for the 'less fortunate among us,' President Barack Obama chooses instead to cater directly to the very 1% he claims already have more than they need. Listening to him speak, one would never guess that a man who often criticizes the wealthy for not sharing enough would then turn around and warmly embrace those he disparages.
Oftentimes, struggling lower- and middle-class people contribute to causes they believe in even though money is tight, which according to Jesus is a sacrifice deserving of a greater reward. Unfortunately for the poor widow who supports Obama's reelection out of her Social Security check, the President believes the bigger the bundle, the better the bonus.
Recently, three middle-class donors from Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts contributed $3 to the President's reelection fund and were entered into a sweepstakes. After a few spins of the raffle drum, three star-struck Obama admirers were selected, and each was allowed to bring along one guest for the grand prize of "Dinner with Barack" and Michelle -- not in the elegant White House, mind you, but at a "comfortable convivial" Washington DC restaurant with a menu that features grilled hangar steak. In airline terms, the ended up with a coach dinner, not the fancy fare served up in the front cabin to the one percenters.
The excited winners dined with the first couple far from the "dramatically lit pavilion at the bottom of the South Lawn," that soon after hosted the British Prime Minister, three dozen of the President's mega-fundraisers, and a First Lady in turquoise Marchesa seated for dinner beside Hollywood heartthrob/Savior of the South Sudan George Clooney.
The truth is that despite his incessant, purely political populist rhetoric, when he's offstage Barack Obama keeps the 99% percent at arms' length. The White House doors that Michelle Obama promised would swing open wide to welcome everyone really only open just enough for Hollywood heavyweights, pop stars, and big money bundlers to quietly slip through.
Judging solely by how Obama treats "grass roots" donors as compared to coffer-cramming cash cows, one would think America's first black president fosters his own brand of segregation.
Recently, dressed in formal attire, the President merrily clinked glasses with $500K and $45,000-a-plate fundraisers, but the "average folks out there" -- as Joe Biden referred to them at a $10,000-a-plate fundraiser -- after winning dinner were greeted off-campus by a President in rolled-up shirtsleeves.
What do the affluent do to earn such favorable treatment from a President who preaches impartiality? Well, if it's evil money we're talking about, apparently quite a lot: "Thirteen of the dinner attendees raised more than a half a million dollars ... 24 raised between $200,000 and $500,000, eight raised between $100,000 and $200,000 and three between $50,000 and $100,000."
All told, the guests who got to meet Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and dine on "Kitchen Garden 'Winter Harvest,' Bison Wellington, Crisped Halibut with Potato Crust, [dessert]...and mystery wines," amassed $10.7 million of the $250 million donated thus far.
Following this year's State of the Union address, Stanley Fish commented in the New York Times on "President Obama's choice to emphasize fairness rather than equality." Fish said that rather than 'equality,' which stirs up images of income redistribution, the fairness Obama promotes is a "better mantra ...[because]... it rests on a notion of formal equality -- everyone should be treated alike -- rather than a notion of substantive equality -- everyone should have the same stuff."
Yet, apart from what he advocates when revving up his base, it seems that instead of treating everyone alike, Obama lavishes luxury upon "the more fortunate among us" -- also known as those with the most stuff -- and merely placates those who have thus far helped him raise money a few bucks at a time.
Republicans spot problems, walk tightrope on Violence Against Women Act
Published: 1:19 AM 03/17/2012
By Caroline May
The Daily Caller:
The optics of opposing legislation to combat domestic violence and assist victims are never good, especially for politicians who already face accusations of waging a “war against women.”
With Senate Democrats hastening the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to further that narrative, Senate Republicans are in a tricky position: having genuine concerns about the legislation but facing politically damning charges.
Since it was enacted in 1994 VAWA has enjoyed bipartisan support and smooth passage in each of its 6 year re-authorizations. So just what are the Republicans’ problems with VAWA this time around?
According to Senate Republicans, there are many.
Unlike earlier re-authorizations, this legislation, sponsored by Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, contains new, divisive provisions and lacks protections against fraud, Republicans say.
For example, Leahy’s new version of VAWA would create 5,000 additional “U-visas,” which are given to immigrants — legal and illegal — who are likely to aid in criminal investigations.
Immigrants who apply for U-visas do not necessarily need to assist in actual investigations, Republicans say, so an illegal immigrant facing deportation could apply for one without ever needing to aid law enforcement. Leahy’s bill does not contain provisions to prevent such abuse.
By Caroline May
The Daily Caller:
The optics of opposing legislation to combat domestic violence and assist victims are never good, especially for politicians who already face accusations of waging a “war against women.”
With Senate Democrats hastening the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to further that narrative, Senate Republicans are in a tricky position: having genuine concerns about the legislation but facing politically damning charges.
Since it was enacted in 1994 VAWA has enjoyed bipartisan support and smooth passage in each of its 6 year re-authorizations. So just what are the Republicans’ problems with VAWA this time around?
According to Senate Republicans, there are many.
Unlike earlier re-authorizations, this legislation, sponsored by Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, contains new, divisive provisions and lacks protections against fraud, Republicans say.
For example, Leahy’s new version of VAWA would create 5,000 additional “U-visas,” which are given to immigrants — legal and illegal — who are likely to aid in criminal investigations.
Immigrants who apply for U-visas do not necessarily need to assist in actual investigations, Republicans say, so an illegal immigrant facing deportation could apply for one without ever needing to aid law enforcement. Leahy’s bill does not contain provisions to prevent such abuse.
Licence to Kill: When governments choose to assassinate
By Gordon Corera
Security correspondent, BBC News:
Can state-sponsored assassination work as a strategy? And can it ever be justified? Governments don't admit to it, but Iranian nuclear scientists know it happens - and it's not easy to distinguish assassination from the US policy of "targeted killing".
Seventy years ago, a team of British-trained assassins were preparing to strike. Their target was Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most feared men in the Third Reich, then ruling Czechoslovakia.
Britain's recently formed Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Czechoslovak exile movement based in London both needed to make a mark.
The planning for Operation Anthropoid, as it was known, is detailed in formerly secret memos in the National Archives.
They reveal how two Czechoslovak volunteers trained in Britain and then parachuted in.
"The two agents concerned have been trained in all methods of assassination known to us," reads one memo from January 1942. "They intend to carry out this operation whether or not there is any opportunity of subsequent escape."
In May of that year, the men ambushed Heydrich's open-topped Mercedes as it cornered a sharp bend.
One man's Sten gun jammed but the other threw a modified bomb sending shrapnel flying.
Heydrich personally tried to chase down the men but the injuries inflicted that day would eventually claim his life.
Nazi reprisals were savage. In the village of Lidice, thought to be linked to the assassins, 173 men over the age of 16 were killed, every woman was sent to a concentration camp, every child dispersed, every building levelled.
This raises a question - is assassination effective?
"It certainly wasn't worth the countless victims that Nazi terror produced over the following weeks," argues Heydrich's biographer, Robert Gerwarth. And Heydrich's successor in Prague was even harsher, he points out.
It is perhaps telling that assassination was not widely employed during the war, after this.
Operation Foxley was typical - the SOE looked at using a sniper to shoot Hitler, and gathered extensive intelligence on the layout of his house at Berchtesgaden. But the plan was cancelled, partly because it was judged unlikely to succeed but also because officials feared it would damage the war effort - they argued that Hitler's replacement might actually be more rational and more effective in fighting Britain.
Concern about the consequences has always been a crucial factor limiting the use of assassination.
But the attractions of assassination as an easy remedy did not go away. During the Suez crisis, Prime Minister Anthony Eden became obsessed with Colonel Nasser, the Egyptian president.
"'I want Nasser, 'and he actually used the word 'murdered','' one minister later remembered Eden saying. MI6 looked at various methods but the opportunity never arose.
The popularity of Ian Fleming's James Bond books in the last 50 years has led many people to believe that Britain's intelligence service really does have a licence to kill. Back in 2009, I asked the then Chief of MI6, Sir John Scarlett, whether there was such a thing.
"We do not have licence to kill," he told me.
I then asked whether MI6 had ever had one. There was a rather telling pause, before he replied: "Well, not to my knowledge."
Papers in the British National Archives show that murder was on the minds of some in London during the Cold War.
In 1960, Whitehall feared Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was getting too close to the Soviet Union, so HFT Smith, a British Foreign Office official - and later head of MI5 - outlined two proposals for dealing with him.
The first, which Smith said he preferred, was "the simple one of ensuring Lumumba's removal from the scene by killing him".
He went on: "This should in fact solve the problem, since, so far as we can tell, Lumumba is not a leader of a movement within which there are potential successors of his quality and influence."
Other comments on the file reveal mixed feelings about that option, among British officials.
In Washington, officials took care to avoid President Eisenhower being implicated in assassination even when everyone knew that was what he wanted.
At one National Security council meeting in 1960, the president said he wanted Lumumba "eliminated". There was enough ambiguity in the word to allow for a denial.
The CIA despatched one of their men to the Congo, carrying a tube of poisoned toothpaste, but the local officer threw the tube in the Congo River.
Lumumba was eventually killed with Belgian rather than American or British help. But when this and other plots were exposed in the 1970s - against Fidel Castro in Cuba among others - there was an uproar. President Gerald Ford formally banned assassination.
In Britain, the temptation to employ assassination as a shortcut remained. When he was Foreign Secretary in the late 1970s, David Owen asked his officials if the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin could be killed.
He recalls how the official who acted as liaison with MI6 raised himself up to his full height to tell him: "We don't do that sort of thing."
"Well, we have to consider doing such a thing, the situation is so dire," Lord Owen says he replied.
He argues that the highly personal nature of Amin's savage rule in Uganda meant that killing one person might save many lives.
"It wasn't a regime, it was one person, irrational, out of control. What do you do? I would never call it a moral act," says Lord Owen. "A lesser of two evils, yes."
From the 1970s onwards, Britain was engulfed in controversies over Northern Ireland. There were questions over whether the British authorities had colluded with paramilitaries or operated a "shoot to kill" policy to eliminate members of the IRA.
Terrorism has complicated the issue, blurring the lines between war and peace, combatants and civilians and conflicts between nations themselves.
Israel, which regards itself as in a permanent state of war, has targeted its enemies throughout the Middle East. Its intelligence service, the Mossad, is accused of killing a Palestinian leader in Dubai as well as nuclear scientists in Tehran.
Since 9/11, the US has increasingly talked about "targeted killings" to justify acts which might once have been called assassination.
President Ford's ban on assassinations remains in force though, which helps explain why the US Attorney General Eric Holder was so keen to deny last month that killings carried out by unmanned drones in Pakistan and Yemen - countries with which it is not at war - were "assassinations".
"They are not, and the use of that loaded term is misplaced," he insisted.
Washington even claims that it did not set out to kill Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad.
The legal justification for "targeted killings" has been provided by broadening the notion of self-defence. It is now taken to mean protecting yourself from imminent attack and, more controversially, targeting any group which is planning an attack, even if you don't know when that might be.
The notion of two armies facing each other on a front line has almost become outdated.
A widely expressed concern is that assassination - or targeted killing - will become more widespread if the legal justifications continue to be stretched.
If America can legitimately kill its citizens in Yemen, why can't Russia do the same in London? A few wonder if it already has, pointing to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.
Christof Heyns, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, fears the worst.
"The spectre that haunts this sort of situation is one of a global war, of a war of all against all," he says. "And that there are no boundaries to where these conflicts can actually be taken and where a specific people can be targeted."
Security correspondent, BBC News:
Seventy years ago, a team of British-trained assassins were preparing to strike. Their target was Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most feared men in the Third Reich, then ruling Czechoslovakia.
Britain's recently formed Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Czechoslovak exile movement based in London both needed to make a mark.
The planning for Operation Anthropoid, as it was known, is detailed in formerly secret memos in the National Archives.
They reveal how two Czechoslovak volunteers trained in Britain and then parachuted in.
"The two agents concerned have been trained in all methods of assassination known to us," reads one memo from January 1942. "They intend to carry out this operation whether or not there is any opportunity of subsequent escape."
In May of that year, the men ambushed Heydrich's open-topped Mercedes as it cornered a sharp bend.
One man's Sten gun jammed but the other threw a modified bomb sending shrapnel flying.
Heydrich personally tried to chase down the men but the injuries inflicted that day would eventually claim his life.
Nazi reprisals were savage. In the village of Lidice, thought to be linked to the assassins, 173 men over the age of 16 were killed, every woman was sent to a concentration camp, every child dispersed, every building levelled.
This raises a question - is assassination effective?
"It certainly wasn't worth the countless victims that Nazi terror produced over the following weeks," argues Heydrich's biographer, Robert Gerwarth. And Heydrich's successor in Prague was even harsher, he points out.
It is perhaps telling that assassination was not widely employed during the war, after this.
Operation Foxley was typical - the SOE looked at using a sniper to shoot Hitler, and gathered extensive intelligence on the layout of his house at Berchtesgaden. But the plan was cancelled, partly because it was judged unlikely to succeed but also because officials feared it would damage the war effort - they argued that Hitler's replacement might actually be more rational and more effective in fighting Britain.
Concern about the consequences has always been a crucial factor limiting the use of assassination.
But the attractions of assassination as an easy remedy did not go away. During the Suez crisis, Prime Minister Anthony Eden became obsessed with Colonel Nasser, the Egyptian president.
"'I want Nasser, 'and he actually used the word 'murdered','' one minister later remembered Eden saying. MI6 looked at various methods but the opportunity never arose.
The popularity of Ian Fleming's James Bond books in the last 50 years has led many people to believe that Britain's intelligence service really does have a licence to kill. Back in 2009, I asked the then Chief of MI6, Sir John Scarlett, whether there was such a thing.
"We do not have licence to kill," he told me.
I then asked whether MI6 had ever had one. There was a rather telling pause, before he replied: "Well, not to my knowledge."
Papers in the British National Archives show that murder was on the minds of some in London during the Cold War.
In 1960, Whitehall feared Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was getting too close to the Soviet Union, so HFT Smith, a British Foreign Office official - and later head of MI5 - outlined two proposals for dealing with him.
The first, which Smith said he preferred, was "the simple one of ensuring Lumumba's removal from the scene by killing him".
He went on: "This should in fact solve the problem, since, so far as we can tell, Lumumba is not a leader of a movement within which there are potential successors of his quality and influence."
Other comments on the file reveal mixed feelings about that option, among British officials.
In Washington, officials took care to avoid President Eisenhower being implicated in assassination even when everyone knew that was what he wanted.
At one National Security council meeting in 1960, the president said he wanted Lumumba "eliminated". There was enough ambiguity in the word to allow for a denial.
The CIA despatched one of their men to the Congo, carrying a tube of poisoned toothpaste, but the local officer threw the tube in the Congo River.
Lumumba was eventually killed with Belgian rather than American or British help. But when this and other plots were exposed in the 1970s - against Fidel Castro in Cuba among others - there was an uproar. President Gerald Ford formally banned assassination.
In Britain, the temptation to employ assassination as a shortcut remained. When he was Foreign Secretary in the late 1970s, David Owen asked his officials if the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin could be killed.
He recalls how the official who acted as liaison with MI6 raised himself up to his full height to tell him: "We don't do that sort of thing."
"Well, we have to consider doing such a thing, the situation is so dire," Lord Owen says he replied.
He argues that the highly personal nature of Amin's savage rule in Uganda meant that killing one person might save many lives.
"It wasn't a regime, it was one person, irrational, out of control. What do you do? I would never call it a moral act," says Lord Owen. "A lesser of two evils, yes."
From the 1970s onwards, Britain was engulfed in controversies over Northern Ireland. There were questions over whether the British authorities had colluded with paramilitaries or operated a "shoot to kill" policy to eliminate members of the IRA.
Terrorism has complicated the issue, blurring the lines between war and peace, combatants and civilians and conflicts between nations themselves.
Israel, which regards itself as in a permanent state of war, has targeted its enemies throughout the Middle East. Its intelligence service, the Mossad, is accused of killing a Palestinian leader in Dubai as well as nuclear scientists in Tehran.
Since 9/11, the US has increasingly talked about "targeted killings" to justify acts which might once have been called assassination.
President Ford's ban on assassinations remains in force though, which helps explain why the US Attorney General Eric Holder was so keen to deny last month that killings carried out by unmanned drones in Pakistan and Yemen - countries with which it is not at war - were "assassinations".
"They are not, and the use of that loaded term is misplaced," he insisted.
Washington even claims that it did not set out to kill Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad.
The legal justification for "targeted killings" has been provided by broadening the notion of self-defence. It is now taken to mean protecting yourself from imminent attack and, more controversially, targeting any group which is planning an attack, even if you don't know when that might be.
The notion of two armies facing each other on a front line has almost become outdated.
A widely expressed concern is that assassination - or targeted killing - will become more widespread if the legal justifications continue to be stretched.
If America can legitimately kill its citizens in Yemen, why can't Russia do the same in London? A few wonder if it already has, pointing to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.
Christof Heyns, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, fears the worst.
"The spectre that haunts this sort of situation is one of a global war, of a war of all against all," he says. "And that there are no boundaries to where these conflicts can actually be taken and where a specific people can be targeted."
Friday night news dump: Administration to move forward with and expand contraception mandate
posted at 10:30 pm on March 16, 2012 by Tina Korbe
HotAir:
The administration this afternoon released its “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on preventive services policy.” Translation: President Barack Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are moving forward with their controversial contraception mandate, which requires even religiously affiliated employers to provide their employees with insurance that covers contraception — even if those employers object to contraception on religious grounds.
But don’t worry: Secretary Sebelius says your religious liberty is assured, so it is assured.
“The President’s policy respects religious liberty and makes free preventive services available to women,” she said. ”Today’s announcement is the next step toward fulfilling that commitment.”
Never mind that, by drawing a distinction between actual churches and church-operated businesses like hospitals and schools, the administration effectively appropriated for itself the power to determine what constitutes ministry. Also, last I checked, there was no such thing as “free preventive services.”
Sandra Fluke should be happy, though. The administration made a final decision about whether it will require colleges to provide students with insurance that covers contraception, as well. Take one wild guess as to what their decision was. Yep, that’s right:
Administration officials also released a final rule governing student health plans. Under the final rule, students will gain the same consumer protections other people with individual market insurance have, like a prohibition on lifetime limits and coverage of preventive services without cost sharing. In the same way that religious colleges and universities will not have to pay, arrange or refer for contraceptive coverage for their employees, they will not have to do so for their students who will get such coverage directly and separately from their insurer.
Note that the administration still pretends the mandate isn’t a mandate on religious employers if the insurers have to provide contraception coverage “directly and separately” to employees and students. Actually, it’s still a conscience-violating mandate, as Ed explained when the administration first announced its “accommodation”:
So these employers will still have to provide the health insurance, and the health insurance must cover the contraception and abortifacients. The White House apparently wants to pretend that the funds for these outlays will come off of the Unobtanium Tree, where insurers find money to cover all mandates. This exposes once again a stunning ignorance of risk pools and how costs are passed along to consumers.
Let’s just take this one step at a time. Where do insurers get money to pay claims? They collect premiums and co-pays from the insured group or risk pool. No matter what the Obama administration wants to say now, the money that will cover those contraception costs will come from the religious organizations that must now by law buy that insurance and pay those premiums. Their religious doctrines have long-standing prohibitions against participating in contraception and abortion, and nothing in this “accommodation” changes the fact that the government is now forcing them to both fund and facilitate access to products and services that offend their practice of religion.
Basically, the Obama administration told religious organizations to stop complaining and get in line. This “accommodation” only attempts to accommodate Obama’s political standing and nothing more.
Consider also that many religious employers are self-insured and have no insurer onto whom they can push the cost of contraception insurance.
The timing of this announcement just couldn’t have been better. As The Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke put it, “The announcement came late Friday afternoon, on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, as the second day of March Madness basketball games were under way.” People skip work to watch March Madness. Think they’re going to turn off the TV to dig up a dry statement from Her Consistency Kathleen Sebelius? Not likely.
HotAir:
The administration this afternoon released its “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on preventive services policy.” Translation: President Barack Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are moving forward with their controversial contraception mandate, which requires even religiously affiliated employers to provide their employees with insurance that covers contraception — even if those employers object to contraception on religious grounds.
But don’t worry: Secretary Sebelius says your religious liberty is assured, so it is assured.
“The President’s policy respects religious liberty and makes free preventive services available to women,” she said. ”Today’s announcement is the next step toward fulfilling that commitment.”
Never mind that, by drawing a distinction between actual churches and church-operated businesses like hospitals and schools, the administration effectively appropriated for itself the power to determine what constitutes ministry. Also, last I checked, there was no such thing as “free preventive services.”
Sandra Fluke should be happy, though. The administration made a final decision about whether it will require colleges to provide students with insurance that covers contraception, as well. Take one wild guess as to what their decision was. Yep, that’s right:
Administration officials also released a final rule governing student health plans. Under the final rule, students will gain the same consumer protections other people with individual market insurance have, like a prohibition on lifetime limits and coverage of preventive services without cost sharing. In the same way that religious colleges and universities will not have to pay, arrange or refer for contraceptive coverage for their employees, they will not have to do so for their students who will get such coverage directly and separately from their insurer.
Note that the administration still pretends the mandate isn’t a mandate on religious employers if the insurers have to provide contraception coverage “directly and separately” to employees and students. Actually, it’s still a conscience-violating mandate, as Ed explained when the administration first announced its “accommodation”:
So these employers will still have to provide the health insurance, and the health insurance must cover the contraception and abortifacients. The White House apparently wants to pretend that the funds for these outlays will come off of the Unobtanium Tree, where insurers find money to cover all mandates. This exposes once again a stunning ignorance of risk pools and how costs are passed along to consumers.
Let’s just take this one step at a time. Where do insurers get money to pay claims? They collect premiums and co-pays from the insured group or risk pool. No matter what the Obama administration wants to say now, the money that will cover those contraception costs will come from the religious organizations that must now by law buy that insurance and pay those premiums. Their religious doctrines have long-standing prohibitions against participating in contraception and abortion, and nothing in this “accommodation” changes the fact that the government is now forcing them to both fund and facilitate access to products and services that offend their practice of religion.
Basically, the Obama administration told religious organizations to stop complaining and get in line. This “accommodation” only attempts to accommodate Obama’s political standing and nothing more.
Consider also that many religious employers are self-insured and have no insurer onto whom they can push the cost of contraception insurance.
The timing of this announcement just couldn’t have been better. As The Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke put it, “The announcement came late Friday afternoon, on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, as the second day of March Madness basketball games were under way.” People skip work to watch March Madness. Think they’re going to turn off the TV to dig up a dry statement from Her Consistency Kathleen Sebelius? Not likely.
Friday document dump: Holder’s DOJ releases more on ‘Fast and Furious’
Published: 1:13 AM 03/17/2012
By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller:
In what has become a pattern, Attorney General Eric Holder dumped more documents related to Operation Fast and Furious on congressional investigators late Friday.
Terry Frieden of CNN reported that Holder coughed up “hundred of pages” of documents. Assuming that means Holder did not produce more than 1,000 documents, the Justice Department is still far from compliance with lawful congressional subpoenas.
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has subpoenaed 80,000 pages of documents concerning Fast and Furious. Holder has only provided about 7,000 pages. He has, however, given all 80,000 to his internal investigator — DOJ’s Office of Inspector General.
Issa has laid the groundwork to hold Holder in contempt of Congress in the near future if he doesn’t comply with the subpoenas.
Frieden also reported that few of the documents Holder dumped on Congress are actually related to Fast and Furious.
“Most of the documents deal with a 2007 operation involving Fidel Hernandez, who the ATF believed would be prosecuted for gun violations in Mexico by Mexican authorities,” Frieden wrote.
According to congressional Democrats on the House oversight committee, in the “Hernandez case” ATF agents, working with Mexican police, planned to track illegal weapons as they left the United States all the way to their final destination. But Mexican police reported they never saw the vehicle that ATF agents had followed to the border. (RELATED: Full coverage of Operation Fast and Furious)
By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller:
Terry Frieden of CNN reported that Holder coughed up “hundred of pages” of documents. Assuming that means Holder did not produce more than 1,000 documents, the Justice Department is still far from compliance with lawful congressional subpoenas.
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has subpoenaed 80,000 pages of documents concerning Fast and Furious. Holder has only provided about 7,000 pages. He has, however, given all 80,000 to his internal investigator — DOJ’s Office of Inspector General.
Issa has laid the groundwork to hold Holder in contempt of Congress in the near future if he doesn’t comply with the subpoenas.
Frieden also reported that few of the documents Holder dumped on Congress are actually related to Fast and Furious.
“Most of the documents deal with a 2007 operation involving Fidel Hernandez, who the ATF believed would be prosecuted for gun violations in Mexico by Mexican authorities,” Frieden wrote.
According to congressional Democrats on the House oversight committee, in the “Hernandez case” ATF agents, working with Mexican police, planned to track illegal weapons as they left the United States all the way to their final destination. But Mexican police reported they never saw the vehicle that ATF agents had followed to the border. (RELATED: Full coverage of Operation Fast and Furious)
Genius: Administration spending millions to train firefighters how to combat exploding Chevy Volts
Friday, March 16, 2012
Everything the Obama administration touches turns to crap: it has hollowed out the military, de-funded NASA, raided the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for purely political reasons, devastated the health care system, and wasted billions on crony green investments. Exhibit A: the disastrous Chevy Volt:
Last week, the Obama Administration sought to increase the Chevrolet Volt purchaser tax credit from $7,500 to $10,000.
All this for a car so dangerous to first responders that the Department of Energy allocated $4.4 million dollars for programs to prevent fire fighters from electrocuting themselves while trying to rescue crash victims.
...According to industry expert Gary Howell of Howell Automotive, one of the problems lies with the batteries that power the vehicle. “The lithium-ion used in modern electric cars are not like the old lead-acid batteries of the past. They are more powerful and, when damaged, the fluid inside can leak out, creating a short on the circuit boards that are used to control the batteries. The fluid dries and crystallizes, creating a short, sometimes weeks after the damage to the battery occurred.”
This results in spontaneous fires, such as happened in a Volt three weeks after a crash test at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration...
...The General Motors Service Technical College provides technical materials to first responders around the country. Just this week, their publication on the Volt was cited by a Baltimore County, Maryland Fire Service Special Interest Bulletin. After a bizarre paragraph extolling the virtues of the car itself, the bulletin gets down to the business of informing fire fighters of how to not kill themselves trying to rescue a crash victim...
“There is a yellow First Responder cable “cut” tag wrapped around the low volt positive battery cable behind the fuse panel door, located on the left side of the rear compartment (see diagram on next page). This cable should be cut first to disable the vehicle safely before beginning any extrication. The cable should be cut on both sides of the label to ensure the cut cable ends do not inadvertently touch and re-energize the vehicle.”
General Motors also warns that “cutting these cables can result in serious injury or death.”
Hence the need for spending $4.4 million in taxpayer money to train firefighters across the country to protect themselves from a car that the government paid people $7,500 per unit to purchase...
I challenge any of you liberals our there to tell me one thing this president has done to advance free enterprise and individual liberty. In fact, I've got five (5) shiny 1 oz. U.S. Silver Eagles (retail value about $160) to the first drone liberal to give me one documented Obama achievement in strengthening the private sector. I won't hold my breath.
Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.
SOURCE: Director Blue
Everything the Obama administration touches turns to crap: it has hollowed out the military, de-funded NASA, raided the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for purely political reasons, devastated the health care system, and wasted billions on crony green investments. Exhibit A: the disastrous Chevy Volt:
Last week, the Obama Administration sought to increase the Chevrolet Volt purchaser tax credit from $7,500 to $10,000.
All this for a car so dangerous to first responders that the Department of Energy allocated $4.4 million dollars for programs to prevent fire fighters from electrocuting themselves while trying to rescue crash victims.
This results in spontaneous fires, such as happened in a Volt three weeks after a crash test at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration...
...The General Motors Service Technical College provides technical materials to first responders around the country. Just this week, their publication on the Volt was cited by a Baltimore County, Maryland Fire Service Special Interest Bulletin. After a bizarre paragraph extolling the virtues of the car itself, the bulletin gets down to the business of informing fire fighters of how to not kill themselves trying to rescue a crash victim...
“There is a yellow First Responder cable “cut” tag wrapped around the low volt positive battery cable behind the fuse panel door, located on the left side of the rear compartment (see diagram on next page). This cable should be cut first to disable the vehicle safely before beginning any extrication. The cable should be cut on both sides of the label to ensure the cut cable ends do not inadvertently touch and re-energize the vehicle.”
General Motors also warns that “cutting these cables can result in serious injury or death.”
Hence the need for spending $4.4 million in taxpayer money to train firefighters across the country to protect themselves from a car that the government paid people $7,500 per unit to purchase...
I challenge any of you liberals our there to tell me one thing this president has done to advance free enterprise and individual liberty. In fact, I've got five (5) shiny 1 oz. U.S. Silver Eagles (retail value about $160) to the first drone liberal to give me one documented Obama achievement in strengthening the private sector. I won't hold my breath.
Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.
SOURCE: Director Blue
Friday, March 16, 2012
Obamacare drives up health care costs for everyone
Sally C. Pipes
Friday, March 16, 2012
SFGate:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently released their annual report on health care spending in America. And surprise, surprise - spending continues to grow. It amounted to 17.9 percent of the nation's gross domestic product in 2010, or $2.6 trillion. But the annual rate of growth was lower than it had been most of the past 50 years - just 3.9 percent.
Naturally, the Obama administration took credit for this sliver of good news. "Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we're keeping costs down and making health care more affordable," wrote Nancy-Ann DeParle, deputy chief of staff for policy, on the official White House Blog.
But an in-depth look at that report reveals that Obamacare has done little thus far to slow the growth of American health spending. In fact, the federal health care reform effort is already increasing the share of spending shouldered by taxpayers. Worse yet, the implementation of Obamacare has barely begun.
As the law's various provisions begin to take effect, the pace of spending will only accelerate. The report was clear about what's restraining health care spending - and it's not Obamacare. As the report put it, the "impact of the recent recession continued to affect the purchasers, providers and sponsors of health care." The agency's researchers went on to cite "[p]ersistently high unemployment, continued loss of private health insurance coverage, and increased cost sharing" as reasons that "led some people to forgo care or seek less costly alternatives." In other words, it's the economy, stupid.
Obamacare may have actually increased national health spending. According to the centers' report, "the projected net effect of (Obamacare's) provisions on health spending in 2010 was approximately 0.2 percentage point." That's not much of an increase - but it's an increase nonetheless. Senate Republicans have pointed out that the centers' latest report is consistent with its April 2010 prediction that Obamacare would increase national health spending by $311 billion in the next decade.
And the government has gotten a head start on all that new spending. Federal health care disbursements increased from $530 billion in 2007 to $743 billion in 2010 - a jump of 40 percent. Medicare spending grew at a 5 percent clip, while Medicaid spending rose 7.2 percent, more slowly than the previous year. As a percentage of total health care spending, federal, state and local government expenditures increased from 41 percent in 2007 to 45 percent in 2010.
The president's health care law will only exacerbate these long-term trends once it goes fully into effect. In 2014, the centers project that health spending will rise 8.3 percent, thanks in large part to Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid to bring health care to 30 million more Americans and its new subsidies for Americans to purchase health insurance in the state-based exchanges. And by 2020, officials estimate that government will account for half of American health care expenditures.
But what about private health insurance? While campaigning for the White House, President Obama repeatedly pledged that his health reform package would lower the average family's annual premiums $2,500 by the end of his first term. He's got about a year to fulfill his promise - and it doesn't look as if he'll succeed. The report pegged the growth in spending for health insurance premiums at 2.4 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, survey data from the Kaiser Family Foundation reveal that the average annual premium for family coverage hit $15,073 in 2011, a 9 percent increase over 2010. And according to a survey conducted by the Mercer consultancy, employers expect the cost of health benefits to rise by 5 percent this year.
With all these data in the mix, it's hard to see how the White House could crow about "keeping costs down and making health care more affordable." Instead, Obamacare is driving up health costs for Americans today - and saddling the next generation with trillions of dollars in new health care liabilities.
Sally C. Pipes is president and CEO at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is "The Pipes Plan: The Top Ten Ways to Dismantle and Replace Obamacare," (Regnery 2012).
This article appeared on page A - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, March 16, 2012
SFGate:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently released their annual report on health care spending in America. And surprise, surprise - spending continues to grow. It amounted to 17.9 percent of the nation's gross domestic product in 2010, or $2.6 trillion. But the annual rate of growth was lower than it had been most of the past 50 years - just 3.9 percent.
Naturally, the Obama administration took credit for this sliver of good news. "Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we're keeping costs down and making health care more affordable," wrote Nancy-Ann DeParle, deputy chief of staff for policy, on the official White House Blog.
But an in-depth look at that report reveals that Obamacare has done little thus far to slow the growth of American health spending. In fact, the federal health care reform effort is already increasing the share of spending shouldered by taxpayers. Worse yet, the implementation of Obamacare has barely begun.
As the law's various provisions begin to take effect, the pace of spending will only accelerate. The report was clear about what's restraining health care spending - and it's not Obamacare. As the report put it, the "impact of the recent recession continued to affect the purchasers, providers and sponsors of health care." The agency's researchers went on to cite "[p]ersistently high unemployment, continued loss of private health insurance coverage, and increased cost sharing" as reasons that "led some people to forgo care or seek less costly alternatives." In other words, it's the economy, stupid.
Obamacare may have actually increased national health spending. According to the centers' report, "the projected net effect of (Obamacare's) provisions on health spending in 2010 was approximately 0.2 percentage point." That's not much of an increase - but it's an increase nonetheless. Senate Republicans have pointed out that the centers' latest report is consistent with its April 2010 prediction that Obamacare would increase national health spending by $311 billion in the next decade.
And the government has gotten a head start on all that new spending. Federal health care disbursements increased from $530 billion in 2007 to $743 billion in 2010 - a jump of 40 percent. Medicare spending grew at a 5 percent clip, while Medicaid spending rose 7.2 percent, more slowly than the previous year. As a percentage of total health care spending, federal, state and local government expenditures increased from 41 percent in 2007 to 45 percent in 2010.
The president's health care law will only exacerbate these long-term trends once it goes fully into effect. In 2014, the centers project that health spending will rise 8.3 percent, thanks in large part to Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid to bring health care to 30 million more Americans and its new subsidies for Americans to purchase health insurance in the state-based exchanges. And by 2020, officials estimate that government will account for half of American health care expenditures.
But what about private health insurance? While campaigning for the White House, President Obama repeatedly pledged that his health reform package would lower the average family's annual premiums $2,500 by the end of his first term. He's got about a year to fulfill his promise - and it doesn't look as if he'll succeed. The report pegged the growth in spending for health insurance premiums at 2.4 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, survey data from the Kaiser Family Foundation reveal that the average annual premium for family coverage hit $15,073 in 2011, a 9 percent increase over 2010. And according to a survey conducted by the Mercer consultancy, employers expect the cost of health benefits to rise by 5 percent this year.
With all these data in the mix, it's hard to see how the White House could crow about "keeping costs down and making health care more affordable." Instead, Obamacare is driving up health costs for Americans today - and saddling the next generation with trillions of dollars in new health care liabilities.
Sally C. Pipes is president and CEO at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is "The Pipes Plan: The Top Ten Ways to Dismantle and Replace Obamacare," (Regnery 2012).
This article appeared on page A - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Obama Discovers a Problem With Marxism
Obama Discovers a Problem With Marxism
Posted by Ben Shapiro
Mar 16th, 2012
In an interview with WFTV, President Obama suddenly discovered what it is that has troubled Americans about Marxism for well over a century. The crucial exchange occurred when Obama was asked about gas prices. “Well, as long as gas prices are going up, people are going to feel like I’m not doing enough, and I understand that,” Obama observed. “Ultimately, though, there’s no silver bullet.”
Then came the critical question. “Your opponents say they can get gas to the $2.50 range,” said the interviewer. “What do you think Americans should be OK with?” Obama, avoiding the question, shrugged, “First of all, nobody believes that. They know that’s just politics. Anybody who says we can get gas down to two bucks a gallon just isn’t telling the truth.”
But President Obama didn’t answer the question.
The real question is why he couldn’t. After all, this is a president who has stated over and over that prices and wages should be set on the basis of fairness. He tried to claw back Wall Street bonuses because investment bankers were making more than they “deserved” to make; he says the rich should pay their “fair share.”
The problem, of course, is that nobody knows what is fair—for wages, bonuses, or gas prices. Is it really fair for some people to pay a far lower percentage of their income to the federal government than others? Is it fair that some people buy ground chuck and others New York strip?
That he struggled to say how much Americans should have to pay for gas should not have surprised the president. Economists have struggled for centuries to determine what people deserve to pay for precious commodities. . Invariably, they insist on more control of the economy, stating that the blind hand of the market simply cannot produce a fair and just system. That’s why Thomas Edison wrote, “What is wanted is some person familiar with the selling and buying, the technical as well as the financial end of all industries, to devise some generic scheme that business can work on.”
Top-down technocrats fail to understand how an undirected system can work so well. That’s because they don’t understand freedom. How can hundreds of millions of people, all pursuing their self-interest, create more wealth than hundreds of millions of people all directed toward a single end? How can fairness by achieved by seeming randomness rather than by hierarchical control of the right-minded?
The answer is deceptively simple: all those people pursuing self interest are pursuing the same end. That end is a better standard of living. If you work hard and bargain for the lowest price, you will enjoy a better standard of living. If everyone around you does it, they will too. If, however, you have a massive government standing over you, telling you who should win and who should lose, the system of incentives stops working. You no longer have to work hard to make a living if the government provides you one by taking from a third party and giving you a handout; you no longer have to bargain for lower prices if the government sets a ceiling or a floor on prices. Now, instead of everyone working for the same personal goal, everyone relies on the government to tell them what is fair. And when government decides what is fair, nothing ever is.
Now, this isn’t to say that Obama will recognize the folly of his Marxist philosophy. He won’t. He’ll ignore the internal contradiction here. He’ll maintain that while nobody can decide the fair price of gas at the pump, he can certainly decide the fair profit margin for gas companies. He’ll determine that certain executives take less pay for the good of the whole, while determining that certain teachers, police officers, firefighters, and union members make more money and are therefore able to buy more gasoline at whatever the pump price.
Posted by Ben Shapiro
Mar 16th, 2012
Then came the critical question. “Your opponents say they can get gas to the $2.50 range,” said the interviewer. “What do you think Americans should be OK with?” Obama, avoiding the question, shrugged, “First of all, nobody believes that. They know that’s just politics. Anybody who says we can get gas down to two bucks a gallon just isn’t telling the truth.”
But President Obama didn’t answer the question.
The real question is why he couldn’t. After all, this is a president who has stated over and over that prices and wages should be set on the basis of fairness. He tried to claw back Wall Street bonuses because investment bankers were making more than they “deserved” to make; he says the rich should pay their “fair share.”
The problem, of course, is that nobody knows what is fair—for wages, bonuses, or gas prices. Is it really fair for some people to pay a far lower percentage of their income to the federal government than others? Is it fair that some people buy ground chuck and others New York strip?
That he struggled to say how much Americans should have to pay for gas should not have surprised the president. Economists have struggled for centuries to determine what people deserve to pay for precious commodities. . Invariably, they insist on more control of the economy, stating that the blind hand of the market simply cannot produce a fair and just system. That’s why Thomas Edison wrote, “What is wanted is some person familiar with the selling and buying, the technical as well as the financial end of all industries, to devise some generic scheme that business can work on.”
Top-down technocrats fail to understand how an undirected system can work so well. That’s because they don’t understand freedom. How can hundreds of millions of people, all pursuing their self-interest, create more wealth than hundreds of millions of people all directed toward a single end? How can fairness by achieved by seeming randomness rather than by hierarchical control of the right-minded?
The answer is deceptively simple: all those people pursuing self interest are pursuing the same end. That end is a better standard of living. If you work hard and bargain for the lowest price, you will enjoy a better standard of living. If everyone around you does it, they will too. If, however, you have a massive government standing over you, telling you who should win and who should lose, the system of incentives stops working. You no longer have to work hard to make a living if the government provides you one by taking from a third party and giving you a handout; you no longer have to bargain for lower prices if the government sets a ceiling or a floor on prices. Now, instead of everyone working for the same personal goal, everyone relies on the government to tell them what is fair. And when government decides what is fair, nothing ever is.
Now, this isn’t to say that Obama will recognize the folly of his Marxist philosophy. He won’t. He’ll ignore the internal contradiction here. He’ll maintain that while nobody can decide the fair price of gas at the pump, he can certainly decide the fair profit margin for gas companies. He’ll determine that certain executives take less pay for the good of the whole, while determining that certain teachers, police officers, firefighters, and union members make more money and are therefore able to buy more gasoline at whatever the pump price.
Bill to bar employer bias against gun owners gets OK from Missouri House
BY ELIZABETH CRISP
March 15, 2012
JEFFERSON CITY • Many Missouri lawmakers want to protect gun owners from any threat of workplace discrimination, just as state residents currently are protected for race, religion and gender.
Legislation that would make it illegal for employers to discriminate against people because they own or use guns overwhelmingly passed the Missouri House before lawmakers left for spring break.
For bill sponsor Wanda Brown, a Republican from Lincoln, the goal is simple: "We would never consider giving up our First Amendment (free speech) rights for a job. Why should we give up our Second Amendment rights?"
The National Rifle Association is pushing similar gun owner discrimination bills in other states, including Alabama and Tennessee, where the proposal has put lawmakers in a crossfire between gun activists and some of the state's largest employers. Some of the state's largest corporations, including FedEx, Bridgestone and Volkswagen, testified against the legislation and companion gun bills earlier this month.
They argued that it could make companies more vulnerable to discrimination lawsuits and could hurt the state's job creation efforts.
In Missouri, some lawmakers have questioned whether the legislation is needed. No one has provided examples of an employee facing discrimination over gun ownership.
"Does a person carrying a gun really qualify as a class that needs to be protected against discrimination in housing or employment?" said Rep. Mary Nichols, D-Maryland Heights.
Missouri currently prohibits discrimination based on "race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, disability or age."
Some lawmakers said it's more important to add protections based on sexual orientation than gun ownership.
"The Missouri House thinks it's more important to protect the right to own a gun than take on real discrimination," said Rep. Mike Colona, a Democrat from St. Louis who is gay. "I could get fired tomorrow because of the person I've spent the past 18 years of my life with."
Brown said she has no examples of employer discrimination against gun owners in Missouri, but she relayed the story of an owner of a Kansas City meatpacking plant. She said the man, whom Brown would not identify, was told that U.S. Department of Agriculture employees would not come back to his plant for inspections if he continued to carry his gun.
Beyond that, Brown said President Barack Obama's decision in 2008 to question potential hires for high-ranking positions in his administration about guns also concerned her. Question 59 on the president's survey read: "Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage."
The question prompted the NRA to speculate that Obama wanted to exclude gun owners from his administration. The Obama camp said the question was meant to ensure proper registration and wasn't meant to bar gun owners from a job.
"There are people who think you shouldn't have the option to own a firearm," Brown said.
Brown says she's not trying to establish new rights for gun owners. She said her goal is to reaffirm rights provided under the Second Amendment, and other lawmakers agree.
"It really disgusts me to hear people say we are carving out a protected class," said Rep. Jay Hougton, R-Martinsburg, a supporter of the bill. "Gun owners are spread across all classes in society."
The NRA did not respond to a request for comment. The group has said the effort will "protect law-abiding gun owners from anti-gun policies by employers across the state, including forced firearm registration, random vehicle firearm searches and 'gun zone' parking lots for gun owning employees."
Brown said she doesn't know what the bill's chances will be in the Senate. It passed the House on a vote of 115-36 — mainly along party lines.
Companion legislation that would allow workers to keep their guns in their cars on company property has not yet come up for a vote on the House floor.
Fred Heberer, president of the Second Amendment Coalition of Missouri, said he hopes lawmakers will approve that companion bill.
"There's no way to predict between the time you leave your home and the time you leave work whether you will need to defend yourself," he said.
If an employer does not allow guns to be kept in locked cars, gun owners have to leave their guns at home all day, he said.
Similar bills also have been part of the NRA's push in Alabama and Tennessee.
Sixteen states have adopted similar laws, starting with Oklahoma, where the measure was pushed after a company fired a dozen longtime employees who had guns in their cars. According to published reports, Weyerhaeuser Co. sent gun-sniffing dogs into the parking lot of its paper mill in Valliant. Several companies opposed the law there, but it eventually was upheld in court.
In Missouri, the bill is part of a shift toward more gun-friendly laws in the state.
Missouri voters rejected a 1999 attempt to create a concealed carry permit, but the state Legislature undid the vote four years later — paving the way for concealed firearms.
In 2010, lawmakers broadened the state's "castle doctrine," which allows Missouri residents to use deadly force on intruders. The law now applies to any property invasion — not just homes.
The firearm discrimination bill is HB1621. The guns-in-cars bill is HB1326.
March 15, 2012
JEFFERSON CITY • Many Missouri lawmakers want to protect gun owners from any threat of workplace discrimination, just as state residents currently are protected for race, religion and gender.
Legislation that would make it illegal for employers to discriminate against people because they own or use guns overwhelmingly passed the Missouri House before lawmakers left for spring break.
For bill sponsor Wanda Brown, a Republican from Lincoln, the goal is simple: "We would never consider giving up our First Amendment (free speech) rights for a job. Why should we give up our Second Amendment rights?"
The National Rifle Association is pushing similar gun owner discrimination bills in other states, including Alabama and Tennessee, where the proposal has put lawmakers in a crossfire between gun activists and some of the state's largest employers. Some of the state's largest corporations, including FedEx, Bridgestone and Volkswagen, testified against the legislation and companion gun bills earlier this month.
They argued that it could make companies more vulnerable to discrimination lawsuits and could hurt the state's job creation efforts.
In Missouri, some lawmakers have questioned whether the legislation is needed. No one has provided examples of an employee facing discrimination over gun ownership.
"Does a person carrying a gun really qualify as a class that needs to be protected against discrimination in housing or employment?" said Rep. Mary Nichols, D-Maryland Heights.
Missouri currently prohibits discrimination based on "race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, disability or age."
Some lawmakers said it's more important to add protections based on sexual orientation than gun ownership.
"The Missouri House thinks it's more important to protect the right to own a gun than take on real discrimination," said Rep. Mike Colona, a Democrat from St. Louis who is gay. "I could get fired tomorrow because of the person I've spent the past 18 years of my life with."
Brown said she has no examples of employer discrimination against gun owners in Missouri, but she relayed the story of an owner of a Kansas City meatpacking plant. She said the man, whom Brown would not identify, was told that U.S. Department of Agriculture employees would not come back to his plant for inspections if he continued to carry his gun.
Beyond that, Brown said President Barack Obama's decision in 2008 to question potential hires for high-ranking positions in his administration about guns also concerned her. Question 59 on the president's survey read: "Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage."
The question prompted the NRA to speculate that Obama wanted to exclude gun owners from his administration. The Obama camp said the question was meant to ensure proper registration and wasn't meant to bar gun owners from a job.
"There are people who think you shouldn't have the option to own a firearm," Brown said.
Brown says she's not trying to establish new rights for gun owners. She said her goal is to reaffirm rights provided under the Second Amendment, and other lawmakers agree.
"It really disgusts me to hear people say we are carving out a protected class," said Rep. Jay Hougton, R-Martinsburg, a supporter of the bill. "Gun owners are spread across all classes in society."
The NRA did not respond to a request for comment. The group has said the effort will "protect law-abiding gun owners from anti-gun policies by employers across the state, including forced firearm registration, random vehicle firearm searches and 'gun zone' parking lots for gun owning employees."
Brown said she doesn't know what the bill's chances will be in the Senate. It passed the House on a vote of 115-36 — mainly along party lines.
Companion legislation that would allow workers to keep their guns in their cars on company property has not yet come up for a vote on the House floor.
Fred Heberer, president of the Second Amendment Coalition of Missouri, said he hopes lawmakers will approve that companion bill.
"There's no way to predict between the time you leave your home and the time you leave work whether you will need to defend yourself," he said.
If an employer does not allow guns to be kept in locked cars, gun owners have to leave their guns at home all day, he said.
Similar bills also have been part of the NRA's push in Alabama and Tennessee.
Sixteen states have adopted similar laws, starting with Oklahoma, where the measure was pushed after a company fired a dozen longtime employees who had guns in their cars. According to published reports, Weyerhaeuser Co. sent gun-sniffing dogs into the parking lot of its paper mill in Valliant. Several companies opposed the law there, but it eventually was upheld in court.
In Missouri, the bill is part of a shift toward more gun-friendly laws in the state.
Missouri voters rejected a 1999 attempt to create a concealed carry permit, but the state Legislature undid the vote four years later — paving the way for concealed firearms.
In 2010, lawmakers broadened the state's "castle doctrine," which allows Missouri residents to use deadly force on intruders. The law now applies to any property invasion — not just homes.
The firearm discrimination bill is HB1621. The guns-in-cars bill is HB1326.
Can the Secret Service Tell You To Shut Up?
Judge Andrew Napolitano
Mar 15, 2012
TownHall.Com
The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government from infringing upon the freedom of speech, the freedom of association and the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Speech is language and other forms of expression; and association and petition connote physical presence in reasonable proximity to those of like mind and to government officials, so as to make your opinions known to them.
The Declaration of Independence recognizes all three freedoms as stemming from our humanity. So, what happens if you can speak freely, but the government officials at whom your speech is aimed refuse to hear you? And what happens if your right to associate and to petition the government is confined to areas where those of like mind and the government are not present? This is coming to a street corner near you.
Certain rights, like thought and privacy and travel, can be exercised on their own. You don't need the government to cooperate with you; you just need to be left alone. Other rights, like those intended to influence the political process, require that the government not resist your exercise of them. Remember the old one-liner from Philosophy 101: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it make any noise? Here's the contemporary version of that: If you can criticize the government, but it refuses to hear you, does your exercise of the freedom of speech have any value?
When the Framers of the Constitution wrote the First Amendment, they lived in a society in which anyone could walk up to George Washington or John Adams or Thomas Jefferson on a public street and say directly to them whatever one wished. They never dreamed of a regal-like force of armed agents keeping public officials away from the public, as we have today. And they never imagined that it could be a felony for anyone to congregate in public within earshot or eyesight of certain government officials. And yet, today in America, it is.
Last week, President Obama signed into law the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. This law permits Secret Service agents to designate any place they wish as a place where free speech, association and petition of the government are prohibited. And it permits the Secret Service to make these determinations based on the content of speech.
Thus, federal agents whose work is to protect public officials and their friends may prohibit the speech and the gatherings of folks who disagree with those officials or permit the speech and the gatherings of those who would praise them, even though the First Amendment condemns content-based speech discrimination by the government. The new law also provides that anyone who gathers in a "restricted" area may be prosecuted. And because the statute does not require the government to prove intent, a person accidentally in a restricted area can be charged and prosecuted, as well.
Permitting people to express publicly their opinions to the president only at a time and in a place and manner such that he cannot hear them violates the First Amendment because it guarantees the right to useful speech; and unheard political speech is politically useless. The same may be said of the rights to associate and to petition. If peaceful public assembly and public expression of political demands on the government can be restricted to places where government officials cannot be confronted, then those rights, too, have been neutered.
Political speech is in the highest category of protected speech. This is not about drowning out the president in the Oval Office. This is about letting him know what we think of his work when he leaves the White House. This is speech intended to influence the political process.
This abominable legislation enjoyed overwhelming support from both political parties in Congress because the establishment loves power, fears dissent and hates inconvenience, and it doesn't give a damn about the Constitution. It passed the Senate by unanimous consent, and only three members of the House voted against it. And the president signed it in secret. It is more typical of contemporary China than America. It is more George III than George Washington.
The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to assure open, wide, robust, uninhibited political debate, debate that can be seen and heard by those it seeks to challenge and influence, whether it is convenient for them or not. Anything short of that turns the First Amendment into a mirage.
Mar 15, 2012
TownHall.Com
The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government from infringing upon the freedom of speech, the freedom of association and the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Speech is language and other forms of expression; and association and petition connote physical presence in reasonable proximity to those of like mind and to government officials, so as to make your opinions known to them.
The Declaration of Independence recognizes all three freedoms as stemming from our humanity. So, what happens if you can speak freely, but the government officials at whom your speech is aimed refuse to hear you? And what happens if your right to associate and to petition the government is confined to areas where those of like mind and the government are not present? This is coming to a street corner near you.
Certain rights, like thought and privacy and travel, can be exercised on their own. You don't need the government to cooperate with you; you just need to be left alone. Other rights, like those intended to influence the political process, require that the government not resist your exercise of them. Remember the old one-liner from Philosophy 101: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it make any noise? Here's the contemporary version of that: If you can criticize the government, but it refuses to hear you, does your exercise of the freedom of speech have any value?
When the Framers of the Constitution wrote the First Amendment, they lived in a society in which anyone could walk up to George Washington or John Adams or Thomas Jefferson on a public street and say directly to them whatever one wished. They never dreamed of a regal-like force of armed agents keeping public officials away from the public, as we have today. And they never imagined that it could be a felony for anyone to congregate in public within earshot or eyesight of certain government officials. And yet, today in America, it is.
Last week, President Obama signed into law the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. This law permits Secret Service agents to designate any place they wish as a place where free speech, association and petition of the government are prohibited. And it permits the Secret Service to make these determinations based on the content of speech.
Thus, federal agents whose work is to protect public officials and their friends may prohibit the speech and the gatherings of folks who disagree with those officials or permit the speech and the gatherings of those who would praise them, even though the First Amendment condemns content-based speech discrimination by the government. The new law also provides that anyone who gathers in a "restricted" area may be prosecuted. And because the statute does not require the government to prove intent, a person accidentally in a restricted area can be charged and prosecuted, as well.
Permitting people to express publicly their opinions to the president only at a time and in a place and manner such that he cannot hear them violates the First Amendment because it guarantees the right to useful speech; and unheard political speech is politically useless. The same may be said of the rights to associate and to petition. If peaceful public assembly and public expression of political demands on the government can be restricted to places where government officials cannot be confronted, then those rights, too, have been neutered.
Political speech is in the highest category of protected speech. This is not about drowning out the president in the Oval Office. This is about letting him know what we think of his work when he leaves the White House. This is speech intended to influence the political process.
This abominable legislation enjoyed overwhelming support from both political parties in Congress because the establishment loves power, fears dissent and hates inconvenience, and it doesn't give a damn about the Constitution. It passed the Senate by unanimous consent, and only three members of the House voted against it. And the president signed it in secret. It is more typical of contemporary China than America. It is more George III than George Washington.
The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to assure open, wide, robust, uninhibited political debate, debate that can be seen and heard by those it seeks to challenge and influence, whether it is convenient for them or not. Anything short of that turns the First Amendment into a mirage.
Your 15 Question Quiz on Whether to Vote for Obama in 2012
John Hawkins
Mar 16, 2012
TownHall:
Should you vote for Barack Obama or the Republican candidate in 2012? Here's a little quiz to help you decide!
1) The latest report from the CBO shows that the one decade cost estimate for Obamacare has almost doubled from 900 billion to 1.76 billion dollars, it will add 700 billion dollars to the deficit over its first 10 years, 3-5 million people will lose their health care, and 30 million people still won't have health coverage -- and history has shown that CBO projections of this sort almost always turn out to be optimistic. So, do you want the American health care system to be decimated by Barack Obama?
2) Do you want see gas prices rise as fast as possible while Barack Obama slow walks offshore drilling, blocks the Keystone Pipeline, and opposes ANWR?
3) Obama's stimulus may have been the single most wasteful expenditure in human history. It cost more than the "Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, and putting a man on the moon" combined and yet, numerous critics correctly predicted that it wouldn't work. Do you want more stimulus bills like that one in the future?
4) Because of Barack Obama's policies, we've had 37 months in a row of above 8% unemployment. That's the longest streak since the Great Depression</b>. Perhaps worse yet, there are 1.7 million fewer jobs today than there were when Obama took office. Do you want to continue to see this many of your fellow Americans unemployed because of Barack Obama's incompetence?
5) The Catholic Church opposes birth control and abortion. Do you think it's okay for the Obama Administration to violate its First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion by forcing it to give out birth control for procreation? Should Catholics have to help abort babies, even though the Catholic Church views it as murder, despite the fact that every last Catholic bishop in the United States has condemned that decision?
6) America lost its AAA credit rating under Obama, we had the highest monthly deficit in American history just last month, and the projected 10 year deficit under Obama is more than 13 trillion dollars. Do you want to see this kind of spending continue?
7) Do you approve of an American President servilely bowing to foreign leaders?
8) Obama's blundering diplomacy in Pakistan and Afghanistan has almost hopelessly fouled the war effort there. After all the blood and treasure we've spent in Afghanistan, do you want to see America lose to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda because Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing?
9) Whether you're rich, poor, or the middle class, one thing you can be sure of is that your taxes will go up if Barack Obama is reelected? Do you want your taxes to go up?
10) Every Obama promise comes with an expiration date and you literally can't take him at his word on anything. Do you like politicians to treat you like you're stupid? Do you like being lied to by politicians?
11) Do you think it's okay for Barack Obama's campaign contributors at Solyndra to receive a 535 million dollar government loan, approved by one of Obama’s fundraisers, even though they knew the company was in trouble and there was an excellent chance they wouldn't be able to pay back the loan?
12) In a sop to the unions that supported Barack Obama, "he gave them majority control of Chrysler, the taxpayers lost 14 billion dollars on General Motors, and General Motors received a special 45 billion dollar tax break." Do you think it's okay for Barack Obama to waste 59 billion dollars to help his political allies?
13) Do you think that the molestation of 95 year old cancer patients, sexual assaults, and the bad touching of small children by Obama's TSA should continue even though it does nothing of significance to prevent terrorist attacks?
14) Barack Obama supported TARP and expanded it when he became President. Do you like seeing well-connected big businesses that make lots of money when times are good get government bailouts to cover their losses when times are bad?
15) Obama's Department of Justice helped Mexican criminals get their hands on guns that were used to kill hundreds of Mexicans and an American. Nobody has been fired, nobody has been prosecuted, and the DOJ isn't cooperating with a congressional investigation into a scandal that's as serious as Watergate. Do you think it's all right for the Obama Administration to help provide guns to Mexican cartels without accountability?
That's the quiz! Count up how many "yes" answers you have and see how you scored!
0-5: Congratulations! You're sane!
6-10: Is this David Frum, David Brooks, or Meghan McCain?
11-15: Excellent news, Comrade! You have done well! We may have a spot for you as a guest on the Chris Matthews show next week!
Mar 16, 2012
TownHall:
Should you vote for Barack Obama or the Republican candidate in 2012? Here's a little quiz to help you decide!
1) The latest report from the CBO shows that the one decade cost estimate for Obamacare has almost doubled from 900 billion to 1.76 billion dollars, it will add 700 billion dollars to the deficit over its first 10 years, 3-5 million people will lose their health care, and 30 million people still won't have health coverage -- and history has shown that CBO projections of this sort almost always turn out to be optimistic. So, do you want the American health care system to be decimated by Barack Obama?
2) Do you want see gas prices rise as fast as possible while Barack Obama slow walks offshore drilling, blocks the Keystone Pipeline, and opposes ANWR?
3) Obama's stimulus may have been the single most wasteful expenditure in human history. It cost more than the "Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, and putting a man on the moon" combined and yet, numerous critics correctly predicted that it wouldn't work. Do you want more stimulus bills like that one in the future?
4) Because of Barack Obama's policies, we've had 37 months in a row of above 8% unemployment. That's the longest streak since the Great Depression</b>. Perhaps worse yet, there are 1.7 million fewer jobs today than there were when Obama took office. Do you want to continue to see this many of your fellow Americans unemployed because of Barack Obama's incompetence?
5) The Catholic Church opposes birth control and abortion. Do you think it's okay for the Obama Administration to violate its First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion by forcing it to give out birth control for procreation? Should Catholics have to help abort babies, even though the Catholic Church views it as murder, despite the fact that every last Catholic bishop in the United States has condemned that decision?
6) America lost its AAA credit rating under Obama, we had the highest monthly deficit in American history just last month, and the projected 10 year deficit under Obama is more than 13 trillion dollars. Do you want to see this kind of spending continue?
7) Do you approve of an American President servilely bowing to foreign leaders?
8) Obama's blundering diplomacy in Pakistan and Afghanistan has almost hopelessly fouled the war effort there. After all the blood and treasure we've spent in Afghanistan, do you want to see America lose to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda because Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing?
9) Whether you're rich, poor, or the middle class, one thing you can be sure of is that your taxes will go up if Barack Obama is reelected? Do you want your taxes to go up?
10) Every Obama promise comes with an expiration date and you literally can't take him at his word on anything. Do you like politicians to treat you like you're stupid? Do you like being lied to by politicians?
11) Do you think it's okay for Barack Obama's campaign contributors at Solyndra to receive a 535 million dollar government loan, approved by one of Obama’s fundraisers, even though they knew the company was in trouble and there was an excellent chance they wouldn't be able to pay back the loan?
12) In a sop to the unions that supported Barack Obama, "he gave them majority control of Chrysler, the taxpayers lost 14 billion dollars on General Motors, and General Motors received a special 45 billion dollar tax break." Do you think it's okay for Barack Obama to waste 59 billion dollars to help his political allies?
13) Do you think that the molestation of 95 year old cancer patients, sexual assaults, and the bad touching of small children by Obama's TSA should continue even though it does nothing of significance to prevent terrorist attacks?
14) Barack Obama supported TARP and expanded it when he became President. Do you like seeing well-connected big businesses that make lots of money when times are good get government bailouts to cover their losses when times are bad?
15) Obama's Department of Justice helped Mexican criminals get their hands on guns that were used to kill hundreds of Mexicans and an American. Nobody has been fired, nobody has been prosecuted, and the DOJ isn't cooperating with a congressional investigation into a scandal that's as serious as Watergate. Do you think it's all right for the Obama Administration to help provide guns to Mexican cartels without accountability?
That's the quiz! Count up how many "yes" answers you have and see how you scored!
0-5: Congratulations! You're sane!
6-10: Is this David Frum, David Brooks, or Meghan McCain?
11-15: Excellent news, Comrade! You have done well! We may have a spot for you as a guest on the Chris Matthews show next week!
The Vetting: Obama Teaches Constitutional Law -- Part I
by Ben Shapiro
March 14, 2012
BREITBART:
Let’s take a trip via the wayback machine to the hallowed classrooms of the University of Chicago Law School. The year is 1996, and a young lecturer named Barack Obama is teaching constitutional law to a group of students. His first final exam question is about whether homosexuals can be barred from receiving state health care coverage for their infertility treatments.
The question deals with a hypothetical lesbian couple that wants to have a baby. Their state prevents health providers from providing infertility treatments for unwed couples; the couple’s state-provided healthcare therefore refuses them coverage for such procedures
Obama then presented an analysis of this question. That’s the way it works on law school constitutional law exams: you spot the issues, then offer an analysis of them. They never come down on one side or another. But they can give you important clues as to the way the student (or in this case, the lecturer) thinks.
Instead of wading through the legal thicket presented by any law school exam, let’s analyze Lecturer Obama’s main take. He makes the following points:
“The fundamental right at stake … goes well beyond issues of bodily integrity, but instead involves the broader principle that the government cannot be in the business of deciding who should bear children and who should not – at least without offering up some pretty compelling reasons for doing so.” Obama even compares a state law banning infertility treatment for unwed couples to active sterilization.
In a particularly noteworthy comment, Obama writes: “the connection between restricting infertility services to married couples and ‘preserving the integrity of marriage’ is so tenuous that it cannot be considered a narrowly tailored means of serving that interest.” This is arguable at best – of course preventing unmarried couples from receiving infertility treatment would be closely related to upholding the notion of traditional marriage. But this Obama comment gives us a clue as to his real feelings about the institution of marriage: it has nothing to do with bearing and raising children.
Obama cannot help himself: in discussing whether “tradition” should play a role in restricting the so-called rights liberals so enjoy, Obama calls such arguments “troubling.”
Obama also gets in a slap at judicial originalists – judges who state that the original wording of the constitution must govern – and instead embraces a philosophy called legal realism. Legal realism holds that all judicial decisions are essentially excuses for judges to act out their politics. That’s true for leftists, who write their views into the constitution; it’s not true for conservatives, who abide by the constitution. But that’s not what Obama thinks: “What is safe to say is that the views of particular justices on the desirability of rearing in children [sic] in homosexual households would play a big part in the decision.”
Here’s what we learn from this answer: Obama’s an extreme legal leftist. He thinks that banning infertility treatment for unwed couples is akin to sterilizing them. He thinks that there is no connection between childbearing and childrearing and the integral value of marriage. He thinks that arguments about “tradition” are troubling. And he believes that all judges rule according to their experiences – which goes a long way toward explaining his love for Sonia Sotomayor, whose “wise Latina” experiences may shape her judicial reasoning, according to her own admission.
More to come …
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