Funny Money: How Barack Obama
Bought the White House for $668 Million"
Barack Obama and his team smashed all fundraising records on the way to victory, raking in a staggering $668 million. But some of that all-important cash came from questionable — even make-believe — sources.
An intensive Newsmax investigation by investigative reporter Kenneth Timmerman — cited in a complaint by the Republican National Committee — uncovered numerous instances of questionable and even illegal donations.
The Newsmax special report uncovered evidence that that Obama campaign raked in millions by allowing donors to exceed legal limits. Millions more flowed into his coffers from unidentifiable sources, including prohibited financial support from foreign nationals.
And, astoundingly, nearly half of his total campaign contributions, over $300 million, came from donors under $200 — donor names Obama still won't release for public scrutiny.
Newsmax magazine's special report "Funny Money: How Barack Obama Bought the White House for $668 Million" offers an in-depth look at the questions surrounding the fundraising efforts that have forever changed American politics.
The new edition of Newsmax magazine is hitting newsstands across the country, including many Barnes & Noble, Hastings, Follett, B.Dalton, Books-A-Million, Joseph Beth and other major bookstores, as well as Publix, Meijer, Kroger's, Wegman's, and Harris Teeter supermarkets, Hudson News and Host airport newsstands, and Sam's Club stores.
You can also check out our FREE offer — the Emergency Radio — a $35 value and something every home must have. Go Here Now.
This exclusive Newsmax report explores:
How the Obama campaign encouraged obvious attempts to skirt the law
Why he really won: Obama's huge edge over John McCain in ad spending
The CIA expert who uncovered widespread evidence foreigners were donating millions to Obama
Where Obama's money came from — top contributors, professions and states
The "red flag" that alerted watchdog groups
How the Internet disrupted the way campaigns are funded
A confidential informant's shocking charge about Obama's Web site
Why Obama reneged on a financing vow
Demands for an FEC audit of the Obama campaign
How donations from "Mr. Good Will" raised suspicions in Washington
Libyan leader Gaddafi's troubling boast about how he helped Obama
The cost of Obama's win — $10 per vote
The big fundraising question Republicans will face in four years
An expert's claim: Obama "dynamited" our campaign finance framework
How Obama's "under $200" ruse stymied the FEC
Over-the-limit contributions — were they really returned?
How public financing hamstrung the McCain campaign
What it would cost to literally buy the White House
Doodad Pro, Bart Simpson, King Kong, Daffy Duck — all Obama contributors
The campaign contribution that actually carries a criminal penalty
How credit cards were used to thwart campaign finance rules
Karl Rove's surprising praise of the Obama effort
The Republican National Committee's complaint against the Obama campaign
Why gift cards can easily enable illegal donations
The call to "repair" the public financing system — from the left
And much more
Find out how you can get this report FREE — PLUS get an Emergency Radio worth almost $35 with our FREE offer. Go Here Now.
This edition of Newsmax magazine is not to be missed.
In addition to hard-hitting investigative reports and special commentary from Ben Stein, Dick Morris, John Stossel, Bill O'Reilly, Christopher Ruddy, David Limbaugh, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Ed Koch, James Hirsen and others, you get much more in Newsmax magazine, including:
Sarah Palin: The GOP's Next Ronald Reagan?
Companies are bringing jobs back to the U.S.
10 ways to prepare for a post-oil society
Saudi schoolbooks are filled with hate
Lawsuit looms over Marilyn Monroe's final photos
Markets in distress: Who are the winners and losers
Hollywood's love affair with marijuana
ROTC remains AWOL in the Ivy League
Your heart's cancer fighters
"American Taliban" mulls entertainment deals
If I were president: Chuck Norris
Where Warren Buffett puts
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Jeb Bush Signals He's Poised to Run
Jeb Bush Signals He's Poised to Run
Saturday, December 27, 2008 12:22 PM
By: Dave Eberhart Article Font Size
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has been busy testing the waters since Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., announced this month that he won’t seek reelection in 2010.
According to Politico, sources indicate the president’s brother hasn’t yet made a final decision, but Republican Party leaders are giving him a thumbs-up. And President Bush has already said his brother would make an “awesome” candidate and senator.
"Everything indicates that he's in," said David Johnson, a Republican strategist and the CEO of Strategic Vision. "You're not making calls and laying the ground work for fundraising unless you're clearing the field for your candidacy."
Even with his brother’s low, low popularity ratings, GOP leaders are of the mind that the Bush family name won’t be a hindrance if he decides to enter the race.
"Quite the opposite, actually," said one source close to Jeb Bush. "What he's found is that everyone is encouraging him to run. It's actually been a little overwhelming," according to the Politico report.
Indeed, the possibility of another Bush entering a crucial national race seemed to excite both politicians and veteran observers in Bush’s home state of Florida over the weekend. Until rising stars like Sarah Palin or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal are better tested, Bush could bring some much-needed gravitas to Republican circles, according to several observers.
Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida and an expert on Florida politics, said Bush's phone calls around the state are "a good sign" that he could be jumping in the race, something that she says is "music to the ears of Florida Republicans."
"Nothing could have come at a better time," MacManus told Politico. "Republicans here in Florida were so down after the election. The mere mention of Jeb's potential Senate run has put Republicans in a much more festive holiday mood."
In the Orlando Sentinel on Sunday, Fla. State Rep. Dean Cannon, who is slated to be the speaker of the state house in 2010, wasted no time in throwing his support to Bush.
“As Floridians ask who would best succeed Martinez in the Senate, I believe that the best and most logical successor is Jeb Bush — not because he has proven that he can win, but because he has proven that he can lead,” Cannon, of Winter Park, Florida, wrote.
”Bush led, not only on issues that were popular, but on issues that were so difficult and so full of political thorns that a generation of politicians before him chose to simply ignore them in the hopes that they would go away or resolve themselves.”
Although there was some speculation that a veteran business leader and former chief executive of his state might hesitate at being just one voice among 100 in the Senate, most seem to think that Bush’s sense of public service would outweigh his ego.
Mark Silva, a veteran Florida politics reporter, wrote in the Chicago Tribune’s Swamp politics blog: “For anyone who has known Jeb Bush a long time, the thought of him even thinking of the Senate came as a surprise — he is the chief executive's chief executive, not the go-along, get-along sort of compromiser that life in a legislature requires. Yet anyone who has known him also knows that he takes his politics, and more importantly, public policy, seriously. He sees a certain void in his party at the moment: An absence of someone in Washington with a pulpit to advance the opposition's cause in a reasoned and methodical manner.”
Another source added, "I think he was a little surprised by the magnitude of support. It was so broad and so deep."
Bush left the governor's office two years ago with high approval ratings, was praised for his hands-on role in handling several destructive hurricanes and has held on to his popularity as a private citizen.
"The support is there," a source said. "Fundraisers are calling him. The money will be there."
But Jeb Bush might face some formidable competition from Gov. Charlie Crist, who is also among those eyeing the empty Senate seat. So is Republican Bill McCollum, the Florida attorney general and former congressman.
Among the Democrats, Alex Sink, the state's chief financial officer, and Reps. Allen Boyd and Ron Klein are also considering a Senate run.
[To see the recent Newsmax interview with Jeb Bush, go here now]
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Saturday, December 27, 2008 12:22 PM
By: Dave Eberhart Article Font Size
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has been busy testing the waters since Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., announced this month that he won’t seek reelection in 2010.
According to Politico, sources indicate the president’s brother hasn’t yet made a final decision, but Republican Party leaders are giving him a thumbs-up. And President Bush has already said his brother would make an “awesome” candidate and senator.
"Everything indicates that he's in," said David Johnson, a Republican strategist and the CEO of Strategic Vision. "You're not making calls and laying the ground work for fundraising unless you're clearing the field for your candidacy."
Even with his brother’s low, low popularity ratings, GOP leaders are of the mind that the Bush family name won’t be a hindrance if he decides to enter the race.
"Quite the opposite, actually," said one source close to Jeb Bush. "What he's found is that everyone is encouraging him to run. It's actually been a little overwhelming," according to the Politico report.
Indeed, the possibility of another Bush entering a crucial national race seemed to excite both politicians and veteran observers in Bush’s home state of Florida over the weekend. Until rising stars like Sarah Palin or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal are better tested, Bush could bring some much-needed gravitas to Republican circles, according to several observers.
Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida and an expert on Florida politics, said Bush's phone calls around the state are "a good sign" that he could be jumping in the race, something that she says is "music to the ears of Florida Republicans."
"Nothing could have come at a better time," MacManus told Politico. "Republicans here in Florida were so down after the election. The mere mention of Jeb's potential Senate run has put Republicans in a much more festive holiday mood."
In the Orlando Sentinel on Sunday, Fla. State Rep. Dean Cannon, who is slated to be the speaker of the state house in 2010, wasted no time in throwing his support to Bush.
“As Floridians ask who would best succeed Martinez in the Senate, I believe that the best and most logical successor is Jeb Bush — not because he has proven that he can win, but because he has proven that he can lead,” Cannon, of Winter Park, Florida, wrote.
”Bush led, not only on issues that were popular, but on issues that were so difficult and so full of political thorns that a generation of politicians before him chose to simply ignore them in the hopes that they would go away or resolve themselves.”
Although there was some speculation that a veteran business leader and former chief executive of his state might hesitate at being just one voice among 100 in the Senate, most seem to think that Bush’s sense of public service would outweigh his ego.
Mark Silva, a veteran Florida politics reporter, wrote in the Chicago Tribune’s Swamp politics blog: “For anyone who has known Jeb Bush a long time, the thought of him even thinking of the Senate came as a surprise — he is the chief executive's chief executive, not the go-along, get-along sort of compromiser that life in a legislature requires. Yet anyone who has known him also knows that he takes his politics, and more importantly, public policy, seriously. He sees a certain void in his party at the moment: An absence of someone in Washington with a pulpit to advance the opposition's cause in a reasoned and methodical manner.”
Another source added, "I think he was a little surprised by the magnitude of support. It was so broad and so deep."
Bush left the governor's office two years ago with high approval ratings, was praised for his hands-on role in handling several destructive hurricanes and has held on to his popularity as a private citizen.
"The support is there," a source said. "Fundraisers are calling him. The money will be there."
But Jeb Bush might face some formidable competition from Gov. Charlie Crist, who is also among those eyeing the empty Senate seat. So is Republican Bill McCollum, the Florida attorney general and former congressman.
Among the Democrats, Alex Sink, the state's chief financial officer, and Reps. Allen Boyd and Ron Klein are also considering a Senate run.
[To see the recent Newsmax interview with Jeb Bush, go here now]
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
DID YOU KNOW?
> >
>
> Subject: I Didn't Know That
>
>
> Question: What is America's first line of missile interceptor defense that
> protects the entire United States?
>
> Answer: 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard.
>
>
>
> Question: What is the ONLY National Guard unit on permanent active duty?
>
> Answer: 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard?
>
>
> Question: Who is the Commander in Chief of the 49th Missile Defense
> Battalion of Alaska National Guard?
>
> Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska
>
>
>
> Question: What U.S. governor is routinely briefed on highly classified
> military issues, homeland security, and counter terrorism?
>
> Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska
>
>
>
>
> Question: What U.S. governor has a higher classified security rating than
> either candidate of the Democrat Party?
>
> Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska
>
>
>
> According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain in February, but
> nobody ever found out. This is a woman used to keeping secrets. She can be
> entrusted with our national security, because she already is.
>
> Now you DO know!
>
>
>
> Subject: I Didn't Know That
>
>
> Question: What is America's first line of missile interceptor defense that
> protects the entire United States?
>
> Answer: 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard.
>
>
>
> Question: What is the ONLY National Guard unit on permanent active duty?
>
> Answer: 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard?
>
>
> Question: Who is the Commander in Chief of the 49th Missile Defense
> Battalion of Alaska National Guard?
>
> Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska
>
>
>
> Question: What U.S. governor is routinely briefed on highly classified
> military issues, homeland security, and counter terrorism?
>
> Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska
>
>
>
>
> Question: What U.S. governor has a higher classified security rating than
> either candidate of the Democrat Party?
>
> Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska
>
>
>
> According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain in February, but
> nobody ever found out. This is a woman used to keeping secrets. She can be
> entrusted with our national security, because she already is.
>
> Now you DO know!
>
>
MAKES NO SENSE
MAKES NO SENSE TO ME
The cost per employee (salary + benefits) at the big three automakers - Ford, Chevy & Chrysler - is $78 per hour.
Toyota (a non-union US manufacturer) on the other hand - is $48 per hour.
While the average American worker comes in at $28 per hour.
So let me get this straight.........
The $28 per hour worker needs to bail out the $78 per hour worker whose company is going bankrupt ?
The cost per employee (salary + benefits) at the big three automakers - Ford, Chevy & Chrysler - is $78 per hour.
Toyota (a non-union US manufacturer) on the other hand - is $48 per hour.
While the average American worker comes in at $28 per hour.
So let me get this straight.........
The $28 per hour worker needs to bail out the $78 per hour worker whose company is going bankrupt ?
FROM A GOOD FRIEND AND SOMETHING TO PONDE
FROM A GOOD FRIEND AND SOMETHING TO PONDER
FYI
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom
by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.
What one person receives without working for,
another person must work for without receiving.
The government cannot give to anybody anything
that the government does not first take from somebody else.
When half of the people get the idea that
they do not have to work
because the other half is going to take care of them,
and when the other half gets the idea that
it does no good to work
because somebody else is going to get what they work for,
that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.
You cannot multiply wealth
by dividing it."
FYI
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom
by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.
What one person receives without working for,
another person must work for without receiving.
The government cannot give to anybody anything
that the government does not first take from somebody else.
When half of the people get the idea that
they do not have to work
because the other half is going to take care of them,
and when the other half gets the idea that
it does no good to work
because somebody else is going to get what they work for,
that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.
You cannot multiply wealth
by dividing it."
Friday, January 2, 2009
Hamas-cide
Hamas-cide
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, December 29, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Middle East: While condemned as "disproportionate," Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza are the only appropriate response to daily terror. As the U.N. Charter says, when they shoot at you, you can shoot back.
The Palestinians, the late Israeli leader Abba Eban once said, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew to its international border with Gaza and gave peace a chance.
On taking power in Gaza, Hamas decided that rather than build a viable infrastructure with foreign assistance, feed and educate its people and pick up the trash, it would rather turn Gaza into a launching pad for Kasam rockets targeted on Israeli civilians.
After three years of ceaseless rocket and mortar barrages, Israel has decided to exercise its right to self-defense in what the likes of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon call a "disproportionate response." Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: "For us to be asked to have (another) cease-fire with Hamas is like asking (America) to have a cease-fire with al-Qaida."
Their response is an Israeli version of shock and awe. After a year of gathering intelligence, Israel launched a devastating series of surgical strikes targeting Hamas base and training camps, headquarters and underground Kasam rocket launchers placed in bunkers and silos. The time had passed for trying to send Hamas a message by bombing empty buildings in the middle of the night.
Considering that Hamas has adopted Hezbollah's standard practice of locating command and control centers, and communications, arsenals and training facilities, documented civilian casualties are minimal while some 300 terrorist deaths have been reported.
Israel is still suffering from its failure to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 as promised. That war began with cross-border incursions by both Hezbollah and Hamas in which Israeli soldiers were seized. There too Tel Aviv was accused of a "disproportionate response" by a U.N. that had silently watched Hezbollah turn Lebanon into an armed camp.
Hamas undoubtedly felt emboldened. Hezbollah has translated its victory into political power in Beirut, obtaining a veto in the Cabinet and preparing for further inroads in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Even now, the U.N. and its "peacekeepers" permit Iran's puppet to rearm far beyond its prewar levels.
Hezbollah is an Iranian creation. Hamas is not. But we can't ignore the Iranian connection.
Much of Hamas' imported weaponry, and the expertise with which it now produces the rockets it uses to bombard Israeli border towns and villages, comes from Iran. Dozens of its top commanders have received training in Iran.
Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Hamas political activist and editor based in Ramallah in the West Bank, recently told the Washington Times that the current turmoil in Lebanon is part of an inexorable process that began in Gaza when Hamas wrested control and will spread across the Middle East:
"What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement, now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon.
"It's going to happen in 2009 in Jordan, and it's going to happen in 2010 in Egypt," Khader said in the interview. "We are seeing a redrawing of the map of the Middle East where the forces of resistance and steadfastness are the ones moving the things on the ground."
Israel is determined to avoid a repetition of its Lebanese failure in Gaza. Such surgical strikes, however, may not be enough to end the threat. As we found out in Iraq, it may require boots on the ground going house to house and room to room.
Perhaps this time Israel will not lose its resolve in the face of international pressure, and finish the job.
Email To Friend |
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, December 29, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Middle East: While condemned as "disproportionate," Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza are the only appropriate response to daily terror. As the U.N. Charter says, when they shoot at you, you can shoot back.
The Palestinians, the late Israeli leader Abba Eban once said, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew to its international border with Gaza and gave peace a chance.
On taking power in Gaza, Hamas decided that rather than build a viable infrastructure with foreign assistance, feed and educate its people and pick up the trash, it would rather turn Gaza into a launching pad for Kasam rockets targeted on Israeli civilians.
After three years of ceaseless rocket and mortar barrages, Israel has decided to exercise its right to self-defense in what the likes of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon call a "disproportionate response." Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: "For us to be asked to have (another) cease-fire with Hamas is like asking (America) to have a cease-fire with al-Qaida."
Their response is an Israeli version of shock and awe. After a year of gathering intelligence, Israel launched a devastating series of surgical strikes targeting Hamas base and training camps, headquarters and underground Kasam rocket launchers placed in bunkers and silos. The time had passed for trying to send Hamas a message by bombing empty buildings in the middle of the night.
Considering that Hamas has adopted Hezbollah's standard practice of locating command and control centers, and communications, arsenals and training facilities, documented civilian casualties are minimal while some 300 terrorist deaths have been reported.
Israel is still suffering from its failure to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 as promised. That war began with cross-border incursions by both Hezbollah and Hamas in which Israeli soldiers were seized. There too Tel Aviv was accused of a "disproportionate response" by a U.N. that had silently watched Hezbollah turn Lebanon into an armed camp.
Hamas undoubtedly felt emboldened. Hezbollah has translated its victory into political power in Beirut, obtaining a veto in the Cabinet and preparing for further inroads in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Even now, the U.N. and its "peacekeepers" permit Iran's puppet to rearm far beyond its prewar levels.
Hezbollah is an Iranian creation. Hamas is not. But we can't ignore the Iranian connection.
Much of Hamas' imported weaponry, and the expertise with which it now produces the rockets it uses to bombard Israeli border towns and villages, comes from Iran. Dozens of its top commanders have received training in Iran.
Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Hamas political activist and editor based in Ramallah in the West Bank, recently told the Washington Times that the current turmoil in Lebanon is part of an inexorable process that began in Gaza when Hamas wrested control and will spread across the Middle East:
"What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement, now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon.
"It's going to happen in 2009 in Jordan, and it's going to happen in 2010 in Egypt," Khader said in the interview. "We are seeing a redrawing of the map of the Middle East where the forces of resistance and steadfastness are the ones moving the things on the ground."
Israel is determined to avoid a repetition of its Lebanese failure in Gaza. Such surgical strikes, however, may not be enough to end the threat. As we found out in Iraq, it may require boots on the ground going house to house and room to room.
Perhaps this time Israel will not lose its resolve in the face of international pressure, and finish the job.
Email To Friend |
To Those of You Born 1930 - 1979
Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2008 11:31 AM
Subject: You have to read this
To Those of You Born
1930 - 1979
At the end of this email is a quote of the month by Jay Leno. If you don't read anything else, please
read what he said.
Very well stated, Mr. Leno.
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE
1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes
Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY?
Because we were always outside playing...that's why!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no person al computers, no Internet and no chat rooms
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
If YOU are one of them? CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our livesfor our own good.
While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it ?
The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'
For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us...go ahead and delete this.
For the rest of us...pass this on
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: You have to read this
To Those of You Born
1930 - 1979
At the end of this email is a quote of the month by Jay Leno. If you don't read anything else, please
read what he said.
Very well stated, Mr. Leno.
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE
1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes
Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY?
Because we were always outside playing...that's why!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no person al computers, no Internet and no chat rooms
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
If YOU are one of them? CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our livesfor our own good.
While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it ?
The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:
'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'
For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us...go ahead and delete this.
For the rest of us...pass this on
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
MISSED PARDONS??
John Allen Aregood was convicted of conspiring to transport and harbor illegal aliens.
President Bush pardoned him just days ago.
And what about former Border Agents Ignacio Compean and Jose Compean who, according to Congress Tom Tancredo and so many others, were sent to prison for "doing their jobs?"
NOTHING! Not a word!
In total, President Bush - just weeks after issuing 14 pardons - bestowed his good graces on YET ANOTHER 20 individuals.
Here's a partial list of the 19 pardons (courtesy of the Associated Press):
William Alvis III of Flushing, Ohio. Possession of an unregistered firearm and cocaine distribution.
Eric Charles Blanke of Parker, Colo. Counterfeiting.
Steve Doyle Cavender of The Villages, Fla. Conspiring to import, possess, distribute and dispense marijuana.
Marie Elena Eppens of Lynden, Wash. Conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute marijuana.
Eduviges Duvi Gonzalez-Matsumura of Clovis, Calif. Aiding and abetting embezzlement of bank funds.
President Bush also commuted the prison sentence of Reed Raymond Prior who was convicted of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and sentenced in 1996 to life in prison.
a trafficker of illegal aliens
drug pushers
embezzlers
Were these people more deserving of a pardon than two American heroes who put their lives on the line every single day to protect our border?
And what happened to "compassionate conservatism?"
With days to go before he leaves office, time is running out for President Bush to do the right thing, answer those questions and release these brave American heroes from prison!
Use the hyperlink below to send a tough personalized Blast Fax to President Bush and the Republican and Democrat Leadership of the House and Senate.
Tell them that the railroading of Ramos and Compean is a gross miscarriage of justice and perhaps one of the most cynical misuses of power in our nation's recent history. Tell them that their continued imprisonment demeans the American people and our government.
Tell them that these brave American heroes are owed apologies for the injustice they have suffered and that this horrible wrong can be righted only if the President pardons these men or commutes their sentences.
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/releasecompeanandramosiv.html
AOL Members May Also Use This Hyperlink
If the above hyperlinks do not work, please copy and paste the first hyperlink into your browser address bar.
Only A Matter Of Days Until It Is All Over...
It is highly doubtful that Barack Obama will champion the cause of these wrongfully and vindictively prosecuted American heroes.
What does that mean?
It means that if President Bush fails to act soon, these brave men are destined to spend a DECADE behind bars... NO TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR... NO CHANCE OF PAROLE.
Some might say that Compean and Ramos were prosecuted to appease a foreign government.
Others might even say they were offered as sacrificial lambs to advance a political agenda.
Still others might say that it was just a horrible miscarriage of justice.
Assuming that any one (or any combination) of these opinions is true:
The foreign government, that some would say their prosecution was intended to appease, has long since forgotten about them.
The political agenda that some would say their imprisonment was meant to advance - namely amnesty - was defeated (in fact you helped defeat it)!
And the freakish miscarriage of justice has simply gone on too long.
No matter which option you choose, the only reason NOW not to pardon the brave Border Agents or at least commute their sentences is hard-hearted vindictiveness.
THERE IS NO ACCEPTABLE REASON NOT TO RELEASE COMPEAN AND RAMOS!
And THAT'S UNACCEPTABLE!
You've heard a great deal about Compean and Ramos recently.
You may have sent Blast Faxes and made phone calls to our elected officials - PERHAPS MULTIPLE TIMES - on their behalf.
We're asking you to do it AGAIN... AND AGAIN... AND AGAIN ... if needed!
Because once President Bush leaves office, their time may be up.
Over the past several years we've won our share of battles and we've lost some battles too. But, out of them all, this is one fight that we simply cannot lose!
At the very least we must fight to the very last minute!
Use the hyperlink below to send a tough personalized Blast Fax to President Bush and the Republican and Democrat Leadership of the House and Senate.
Tell them that the railroading of Ramos and Compean is a gross miscarriage of justice and perhaps one of the most cynical misuses of power in our nation's recent history. Tell them that their continued imprisonment demeans the American people and our government.
Tell them that these brave American heroes are owed apologies for the injustice they have suffered and that this horrible wrong can be righted only if the President pardons these men or commutes their sentences.
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/releasecompeanandramosiv.html
AOL Members May Also Use This Hyperlink
If the above hyperlinks do not work, please copy and paste the first hyperlink into your browser address bar.
Harsh Words For The Administration...
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher:
“The fact that the president has neglected to free these men from their imprisonment while freeing drug dealers, embezzlers and other criminals is insulting to the American people.”
According to Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum:
"The end of President Bush's final term is quickly approaching... we cannot let him leave office without resolving one very important issue: he must commute the prison sentences of convicted U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean!"
Others were not as polite.
Conservative columnist Doug Patton called this travesty "a stench in the nostrils of every thinking American who loves justice."
Patton adds:
"But I will lose my last ounce of respect for this man as my president if he does not pardon Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean before he leaves office. These men put their lives on the line for us just as surely as our brave troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and justice demands a full presidential pardon."
You're already familiar with the case.
Compean and Ramos were convicted almost solely on the word of a known illegal alien drug smuggler who claimed that Compean and Ramos shot him in the butt while he was attempting to escape.
Incidentally, this smuggler was attempting to transport 743 pounds of marijuana into the United States at the time of the incident.
In exchange for his testimony, the smuggler was granted immunity and allowed to come and go across the border almost at will and was actually caught attempting to transport more drugs into the United States while waiting to testify against Compean and Ramos.
The court WOULD NOT allow this fact to be submitted during the trial.
And, in what may be the greatest irony of this whole case, the smuggler was eventually convicted of the smuggling offenses that occurred AFTER he was granted immunity and was sentenced to LESS TIME than Compean and Ramos.
Patton again:
"It also turns out that this low-life drug smuggler re-entered the United States at least 10 different times in 2005 and that he was caught smuggling drugs while he was waiting to testify against Ramos and Compean. These facts were not brought up at their trial."
Schlafly again:
"The severity of these charges and the harshness of the punishment are totally disproportionate to the violation in question."
"Even the illegal drug smuggler, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, was sentenced to less prison time than our fellow American border guards!"
Such irony is shameful!
Now is the time to demand justice!
Use the hyperlink below to send a tough personalized Blast Fax to President Bush and the Republican and Democrat Leadership of the House and Senate.
Tell them that the railroading of Ramos and Compean is a gross miscarriage of justice and perhaps one of the most cynical misuses of power in our nation's recent history. Tell them that their continued imprisonment demeans the American people and our government.
Tell them that these brave American heroes are owed apologies for the injustice they have suffered and that this horrible wrong can be righted only if the President pardons these men or commutes their sentences.
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/releasecompeanandramosiv.html
AOL Members May Also Use This Hyperlink
If the above hyperlinks do not work, please copy and paste the first hyperlink into your browser address bar.
Blindness, Baffling and Disappointing...
The Washington Times also called President Bush's failure to act, "blindness."
The Times wrote the following in a recent editorial:
"It's both baffling and disappointing that President Bush has not already pardoned two U.S. Border Patrol agents imprisoned since 2007... Time is running out for Mr. Bush to act to correct what one Congressman [Rep. Dana Rohrabacher] calls 'the worst miscarriage of justice that I have witnessed in the 30 years I've been in Washington.'"
Congressman Tom Tancredo:
"These are the kinds of men whose government failed and destroyed them - all while they were serving a cause greater than themselves. These men deserve justice. I, and many other members of Congress, have repeatedly called upon President Bush to exercise his power to pardon - but he has not done so.”
Congressman Ed Royce stated:
“Ramos and Compean have been living in the torture of solitary confinement for almost two years for something they never should have been prosecuted for in the first place. We are pleading with the Pardon Attorney to make a favorable recommendation of commutation to the President so he can finally do the right thing by these men and their families."
Blogger Andrew T. Durham claims the case "stinks to high Heaven" and wrote:
"It is literally a crime that apparently President Bush is not granting pardons to immorally imprisoned border [patrol] agents Ramos and Compean."
Now may be your last chance to make your voice heard!
At the very least, this may be President Bush's last opportunity to listen!
The time to release Compean and Ramos is NOW!
Use the hyperlink below to send a tough personalized Blast Fax to President Bush and the Republican and Democrat Leadership of the House and Senate.
Tell them that the railroading of Ramos and Compean is a gross miscarriage of justice and perhaps one of the most cynical misuses of power in our nation's recent history. Tell them that their continued imprisonment demeans the American people and our government.
Tell them that these brave American heroes are owed apologies for the injustice they have suffered and that this horrible wrong can be righted only if the President pardons these men or commutes their sentences.
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/releasecompeanandramosiv.html
AOL Members May Also Use This Hyperlink
If the above hyperlinks do not work, please copy and paste the first hyperlink into your browser address bar.
Yours In Freedom,
Jeff Mazzella
President
www.cfif.org
P.S. Please help us reach as many concerned Americans as possible by forwarding this e-mail to at least 10 of your friends and family members.
President Bush pardoned him just days ago.
And what about former Border Agents Ignacio Compean and Jose Compean who, according to Congress Tom Tancredo and so many others, were sent to prison for "doing their jobs?"
NOTHING! Not a word!
In total, President Bush - just weeks after issuing 14 pardons - bestowed his good graces on YET ANOTHER 20 individuals.
Here's a partial list of the 19 pardons (courtesy of the Associated Press):
William Alvis III of Flushing, Ohio. Possession of an unregistered firearm and cocaine distribution.
Eric Charles Blanke of Parker, Colo. Counterfeiting.
Steve Doyle Cavender of The Villages, Fla. Conspiring to import, possess, distribute and dispense marijuana.
Marie Elena Eppens of Lynden, Wash. Conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute marijuana.
Eduviges Duvi Gonzalez-Matsumura of Clovis, Calif. Aiding and abetting embezzlement of bank funds.
President Bush also commuted the prison sentence of Reed Raymond Prior who was convicted of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and sentenced in 1996 to life in prison.
a trafficker of illegal aliens
drug pushers
embezzlers
Were these people more deserving of a pardon than two American heroes who put their lives on the line every single day to protect our border?
And what happened to "compassionate conservatism?"
With days to go before he leaves office, time is running out for President Bush to do the right thing, answer those questions and release these brave American heroes from prison!
Use the hyperlink below to send a tough personalized Blast Fax to President Bush and the Republican and Democrat Leadership of the House and Senate.
Tell them that the railroading of Ramos and Compean is a gross miscarriage of justice and perhaps one of the most cynical misuses of power in our nation's recent history. Tell them that their continued imprisonment demeans the American people and our government.
Tell them that these brave American heroes are owed apologies for the injustice they have suffered and that this horrible wrong can be righted only if the President pardons these men or commutes their sentences.
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/releasecompeanandramosiv.html
AOL Members May Also Use This Hyperlink
If the above hyperlinks do not work, please copy and paste the first hyperlink into your browser address bar.
Only A Matter Of Days Until It Is All Over...
It is highly doubtful that Barack Obama will champion the cause of these wrongfully and vindictively prosecuted American heroes.
What does that mean?
It means that if President Bush fails to act soon, these brave men are destined to spend a DECADE behind bars... NO TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR... NO CHANCE OF PAROLE.
Some might say that Compean and Ramos were prosecuted to appease a foreign government.
Others might even say they were offered as sacrificial lambs to advance a political agenda.
Still others might say that it was just a horrible miscarriage of justice.
Assuming that any one (or any combination) of these opinions is true:
The foreign government, that some would say their prosecution was intended to appease, has long since forgotten about them.
The political agenda that some would say their imprisonment was meant to advance - namely amnesty - was defeated (in fact you helped defeat it)!
And the freakish miscarriage of justice has simply gone on too long.
No matter which option you choose, the only reason NOW not to pardon the brave Border Agents or at least commute their sentences is hard-hearted vindictiveness.
THERE IS NO ACCEPTABLE REASON NOT TO RELEASE COMPEAN AND RAMOS!
And THAT'S UNACCEPTABLE!
You've heard a great deal about Compean and Ramos recently.
You may have sent Blast Faxes and made phone calls to our elected officials - PERHAPS MULTIPLE TIMES - on their behalf.
We're asking you to do it AGAIN... AND AGAIN... AND AGAIN ... if needed!
Because once President Bush leaves office, their time may be up.
Over the past several years we've won our share of battles and we've lost some battles too. But, out of them all, this is one fight that we simply cannot lose!
At the very least we must fight to the very last minute!
Use the hyperlink below to send a tough personalized Blast Fax to President Bush and the Republican and Democrat Leadership of the House and Senate.
Tell them that the railroading of Ramos and Compean is a gross miscarriage of justice and perhaps one of the most cynical misuses of power in our nation's recent history. Tell them that their continued imprisonment demeans the American people and our government.
Tell them that these brave American heroes are owed apologies for the injustice they have suffered and that this horrible wrong can be righted only if the President pardons these men or commutes their sentences.
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/releasecompeanandramosiv.html
AOL Members May Also Use This Hyperlink
If the above hyperlinks do not work, please copy and paste the first hyperlink into your browser address bar.
Harsh Words For The Administration...
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher:
“The fact that the president has neglected to free these men from their imprisonment while freeing drug dealers, embezzlers and other criminals is insulting to the American people.”
According to Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum:
"The end of President Bush's final term is quickly approaching... we cannot let him leave office without resolving one very important issue: he must commute the prison sentences of convicted U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean!"
Others were not as polite.
Conservative columnist Doug Patton called this travesty "a stench in the nostrils of every thinking American who loves justice."
Patton adds:
"But I will lose my last ounce of respect for this man as my president if he does not pardon Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean before he leaves office. These men put their lives on the line for us just as surely as our brave troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and justice demands a full presidential pardon."
You're already familiar with the case.
Compean and Ramos were convicted almost solely on the word of a known illegal alien drug smuggler who claimed that Compean and Ramos shot him in the butt while he was attempting to escape.
Incidentally, this smuggler was attempting to transport 743 pounds of marijuana into the United States at the time of the incident.
In exchange for his testimony, the smuggler was granted immunity and allowed to come and go across the border almost at will and was actually caught attempting to transport more drugs into the United States while waiting to testify against Compean and Ramos.
The court WOULD NOT allow this fact to be submitted during the trial.
And, in what may be the greatest irony of this whole case, the smuggler was eventually convicted of the smuggling offenses that occurred AFTER he was granted immunity and was sentenced to LESS TIME than Compean and Ramos.
Patton again:
"It also turns out that this low-life drug smuggler re-entered the United States at least 10 different times in 2005 and that he was caught smuggling drugs while he was waiting to testify against Ramos and Compean. These facts were not brought up at their trial."
Schlafly again:
"The severity of these charges and the harshness of the punishment are totally disproportionate to the violation in question."
"Even the illegal drug smuggler, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, was sentenced to less prison time than our fellow American border guards!"
Such irony is shameful!
Now is the time to demand justice!
Use the hyperlink below to send a tough personalized Blast Fax to President Bush and the Republican and Democrat Leadership of the House and Senate.
Tell them that the railroading of Ramos and Compean is a gross miscarriage of justice and perhaps one of the most cynical misuses of power in our nation's recent history. Tell them that their continued imprisonment demeans the American people and our government.
Tell them that these brave American heroes are owed apologies for the injustice they have suffered and that this horrible wrong can be righted only if the President pardons these men or commutes their sentences.
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/releasecompeanandramosiv.html
AOL Members May Also Use This Hyperlink
If the above hyperlinks do not work, please copy and paste the first hyperlink into your browser address bar.
Blindness, Baffling and Disappointing...
The Washington Times also called President Bush's failure to act, "blindness."
The Times wrote the following in a recent editorial:
"It's both baffling and disappointing that President Bush has not already pardoned two U.S. Border Patrol agents imprisoned since 2007... Time is running out for Mr. Bush to act to correct what one Congressman [Rep. Dana Rohrabacher] calls 'the worst miscarriage of justice that I have witnessed in the 30 years I've been in Washington.'"
Congressman Tom Tancredo:
"These are the kinds of men whose government failed and destroyed them - all while they were serving a cause greater than themselves. These men deserve justice. I, and many other members of Congress, have repeatedly called upon President Bush to exercise his power to pardon - but he has not done so.”
Congressman Ed Royce stated:
“Ramos and Compean have been living in the torture of solitary confinement for almost two years for something they never should have been prosecuted for in the first place. We are pleading with the Pardon Attorney to make a favorable recommendation of commutation to the President so he can finally do the right thing by these men and their families."
Blogger Andrew T. Durham claims the case "stinks to high Heaven" and wrote:
"It is literally a crime that apparently President Bush is not granting pardons to immorally imprisoned border [patrol] agents Ramos and Compean."
Now may be your last chance to make your voice heard!
At the very least, this may be President Bush's last opportunity to listen!
The time to release Compean and Ramos is NOW!
Use the hyperlink below to send a tough personalized Blast Fax to President Bush and the Republican and Democrat Leadership of the House and Senate.
Tell them that the railroading of Ramos and Compean is a gross miscarriage of justice and perhaps one of the most cynical misuses of power in our nation's recent history. Tell them that their continued imprisonment demeans the American people and our government.
Tell them that these brave American heroes are owed apologies for the injustice they have suffered and that this horrible wrong can be righted only if the President pardons these men or commutes their sentences.
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/releasecompeanandramosiv.html
AOL Members May Also Use This Hyperlink
If the above hyperlinks do not work, please copy and paste the first hyperlink into your browser address bar.
Yours In Freedom,
Jeff Mazzella
President
www.cfif.org
P.S. Please help us reach as many concerned Americans as possible by forwarding this e-mail to at least 10 of your friends and family members.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The Mustang Ranch and $750 billion bail-out
A FRIEND WORRY WART SENT THIS, GIVES RISE TO THOUGHT DOESN'T IT?
The Mustang Ranch and $750 billion bail-out
Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now, we are trusting the economy of our country and 850+ Billion Dollars to a pack of nit-wits who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling booze.
Now if that doesn't make you nervous, what does???
The Mustang Ranch and $750 billion bail-out
Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now, we are trusting the economy of our country and 850+ Billion Dollars to a pack of nit-wits who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling booze.
Now if that doesn't make you nervous, what does???
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Insider Report from Newsmax.com
Insider Report from Newsmax.com
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Liberals Angry With Matthews for Senate
2. Rahm Made Millions at Investment Bank
3. Protests Rise Over U.S. Efforts to Deny Bail to Jew
4. Middle Class Got Tax Cut Under Bush
5. Scientist Fired by Gore Calls Warming Fears ‘Mistaken’
6. We Heard: Bret Baier, Howard Wolfson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Liberals Angry with Matthews for Senate
Speculation has been rampant that MSNBC host Chris Matthews will seek Republican Sen. Arlen Specter’s seat in Pennsylvania in 2010. But if he runs, he’ll likely face serious heat from liberals over his on-air comments.
The left-wing group Media Matters for America fired an early volley against the “Hardball” host with a lengthy diatribe castigating Matthews for, among other things, expressing admiration for President George W. Bush and ridiculing Democrats.
“Few politicians are as aggressive as Chris Matthews in purporting to speak for average voters — or as quick to declare [liberal] politicians to be out of touch with those voters,” the group’s Web site states. “But there is no real accountability in cable news . . . Should he run for the Senate, however, Matthews might finally have to answer for his dubious track record.”
Included in that “track record” are a number of comments cited by Media Matters:
In 2005, Matthews said of Bush: “I like him. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left.”
The following year, Matthews referred to Bush as “a wise man.”
When Bush gave his “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003, Matthews lauded his “amazing display of leadership” and said, “He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics.”
Later that same day Matthews gushed, “We’re proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who’s physical.”
When Bush discussed his “strategy for victory in Iraq” in late 2005, Matthews praised the move and derided Democrats as “carpers and complainers.”
While Matthews has praised Barack Obama at times, he told viewers during the campaign that the candidate’s bowling form was insufficiently “macho,” and asserted that his lack of bowling skill “tells you something about the Democratic Party.”
When Matthews interviewed conservative pundit Ann Coulter and she called former Vice President Al Gore a “total fag,” Matthews said of Coulter, “We’d love to have her back.”
Matthews has also been criticized for his treatment of women. He said the reason Hillary Clinton was a senator and candidate for president "is that her husband messed around." He also said point-black, “I hate her,” and called her “uppity” and a “she-devil.”
He described House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “scary” and said she would “castrate” House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer.
Media Matters opined, “If Matthews does run for the Senate, he may soon discover that Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters share neither his hatred of Hillary Clinton nor his view that Barack Obama is insufficiently ‘macho.’”
The group’s Web site added that Matthews may also find those voters to be “less indulgent of his cheerleading for Bush, his near-constant ridicule of Democrats, and his frequently offensive treatment of women.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Rahm Made Millions at Investment Bank
Congressional dealmaker and incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made millions of dollars brokering deals of another sort as an investment banker.
Emanuel was a fundraiser for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, directed the Bill Clinton presidential campaign’s finance committee and was a senior adviser to Clinton in the White House, where he helped broker the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Congress.
But after he left his post in 1998, political friends helped him land a job with the investment banking firm Wasserstein Perella, and Emanuel made out nicely when the company was bought by investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort, Barron’s columnist Jim McTague reported.
Emanuel’s biggest deal was investment bank Goldner Rauner’s purchase of the alarm company SecurityLink from SBC Communications for $479 million in 2000. In what McTague calls “perhaps the greatest coup,” Emanuel convinced SBC to provide 80 percent of the funding for the purchase.
By the time Emanuel left the firm in January to prepare for what was to be a successful run for Congress, he had made $16.2 million in 2.5 years, The New York Times reported.
During his stint as an investment banker, Emanuel also helped utility company Unicom in an $82 billion merger with Peco Energy, which created Exelon, a utility with nearly $19 billion in annual revenue.
Exelon has 17 nuclear reactors, the most in the U.S., and McTague wonders if Emanuel will “recuse himself on nuclear-energy issues.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Protests Rise Over U.S. Efforts to Deny Bail to Jew
Lawyers for a Jewish businessman are protesting prosecutors’ efforts to deny bail to their client on the grounds that he is entitled to Israeli citizenship and could flee to the Jewish state.
Sholom Rubashkin faces charges related to the alleged hiring of illegal immigrants at Agriprocessors Inc.’s kosher meatpacking plant in Pottsville, Iowa, where he was the top executive. He has been in jail since Nov. 14.
Federal agents raided the slaughterhouse in May and arrested almost 400 illegal immigrants.
Justice Department prosecutors have argued that Rubashkin’s “Jewish heritage” made him a “de factor dual citizen” who could flee to Israel, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Israel’s “Law of Return” allows Jews from around the world to become Israeli citizens.
One of Rubashkin’s attorneys, Baruch Weiss, said in legal papers that the government’s argument discriminates against Jews, and “means that 5,300,000 Americans would be viewed as heightened bail risks simply because they are Jews.”
Prosecutors also note that Rubashkin, 49, had a large amount of cash in a travel bag found at his home, along with passports for some of his 10 children, and that two other former Agriprocessors managers are believed to have fled to Israel.
But Deborah Lauter, civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League, told the Des Moines Register: “There can’t be a rule that every Jew is a flight risk, and that’s essentially what this is saying.”
Rubashkin’s lawyers point out that he has surrendered his passport, offered to post bond, agreed to wear an electronic monitor, and offered to hire a private security company to watch him, according to the Register.
Prosecutors maintain that those measures are insufficient.
Israel and the U.S. signed an extradition treaty in 1962, but The Journal reports that federal prosecutors have complained about roadblocks to bringing Israeli defendants to the U.S. for trial.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Middle Class Got Tax Cut Under Bush
Barack Obama's campaign pledge to "rebuild the middle class" by giving tax breaks to 95 percent of workers and their families surely won him votes.
But an analysis by Investor’s Business Daily found that the middle class already got a large tax break under President George W. Bush.
Citing data from the Congressional Budget Office, IBD disclosed that the
effective tax rate on the middle fifth of households fell from an average of about 17.1 percent under President Bill Clinton to 14.4 percent under Bush. That's a
16 percent tax cut for the middle class.
As for the oft-heard claim from the left that middle-class incomes are stagnant or shrinking, a study last year by the Minneapolis Fed concluded that "incomes of most types of middle American households have increased substantially over the past three decades."
Real household income did grow just 18 percent over the past 30 years. But after correcting for distortions in the data, Terry Fitzgerald, a Fed senior economist, found that "median household income for most household types . . . increased
by 44 percent to 62 percent from 1976 to 2006." And per-person income surged 80 percent.
IBD observes, “Yes, many Americans are suffering in this recession, including the middle class. But the last thing we need is another general in a phony class war telling people how bad they have it.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Scientist Fired by Gore Calls Warming Fears ‘Mistaken’
Princeton University physicist Dr. Will Happer, who says he was fired by Vice President Al Gore for failing to adhere to Gore’s views on global warming, has now declared that man-made warming fears are “mistaken.”
Happer, who served as the director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993, said, “I had the privilege of being fired by Al Gore, since I refused to go along with his alarmism. I did not need the job that badly.”
He said in 1993, “I was told that science was not going to intrude on policy."
Now Happer has asked to join the more than 650 international scientists who have spoken out against man-made global warming fears and are cited in the 2008 U.S. Senate Minority Report from Environmental and Public Works Committee ranking member James Inhofe, R-Okla.
“I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken,” Happer told the committee on Dec. 22.
President-elect Barack Obama’s choice as his top science adviser, Harvard University professor John Holdren, is a staunch believer in the dangers of man-made global warming and advised Gore on his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Dr. Happer has published over 200 scientific papers, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Sciences.
Sen. Inhofe said that the statements of prominent scientists like Happer who are willing to publicly dissent from climate fears strike a blow to the United Nations, Gore, and the media’s claims about global warming.
“The endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less and less credible every day," Inhofe said.
Happer declared, “I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect — for example, absorption and emission of visible and infrared radiation, and fluid flow. Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science. The earth's climate is changing now, as it always has. There is no evidence that the changes differ in any qualitative way from those of the past . . .
“Computer models used to generate frightening scenarios from increasing levels of carbon dioxide have scant credibility.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. We Heard . . .
THAT Fox News has chosen its chief White House correspondent Bret Baier to succeed Brit Hume as the primary anchor on Fox’s “Special Report” nightly newscast.
Baier joined Fox in 1998 and was previously the network’s Pentagon correspondent. He has covered a wide range of stories including the 9/11 attacks, the Kosovo War, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Hume’s last show aired on Tuesday. But Politico.com reported that he will continue at Fox News as a senior political analyst and panelist on “Fox News Sunday.”
THAT Howard Wolfson, the top spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, has signed on as senior communications adviser to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s third-term bid in 2009.
The news surprised many observers, since Wolfson called Bloomberg an "out-of-touch billionaire" in 2003.
Wolfson told the New York Post that when the mayor's team first approached him, he pointed out he'd once said some "rather unkind things" about Bloomberg.
But he added: "I was impressed with the fact that they were willing to bring on a former critic.”
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Liberals Angry With Matthews for Senate
2. Rahm Made Millions at Investment Bank
3. Protests Rise Over U.S. Efforts to Deny Bail to Jew
4. Middle Class Got Tax Cut Under Bush
5. Scientist Fired by Gore Calls Warming Fears ‘Mistaken’
6. We Heard: Bret Baier, Howard Wolfson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Liberals Angry with Matthews for Senate
Speculation has been rampant that MSNBC host Chris Matthews will seek Republican Sen. Arlen Specter’s seat in Pennsylvania in 2010. But if he runs, he’ll likely face serious heat from liberals over his on-air comments.
The left-wing group Media Matters for America fired an early volley against the “Hardball” host with a lengthy diatribe castigating Matthews for, among other things, expressing admiration for President George W. Bush and ridiculing Democrats.
“Few politicians are as aggressive as Chris Matthews in purporting to speak for average voters — or as quick to declare [liberal] politicians to be out of touch with those voters,” the group’s Web site states. “But there is no real accountability in cable news . . . Should he run for the Senate, however, Matthews might finally have to answer for his dubious track record.”
Included in that “track record” are a number of comments cited by Media Matters:
In 2005, Matthews said of Bush: “I like him. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left.”
The following year, Matthews referred to Bush as “a wise man.”
When Bush gave his “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003, Matthews lauded his “amazing display of leadership” and said, “He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics.”
Later that same day Matthews gushed, “We’re proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who’s physical.”
When Bush discussed his “strategy for victory in Iraq” in late 2005, Matthews praised the move and derided Democrats as “carpers and complainers.”
While Matthews has praised Barack Obama at times, he told viewers during the campaign that the candidate’s bowling form was insufficiently “macho,” and asserted that his lack of bowling skill “tells you something about the Democratic Party.”
When Matthews interviewed conservative pundit Ann Coulter and she called former Vice President Al Gore a “total fag,” Matthews said of Coulter, “We’d love to have her back.”
Matthews has also been criticized for his treatment of women. He said the reason Hillary Clinton was a senator and candidate for president "is that her husband messed around." He also said point-black, “I hate her,” and called her “uppity” and a “she-devil.”
He described House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “scary” and said she would “castrate” House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer.
Media Matters opined, “If Matthews does run for the Senate, he may soon discover that Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters share neither his hatred of Hillary Clinton nor his view that Barack Obama is insufficiently ‘macho.’”
The group’s Web site added that Matthews may also find those voters to be “less indulgent of his cheerleading for Bush, his near-constant ridicule of Democrats, and his frequently offensive treatment of women.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Rahm Made Millions at Investment Bank
Congressional dealmaker and incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made millions of dollars brokering deals of another sort as an investment banker.
Emanuel was a fundraiser for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, directed the Bill Clinton presidential campaign’s finance committee and was a senior adviser to Clinton in the White House, where he helped broker the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Congress.
But after he left his post in 1998, political friends helped him land a job with the investment banking firm Wasserstein Perella, and Emanuel made out nicely when the company was bought by investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort, Barron’s columnist Jim McTague reported.
Emanuel’s biggest deal was investment bank Goldner Rauner’s purchase of the alarm company SecurityLink from SBC Communications for $479 million in 2000. In what McTague calls “perhaps the greatest coup,” Emanuel convinced SBC to provide 80 percent of the funding for the purchase.
By the time Emanuel left the firm in January to prepare for what was to be a successful run for Congress, he had made $16.2 million in 2.5 years, The New York Times reported.
During his stint as an investment banker, Emanuel also helped utility company Unicom in an $82 billion merger with Peco Energy, which created Exelon, a utility with nearly $19 billion in annual revenue.
Exelon has 17 nuclear reactors, the most in the U.S., and McTague wonders if Emanuel will “recuse himself on nuclear-energy issues.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Protests Rise Over U.S. Efforts to Deny Bail to Jew
Lawyers for a Jewish businessman are protesting prosecutors’ efforts to deny bail to their client on the grounds that he is entitled to Israeli citizenship and could flee to the Jewish state.
Sholom Rubashkin faces charges related to the alleged hiring of illegal immigrants at Agriprocessors Inc.’s kosher meatpacking plant in Pottsville, Iowa, where he was the top executive. He has been in jail since Nov. 14.
Federal agents raided the slaughterhouse in May and arrested almost 400 illegal immigrants.
Justice Department prosecutors have argued that Rubashkin’s “Jewish heritage” made him a “de factor dual citizen” who could flee to Israel, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Israel’s “Law of Return” allows Jews from around the world to become Israeli citizens.
One of Rubashkin’s attorneys, Baruch Weiss, said in legal papers that the government’s argument discriminates against Jews, and “means that 5,300,000 Americans would be viewed as heightened bail risks simply because they are Jews.”
Prosecutors also note that Rubashkin, 49, had a large amount of cash in a travel bag found at his home, along with passports for some of his 10 children, and that two other former Agriprocessors managers are believed to have fled to Israel.
But Deborah Lauter, civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League, told the Des Moines Register: “There can’t be a rule that every Jew is a flight risk, and that’s essentially what this is saying.”
Rubashkin’s lawyers point out that he has surrendered his passport, offered to post bond, agreed to wear an electronic monitor, and offered to hire a private security company to watch him, according to the Register.
Prosecutors maintain that those measures are insufficient.
Israel and the U.S. signed an extradition treaty in 1962, but The Journal reports that federal prosecutors have complained about roadblocks to bringing Israeli defendants to the U.S. for trial.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Middle Class Got Tax Cut Under Bush
Barack Obama's campaign pledge to "rebuild the middle class" by giving tax breaks to 95 percent of workers and their families surely won him votes.
But an analysis by Investor’s Business Daily found that the middle class already got a large tax break under President George W. Bush.
Citing data from the Congressional Budget Office, IBD disclosed that the
effective tax rate on the middle fifth of households fell from an average of about 17.1 percent under President Bill Clinton to 14.4 percent under Bush. That's a
16 percent tax cut for the middle class.
As for the oft-heard claim from the left that middle-class incomes are stagnant or shrinking, a study last year by the Minneapolis Fed concluded that "incomes of most types of middle American households have increased substantially over the past three decades."
Real household income did grow just 18 percent over the past 30 years. But after correcting for distortions in the data, Terry Fitzgerald, a Fed senior economist, found that "median household income for most household types . . . increased
by 44 percent to 62 percent from 1976 to 2006." And per-person income surged 80 percent.
IBD observes, “Yes, many Americans are suffering in this recession, including the middle class. But the last thing we need is another general in a phony class war telling people how bad they have it.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Scientist Fired by Gore Calls Warming Fears ‘Mistaken’
Princeton University physicist Dr. Will Happer, who says he was fired by Vice President Al Gore for failing to adhere to Gore’s views on global warming, has now declared that man-made warming fears are “mistaken.”
Happer, who served as the director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993, said, “I had the privilege of being fired by Al Gore, since I refused to go along with his alarmism. I did not need the job that badly.”
He said in 1993, “I was told that science was not going to intrude on policy."
Now Happer has asked to join the more than 650 international scientists who have spoken out against man-made global warming fears and are cited in the 2008 U.S. Senate Minority Report from Environmental and Public Works Committee ranking member James Inhofe, R-Okla.
“I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken,” Happer told the committee on Dec. 22.
President-elect Barack Obama’s choice as his top science adviser, Harvard University professor John Holdren, is a staunch believer in the dangers of man-made global warming and advised Gore on his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Dr. Happer has published over 200 scientific papers, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Sciences.
Sen. Inhofe said that the statements of prominent scientists like Happer who are willing to publicly dissent from climate fears strike a blow to the United Nations, Gore, and the media’s claims about global warming.
“The endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less and less credible every day," Inhofe said.
Happer declared, “I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect — for example, absorption and emission of visible and infrared radiation, and fluid flow. Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science. The earth's climate is changing now, as it always has. There is no evidence that the changes differ in any qualitative way from those of the past . . .
“Computer models used to generate frightening scenarios from increasing levels of carbon dioxide have scant credibility.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. We Heard . . .
THAT Fox News has chosen its chief White House correspondent Bret Baier to succeed Brit Hume as the primary anchor on Fox’s “Special Report” nightly newscast.
Baier joined Fox in 1998 and was previously the network’s Pentagon correspondent. He has covered a wide range of stories including the 9/11 attacks, the Kosovo War, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Hume’s last show aired on Tuesday. But Politico.com reported that he will continue at Fox News as a senior political analyst and panelist on “Fox News Sunday.”
THAT Howard Wolfson, the top spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, has signed on as senior communications adviser to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s third-term bid in 2009.
The news surprised many observers, since Wolfson called Bloomberg an "out-of-touch billionaire" in 2003.
Wolfson told the New York Post that when the mayor's team first approached him, he pointed out he'd once said some "rather unkind things" about Bloomberg.
But he added: "I was impressed with the fact that they were willing to bring on a former critic.”
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Reality For Radicals
Reality For Radicals
Investor's Business Daily. All Rights Reserved.
December 26, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Transition: During the campaign, Democrats pledged radical change. But recession has forced them to rein in their agenda, from soaking the rich to nationalizing health care. How the worm turns.
In debate after debate, Barack Obama assured voters he'd pay for his national health care plan by taxing the rich. But now that appears unreasonable even to the fawning reporters who cover him.
"How are you actually planning to fund your health care program?" asked one earlier this month. "It has been estimated that it could cost up to $65 billion, and you had planned originally to fund it through getting rid of the tax cuts to the wealthy. But in the current economic situation, maybe that's not so reasonable?"
Obama stammered before answering, "I have not made yet a determination in terms of how we're going to deal with the rollback of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans." He allowed that he may need "additional dollars to pay for some investments."
In other words, he's hard-pressed for revenues to fund his ambitious spending programs. Redistribution's no fun in a recession.
His health care plan, which was supposed to at least cover all children, has been reduced to a medical cost-savings program that includes modernizing doctors' antiquated medical records systems. Somehow "health IT," as Obama calls his savings program, wasn't the health care reform Moveon.org had in mind.
"We can't simply insure everybody under the current program without bankrupting the government or bankrupting business or states," Obama said, "So our starting point is savings."
The president-elect is also having to rethink his anti-industry energy policies. With crude under $40 a barrel, he won't pursue a windfall-profit tax on oil companies, which he'd hoped would fund new green initiatives and other domestic programs.
And a planned assault on the coal industry is also on the back burner. It would likely mean higher utility bills and more pain for depressed regions that depend on coal mining.
The cooling climate is also giving Obama fits. With snow falling from New Orleans to Las Vegas and Malibu, Calif., efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions now seem forced.
What's more, we have it on good authority that Obama's promised support for a card-check system for unions trying to organize a new workplace is also a nonstarter. That, too, had been a priority.
Obama owes unions, big-time, but he's also rethinking his plan to add labor, as well as environmental, protections to NAFTA. The Democrat-controlled Congress is also backing off pro-union, anti-trade measures for fear of delaying the economic recovery.
"Card check, tax increases, major moves to the left are off the table," a Republican leader on the Hill told us.
Just months ago, Democrats were toying with the idea of taxing 401(k)s. Now that's dead in the water. So is the Global Poverty Act, a bill Obama co-sponsored in the Senate.
One by one, Obama is backing off campaign promises as his radical agenda runs into the buzz saw of reality. That doesn't mean he's changing his agenda, but he admits "we're going to have to prioritize" as conditions change. Call it the education of Barack Obama.
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Investor's Business Daily. All Rights Reserved.
December 26, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Transition: During the campaign, Democrats pledged radical change. But recession has forced them to rein in their agenda, from soaking the rich to nationalizing health care. How the worm turns.
In debate after debate, Barack Obama assured voters he'd pay for his national health care plan by taxing the rich. But now that appears unreasonable even to the fawning reporters who cover him.
"How are you actually planning to fund your health care program?" asked one earlier this month. "It has been estimated that it could cost up to $65 billion, and you had planned originally to fund it through getting rid of the tax cuts to the wealthy. But in the current economic situation, maybe that's not so reasonable?"
Obama stammered before answering, "I have not made yet a determination in terms of how we're going to deal with the rollback of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans." He allowed that he may need "additional dollars to pay for some investments."
In other words, he's hard-pressed for revenues to fund his ambitious spending programs. Redistribution's no fun in a recession.
His health care plan, which was supposed to at least cover all children, has been reduced to a medical cost-savings program that includes modernizing doctors' antiquated medical records systems. Somehow "health IT," as Obama calls his savings program, wasn't the health care reform Moveon.org had in mind.
"We can't simply insure everybody under the current program without bankrupting the government or bankrupting business or states," Obama said, "So our starting point is savings."
The president-elect is also having to rethink his anti-industry energy policies. With crude under $40 a barrel, he won't pursue a windfall-profit tax on oil companies, which he'd hoped would fund new green initiatives and other domestic programs.
And a planned assault on the coal industry is also on the back burner. It would likely mean higher utility bills and more pain for depressed regions that depend on coal mining.
The cooling climate is also giving Obama fits. With snow falling from New Orleans to Las Vegas and Malibu, Calif., efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions now seem forced.
What's more, we have it on good authority that Obama's promised support for a card-check system for unions trying to organize a new workplace is also a nonstarter. That, too, had been a priority.
Obama owes unions, big-time, but he's also rethinking his plan to add labor, as well as environmental, protections to NAFTA. The Democrat-controlled Congress is also backing off pro-union, anti-trade measures for fear of delaying the economic recovery.
"Card check, tax increases, major moves to the left are off the table," a Republican leader on the Hill told us.
Just months ago, Democrats were toying with the idea of taxing 401(k)s. Now that's dead in the water. So is the Global Poverty Act, a bill Obama co-sponsored in the Senate.
One by one, Obama is backing off campaign promises as his radical agenda runs into the buzz saw of reality. That doesn't mean he's changing his agenda, but he admits "we're going to have to prioritize" as conditions change. Call it the education of Barack Obama.
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Friday, December 26, 2008
Hey Caroline: You're Not Entitled
Hey Caroline: You're Not Entitled
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 1:36 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Caroline Kennedy apparently thinks that she is entitled to be appointed as the next junior senator from New York.
She shouldn’t be. Think about it.
Her qualifications? Her name is Kennedy and she can raise a lot of fat-cat money for herself and for New York Democrats who support her.
Her strategy? Ignore the voters and the press and meet with the political bosses behind closed doors to persuade them to pressure Gov. David Paterson to appoint her to Hillary Clinton’s seat.
Is there a more cynical message in the Age of Obama?
Who’s supporting her? Among her chief backers is New York City’s billionaire Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who recently decided to ignore a legitimate and binding citywide referendum that prohibited him from seeking a third term. In one of the most appalling examples of an arrogant “the public be damned” attitude, Bloomberg persuaded the city council to overrule the will of the people so he could stay in city hall. He’s a big contributor to many of the folks who supported this brazen move. Legendary Tammany Hall boss Carmine De Sapio would love both Bloomberg and Caroline for bringing back the old “power to the bosses” style of politics.
Her position on issues that will face the next senator? She won’t tell you. She has refused adamantly to speak about any issues. In her first foray outside Manhattan, she declined all questions from the press. She wouldn’t even say whether she had ever been to Syracuse before. Does that suggest what the answer would have been? Her handlers finally provided written answers to some of the questions posed by The New York Times. She picked out the questions she wanted to answer and ignored some of the tough issues, such as whether she supports increased taxes for rich people. She’s not saying, Now, SHE WON’T DISCLOSE HER PERSONAL FINANCES OR PROVIDE A LIST OF COMPANIES THAT SHE HAS A STAKE IN!
Sound like the good old days? Is this woman kidding?
Her involvement in politics? Not much. She campaigned for Obama and worked on his committee that recommended the vice-presidential candidate. She’s never been active in New York politics and she hasn’t even voted in about half the contested elections in New York since 1988. During the past 15 years, she’s contributed to her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy; her cousin Rep. Patrick Kennedy; Barack Obama; Hillary Clinton; John Kerry; Al Gore; Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and Connecticut wanna-be Ned Lamont; and former Pennsylvania Sen. Harris Wofford (1991). Not much interest in New York’s candidates or issues!
Her experience?
She is a longtime patron of the American Ballet Theatre.
She is active in her father’s presidential library.
She was a part-time volunteer fund raiser for the NYC schools for less than two years.
She’s co-authored two books on civil liberties.
She’s written five books. She is her most derivative in her published works. Of four New York Times best-sellers, three were compilations of other peoples’ work. One was “The Patriot’s Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories, and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love.” The only thing these songs, poems, stories, and speeches had in common was that she didn’t write any of them.
Then followed “The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.” In this book, she not only didn’t write the poetry but also didn’t even choose it. Her third best seller-was “A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children,” again a compilation of works that were not her own.
Then there’s “A Family Christmas,” another anthology of her favorite short stories, poems, etc. about Christmas (all written by other people).
In another book, “Profiles in Courage For Our Time”, she swiped only the title from her late father but wrote the copy herself.
She hasn’t had a job since before she went to law school in the 1980s.
So, why should Caroline be appointed senator?
Does anyone seriously believe that her audacious grab for the New York Senate seat is based on anything more than a misplaced and somewhat grandiose sense of entitlement coupled with a cynical claim of access to big money for the next election?
If her name weren’t Kennedy, would anyone give any consideration at all to someone without any experience to prepare her for the job or to even inform the voters about what she stands for?
ANSWER: NO
Is there a single person in the United States who doesn’t wish Caroline Kennedy well and hope that she’s spared from further tragedy?
Probably not.
But affection, sympathy, and nostalgia shouldn’t be the basis for appointing this woefully inexperienced woman to a key Senate seat in these troubles times.
Her father’s and uncles’ names are the only things that make her a contender.
Doesn’t anyone in New York politics use their own names anymore? Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the former president, wants to take the Senate seat of Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former president. But some people are pushing for Andrew Cuomo, the son of the former governor. Are we stuck in political dynasties? And who will make the decision? New York’s David Paterson, the son of Basil Paterson, the former New York state senator, secretary of state, and deputy mayor of New York City.
Don’t we have any talented people who don’t feel entitled to inherit a seat? Can’t we stop the political dynasties?
At least Cuomo has his own accomplishments. He was the secretary of HUD in the Clinton administration, and as the elected New York state attorney general, he’s done an outstanding job. Caroline Kennedy has done absolutely nothing to deserve elevation to the United States Senate. A review of hundreds of newspaper articles mentioning her name during the past 20 years show rare substantive issues: her books and book tours, awarding the Profiles in Courage Award to Lowell Weicker for instituting an income tax in Connecticut, very part-time fundraising for the city schools. Even in that regard, her influence is questioned and others are given as much or more credit. The majority of the articles are about her wedding, her mother, her brother, her socialite activities, and her lucrative auction of her mother’s old blankets, picnic baskets, and other household effects.
No, Caroline has not been heard from on any of the important issues facing New Yorkers.
Paterson is a talented politician. He probably will appoint Cuomo anyway for one simple reason: to get him out of the way. Acutely aware that he was not elected governor but only got the job when Eliot Spitzer self-destructed, Paterson probably would face an uphill primary fight against Cuomo in 2010 if he doesn’t shunt him off into the Senate. Other than the attorney general, there is nobody with the stature to offer Paterson serious opposition in the Democratic Party.
Paterson should not succumb to the lobbying of the bosses and the fat cats for Caroline. She’s not entitled.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 1:36 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Caroline Kennedy apparently thinks that she is entitled to be appointed as the next junior senator from New York.
She shouldn’t be. Think about it.
Her qualifications? Her name is Kennedy and she can raise a lot of fat-cat money for herself and for New York Democrats who support her.
Her strategy? Ignore the voters and the press and meet with the political bosses behind closed doors to persuade them to pressure Gov. David Paterson to appoint her to Hillary Clinton’s seat.
Is there a more cynical message in the Age of Obama?
Who’s supporting her? Among her chief backers is New York City’s billionaire Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who recently decided to ignore a legitimate and binding citywide referendum that prohibited him from seeking a third term. In one of the most appalling examples of an arrogant “the public be damned” attitude, Bloomberg persuaded the city council to overrule the will of the people so he could stay in city hall. He’s a big contributor to many of the folks who supported this brazen move. Legendary Tammany Hall boss Carmine De Sapio would love both Bloomberg and Caroline for bringing back the old “power to the bosses” style of politics.
Her position on issues that will face the next senator? She won’t tell you. She has refused adamantly to speak about any issues. In her first foray outside Manhattan, she declined all questions from the press. She wouldn’t even say whether she had ever been to Syracuse before. Does that suggest what the answer would have been? Her handlers finally provided written answers to some of the questions posed by The New York Times. She picked out the questions she wanted to answer and ignored some of the tough issues, such as whether she supports increased taxes for rich people. She’s not saying, Now, SHE WON’T DISCLOSE HER PERSONAL FINANCES OR PROVIDE A LIST OF COMPANIES THAT SHE HAS A STAKE IN!
Sound like the good old days? Is this woman kidding?
Her involvement in politics? Not much. She campaigned for Obama and worked on his committee that recommended the vice-presidential candidate. She’s never been active in New York politics and she hasn’t even voted in about half the contested elections in New York since 1988. During the past 15 years, she’s contributed to her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy; her cousin Rep. Patrick Kennedy; Barack Obama; Hillary Clinton; John Kerry; Al Gore; Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and Connecticut wanna-be Ned Lamont; and former Pennsylvania Sen. Harris Wofford (1991). Not much interest in New York’s candidates or issues!
Her experience?
She is a longtime patron of the American Ballet Theatre.
She is active in her father’s presidential library.
She was a part-time volunteer fund raiser for the NYC schools for less than two years.
She’s co-authored two books on civil liberties.
She’s written five books. She is her most derivative in her published works. Of four New York Times best-sellers, three were compilations of other peoples’ work. One was “The Patriot’s Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories, and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love.” The only thing these songs, poems, stories, and speeches had in common was that she didn’t write any of them.
Then followed “The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.” In this book, she not only didn’t write the poetry but also didn’t even choose it. Her third best seller-was “A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children,” again a compilation of works that were not her own.
Then there’s “A Family Christmas,” another anthology of her favorite short stories, poems, etc. about Christmas (all written by other people).
In another book, “Profiles in Courage For Our Time”, she swiped only the title from her late father but wrote the copy herself.
She hasn’t had a job since before she went to law school in the 1980s.
So, why should Caroline be appointed senator?
Does anyone seriously believe that her audacious grab for the New York Senate seat is based on anything more than a misplaced and somewhat grandiose sense of entitlement coupled with a cynical claim of access to big money for the next election?
If her name weren’t Kennedy, would anyone give any consideration at all to someone without any experience to prepare her for the job or to even inform the voters about what she stands for?
ANSWER: NO
Is there a single person in the United States who doesn’t wish Caroline Kennedy well and hope that she’s spared from further tragedy?
Probably not.
But affection, sympathy, and nostalgia shouldn’t be the basis for appointing this woefully inexperienced woman to a key Senate seat in these troubles times.
Her father’s and uncles’ names are the only things that make her a contender.
Doesn’t anyone in New York politics use their own names anymore? Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the former president, wants to take the Senate seat of Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former president. But some people are pushing for Andrew Cuomo, the son of the former governor. Are we stuck in political dynasties? And who will make the decision? New York’s David Paterson, the son of Basil Paterson, the former New York state senator, secretary of state, and deputy mayor of New York City.
Don’t we have any talented people who don’t feel entitled to inherit a seat? Can’t we stop the political dynasties?
At least Cuomo has his own accomplishments. He was the secretary of HUD in the Clinton administration, and as the elected New York state attorney general, he’s done an outstanding job. Caroline Kennedy has done absolutely nothing to deserve elevation to the United States Senate. A review of hundreds of newspaper articles mentioning her name during the past 20 years show rare substantive issues: her books and book tours, awarding the Profiles in Courage Award to Lowell Weicker for instituting an income tax in Connecticut, very part-time fundraising for the city schools. Even in that regard, her influence is questioned and others are given as much or more credit. The majority of the articles are about her wedding, her mother, her brother, her socialite activities, and her lucrative auction of her mother’s old blankets, picnic baskets, and other household effects.
No, Caroline has not been heard from on any of the important issues facing New Yorkers.
Paterson is a talented politician. He probably will appoint Cuomo anyway for one simple reason: to get him out of the way. Acutely aware that he was not elected governor but only got the job when Eliot Spitzer self-destructed, Paterson probably would face an uphill primary fight against Cuomo in 2010 if he doesn’t shunt him off into the Senate. Other than the attorney general, there is nobody with the stature to offer Paterson serious opposition in the Democratic Party.
Paterson should not succumb to the lobbying of the bosses and the fat cats for Caroline. She’s not entitled.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Which California?
Which California?
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, December 24, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Governance: The new "alpha state," as the Web site Politico calls it, is a study in dysfunction at home but a rising power in Washington. Maybe it can teach through its bad example.
It was probably inevitable. With a Democratic Congress in place and a Democratic administration on the way, the biggest and one of the bluest states in the union is emerging as the most influential. Politico compares California's political heft to that of Texas in the heyday of Tom DeLay and George W. Bush.
It lists a host of reasons why. Mostly these are people in powerful places — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, senators and House members chairing a half-dozen key committees and the incoming secretaries of energy and labor and top presidential advisers on the economy and the environment.
California's 34-member Democratic bloc in the House is larger than the whole delegation of any other state. Zoe Lofgren, who leads that herd, says the state "has always been the ATM to the nation in terms of political fundraising. We're policy leaders now."
If Lofgren's right, then the question is whether all this new power will be used for good. To put it another way: Will California politicians help lead the country into the sunny uplands or into the sort of dank fog that so often engulfs the state's capital, Sacramento, at this time of year? The most likely answer: Don't get your hopes up.
To judge from the record of California's political class, the state right now can help Washington only by serving as a bad example. Years of overspending, fueled by a union-owned Legislature and unwise ballot initiatives, have thrown the state deeply into the red.
The state faces a shortfall of $15 billion in the current fiscal year and $25 billion in the next. Democrats, having run the Legislature nonstop for the past 38 years, can fairly be called the main architects of this fiasco and similar fiscal crackups in the past.
Republican minorities and Republican governors have some power to shape budgets and block tax hikes, but they've had little luck putting the brakes on spending. Their main contribution in recent years has been to hold taxes down with borrowing — a strategy that can only go so far before destroying the state's credit.
Added to this chronic lack of fiscal responsibility is a cavalier attitude toward the state's business climate. Past Republican governors provided some adult supervision in this area, but Arnold Schwarzenegger has sided with the greens and gone on a potentially costly crusade to end global warming one state — his — at a time.
California has a huge economy, with world-leading roles in computer technology and popular culture. And as every winter reminds us, it's a pleasant place to live. But the state's blessings also lead to complacency, over-regulation and steep taxes.
Currently, California has the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 8.2%. Only Michigan, home to imploding automakers, and Rhode Island, a state that ranks near California for high business taxes, were worse.
It's this California — the one that can't get the hang of governance — that we fear is showing up in Washington to replicate itself on a national scale. Then again, maybe the individuals who have come out of its political culture will rise above it. We can only hope.
There is also another California: a dynamic, freedom-loving society whose natural leaders are its innovators and entrepreneurs, not its elected officials. It has something of value to teach, as long as it survives.
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By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, December 24, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Governance: The new "alpha state," as the Web site Politico calls it, is a study in dysfunction at home but a rising power in Washington. Maybe it can teach through its bad example.
It was probably inevitable. With a Democratic Congress in place and a Democratic administration on the way, the biggest and one of the bluest states in the union is emerging as the most influential. Politico compares California's political heft to that of Texas in the heyday of Tom DeLay and George W. Bush.
It lists a host of reasons why. Mostly these are people in powerful places — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, senators and House members chairing a half-dozen key committees and the incoming secretaries of energy and labor and top presidential advisers on the economy and the environment.
California's 34-member Democratic bloc in the House is larger than the whole delegation of any other state. Zoe Lofgren, who leads that herd, says the state "has always been the ATM to the nation in terms of political fundraising. We're policy leaders now."
If Lofgren's right, then the question is whether all this new power will be used for good. To put it another way: Will California politicians help lead the country into the sunny uplands or into the sort of dank fog that so often engulfs the state's capital, Sacramento, at this time of year? The most likely answer: Don't get your hopes up.
To judge from the record of California's political class, the state right now can help Washington only by serving as a bad example. Years of overspending, fueled by a union-owned Legislature and unwise ballot initiatives, have thrown the state deeply into the red.
The state faces a shortfall of $15 billion in the current fiscal year and $25 billion in the next. Democrats, having run the Legislature nonstop for the past 38 years, can fairly be called the main architects of this fiasco and similar fiscal crackups in the past.
Republican minorities and Republican governors have some power to shape budgets and block tax hikes, but they've had little luck putting the brakes on spending. Their main contribution in recent years has been to hold taxes down with borrowing — a strategy that can only go so far before destroying the state's credit.
Added to this chronic lack of fiscal responsibility is a cavalier attitude toward the state's business climate. Past Republican governors provided some adult supervision in this area, but Arnold Schwarzenegger has sided with the greens and gone on a potentially costly crusade to end global warming one state — his — at a time.
California has a huge economy, with world-leading roles in computer technology and popular culture. And as every winter reminds us, it's a pleasant place to live. But the state's blessings also lead to complacency, over-regulation and steep taxes.
Currently, California has the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 8.2%. Only Michigan, home to imploding automakers, and Rhode Island, a state that ranks near California for high business taxes, were worse.
It's this California — the one that can't get the hang of governance — that we fear is showing up in Washington to replicate itself on a national scale. Then again, maybe the individuals who have come out of its political culture will rise above it. We can only hope.
There is also another California: a dynamic, freedom-loving society whose natural leaders are its innovators and entrepreneurs, not its elected officials. It has something of value to teach, as long as it survives.
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Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Your Average Joe
I WOULD NOT PUT ANY OF THIS PAST THE NEW FOLKS IN DC??
Your Average Joe
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Class Warfare: President-elect Obama finally has a job for Vice President-elect Biden — czar of Obama's "middle-class task force." So what will that involve? Stirring up class envy and resentment is our guess.
Here's Biden on his job: "We'll look at everything from college affordability to after-school programs, the things that affect people's daily lives," he told ABC's "This Week."
We're not sure Biden could even tell us what the middle class is — in terms of income, wealth, education or any other meaningful measure. But we are sure one thing is certain to come out of this: A greater resentment between economic classes, stirred up intentionally as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy ultimately intended to impose punitive taxes on those deemed "wealthy."
The media and the left, which are often indistinguishable, have spent the last eight years telling those in the middle class that they're "losing ground" or will be the "first generation to have less than their parents did."
It's all nonsense, of course, but it seems to be effective. Obama's pledge to " rebuild the middle class" by giving tax breaks to "95% of workers and their families" no doubt won him a lot of votes.
But guess what? The middle class did get a tax break — a big one, it turns out — under President Bush. As Congressional Budget Office data show, the effective tax rate on the middle fifth of households fell from an average of about 17.1% under President Clinton to 14.4% under Bush. That's a 16% tax cut for the middle class.
Another oft-heard claim is that middle-class incomes are stagnant or shrinking. But a study last year by the Minneapolis Fed concluded that "incomes of most types of middle American households have increased substantially over the past three decades."
Class warriors such as Biden like to cite median household income as evidence of stagnation. And on the surface, it seems convincing: Real household income did grow just 18% over the past 30 years.
But after correcting for distortions in the data, Terry Fitzgerald, a Fed senior economist, found something else: "Median household income for most household types . . . increased by 44% to 62% from 1976 to 2006." And per-person income surged 80%.
Rather than stagnating, income has grown at an extraordinary pace. Yet that story never quite gets told.
Instead, we hear about another myth: "growing inequality." But according to the accepted measure, the Census Bureau's Gini ratio, there was virtually no change in inequality from 2000 to 2007.
Yes, many Americans are suffering in this recession, including the middle class. But the last thing we need is another general in a phony class war telling people how bad they have it.
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Your Average Joe
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Class Warfare: President-elect Obama finally has a job for Vice President-elect Biden — czar of Obama's "middle-class task force." So what will that involve? Stirring up class envy and resentment is our guess.
Here's Biden on his job: "We'll look at everything from college affordability to after-school programs, the things that affect people's daily lives," he told ABC's "This Week."
We're not sure Biden could even tell us what the middle class is — in terms of income, wealth, education or any other meaningful measure. But we are sure one thing is certain to come out of this: A greater resentment between economic classes, stirred up intentionally as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy ultimately intended to impose punitive taxes on those deemed "wealthy."
The media and the left, which are often indistinguishable, have spent the last eight years telling those in the middle class that they're "losing ground" or will be the "first generation to have less than their parents did."
It's all nonsense, of course, but it seems to be effective. Obama's pledge to " rebuild the middle class" by giving tax breaks to "95% of workers and their families" no doubt won him a lot of votes.
But guess what? The middle class did get a tax break — a big one, it turns out — under President Bush. As Congressional Budget Office data show, the effective tax rate on the middle fifth of households fell from an average of about 17.1% under President Clinton to 14.4% under Bush. That's a 16% tax cut for the middle class.
Another oft-heard claim is that middle-class incomes are stagnant or shrinking. But a study last year by the Minneapolis Fed concluded that "incomes of most types of middle American households have increased substantially over the past three decades."
Class warriors such as Biden like to cite median household income as evidence of stagnation. And on the surface, it seems convincing: Real household income did grow just 18% over the past 30 years.
But after correcting for distortions in the data, Terry Fitzgerald, a Fed senior economist, found something else: "Median household income for most household types . . . increased by 44% to 62% from 1976 to 2006." And per-person income surged 80%.
Rather than stagnating, income has grown at an extraordinary pace. Yet that story never quite gets told.
Instead, we hear about another myth: "growing inequality." But according to the accepted measure, the Census Bureau's Gini ratio, there was virtually no change in inequality from 2000 to 2007.
Yes, many Americans are suffering in this recession, including the middle class. But the last thing we need is another general in a phony class war telling people how bad they have it.
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Obama's Surge
Obama's Surge
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT
War On Terrorism: The Pentagon will add thousands of troops to Afghanistan next summer, setting up the smart war Barack Obama prefers. We hope he won't one day regret his choice and pull troops out too soon.
In October 2002, as President Bush and Congress were finalizing plans to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, Obama told participants at an anti-war rally in Chicago that he didn't "oppose all wars," but was certainly against "a dumb war" that is "based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics."
If Obama is indeed against dumb wars — he repeated his opposition to the "dumb war" in Iraq several times in that speech — then we have to assume he is in favor of smart wars. And given his comments about Afghanistan — in July he said more troops needed to be deployed in that country, because it should be the central focus in the war on terrorism — we must conclude that fighting in Afghanistan is a smart war.
We don't disagree. The ruling Taliban, routed from the country nearly seven years ago but not destroyed, has to be eliminated with finality. Terrorist strongholds must be dismantled, violent uprisings snuffed out, links to Iran severed, and the government prevented from falling into chaos. The rugged, mountainous badlands around Afghanistan's border with Pakistan have to be brought under control.
But knowing what needs to be done and having the audacity to actually do it are not the same things.
Taming Afghanistan and exterminating the terrorist network operating there will require a determination that a Democratic administration might find tough to maintain. There will be intense pressure from the left to exit Afghanistan when the campaign becomes a slog, as it ineluctably will.
Simply reminding those who put Obama into office that he is fighting a smart war will not be enough to quell the yawping, because the only sound ringing in their ears is his well-known opposition to the war in Iraq and promises of a hasty exit that got him elected.
Consequently, Obama will have to develop the deep resolve that Bush demonstrated in fully finishing the job in Iraq. Despite great media and political pressure to flee Iraq when it looked to many as if the post-war insurgency was unwinnable, Bush remained unmoved because he refused to compromise national security. Obama will serve well both his and America's long-term interests if he employs the same steadfastness in regard to Afghanistan.
But while Iraq was being won, Afghanistan boiled over. Despite the quick vanquishing of the Taliban, a stable post-war state in this historically poor and troubled nation has been elusive, partly due to the Afghanistan government's failures, partly due to a measure of international negligence.
Without an escalation of troops and aggression similar to the surge that delivered Iraq, Afghanistan will remain one of the world's most troubled — and dangerous — spots.
Losing Afghanistan to radicals would be tragic, especially after the coalition so easily crushed the Taliban and spilled precious blood to do it. Terrorists should never be able to return to their sanctuaries, from where they can wage jihad against the innocent. They cannot be allowed to draw power from a perceived lack of U.S. strength, or from the sympathetic tribal areas.
In less than a month, Afghanistan will be Obama's war. By the summer, when as many as 30,000 U.S. troops are added to the 70,000-man coalition force, it will be Obama's surge. Should he fail to see it through to the end, he would be laying the foundation for a poor presidential legacy.
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By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT
War On Terrorism: The Pentagon will add thousands of troops to Afghanistan next summer, setting up the smart war Barack Obama prefers. We hope he won't one day regret his choice and pull troops out too soon.
In October 2002, as President Bush and Congress were finalizing plans to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, Obama told participants at an anti-war rally in Chicago that he didn't "oppose all wars," but was certainly against "a dumb war" that is "based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics."
If Obama is indeed against dumb wars — he repeated his opposition to the "dumb war" in Iraq several times in that speech — then we have to assume he is in favor of smart wars. And given his comments about Afghanistan — in July he said more troops needed to be deployed in that country, because it should be the central focus in the war on terrorism — we must conclude that fighting in Afghanistan is a smart war.
We don't disagree. The ruling Taliban, routed from the country nearly seven years ago but not destroyed, has to be eliminated with finality. Terrorist strongholds must be dismantled, violent uprisings snuffed out, links to Iran severed, and the government prevented from falling into chaos. The rugged, mountainous badlands around Afghanistan's border with Pakistan have to be brought under control.
But knowing what needs to be done and having the audacity to actually do it are not the same things.
Taming Afghanistan and exterminating the terrorist network operating there will require a determination that a Democratic administration might find tough to maintain. There will be intense pressure from the left to exit Afghanistan when the campaign becomes a slog, as it ineluctably will.
Simply reminding those who put Obama into office that he is fighting a smart war will not be enough to quell the yawping, because the only sound ringing in their ears is his well-known opposition to the war in Iraq and promises of a hasty exit that got him elected.
Consequently, Obama will have to develop the deep resolve that Bush demonstrated in fully finishing the job in Iraq. Despite great media and political pressure to flee Iraq when it looked to many as if the post-war insurgency was unwinnable, Bush remained unmoved because he refused to compromise national security. Obama will serve well both his and America's long-term interests if he employs the same steadfastness in regard to Afghanistan.
But while Iraq was being won, Afghanistan boiled over. Despite the quick vanquishing of the Taliban, a stable post-war state in this historically poor and troubled nation has been elusive, partly due to the Afghanistan government's failures, partly due to a measure of international negligence.
Without an escalation of troops and aggression similar to the surge that delivered Iraq, Afghanistan will remain one of the world's most troubled — and dangerous — spots.
Losing Afghanistan to radicals would be tragic, especially after the coalition so easily crushed the Taliban and spilled precious blood to do it. Terrorists should never be able to return to their sanctuaries, from where they can wage jihad against the innocent. They cannot be allowed to draw power from a perceived lack of U.S. strength, or from the sympathetic tribal areas.
In less than a month, Afghanistan will be Obama's war. By the summer, when as many as 30,000 U.S. troops are added to the 70,000-man coalition force, it will be Obama's surge. Should he fail to see it through to the end, he would be laying the foundation for a poor presidential legacy.
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Sunday, December 21, 2008
Economic Bailout ?
Economic Bailout ?
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN DO, OR NOT?
In 1999, the government seized the Mustang
Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and,
As required by law, tried to run it.
They failed and it closed. Now, we are trusting
The economy of our country and $800+ billion to a
Pack of nit-wits who couldn't make money running a
Whore house and selling booze..
Now, if that 'don't' make you nervous, what does?
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN DO, OR NOT?
In 1999, the government seized the Mustang
Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and,
As required by law, tried to run it.
They failed and it closed. Now, we are trusting
The economy of our country and $800+ billion to a
Pack of nit-wits who couldn't make money running a
Whore house and selling booze..
Now, if that 'don't' make you nervous, what does?
A WARNING FOR AMERICA FROM AFRICA
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:10:04 +0000
A WARNING FOR AMERICA FROM AFRICA
by Alan Stang
November 6, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
I read this warning on my daily radio talk show last week,
before the election. It is even more relevant now, because
the same thing that was imposed on South Africa – by the
United States – is now happening here. So ma ny people
have asked for a copy of this message from a South African
journalist that I post it here. My comments on her comments
are in bold. Of course the parallels cannot be exact, but
see whether you recognize any of this.
By Gemma Meyer (Gemma Meyer is the pseudonym of a South
African journalist. She and her husband, a former
conservative member of parliament, still reside in South
Africa.)
People used to say that South Africa was 20 years behind
the rest of the Western world. Television, for example, came
late to South Africa (but so did pornography and the gay
rights movement).
Today, however, South Africa may be the grim model of the
future Wester n world, for events in America reveal trends
chillingly similar to those that destroyed our country.
America's structures are Western. Your Congress, your
lobbying groups, your free speech, and the way ordinary
Americans either get involved or ignore politics are
peculiarly Western, not the way most of the world operates.
But the fact that only about a third of Americans deem it
important to vote is horrifying in light of how close you
are to losing your Western character.
Writing letters to the press, manning stands at county
fairs, hosting fund-raising dinners, attending rallies,
setting up conferences, writing your Congressman - that is
what you know, and what you are comfortable with. Those are
the political methods you've created for yourselves to
keep your cou ntry on track and to ensure political
accountability.
But woe to you if - or more likely, when - the rules
change. White Americans may soon find themsel ves unable or
unwilling to stand up to challenge the new political methods
that will be the inevitable result of the ethnic
metamorphosis now taking place in America. Unable to cope
with the new rules of the game - violence, mob riots,
intimidation through accusations of racism, demands for
proportionality based on racial numbers, and all the other
social and political weapons used by the have-nots to
bludgeon treasure and power from the haves - Americans, like
others before them, will no doubt cave in. They will
compromise away their independence and ultimately their way
of life.
That is exactly what happened in Sou th Africa. I know,
because I was there and I saw it happen.
South Africa used to be one of the most advanced nations on
earth. Then Washington intervened.
Faced with revolution in the streets, strikes, civil unrest
and the sheer terror and murder practiced by Nelson
Mandela's African National Congress (ANC), the white
government simply capitulated in order to achieve
"peace."
Mandela was in jail for twenty seven years not because he
was an innocent black man but because he was a Communist
terrorist who said in court that he was planning to kill
people with bombs. He could have been released at any time
simply by renouncing terrorism. He re fused.
Westerners need peace. They need order and stability. They
are builders and planners. But what we got was the peace of
the grave for our society.
The Third World is different - different peoples with
different pasts and different cultures. Yet Westerners
continue to mistake the psychology of the Third World and
its peoples. Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe are perfect examples
of those mistakes. Sierra Leone is in perpetual civil war,
and Zimbabwe - once the thriving, stable Rhodesia - is
looting the very people (the white men) who feed the
country. Yet Westerners do not admit that the same kind of
savagery could come to America when enough immigrants of the
right type assert themselves. The fact is, Americans are
sitting ducks for Third World exploitation of the Western
conscience of compassion.
Those in the West who forced South Africa to surrender to
the ANC and its leaders did not consider Africa to be the
dangerous, corrupt, and savage place it is now in Zimbabwe
and South Africa. Those Western politicians now have a
similar problem looming on their own doorsteps: the demand
for power and treasure from the non-Western peoples inside
the realm.
Again, Washington forced Rhodesia into Communist hands.
Rhodesia exported tons of food. Zimbabwe typically starves.
Washington did this.
It is already too late for South Africa, but not for
America if enough people strengthen their spine and take on
the race terrorists, the armies of the "politically
correct" and, most dangerous of all, the craven
politicians who believe "co mpassionate
conservatism" will buy them a few more votes, a few
more days of peace.
White South Africans, you should remember, have been in
that part of Africa for the same amount of time whites have
inhabited North America; yet ultimately South Africans voted
for their own suicide. We are not so very different from
you.
South Africans voted for their own suicide. Did you?
We lost our country through skillful propaganda, pressure
from abroad (not least from the U.S.A.), unrelenting charges
of "oppression" and "racism," and the
shrewd assessment by African tyrants that the white man has
many Achilles' heels, the most significant of which are
his compassion, his belief in the "equality of
man," and his "love your neighbor" philosophy
- none of which are part of the Third World's history.
See my recent
piece
– Before the Election: What You Must Do – about the
deliberate cultivation of white guilt in the Communist
government schools.
The mainline churches played a big role in the demise of
Western influence throughout Africa, too; especially in
South Africa. Today's tyrants were yesterday's
mission-school protégés. Many dictators in Africa were men
of the cloth. They knew their clerical collars would deflect
criticism and obfuscate their real aims, which20had nothing
whatever to do with the "brotherhood of man."
Other tyrants, like the infamous Idi Amin, were trained and
schooled by the whites themselves, at Oxford, Cambridge, and
Harvard. After receiving the best from the West, they
unleashed a resentful bloodlust against their benefactors.
From what I have seen and read thus far, I fear Americans
will capitulate just as we did. Americans are, generally, a
soft lot. They don't want to quarrel or obstruct the
claims of those who believe they were wronged. They like
peace and quiet, and they want to compromise and be nice.
A television program that aired in South Africa showed a
town meeting somewhere in Southern California where people
met to complain about falling standards in the schools.
Whites who politely spoke at the meeting clearly resented
the influx of Mexican immigrants into their community. When
a handful of Chicanos at the back of the hall shouted and
waved their hands at them, the whites simply shrunk back
into their seats rather than tell the noisemakers to shut
up. They didn't want to quarrel.
In America, the courts are still the final arbiters of
society's laws. But what will happen when your future
majority refuses to abide by court rulings - as in Zimbabwe.
What w ill happen when the new majority says the judges are
racists, and that they refuse to acknowledge "white
man's justice"? What will happen when the courts
are filled with their people, or their sympathizers? In
California, Proposition 187 has already been overturned.
What will you do when the future non-white majority decides
to change the names of streets and cities? (*Actually this
has already happend in places like New Orleans, Detroit and
Washington State.) What will you do when they no longer want
to use money that carries the portraits of old, dead white
"racists" and slave owners? Will you cave in, like
you did on flying the Confederate flag? What about the nat
ional anthem? Your official language? (*Right now in many
parts of the country Spanish is the de facto language.)
Don't laugh. When the "majority" took over in
South Africa, the first targets were our national symbols.
In another generation, America may well face what Africa is
now experiencing - invasions of private land by the
"have-nots;" the decline in health care quality;
roads and buildings in disrepair; the banishment of your
history from the education of the young; the
revolutionization of your justice system.
In South Africa today, only 9 percent of murderers end up
in jail. Court dockets are regularly purchased and simply
disappear. Magistrates can be bribed as can the prison
authorities, making escapes commonplace. Vehicle and
airplane licenses are regularly purchased, and forged school
and university certificates are ro utine.
What would you think of the ritual slaughter of animals in
your neighbor's backyard? (* Again, already happening in
Louisiana, Georgia and Florida.) How do you clean up the
blood and entrails that litter your suburban streets? How do
you feel about the practice of witchcraft, in which the
parts of young girls and boys are needed for
"medicinal" purposes? How do you react to the
burning of witches?
Don't laugh. All that is quite common in South Africa
today.
Don't imagine that government officials caught with
their fingers in the till will be punished. Excuses - like
the need to overcome generations of white racism - will be
found to exonerate the guilty.
In fact, known criminals will be voted into office because
of a racial solidarity among the majority that doesn't
exist among the whites. (Yet again, already happening,
especially among blacks.) When Ian Smith of the old Rhodesia
tried to stand up to the world, white South African
politicians were among the Westerners pressuring him to
surrender.
When Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe murders his political
opponents, ignores unfavorable court decisions, terrorizes
the population and siphons off millions from the state
treasury for himself and his friends, South Africa's new
President Thabo Mbeki holds his hand and declares his
support. That just happened a few weeks ago.
Your tax dollars will go to those who don't earn and
don't pay. (* You mean "spreading the wealth"
?) In South Africa, organizations that used to have access t
o state funds such as old age homes, the arts, and
veterans' services, are simply abandoned.
What will happen is that Western structures in America will
be either destroyed from without, or transformed from
within, used to suit the goals of the new rulers. And they
will reign either through terror, as in Zimbabwe today, or
exert other corrupt pressures to obtain, or buy votes. Once
power is in the hands of aliens, don't expect loyalty or
devotion to principle from those whose jobs are at stake.
One of the most surprising and tragic components of the
disaster in South Africa is how many previously anti-ANC
whites simply moved to the other side.
Once you lose social, cultural, and political dominance,
there is no getting it back again.
Please note. Once it's gone, it's gone. Whatever
you do later, however hard you fight, you cannot get it
back.
Unfortunately, your habits and values work against you. You
cannot fight terror and street mobs with letters to your
Congressmen. You cannot fight accusations of racism with
prayer meetings. You cannot appeal to the goodness of your
fellow man when the fellow man despises you for your
weaknesses and hacks off the arms and legs of his political
opponents.
To=2 0survive, Americans must never lose the power they now
enjoy to people from alien cultures. Above all, don't
put yourselves to the test of fighting only when you r backs
are against the wall. You will probably fail.
Millions around the world want your good life. But make no
mistake: They care not for the high-minded ideals of Thomas
Jefferson and George Washington, and your Constitution. What
they want are your possessions, your power, and your status.
And they already know that their allies among you, the
"human rights activists," the skillful lawyers and
the left-wing politicians will fight for them, and not for
you. They will exploit your compassion and your Christian
charity, and your good will.
They have studied you, Mr. and Mrs. America, and they know
your weaknesses well.
They know what to do.
Do you?
A WARNING FOR AMERICA FROM AFRICA
by Alan Stang
November 6, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
I read this warning on my daily radio talk show last week,
before the election. It is even more relevant now, because
the same thing that was imposed on South Africa – by the
United States – is now happening here. So ma ny people
have asked for a copy of this message from a South African
journalist that I post it here. My comments on her comments
are in bold. Of course the parallels cannot be exact, but
see whether you recognize any of this.
By Gemma Meyer (Gemma Meyer is the pseudonym of a South
African journalist. She and her husband, a former
conservative member of parliament, still reside in South
Africa.)
People used to say that South Africa was 20 years behind
the rest of the Western world. Television, for example, came
late to South Africa (but so did pornography and the gay
rights movement).
Today, however, South Africa may be the grim model of the
future Wester n world, for events in America reveal trends
chillingly similar to those that destroyed our country.
America's structures are Western. Your Congress, your
lobbying groups, your free speech, and the way ordinary
Americans either get involved or ignore politics are
peculiarly Western, not the way most of the world operates.
But the fact that only about a third of Americans deem it
important to vote is horrifying in light of how close you
are to losing your Western character.
Writing letters to the press, manning stands at county
fairs, hosting fund-raising dinners, attending rallies,
setting up conferences, writing your Congressman - that is
what you know, and what you are comfortable with. Those are
the political methods you've created for yourselves to
keep your cou ntry on track and to ensure political
accountability.
But woe to you if - or more likely, when - the rules
change. White Americans may soon find themsel ves unable or
unwilling to stand up to challenge the new political methods
that will be the inevitable result of the ethnic
metamorphosis now taking place in America. Unable to cope
with the new rules of the game - violence, mob riots,
intimidation through accusations of racism, demands for
proportionality based on racial numbers, and all the other
social and political weapons used by the have-nots to
bludgeon treasure and power from the haves - Americans, like
others before them, will no doubt cave in. They will
compromise away their independence and ultimately their way
of life.
That is exactly what happened in Sou th Africa. I know,
because I was there and I saw it happen.
South Africa used to be one of the most advanced nations on
earth. Then Washington intervened.
Faced with revolution in the streets, strikes, civil unrest
and the sheer terror and murder practiced by Nelson
Mandela's African National Congress (ANC), the white
government simply capitulated in order to achieve
"peace."
Mandela was in jail for twenty seven years not because he
was an innocent black man but because he was a Communist
terrorist who said in court that he was planning to kill
people with bombs. He could have been released at any time
simply by renouncing terrorism. He re fused.
Westerners need peace. They need order and stability. They
are builders and planners. But what we got was the peace of
the grave for our society.
The Third World is different - different peoples with
different pasts and different cultures. Yet Westerners
continue to mistake the psychology of the Third World and
its peoples. Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe are perfect examples
of those mistakes. Sierra Leone is in perpetual civil war,
and Zimbabwe - once the thriving, stable Rhodesia - is
looting the very people (the white men) who feed the
country. Yet Westerners do not admit that the same kind of
savagery could come to America when enough immigrants of the
right type assert themselves. The fact is, Americans are
sitting ducks for Third World exploitation of the Western
conscience of compassion.
Those in the West who forced South Africa to surrender to
the ANC and its leaders did not consider Africa to be the
dangerous, corrupt, and savage place it is now in Zimbabwe
and South Africa. Those Western politicians now have a
similar problem looming on their own doorsteps: the demand
for power and treasure from the non-Western peoples inside
the realm.
Again, Washington forced Rhodesia into Communist hands.
Rhodesia exported tons of food. Zimbabwe typically starves.
Washington did this.
It is already too late for South Africa, but not for
America if enough people strengthen their spine and take on
the race terrorists, the armies of the "politically
correct" and, most dangerous of all, the craven
politicians who believe "co mpassionate
conservatism" will buy them a few more votes, a few
more days of peace.
White South Africans, you should remember, have been in
that part of Africa for the same amount of time whites have
inhabited North America; yet ultimately South Africans voted
for their own suicide. We are not so very different from
you.
South Africans voted for their own suicide. Did you?
We lost our country through skillful propaganda, pressure
from abroad (not least from the U.S.A.), unrelenting charges
of "oppression" and "racism," and the
shrewd assessment by African tyrants that the white man has
many Achilles' heels, the most significant of which are
his compassion, his belief in the "equality of
man," and his "love your neighbor" philosophy
- none of which are part of the Third World's history.
See my recent
piece
– Before the Election: What You Must Do – about the
deliberate cultivation of white guilt in the Communist
government schools.
The mainline churches played a big role in the demise of
Western influence throughout Africa, too; especially in
South Africa. Today's tyrants were yesterday's
mission-school protégés. Many dictators in Africa were men
of the cloth. They knew their clerical collars would deflect
criticism and obfuscate their real aims, which20had nothing
whatever to do with the "brotherhood of man."
Other tyrants, like the infamous Idi Amin, were trained and
schooled by the whites themselves, at Oxford, Cambridge, and
Harvard. After receiving the best from the West, they
unleashed a resentful bloodlust against their benefactors.
From what I have seen and read thus far, I fear Americans
will capitulate just as we did. Americans are, generally, a
soft lot. They don't want to quarrel or obstruct the
claims of those who believe they were wronged. They like
peace and quiet, and they want to compromise and be nice.
A television program that aired in South Africa showed a
town meeting somewhere in Southern California where people
met to complain about falling standards in the schools.
Whites who politely spoke at the meeting clearly resented
the influx of Mexican immigrants into their community. When
a handful of Chicanos at the back of the hall shouted and
waved their hands at them, the whites simply shrunk back
into their seats rather than tell the noisemakers to shut
up. They didn't want to quarrel.
In America, the courts are still the final arbiters of
society's laws. But what will happen when your future
majority refuses to abide by court rulings - as in Zimbabwe.
What w ill happen when the new majority says the judges are
racists, and that they refuse to acknowledge "white
man's justice"? What will happen when the courts
are filled with their people, or their sympathizers? In
California, Proposition 187 has already been overturned.
What will you do when the future non-white majority decides
to change the names of streets and cities? (*Actually this
has already happend in places like New Orleans, Detroit and
Washington State.) What will you do when they no longer want
to use money that carries the portraits of old, dead white
"racists" and slave owners? Will you cave in, like
you did on flying the Confederate flag? What about the nat
ional anthem? Your official language? (*Right now in many
parts of the country Spanish is the de facto language.)
Don't laugh. When the "majority" took over in
South Africa, the first targets were our national symbols.
In another generation, America may well face what Africa is
now experiencing - invasions of private land by the
"have-nots;" the decline in health care quality;
roads and buildings in disrepair; the banishment of your
history from the education of the young; the
revolutionization of your justice system.
In South Africa today, only 9 percent of murderers end up
in jail. Court dockets are regularly purchased and simply
disappear. Magistrates can be bribed as can the prison
authorities, making escapes commonplace. Vehicle and
airplane licenses are regularly purchased, and forged school
and university certificates are ro utine.
What would you think of the ritual slaughter of animals in
your neighbor's backyard? (* Again, already happening in
Louisiana, Georgia and Florida.) How do you clean up the
blood and entrails that litter your suburban streets? How do
you feel about the practice of witchcraft, in which the
parts of young girls and boys are needed for
"medicinal" purposes? How do you react to the
burning of witches?
Don't laugh. All that is quite common in South Africa
today.
Don't imagine that government officials caught with
their fingers in the till will be punished. Excuses - like
the need to overcome generations of white racism - will be
found to exonerate the guilty.
In fact, known criminals will be voted into office because
of a racial solidarity among the majority that doesn't
exist among the whites. (Yet again, already happening,
especially among blacks.) When Ian Smith of the old Rhodesia
tried to stand up to the world, white South African
politicians were among the Westerners pressuring him to
surrender.
When Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe murders his political
opponents, ignores unfavorable court decisions, terrorizes
the population and siphons off millions from the state
treasury for himself and his friends, South Africa's new
President Thabo Mbeki holds his hand and declares his
support. That just happened a few weeks ago.
Your tax dollars will go to those who don't earn and
don't pay. (* You mean "spreading the wealth"
?) In South Africa, organizations that used to have access t
o state funds such as old age homes, the arts, and
veterans' services, are simply abandoned.
What will happen is that Western structures in America will
be either destroyed from without, or transformed from
within, used to suit the goals of the new rulers. And they
will reign either through terror, as in Zimbabwe today, or
exert other corrupt pressures to obtain, or buy votes. Once
power is in the hands of aliens, don't expect loyalty or
devotion to principle from those whose jobs are at stake.
One of the most surprising and tragic components of the
disaster in South Africa is how many previously anti-ANC
whites simply moved to the other side.
Once you lose social, cultural, and political dominance,
there is no getting it back again.
Please note. Once it's gone, it's gone. Whatever
you do later, however hard you fight, you cannot get it
back.
Unfortunately, your habits and values work against you. You
cannot fight terror and street mobs with letters to your
Congressmen. You cannot fight accusations of racism with
prayer meetings. You cannot appeal to the goodness of your
fellow man when the fellow man despises you for your
weaknesses and hacks off the arms and legs of his political
opponents.
To=2 0survive, Americans must never lose the power they now
enjoy to people from alien cultures. Above all, don't
put yourselves to the test of fighting only when you r backs
are against the wall. You will probably fail.
Millions around the world want your good life. But make no
mistake: They care not for the high-minded ideals of Thomas
Jefferson and George Washington, and your Constitution. What
they want are your possessions, your power, and your status.
And they already know that their allies among you, the
"human rights activists," the skillful lawyers and
the left-wing politicians will fight for them, and not for
you. They will exploit your compassion and your Christian
charity, and your good will.
They have studied you, Mr. and Mrs. America, and they know
your weaknesses well.
They know what to do.
Do you?
Friday, December 19, 2008
House Republicans Tell Bush: No Bailout for Detroit
House Republicans Tell Bush: No Bailout for Detroit
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 5:50 PM
By: David A. Patten
In letters sent from both House and Senate Republicans, President Bush has been warned not to give funds that Congress expressly appropriated for "financial institutions" to Detroit automakers.
The House letter also suggested such a move by Bush may be illegal and unconstitutional, noting that only Congress has the right to appropriate taxpayer funds.
Last week, Democrats suffered a major rebuke after their proposed bailout bill failed in the Senate. Senate Democrats could not muster enough voters to overcome a Republican filibuster of the bill.
Facing growing opposition from conservatives, President Bush may be backing away from a quick auto-industry bailout.
“I think you all led yourselves to believe that [the bailout] would be almost immediately,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told the White House press corps Tuesday. “We did not signal that it would be almost immediate.”
Bush faces a growing phalanx of conservative foes who staunchly oppose any use of federal bailout funds to help car manufacturers unless the United Auto Workers (UAW) union offers more concessions.
White House officials insist they remain committed to rescuing carmakers and are merely gathering more financial information to precisely gauge how much money the auto executives actually need.
On Monday, Bush received a letter signed by 26 House Republicans opposing the use of funds from the $700 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to bailout the “Big Three” automakers. The TARP legislation, the representatives said, specified that the money was for “financial institutions.”
[To view the complete letter sent to the president by 26 members of the House of Representatives - Go Here Now]
The conservative congressmen opposing the presidential bailout are led by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Rep. Thomas Price, R-Texas. Other signatories include GOP representatives Tom Feeney of Florida, Lamar Smith of Texas, and John Shadegg of Arizona.
American taxpayers, the congressmen insisted, “cannot afford to save every company facing financial peril.” Their letter urges Bush “not expand the use of TARP money to bailout American auto manufacturers” for the sake of “the long-term stability of our nation and our automotive manufacturers.”
The White House received more non-greeting card mail on Tuesday – this time a letter from seven Republican senators also urging President Bush not to use TARP funds to rescue carmakers.
Those GOP senators -- Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, John Ensign of Nevada, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, John Cornyn of Texas , Michael Enzi of Wyoming, and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia -- noted that Congress rejected the bailout after “the United Auto Workers (UAW) union refused to agree to changes necessary to help the Big Three automakers become competitive.”
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., tried to broker a last-minute agreement, but the deal fell through after the UAW balked at lowering compensation to levels “at parity” with the pay of autoworkers employed by Japanese companies in the United States.
Without such an agreement, the senators wrote, “we do not believe any amount of money will succeed in saving these companies.”
When it became clear the $14 billion auto bailout bill had little chance of being passed in the Senate last week, President-elect Barack Obama urged President Bush to intervene.
“My hope is that the administration and the Congress will still find a way to give the industry the temporary assistance it needs, while demanding the long-term restructuring that is absolutely required,” Obama said.
The Bush administration promised it would act to halt a “precipitous collapse” of the U.S. auto industry.
TARP is thought to be the only source of funds sufficient to keep auto makers afloat, but authorities have already burned through most of the first $350 billion that can be spent without further authorization.
CBS News has reported that only about $15 billion remains unspent from the first $350 billion -- just enough to keep the Big 3 on the road to economic recovery without having to file for bankruptcy protection in coming weeks. Dipping into the second $350 will require further action by Congress.
There is no word yet on when the review of automakers’ financial needs by the Bush administration will be completed.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 5:50 PM
By: David A. Patten
In letters sent from both House and Senate Republicans, President Bush has been warned not to give funds that Congress expressly appropriated for "financial institutions" to Detroit automakers.
The House letter also suggested such a move by Bush may be illegal and unconstitutional, noting that only Congress has the right to appropriate taxpayer funds.
Last week, Democrats suffered a major rebuke after their proposed bailout bill failed in the Senate. Senate Democrats could not muster enough voters to overcome a Republican filibuster of the bill.
Facing growing opposition from conservatives, President Bush may be backing away from a quick auto-industry bailout.
“I think you all led yourselves to believe that [the bailout] would be almost immediately,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told the White House press corps Tuesday. “We did not signal that it would be almost immediate.”
Bush faces a growing phalanx of conservative foes who staunchly oppose any use of federal bailout funds to help car manufacturers unless the United Auto Workers (UAW) union offers more concessions.
White House officials insist they remain committed to rescuing carmakers and are merely gathering more financial information to precisely gauge how much money the auto executives actually need.
On Monday, Bush received a letter signed by 26 House Republicans opposing the use of funds from the $700 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to bailout the “Big Three” automakers. The TARP legislation, the representatives said, specified that the money was for “financial institutions.”
[To view the complete letter sent to the president by 26 members of the House of Representatives - Go Here Now]
The conservative congressmen opposing the presidential bailout are led by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Rep. Thomas Price, R-Texas. Other signatories include GOP representatives Tom Feeney of Florida, Lamar Smith of Texas, and John Shadegg of Arizona.
American taxpayers, the congressmen insisted, “cannot afford to save every company facing financial peril.” Their letter urges Bush “not expand the use of TARP money to bailout American auto manufacturers” for the sake of “the long-term stability of our nation and our automotive manufacturers.”
The White House received more non-greeting card mail on Tuesday – this time a letter from seven Republican senators also urging President Bush not to use TARP funds to rescue carmakers.
Those GOP senators -- Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, John Ensign of Nevada, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, John Cornyn of Texas , Michael Enzi of Wyoming, and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia -- noted that Congress rejected the bailout after “the United Auto Workers (UAW) union refused to agree to changes necessary to help the Big Three automakers become competitive.”
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., tried to broker a last-minute agreement, but the deal fell through after the UAW balked at lowering compensation to levels “at parity” with the pay of autoworkers employed by Japanese companies in the United States.
Without such an agreement, the senators wrote, “we do not believe any amount of money will succeed in saving these companies.”
When it became clear the $14 billion auto bailout bill had little chance of being passed in the Senate last week, President-elect Barack Obama urged President Bush to intervene.
“My hope is that the administration and the Congress will still find a way to give the industry the temporary assistance it needs, while demanding the long-term restructuring that is absolutely required,” Obama said.
The Bush administration promised it would act to halt a “precipitous collapse” of the U.S. auto industry.
TARP is thought to be the only source of funds sufficient to keep auto makers afloat, but authorities have already burned through most of the first $350 billion that can be spent without further authorization.
CBS News has reported that only about $15 billion remains unspent from the first $350 billion -- just enough to keep the Big 3 on the road to economic recovery without having to file for bankruptcy protection in coming weeks. Dipping into the second $350 will require further action by Congress.
There is no word yet on when the review of automakers’ financial needs by the Bush administration will be completed.
Why government is NOT the answer....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim@foodforlife.com
To: westcoastwest@verizon.net; mizmal2@verizon.net; musclemedics@hotmail.com; rockywinds@aol.com; brick9@hotmail.com; DKKAIN@aol.com; bmiller@imaginesystems.net; rachie01@rocketmail.com; dmcgreg1@mindspring.com; torr313@aol.com; wbarela@peakhotels.com; icrandall@peakhotels.com; pauletorres@yahoo.com; dtorres87801@yahoo.com; mtorres@beall-biehler.com; minniebtorres@hotmail.com; jay@foodforlife.com; gary@foodforlife.com; davidrnf@hughes.net; art@foodforlife.com; tony@foodforlife.com; charlie@foodforlife.com; jaci@foodforlife.com; danrealtyexec@sbcglobal.net; HMoore3284@aol.com; bajawinemaker@yahoo.com; oldmancorny@yahoo.com
Subject: FW: Why government is NOT the answer....
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:59:54 -0800
From: OUT READER AND CONTRIBUTOR MINNIE TORRES
Subject: Fwd: Why government is NOT the answer....
Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter Administration? Anybody? Anything? No?
Didn't think so.
Bottom line . . we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember.
Ready?
It was very simple, and at the time everybody thought it very appropriate.
The Department of Energy was instituted August 4, 1977 TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL . HEY, PRETTY EFFICIENT, HUH?
AND NOW IT'S 2008, 31 YEARS LATER, AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR, THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE!
THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY 'WHAT WAS I THINKING?'
Ah yes, good ole bureaucracy. And now we are going to turn the Banking system over to them?
God Help us.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From: Jim@foodforlife.com
To: westcoastwest@verizon.net; mizmal2@verizon.net; musclemedics@hotmail.com; rockywinds@aol.com; brick9@hotmail.com; DKKAIN@aol.com; bmiller@imaginesystems.net; rachie01@rocketmail.com; dmcgreg1@mindspring.com; torr313@aol.com; wbarela@peakhotels.com; icrandall@peakhotels.com; pauletorres@yahoo.com; dtorres87801@yahoo.com; mtorres@beall-biehler.com; minniebtorres@hotmail.com; jay@foodforlife.com; gary@foodforlife.com; davidrnf@hughes.net; art@foodforlife.com; tony@foodforlife.com; charlie@foodforlife.com; jaci@foodforlife.com; danrealtyexec@sbcglobal.net; HMoore3284@aol.com; bajawinemaker@yahoo.com; oldmancorny@yahoo.com
Subject: FW: Why government is NOT the answer....
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:59:54 -0800
From: OUT READER AND CONTRIBUTOR MINNIE TORRES
Subject: Fwd: Why government is NOT the answer....
Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter Administration? Anybody? Anything? No?
Didn't think so.
Bottom line . . we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember.
Ready?
It was very simple, and at the time everybody thought it very appropriate.
The Department of Energy was instituted August 4, 1977 TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL . HEY, PRETTY EFFICIENT, HUH?
AND NOW IT'S 2008, 31 YEARS LATER, AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR, THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE!
THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY 'WHAT WAS I THINKING?'
Ah yes, good ole bureaucracy. And now we are going to turn the Banking system over to them?
God Help us.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suspicious message? There’s an alert for that. Get your Hotmail® account now.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
--Israeli agent's advice & warning.
----- Original Message -----
From: Mrs M
Being prepared--Israeli agent's advice & warning.
Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ' Munich ' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard--she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage in 1972 and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games. (Aviv's bio is noted at end.) He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.
Now for his future predictions. He predicts the next terrorist attack on the U.S. will occur within the next few months. Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again as they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke--that we have been reactionary rather than proactivein developing strategies that are truly effective.
For example:
1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic.
2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is 'reactionary.'
3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates. Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will targ et busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they go to the restroom, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel, security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.
Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate. (I. E., Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities ( New York , San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well20as rural America this time ( Wyoming, Montana, etc.).
The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas. Aviv says terrorists won't need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away.
Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U.S. government does not want to 'alarm American citizens' with the facts. The world is quickly going to become 'a different place,' and issue like 'global warming' and political correctness will become totally irrelevant.
On an encouraging note, he says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to 'meet their destiny.'
He also says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, 'homegrown' - having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U. S. He says to look for 'students' who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East . These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won't know/understand a thing about them.
Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terroristic threats we will, inevitably, face. America still has only a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact - SOON.
So, what can America do to protect itself? From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence. We need to, instead, follow Israel's, Ireland 's, and England 's hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust 'aware' citizens to help.
We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U.S. government continues to treat us, its citizens, 'like babies.' Our government thinks we 'can't handle the truth' and are concerned that we'll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.
Aviv recently created/executed a security test for our Congress, by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out. In fact, in Chicago, someone tried to steal the briefcase!
In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well 'trained that an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, 'Unattended Bag.' The area would be quickly & calmly cleared by the citizens themselves.. But, unfortunately, America hasn't been yet 'hurt enough' by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it's their citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism.
Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/ 11, who were 'lost' without parents being able to pick them up, and about our schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City, this was days, in some cases!)
He stresses the importance of having a plan, that's agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terroristic emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel .
Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow.
Aviv says that the U S. government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off EVERYONE's ability to use cell phones, blackberries, etc., as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the way that their bombs are detonated. How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak? You need to have a plan.
Aviv's Bio as follows:
He holds an M. A. in Business from Tel Aviv University and is President and CEO of Interfor, Inc., an international corporate intelligence and investigations firm. Interfor, Inc. is now based in New York , with offices around the world. It was founded in 1979 and provides foreign and domestic intelligence services to legal, corporate, and financial communities around the world. Interfor, Inc. also conducts investigations into terrorism, and Mr. Aviv now serves as a special consultant to the U.S. Congress, and other policy makers, here within the U. S. on issues of terrorism, fraud, and money laundering. Interfor's services encompass white-collar crime investigations, asset search and recovery, corporate due diligence, litigation support, fraud investigations, internal compliance investigations, and security and vulnerability assessments.
Since its inception, Interfor's asset investigation services have recovered over $2 billion worldwide for its clients.
A leading authority on terrorist networks, Mr. Aviv served as lead investigator for Pan Am Airways into the Pan Am 103-Lockerbie terrorist bombing. He wa s featured in the recent film, Munich, as the leader of the Israeli team that tracked down the terrorists who kidnapped the Israeli Olympic team. Before founding Interfor, Mr. Aviv served as an officer in the Israel Defense Force (Major, retired) leading an elite Commando/Intelligence Unit, and was later selected by the Israeli Secret Service (Mossad) to participate in a number of intelligence special operations, serving in many countries in the late 1960s and 1970s.
While working as a consultant with El Al, Mr. Aviv surveyed the existing security measures in place and updated El Al's security program, making El Al the safest airline in business today. Most recently, Mr. Aviv wrote a book entit led, 'Staying Safe: The Complete Guide to Protecting Yourself, Your Family, and Your Business.' (2004, Harper Resource)
He has been a featured guest on ABC Nightline, FOX News, CNN , BBC Newsnight, ZDF (German Nat ional Television), and RAI (Italian National Television)-and has been featured in numerous articles in major magazines and newspapers worldwide.
From: Mrs M
Being prepared--Israeli agent's advice & warning.
Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ' Munich ' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard--she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage in 1972 and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games. (Aviv's bio is noted at end.) He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.
Now for his future predictions. He predicts the next terrorist attack on the U.S. will occur within the next few months. Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again as they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke--that we have been reactionary rather than proactivein developing strategies that are truly effective.
For example:
1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic.
2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is 'reactionary.'
3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates. Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will targ et busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they go to the restroom, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel, security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.
Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate. (I. E., Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities ( New York , San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well20as rural America this time ( Wyoming, Montana, etc.).
The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas. Aviv says terrorists won't need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away.
Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U.S. government does not want to 'alarm American citizens' with the facts. The world is quickly going to become 'a different place,' and issue like 'global warming' and political correctness will become totally irrelevant.
On an encouraging note, he says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to 'meet their destiny.'
He also says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, 'homegrown' - having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U. S. He says to look for 'students' who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East . These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won't know/understand a thing about them.
Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terroristic threats we will, inevitably, face. America still has only a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact - SOON.
So, what can America do to protect itself? From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence. We need to, instead, follow Israel's, Ireland 's, and England 's hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust 'aware' citizens to help.
We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U.S. government continues to treat us, its citizens, 'like babies.' Our government thinks we 'can't handle the truth' and are concerned that we'll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.
Aviv recently created/executed a security test for our Congress, by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out. In fact, in Chicago, someone tried to steal the briefcase!
In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well 'trained that an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, 'Unattended Bag.' The area would be quickly & calmly cleared by the citizens themselves.. But, unfortunately, America hasn't been yet 'hurt enough' by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it's their citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism.
Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/ 11, who were 'lost' without parents being able to pick them up, and about our schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City, this was days, in some cases!)
He stresses the importance of having a plan, that's agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terroristic emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel .
Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow.
Aviv says that the U S. government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off EVERYONE's ability to use cell phones, blackberries, etc., as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the way that their bombs are detonated. How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak? You need to have a plan.
Aviv's Bio as follows:
He holds an M. A. in Business from Tel Aviv University and is President and CEO of Interfor, Inc., an international corporate intelligence and investigations firm. Interfor, Inc. is now based in New York , with offices around the world. It was founded in 1979 and provides foreign and domestic intelligence services to legal, corporate, and financial communities around the world. Interfor, Inc. also conducts investigations into terrorism, and Mr. Aviv now serves as a special consultant to the U.S. Congress, and other policy makers, here within the U. S. on issues of terrorism, fraud, and money laundering. Interfor's services encompass white-collar crime investigations, asset search and recovery, corporate due diligence, litigation support, fraud investigations, internal compliance investigations, and security and vulnerability assessments.
Since its inception, Interfor's asset investigation services have recovered over $2 billion worldwide for its clients.
A leading authority on terrorist networks, Mr. Aviv served as lead investigator for Pan Am Airways into the Pan Am 103-Lockerbie terrorist bombing. He wa s featured in the recent film, Munich, as the leader of the Israeli team that tracked down the terrorists who kidnapped the Israeli Olympic team. Before founding Interfor, Mr. Aviv served as an officer in the Israel Defense Force (Major, retired) leading an elite Commando/Intelligence Unit, and was later selected by the Israeli Secret Service (Mossad) to participate in a number of intelligence special operations, serving in many countries in the late 1960s and 1970s.
While working as a consultant with El Al, Mr. Aviv surveyed the existing security measures in place and updated El Al's security program, making El Al the safest airline in business today. Most recently, Mr. Aviv wrote a book entit led, 'Staying Safe: The Complete Guide to Protecting Yourself, Your Family, and Your Business.' (2004, Harper Resource)
He has been a featured guest on ABC Nightline, FOX News, CNN , BBC Newsnight, ZDF (German Nat ional Television), and RAI (Italian National Television)-and has been featured in numerous articles in major magazines and newspapers worldwide.
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