Heavy-Handed Politics

What a Hoot! What a Fool! What a Shame.

2009-11-11T17:30:00.001-06:00

CNSNews.com - Sen. Reed: Forcing People to Buy Health Insurance is Constitutionally Justified Because It’s Like Making People ‘Sign Up for the Draft’

Sen. Reed: Forcing People to Buy Health Insurance is Constitutionally Justified Because It’s Like Making People ‘Sign Up for the Draft’
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
By Edwin Mora

(CNSNews.com) – When asked where specifically the Constitution authorized Congress to mandate that individuals buy health insurance, Sen. Jack Reed (D.-R.I.) said that he “would have to check the specific sections” but said that it was like making people “sign up for the draft.” (Read more.)

Pushing a Point of View

2009-11-07T13:26:00.001-06:00

Robert Ringer's Voice of Sanity Blog

By Robert Ringer

Those commentators on Fox News who like to play it down the middle keep saying that they believe BHO’s strategy of trying to marginalize the most successful TV network in the country is unwise. Unwise? They’ve been inside the Beltway too long.

The Duplicitous Despot and his criminal minions — most notably David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, Anita Dunn, and Mark Lloyd — are out to shut down Fox News. No subtlety about it. They take seriously Mao’s belief that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. After all, Anita Bandita looks to Chairman Mao when it comes to her philosophical inspiration.

When you watch certain commentators (whom I shall purposely leave unnamed) on Fox, it’s not hard to ..... Read more.

2009-11-07T13:12:00.001-06:00

"..... socialized medicine is a bad idea. Any system that comes out of our government is going to be a scandal-plagued train wreck of high prices and low quality on day one, and only get worse from there."

-- Dr. William Douglass --

2009-11-07T13:08:00.001-06:00

How much more are you going to pay?
By Dr. William Douglass

It doesn't take a math whiz to see the problems with the numbers when it comes to ObamaCare.

But the funny business going on is reaching outrageous new levels - as a new analysis shows that seniors will pay up to 50 percent more for their coverage than what we were told just a few months ago.

Not that any of it should matter, because a rotten idea stinks at any price. But as long as this is being shoved down our throats, someone needs to level with our seniors and tell them what to expect.

Since you won't get that from your lawmaker, let me tell you what's going on here.

Read more from Dr. Douglass here.

The Dismissal Strategy

2009-11-07T12:52:00.001-06:00

Robert Ringer's Voice of Sanity Blog

By Robert Ringer

I caught the last part of Chris Wallace’s interview with Rush Limbaugh last Sunday and was pleased to have it confirmed as being a huge success. That confirmation came from David Axelrod on CBS’ Face the Nation when he dismissed Limbaugh as an entertainer.

Said Axelrod, “He does it every day on radio. He’s marketing the outrageous. And he does very well with it. But, as I said, he’s an entertainer. We’ve got bigger responsibilities.”

Funny, and here all this time I thought it was BHO who was marketing the outrageous, with government-run healthcare being his latest ShamWow. But there’s no question that BHO and The Boys have bigger responsibilities — like, for example, fundamentally changing a democratic republic into a socialist police state.

One thing kids should be taught at a young age is that when someone belittles......... Read more.

2009-11-07T00:53:00.000-06:00

The Gouverneur Times:
Owens Breaks 4 Campaign Promises in first hour in Congress

2009-11-07T00:47:00.001-06:00

Obama's Frightening Insensitivity Following Shooting | NBC Chicago

A bad week for Democrats compounded by an awful moment for Barack Obama.

Failure to Comply: Welcome to Facism

2009-11-07T00:30:00.001-06:00

House Committee on Ways & Means

PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail
Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail

Recession, Depression, What Michelle Worry?

2009-10-26T15:58:00.001-06:00

First Lady requires more than twenty attendants

By Dr. Paul L. Williams
Canada Free Press
“In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service, “ -- Michelle Obama

No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn’t perform any official duties. But this hasn’t deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession. Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary. Read more and see the list of her personal staff.

2009-10-23T23:16:00.001-05:00

Destructive 'Solutions' | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

For at least a century, the Washington political class has been correctly known for creating more problems than solving existing ones. This tendency to enact destructive, rather than constructive, solutions for problems (most often created by government) has now gone into hyper-drive.

Many who see this situation often blame it on "excessive partisanship," where the real problem is caused by a bipartisan lust for power that breeds too much accommodation, rather than questioning and resistance to bad ideas. Read more.

2009-10-23T22:59:00.002-05:00

A DITHERING DEMAGOGUING WHITE HOUSE THAT IS A DANGER TO AMERICA
By Dick Cheney

[This is the full text of former Vice-President Dick Cheney's speech at the Center for Security Policy award dinner in Washington on October 21, 2009.]

Thank you all very much. Its a pleasure to be here, and especially to receive the Keeper of the Flame Award in the company of so many good friends...And I thank you for the great energy and high intelligence you bring to as vital a cause as there is -- the advance of freedom and the uncompromising defense of the United States.

Most anyone who is given responsibility in matters of national security quickly comes to appreciate the commitments and structures put in place by others who came before. You deploy a military force that was planned and funded by your predecessors. You inherit relationships with partners and obligations to allies that were first undertaken years and even generations earlier.

With the authority you hold for a little while, you have great freedom of action. And whatever course you follow, the essential thing is always to keep commitments, and to leave no doubts about the credibility of your country's word.

So among my other concerns about the drift of events under the present administration... Read more...

Marxism

2009-10-23T22:55:00.004-05:00

"...for Marxist Communists, there is no difference between make-believe and reality. There is no such thing as reality. There is only what people believe. If people believe something is true, it is. If they don't, it isn't, it doesn't exist..."

-- Dr. Jack Wheeler--

OMG. What next.

2009-10-23T22:51:00.001-05:00

CNSNews.com - Lawyers Call for Changes in International Law to Help ‘Climate Exiles’

(CNSNews.com) – International law dealing with refugees should be amended to cover people affected by disasters attributed to climate change, environmental lawyers are arguing.

2009-10-23T22:48:00.001-05:00

T. Boone Pickens on Iraq: 'We leave there with the Chinese getting the oil'

WASHINGTON — A leading energy developer said the United States has been excluded from Iraq's revived energy market.

T. Boone Pickens told Congress that U.S. companies were losing opportunities in the Iraqi crude oil and natural gas sectors to competitors from China and Europe.

The senior executive said the United States could lose all influence in the Iraqi oil sector after the military withdrawal in 2011. More...

OBAMA CARE

2009-10-23T22:27:00.004-05:00

According to AMERIPAC, under Obama Care:

Seniors lose $500 Billion from Medicare
Obama Lied - Illegals are TAX exempt and get FREE care (Americans pay)
You pay TAXES on Employer health care plans
Uninsured forced to spend 20% of income to be insured
Retired Union Members healthcare benefits get TAXED
ObamaCare provided to ALL non US citizens, including illegals
Illegals are 1/3 of all those covered in the ObamaCare plan
ObamaCare has a $1,000,000,000,000 Trillion Tax Gap
ObamaCare CANNOT BE PAID FOR without NEW TAXES
ObamaCare adds more than $3000/yr of debt to every American
NEW TAXES on Americans earning less than $250,000/yr
56% Of All Americans oppose ObamaCare
Americans PAY an additional estimated $3500/yr for coverage
Government administration more costly than private insurance
88 million Americans can LOSE private, employer coverage
GOVT COMMITTEE decides treatments/benefits you get
Mandatory! Governments control of your living wills
Health Choices Commissioner will choose your ObamaCare Benefits
Government sets Doctor's pay rates - no specialists
Cancer patient care rationing
Government mandated Advance Care (Death) Planning
Government RESTRICTIONS on Special needs children
Congress gets lavish healthcare
Congress gets “No Coverage Limit” care
Congress gets No "Pre-Existing Condition" Clause

2009-10-16T21:15:00.003-05:00

What's "Divisive"?

by John Hinderaker
Power Line

A postscript on the Rush Limbaugh/St. Louis Rams story, which I wrote about here: the conventional criticism of Limbaugh, by those not dumb enough to fall for the fake racist quotes, is that he is a "divisive" figure. That, for example, was the objection that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell voiced: Rush is too "divisive" to be involved with the NFL.

Well: as I wrote last night, it is ironic that Keith Olbermann, who, unlike Rush, is actually a hatemonger, is a network commentator on NFL games. Apparently no one thinks Olbermann is too "divisive" to be associated with the league.

Which raises this thought: has any liberal ever been labeled "divisive"? I can't recall a single instance. President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are trying to dismantle our health care system, an effort to which most Americans object and about which many millions care deeply. So, why are they not divisive? If that isn't divisive, what is?

These thoughts are prompted by Olbermann's latest outrage: another attack on Michelle Malkin, in which he accused Michelle of being a "fascist" and described her as "a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it." It is impossible to imagine a conservative with a network television contract using language like that about a liberal woman. Impossible. It is, to begin with, misogynistic; it's also aesthetically ridiculous. Agree with her or not, Michelle is a beautiful woman. One can only wonder what kind of twisted, sick psyche could produce this sort of venom. (Michelle writes about Olbermann's bizarre outburst here.)

But let's apply a much lower threshold: by what conceivable standard is Keith Olbermann not a divisive figure? It would be impossible to be more intensely partisan or to be more vicious toward those with whom he disagrees. How can that not be considered divisive, by the NFL's standards?

The only answer is that "divisive" is a criticism that applies only to conservatives. It is not possible for a liberal to be "divisive," however crazed he or she may be. This is true even though the whole point of a political system is to decide issues about which people disagree. If people don't disagree, it isn't a political issue. So to argue for any political point of view is necessarily divisive. But divisiveness is a one-way street. When liberals express liberal views, that's just being a patriotic American. When conservatives express conservative views, it's "divisive."

That is, sadly, how much of our country's establishment thinks.

2009-10-16T20:49:00.001-05:00

Lefty anger splits Dems -- and may sink them | Washington Examiner

Self-styled progressives across the country are angry, not just at Obama, but at the rest of the Democratic power structure, as well. That anger is causing an ugly split inside the Washington Democratic world.

"Can I speak freely about the liberal whiners?" asks a well-connected Democratic strategist. "These are the same people who have never participated in, much less won, a campaign, who have no idea what it takes to maintain a majority and keep a speaker of our party, who want Obama to kowtow to the loony Left, and then they're going to be the ones who say, 'What happened?' in November 2010, when we lose the House and possibly the Senate and maybe a lot of governorships."

READ ON.

LIFE

2009-10-15T10:01:00.003-05:00

We lost a family friend yesterday to cancer. He was only 31 years old and was married about one week shy of 1 year.

Life can be cruel at times.

2009-10-11T18:06:00.000-05:00

"We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience."

--Thomas Jefferson

2009-10-11T18:02:00.001-05:00

"[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community."

--Benjamin Rush, 1788

2009-10-11T17:59:00.001-05:00

"[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them."

--Candidus in the Boston Gazette, 1772

2009-10-11T17:57:00.001-05:00

Saudis weighs major F-15 buy as Iran advances

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia is negotiating another major order of F-15 fighter-jet from the United States.

2009-10-11T17:56:00.001-05:00

CIA hurt by 'administration's war with the U.S. intelligence community'

A senior member of Congress said last week that Justice Department prosecutions of CIA personnel over detainee treatment is undermining morale at the agency and prompting resignations.

2009-10-11T17:55:00.001-05:00

GAO report: Saudis are top fianciers of Taliban

WASHINGTON — The United States has determined that Saudi Arabia continues to be the leading source of funding to Al Qaida and is also the top financial backer of Taliban.

Kerry Says Recession Helps Environment

2009-10-11T17:18:00.000-05:00

Echoing White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's maxim, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) wants to capitalize on, extend and even increase current unemployment rates to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Endorsing draft legislation of a so called "cap and trade" bill co-introduced with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Kerry stated, "Let me emphasize something very strongly as we begin this discussion. The United States has already this year alone achieved a 6 percent reduction in emissions simply because of the downturn in the economy, so we are effectively saying we need to go another 14 percent."

Translated: the recession is good for the environment, so we should make it permanent. Or, as the Heritage Foundation notes, "It took a solid year for the United States to reach 10 percent unemployment through the financial meltdown and the housing crisis, let's keep it there, or make it worse, with cap and trade. Why not be even more aggressive?" Democrats apparently want 18 percent unemployment to hit the magic 20 percent reduction in CO₂ emissions. Never mind the nearly two million jobs that cap and tax will extinguish by 2012. What's a job when the environment is supposedly in question? Nice to know where Senator Kerry's priorities lie.

Meanwhile, Leighton Steward, a geologist and former believer in global warming is on Capitol Hill this week to inform our wise representatives that CO₂ does not cause warming. In fact, carbon dioxide emissions are good for the planet.

-- The Patriot Post --