Becoming Greece

From Neal Boortz

Some of you may think that I am being dramatic when I say that images of Greece may soon become a reality in America, if we continue down our current path. Yeah ... that's me. Mr. Drama. There are two main issues that led to the downfall of Greece. First, the government took on too much debt, which means the Greek government spends too much money. While our own government debt is alarming - and growing at record rates with The Community Organizer in charge. We're in a financial crisis right now - not as bad as Greece, but bad enough - but it wasn't caused so much by government debt as it was by government ineptness. It was private debt that sent us into a tailspin. Specifically, trillions of dollars owed on real estate loans by people who didn't have and never had much of a chance of paying those loans off. Our government debt problem can still be solved - but not with this man in the White House and these big-spenders controlling the congress.

What is going to be a lot harder to solve is the second issue that led to Greece's downfall: an entitlement culture. Greece is a country that has managed to convince its people that they need the government in order to survive. Not only do they need the government but they are ENTITLED to certain things, and like any good entitlement culture, that list of "things" only grows and grows. Suddenly, the people of Greece believe that they are owed a comfortable life by their government, even if they are not willing to work for it.

In Greece the average government worker retires at 58 years-of-age with 80% of their final basic salary. The Greek government can't even tell you how many government employees there are. Some estimate that figure to be one out of three Greek workers. Unions run the show and the government marches to the demands of union leaders. In this regard Greek government officials are much like our own. Unlike the private sector, when government officials are met with unreasonable union demands for wages and job security they don't have to crunch the numbers to see if the demands can be met with any degree of fiscal responsibility. After all .. they can just raise taxes. You start weighing the effect of unions working against your reelection to the mindless voters remembering a tax increase a year later when they go to the polls and ... well, it's not hard to figure out.

Over the years, Greek salaries and pensions have risen 30% above Greek productivity ... in other words, they were getting paid more than they were worth. Not only that, but they felt ENTITLED to this payment and only sought to gain more and more while doing less and less. We are talking about a culture where being a hairdresser is considered a "hazardous job" ... a hazardous job that makes you eligible to retire with a full pension (funded by the government) at the age of 50. But it's not just hairdressers, there are 580 other job categories that have managed to convince the government that there job is so hazardous that they are worthy of an early retirement - 50 for women and 55 for men. Radio and TV presenters - I guess that would include yours truly - can take early retirement because they are thought to be at risk from bacteria on their microphones. Musicians who play wind instruments .. they can retire at age 50 because they have to deal with gastric reflux from all the puffing and blowing.

No, I am not making this stuff up. This is what happens when you have a country that believes they are owed everything and a government that is willing to give it to them because that gives them (the politicians) more power. In the meantime, paying for this mentality mattered not ... until now.

Are we now watching the final chapter in Greece? The EU and the IMF are ready to bail out Greece with over $150 billion dollars, but there are strings. Wages are going to have to be cut. Government employees are going to lose jobs ... and, as you can see if you peel your eyes away from Inside Edition this evening ... the Greeks don't like it. They're rioting. They're attacking their own police officers. They're destroying property. Greece is virtually paralyzed by violence .. people reacting to the reality that their cushy ride might be coming to an end. You're seeing what happens when a parasite is separated from the host ... when the protected and coddled face the prospect of having to develop a bit of self-reliance.

Could this happen in America? Can someone please tell me why it could not?

From Boortz's website.

Twelve Anti-Family Gifts from Congress

from The Heritage Foundation
Posted December 25th, 2009 at 4.00pm in Family and Religion.

As Congress wraps up its final business for the year, there are at least a dozen detrimental policies included in the omnibus spending bill recently signed into law by the President. Taken as a whole, these policies devalue human life, weaken civil society, and undermine the family. Unfortunately, these provisions have largely gone unnoticed by the general public.

The Dirty Dozen

The Fiscal Year 2010 Omnibus Appropriations bill passed by Congress includes a slew of offensive items:

1. Elimination of abstinence education. Despite polling showing the vast majority of parents want their children to be taught that abstinence is best, the omnibus defunds the abstinence-based education program. In its place Congress creates another condom-based sex education program.

2. Spreading the wealth. The omnibus bill, as well as the other appropriation measures that have passed this year, represent a fulfillment of President Obama’s promise to “spread the wealth.” His 2010 budget reflects a 30 percent increase over President Bush’s last year in office on means-tested welfare programs such as housing, food stamps, and health care. Unfortunately, these programs do little or nothing to help recipients move off of the welfare rolls and into jobs where they can achieve independence and provide for their families.

3. Needle exchange. Tucked into the health portion of the bill is an allowance of federal taxpayer funds to be used for needle exchange programs whereby drug addicts can get new needles for turning in used needles. Ostensibly to prevent the spread of infection, these programs settle for “harm reduction” rather than overcoming drug addiction. The provision does allow local health agencies and local law enforcement to “opt-out.”

4. Planned Parenthood funding. Despite the country’s towering deficit, the omnibus bill boosts Title X family planning funding by $10 million to $315.5 million. The largest recipient of Title X funds is Planned Parenthood.

5. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Despite its stated mission to “ensure that every pregnancy is wanted,” the UNFPA would receive $5 million more from U.S. taxpayers to, among other things, support China’s mandatory one-child policy, under which millions of wanted pregnancies have been ended.

6. International family planning. Shortly after his inauguration, President Obama rescinded the “Mexico City policy,” which banned funding to organizations that promote and/or perform abortion overseas. The omnibus bills would give these groups an additional $103 million.

7. Limiting free speech. The omnibus bill drops a ban on federal funds being used to enforce or implement the “Fairness Doctrine.” This policy would have the effect of shutting down conservative talk radio programs.

The section of the bill that funds the District of Columbia includes these disturbing provisions:

8. Ending the D.C. Scholarship Program. For five years, thousands of D.C. families have been able to send their children to safe and effective private schools. But the omnibus bill allows no new entrants into the program–despite a 2009 Department of Education report showing a statistically significant increase in reading scores for scholarship students.

9. Public funding of abortion. The bill lifts a ban on D.C. using local funds to promote and fund abortions for District residents.

10. Taxpayer-financed domestic partner benefits. The bill lifts a longstanding ban on the use of federal taxpayer funds to pay for health care benefits for domestic partners of D.C. employees. Federal funds would also now be used for domestic partnership registration.

11. Legalized medical marijuana. The bill gives D.C. the ability to use local funds to start and implement a medical marijuana program. This comes at a time when, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles is attempting to reel in its program. Medical marijuana dispensaries have become one of the fastest-growing industries in the city, with some 1,000 dispensaries cropping up since 2004.

12. Needle exchange for drug abusers. A decade-long ban is lifted in the bill to allow D.C. to use local funds to run a needle exchange program for drug addicts. Unfortunately, a provision keeping these programs from within 1,000 feet of any school, day care, or youth center was stripped out in the final bill.

Unwelcome Christmas Gifts

The Christmas season is a time when Americans celebrate life, family, and community. Unfortunately, the 12 unwelcome Christmas gifts in the omnibus bill, signed into law by President Obama last week, undermine these pillars of American civil society.

Author: Kiki Bradley

Orrin Hatch on Healthcare on the Senate Floor

WASHINGTON – Before tonight’s vote on the Senate $2.5 trillion health bill, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, offered an impassioned plea for senators to stand with the American people by saying no to a Washington takeover of Americans’ health care system.

“This is bigger than us, our parties or our ideologies,” Hatch remarked on the Senate floor. “This is about the very future of the greatest nation in the history of the world. It is about your children and my children. It is about your grandchildren and my grandchildren. It is about giving our future generations the same opportunities and the same sense of pride. It is about every American life and every American business that will be subject to this 2,074-page edict from Washington.”

Hatch’s complete remarks on the Senate floor follow:

Mr. President, We are rapidly approaching perhaps one of the most important votes for each of us here in the United States Senate. This is bigger than us, our parties or our ideologies.

This about the very future of the greatest nation in the history of the world. It is about your children and my children. It is about your grandchildren and my children. It is about giving our future generations the same opportunities and the same sense of pride. It is about every American life and every American business that will be subject to this 2,074-page edict from Washington.

I am going to spend my time before this historic vote to highlight some very important numbers, so every member of this chamber understands what they are voting to advance. Make no mistake, our actions today will not be without consequences. History and our future generations will judge us on this. Here are some numbers:

• 0 – the number of provisions prohibiting the rationing of health care.

• 0 – the number of government-run entitlement programs that are financially sound over the long-term.

• 10.2 percent – our national unemployment rate, the highest in 26 years.

• 70 – total number of government programs authorized by the bill.

• 1,697 – times the Secretary of Health and Human Services is given authority to determine or define provisions in this bill.

• 2,074 – total pages in this bill.

• 2010 – the year Americans start paying higher taxes to pay for this bill

• 2014 – the year when this bill actually starts most of the major provisions of this bill

• $6.8 million – cost to taxpayers per word

• $8 billion – the total amount of new taxes on Americans who do not buy Washington-defined health care.

• $465 billion – Cuts in Medicare at a time when it faces a $38 trillion unfunded liability to finance more government spending.

• $494 billion – total amount of new taxes in this bill

• $2.5 trillion – the real cost of the bill

• $12 trillion – our total national debt

These numbers are facts. They are undisputable.

Let me finish by reading an excerpt from a letter from one of my fellow Utahans from Provo, who is worried just like me about what this bill will mean for our country:

“I am writing out of deep concern over the increasing expansion of government. I moved here from Germany 20 years ago. I love America because it is free – freer than Germany in that I have the freedom to choose, among other things, how I want to insure my family (we have six children). I’m all for affordable health insurance which requires affordable health care. I am self-employed and have been hit hard by the economy.

There is a good chance that we would actually benefit from [this bill]. Business has been so bad that we would qualify for free school lunches if we asked for it. But I don’t want more government handouts.

I don’t want the government telling me what kind of insurance I need to have. I don’t want the government telling me what services I can receive when I need them. I don’t want them taking an ever greater part of my income to help finance government programs such as the ‘public option’ and the army of government employees it will take to administer such a program. I do not want more government. I want less. A lot less."

Source

Obama to Cede US Sovereignty

This is a must-see video!

Lord Monckton is a leading debunker of the whole anthropogenic global warming scam. Among his actions in this regard, he successfully sued to prevent the showing of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth as part of the scientific curriculum of British schools, due to its clear flaws and exaggerations. A British court agreed with him, citing nine specific instances where the information presented as hard science was clearly wrong. He also has a long-standing challenge for Mr. Gore to meet him in an open debate on the topic of global warming, a challenge that has so far been ignored.

Hat tip to Jim Myers and, of course, to Lord Monckton... thank you for your efforts.

Obama's peace overtures warrant laughter, not a Nobel Prize

About the only thing more comical than Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was the reaction of those who deemed the award "premature," as if the brilliance of Mr. Obama's foreign policy is so self- evident and its success so assured that if only the Norway Five had waited a few years, his Nobel worthiness would have been universally acknowledged.

I'm thinking they gave it to him now b/c in a few years when American ideals are all but gone and we'll be learning to speak Russian, Chinese or whatever dialect Iranians speak, it will be too late.
More from Krauthammer here

The Nobel Hope Prize

An award for the end of American exceptionalism.

The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to President Obama yesterday was greeted with astonishment as much as any other emotion, even among many of his admirers. Our own reaction is bemusement at the Norwegian decision to offer what amounts to the world's first futures prize in diplomacy, with the Nobel Committee anticipating the heroic concessions that it believes Mr. Obama will make to secure treaties that will produce a new era of global serenity.

Maybe he really is The One.

Mr. Obama seemed more than a little amazed himself, after only nine months on the job and having been inaugurated only 12 days before Nobel nominations were due in February. The prize isn't "a recognition of my own accomplishment," the President said yesterday, adding that "I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize." Humility grace note accepted.

Yet something more than the power of charisma induced the Norwegians to honor Mr. Obama, so this is also a teachable moment. The committee's citation provides a crib sheet. The Norwegians hailed "Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons," noting "a new climate" in which "multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position."

The statement extols the American's support for the U.N. and notes that "dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts." Praise comes as well for Mr. Obama's commitment to fight climate change by capping greenhouse gas emissions. George W. Bush may have retired from American public life, but the Europeans want the Yanks to know they never want to see his likes again. Counting Jimmy Carter in 2002 and Al Gore in 2007, this is the third Nobel Non-Bush Peace Prize.

On one level, all of this represents the parochial European foreign policy agenda. But somehow we doubt Mr. Obama would have received the Nobel merely for believing in climate change. The Norwegians rightly detect something larger in Mr. Obama's vision. As Thorbjørn Jagland, who chairs the Nobel Committee, told CNN: "He has done a lot already" and this award will "enhance the ideals Barack Obama is promoting."

What ideals are those? Well, the Nobel citation declares that Mr. Obama's "diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population." Now, the world is a big place, much of it run by despots and crooks, each of whom gets the same vote in the U.N. General Assembly as America. The Europeans are applauding that at long last there is an American President willing to let himself and his country mingle as equals with this amorphous global "majority."

The Norwegians are on to something. In a mere nine months, the President has promulgated a vision for the U.S. role in the world that breaks with both Republican and Democratic predecessors. Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's Secretary of State, called America the "indispensable nation" a decade ago. Ronald Reagan called it a "city on the Hill," an example to the world.

Mr. Obama sees the U.S. differently, as weaker than it was and the rest of the planet as stronger, and so he calls for a humbler America, at best a first among equals, working primarily through the U.N. The world's challenges, he emphasized yesterday, "can't be met by any one leader or any one nation." What this suggests to us—and to the Norwegians—is the end of what has been called "American exceptionalism." This is the view that U.S. values have universal application and should be promoted without apology, and defended with military force when necessary.

From the WSJ

Radicals Wrote Failed Stimulus

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Monday, September 21, 2009

Policymaking: If the stimulus isn't working, perhaps it's because it was largely written by a collection of leftist interest groups called the Apollo Alliance that counts among its directors a co-founder of the Weather Underground.

The Labor Department reported Friday that 42 states lost more jobs than they gained in August, and that 14 plus Washington, D.C., reported unemployment rates of 10% or more.

Michigan's rate rose to 15.2%, highest in the nation. Nevada, represented by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is second with 13.2%. California, home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is tied for fourth with Oregon at 12.2%.

Clearly, the stimulus bill that no congressman read is not working. As it turns out, no congressman may have written it either. It's largely the creation of a coalition of leftist organizations called the Apollo Alliance, whose primary interests are saving the Earth, environmental justice and redistributing wealth. They are not friends of job-creating capitalism.

On Apollo's Web site, Sen. Reid, whose state also leads in foreclosures, is quoted praising the group of which former green czar Van Jones was a board member.

"We've talked about moving forward on these ideas for decades," Reid is quoted as saying. "The Apollo Alliance has been an important factor in helping us develop and execute a strategy that makes great progress on these goals and in motivating the public to support them."

Jones, the former Oakland, Calif., community organizer and self-avowed communist, was on the board of the Apollo Alliance when he accepted the position in the Obama administration as green jobs czar.

As Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity told Glenn Beck, Jones has "described the Apollo Alliance mission as sort of a grand unified field theory for progressive left causes" that would tie elements of organized labor with community organizers and environmental groups into an outfit that would restructure American society.

Wade Rathke, founder of Acorn, was also on the Apollo board, as is Gerald Hudson, vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which provides the shock troops in the movement to pass government-run health care.

John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Clinton and now president of the leftist Center for American Progress, also sits on the Apollo board. Each day his group sends out talking points to the left side of the blogosphere. Mark Lloyd, diversity czar at the Federal Communications Commission, was a senior fellow at CAP.

According to Kerpen, the Apollo Alliance put together a draft stimulus bill in 2008 that included almost everything in the final $787 billion package. Little did the voters know that the congressmen and senators they would elect would pass a bill written by activist outsiders.

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of all this is that an even more radical Jones (no relation) has a relationship with the Apollo Alliance. Jeff Jones was a domestic terrorist in the '60s and a fugitive from justice throughout the '70s who, with Bill Ayers, helped found the Weather Underground in 1969.

Ayers, Jones and the Weathermen participated in the violent Days of Rage riots in Chicago and a nationwide anti-government bombing campaign. Like Ayers, Jeff Jones has no regrets, saying: "To this day, we still, lots of us, including me, still think it was the right thing to do."

Today, Jones finds himself director of the Apollo Alliance's New York affiliate and a consultant to the national group. One of his clients is the Workforce Development Institute, a union-controlled organization.

As a consultant to WDI, Jones helps write the grant proposals for federal stimulus dollars — funds authorized in the bill that Apollo helped write — all to ensure that taxpayer dollars end up in the hands of groups that share Apollo's political agenda.

Welcome to government of the activist, by the activist, and for the activist.

So... Now We All Know This Is About Obama's Race

From Neal Boortz

And just who didn't see all of this coming? Come on, folks! Having you been paying attention for the past 30 years? In virtually every state and community in this nation liberals have been blaming racism for any failure, miscalculation, controversy or outright act of corruption by black elected officials. There has been a standard operating methodology in place for all of the 40 years I've been doing talk radio:

1. Black citizen elected to office.
2. Black official runs into opposition to policy objectives or has a problem with corruption.
3. Black supporters and liberals blame the problems on race.

One-two-three. This scenario has been played out so many times in modern American history it would have been impossible to keep count. Now a black man has become president. Some fools thought that this would help our country move beyond racial division. Well --- perhaps it would have, if only evil white people had been smart enough not to object to anything this man might propose. But it didn't work out that way, so now the left and the media are finding racists under every bed, behind every utility pole and on every street in America. Newsweek Magazine even ran a totally absurd story about racism in babies ... putting a picture of a white infant on the cover with the title "Is your baby racist?" Read that story and you'll find that the authors think that it would be horrifying if a white child were to ever express pride in being white.

Last year, before the election, some of us predicted that if (or when) Barack Obama became president that this would happen. We said that every time his policies met with opposition the left would start screaming racism. So what happened when we said that this would happen? Well ... you guessed it. We were called racists. You just can't imagine how surprised and shocked we were.

So .. here is what Jimmy Carter, Bill Moyers, Hank Johnson, much of the Washington and New York press corps, Newsweek Magazine and the brilliant thinkers on the American left would have you believe of Americans right now:

* We would be more than willing to welcome cap-and-trade with open arms, even if we paid a thousand dollars or more extra every year for our energy use, if Barack Obama were only white.
* We would be dancing in the streets celebrating the dawning of government control of our health care if only Barack Obama were white.
* It would be just dandy if government bureaucrats rationed health care for our parents, as long as the president is white.
* We would jump at the chance of the government owning ALL of the auto manufacturing companies .. not just General Motors ... if the president just didn't have dark skin.
* We would applaud those ACORN workers giving tax avoidance advice to a pimp and his prostitute if the workers hadn't been black.
* Most Americans - even ones that don't pay income taxes now - would be more than willing to give 70% of everything they earn to the federal government when asked ... so long as they are asked by a white president.
* We would have been thrilled, I tell you ... THRILLED to have all of those Islamic goons being held at Guantanamo be not only released, but sent to be school resource officers at our local government schools, if only a white president put that plan in motion.
* It would be OK if a white president stood back and allowed Iran to build its coveted nukes ... we're only unhappy about that because a black president is doing it.
* Deficits? We don't care about deficits! Make our children and grand children and great grand children pay through the nose for our president's spending habits ... just so long as the president isn't black.
* Government pork? Like we actually care? Look ... you folks in Washington can spend all the money you want - how about more studies of the mating habits of Polish Zlotnika pigs? - just make sure it's not a black president who signs the spending bill into law.
* We wouldn't care if all illegal aliens were counted twice in the next Census ... just so long as the president isn't black.
* Those Black Panther thugs who threatened voters in Philly? The ONLY reason we're upset that they were given a pass is because Barack Obama is black.
* Every single member of the president's cabinet could be a tax cheat as far as we're concerned ... just so long as the president is white.
* Forced unionization? Bring it on! We love card check! We love the idea of union goons threatening and intimidating workers to sign a card saying they want to belong to a union! What we don't like is that a black president is pushing this idea.
* Single-party talks with that Gargoyle that runs North Korea? It's about time we legitimized that little pipsqueak. We're only mildly upset here because the person who is doing that happens to be black.
* More regulation of the finance sector? We could care less! For all we care you can nationalize the banks and decree that only the government can make home loans .. .and you can even apportion those home loans on the basis of race if you want to ... just so long as the president is white!
* Minimum wage? Like we care about that? Raise it to $15 an hour if you want! Just give us our white president back.

Yeah .. the moonbat left really has us figured out, don't they?

The Government Can!

Anyone else see a problem here?

It's all about consolidation of information to control your life. Health. Income. Gallons of water per Toilet Flush. What's next?

Under some versions of health reform now circulating on Capitol Hill, the IRS would also be intimately involved in how you pay for insurance. Everyone would be required to buy coverage. The millions of Americans who can't afford it would receive a subsidy to pay for it. Under the version of the plan currently under negotiation in the Senate Finance Committee, that subsidy would come through the IRS in the form of a refundable tax credit. Under the House plan, the subsidy would come directly from the Health Choices Administration.

In either scenario, the IRS would be the key to making the system work. Before you could receive any subsidy, whether through the IRS or not, the Health Choices Administration would have to determine whether you are eligible for it. To do so, the bills under consideration would give the Health Choices Commissioner the authority to demand sensitive, confidential information from the IRS about individual taxpayers. The IRS would have to provide it.

More from Byron York here.

"It ain't [America] no more, OK?"

This video was taken on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at Rep. Jim Moran's (D-VA) Town Hall meeting on Obama Deathcare (Howard Dean was there too) held at South Lakes High School in Reston, VA.

We're doomed. I like the dummy that says "School grounds have very different First Amendment rights." Why is that? I also liked the the overlay "Will love his FEMA camp."

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for this gem.

Are you afraid of this Administration yet?

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

What's the first thing you do in a war? Disrupt communications. I see things like "The Fairness Doctrine," A "Diversity" Czar at the FCC, and now control of the Internet. Why would an administration need these types of control for it's country's own people if not to silence dissent? Who owns the networks in Cuba and Venezuela?

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me.

Full story here.

You wonder which side they’re on

King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they’re on'

A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.

"It’s bulls***. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense."

"It’s a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he’s lost control of his administration," said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

King, channeling both the sense of outrage and of political opportunity felt in parts of the GOP, defended in detail the interrogation practices — threats to kill a detainee's family, and or to kill a detainee with a power drill — detailed in a CIA inspector general report released yesterday.

"You're talking about threatening to kill a guy, threatening to attack his family, threatening to use an electric drill on him — but never doing it," King said. "You have that on the one hand — and on the other you have the [interrogator's] attempt to prevent thousands of Americans from being killed."

"When Holder was talking about being 'shocked' [before the report's release], I thought they were going to have cutting guys' fingers off or something — or that they actually used the power drill," he said.

Pressed on whether interrogators had actually broken the law, King said he didn't think the Geneva Convention "applies to terrorists," and that the line between permitted and outlawed interrogation policies in the Bush years was "a distinction without a difference."

"Why is it OK to waterboard someone, which causes physical pain, but not threaten someone and not cause pain?" he asked, warning of a "chilling" effect on future CIA behavior.

"You will have thousands of lives that will be lost, and the blood will be on Eric Holder's hands," he said.

King faulted his own party leaders for an insufficient response to yesterday's announcement.

"They’ve declared war on the CIA. We should resist and fight back as hard as we can," he said. "It should be a scorched earth policy. ... This isn't just another policy. This goes to the heart of our national defense. We should do whatever we have to do."

Rep. King is absolutely right. For whatever reason (a smokescreen to hide the healthcare debacle, or just to appease the "Blame America First" types, or continuation of the apology tour) the Obama administration is weakening our National Defense and broadcasting our intents and methods to our enemies... you know... the kind-hearted terrorists of Al-Qaida and Hamas. More reporters have had themselves waterboarded for ratings that actual terrorists.

Blog by Ben Smith at Politico

Bend over... here it comes.

Congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul could have a job-killing effect on New York, creating a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for the state's top earners and possibly pressuring small-business owners to shed workers.

The non-partisan think-tank calculated the average local tax rate in New York State at 1.7 percent, and combined it with the 8.97 percent that high-bracket state taxpayers will shell out in 2011, when the health care plan is set to take effect. Tack on the 39.6 percent federal tax rate, 2.9 percent for Medicare and 5.4 percent for the health care "surtax," and the figure is 56.92 percent for the Empire State.

Good one, Dem congress and Obama. Let's punish the productive. It won't be the Conservative Tea-Parties storming the White House... it'll be the Unemployed. (Here's a Hint: The productive hire people to do work.)

Higher taxes on productives = unemployed.
Unemployed = No taxes coming in.
No taxes coming in = Higher taxes on the productive....
and the cycle repeats until there is only the unemployed.
The productives have either gone on the Government dole, or moved to another country, or become outlaws (patriots).

NY Post article here. Check out the graphic... it's truly scary.

Who's minding the Store?

Truly pathetic, but most of all... frightening. This is the kind of oversight and transparency promised by the Obama administration?

"In terms of who's responsible for investigating...I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?" pssst... it's the Inspector General... oh.. wait... that's YOU!!!!!

This is our money they're talking about and they don't have a clue? They know. They just dont want to tell us because we'd throw them all in jail.

Also, look at the nearly empty room in this video compared to whenever they have hearings on baseball steroid usage.

Congress Needs A "Read-The-Bill" Bill

Honesty: Lawmakers voted on the stimulus and global warming bills without having read either. Eventually they'll vote on health care legislation that could fund unrelated items. Time to end this systemic fraud.

The stimulus bill, signed into law less than a month after Barack Obama took office, reached 1,434 pages and will eventually cost the nation more than $1 trillion.

Waxman-Markey, the global warming bill, passed the House last month after Democrats added a 309-page amendment at 3 a.m. the morning before the vote, bringing that package of nonsense up to 1,200 or so pages.

The next piece of deception up for legislative consideration is the $1.6 trillion health care bill, a Washington lightweight at a mere 615 pages. The Boston Globe reports that it contains a provision for funding walking paths, bike paths, streetlights, gym equipment and farmers' markets.

More poop coming out the pipe, people...
From IBD.

Global Warming a Cult?

Found this in the Comments Section in an article about the GreenPeace idiots who flew a large banner on Mount Rushmore. It's one of those things that makes you go hmmmmm.....

Woody July 8th, 2009 - 5:29 pm

Have you ever noticed how global warming alarmists exhibit all the characteristics of those normally belonging to religious cults? (The numbered quotes below are from the American Family Foundation’s list of cult characteristics: http://www.prem-rawat-talk.org/forum/uploads/CultCharacteristics.htm)

1. “The group is focused on a living leader [e.g. The "Goracle" or the "One"] to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.”

2. “The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.”

i. It is assumed (and expected) that you already accept man-made global warming as fact; after all, “the debate is over.”

3. “The group is preoccupied with making money.”

i. Al Gore, climatologists, green groups, General Electric, and the federal government (to name a few) are heavily invested in the business of global warming.

ii. For example, General Electric stands to make billions if Cap and Trade is enacted.

4. “Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.”

i. Questioning the theory of man-made global warming is tantamount to denying the holocaust (so don’t do it, you flat-earther, you!).

5. “Mind-numbing techniques are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).”

i. Have you attended a university and/or watched mainstream media (e.g. MSNBC) lately?

ii. Again, we are told that “the debate [over global warming] is over.” That’s funny; I don’t remember there being a debate.

6. “The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel.”

i. The mantra is “green” is good, and everything else is an abomination.

7. “The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).”

i. Those who live “green” lifestyles are saving the planet; everyone else is killing it.

ii. Recently, “[Nancy] Pelosi linked global warming to environmental justice, saying the right to a clean environment is also a human right” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLcZ2jQ4mu4rd7XlB3hetiVn1qbAD98F32AG0).

8. “The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.”

i. Those who do not support “green” ideas, products, laws, etc. are heretics.

9. “The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities.”

i. The Goracle flies to environmental speaking engagements in Gulf Stream jets while we, the commoners, are supposed to ride bikes to work and use one-ply toilet paper.

10. “The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).”

i. Obama believes the government should bankrupt the coal industry (through Cap and Trade legislation) even though most of our electricity comes from coal.

ii. The First World uses official development aid as tool to influence energy policy in the developing world by funding “green” energy projects (e.g. solar panels and wind farms) while refusing to fund “non-green,” cheaper, more reliable, energy sources (e.g. coal and natural gas).

11. “The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.”

i. “What?! You’re not driving a hybrid?”

ii. If CO2 is a pollutant, then if you are exhaling, you are polluting. According to this logic, merely by existing, all humans are destroying the planet (Never mind the fact that volcanoes release far more CO2 each year than the entire human population combined). Therefore, it is extremely selfish to have children. In fact, any increase in the human population is bad. Human beings are a nothing more than a malignant growth on this planet.

12. “Members’ subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.”

i. Obama (5/16/08): “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times.”

I could keep going, but you probably get the idea.

Thanks, Woody. I couldn't have said it any better myself. Now if you could actually get one of the sheep to actually read this.

U.S. Will Suffer So Dems Can 'Save the Planet'

By Jay Ambrose

The recently passed House bill on global warming is a 1,500-page political sucker punch that could give family finances a bloody nose and ultimately flatten the economy while proponents pretend it will save the planet.

In and of itself, it won't do an inch of good. Assume if you want that all the talk of unperturbed greenhouse gases finally frying us is true and that the bill would slowly reduce carbon emissions in the United States to roughly the level of 100 years ago. The impact of holding down an increase in world temperatures by the end of this century would still be something utterly unnoticeable.

That's right, all the current sound and fury would signify nothing unless the rest of the world joined in, especially China and India, which probably won't do any such thing. As we all know, those two countries are growing like crazy, but still remain fundamentally poor and will stay poor if they should sign on to really, truly serious efforts to phase out fossil fuels before markets and entrepreneurs come up with efficient, cost-effective alternatives beyond the capacity of central planners to devise.

Of course, the House bill is not really, truly serious. Although disastrous consequences can be discerned deep in its long-term intentions, political observers have noted that the Democrats played all kinds of games so that very little that is either nasty or meaningful transpires until the 2010 elections are past and that, even then, carbon emissions from coal burning could continue to increase for a decade before decreasing.

Before long, however, the Senate will have its say, and no one is sure whether it will soften things up more (further aggravating environmental groups already peeved), toughen things up (further imperiling the general welfare) or simply pass this time around. If it does do something, there is one thing you can count on: We will have cap-and-trade, which is to say, we the people will suffer.

Cap-and-trade refers to a system with emission limits that allows industries to barter with each other about who emits how much. Advocates refer to it as free enterprise, but there is nothing free about it - it would be a government-mandated, bureaucratic monstrosity. It hasn't worked to solve much of anything in Europe, and economist William Nordhaus of Yale fears it could cost trillions more to implement than whatever warming damage it might prevent.

The main reason for the thing is that most of those discussing it do not call it a "tax," which is a word voters do not like. A straightforward carbon tax would be preferable to cap-and-trade many on both the left and right believe, but there's that ugly, awful word. The obvious truth is that cap-and-trade is in effect a tax, and depending on how it is carried out, could be a very steep one for industries that would pass the cost on to consumers. Utility bills could go up by thousands of dollars in constant dollars for a family of four as the decades pass, some analysts believe.

Meanwhile, rescue for an economy increasingly squeezed by the politics of warming alarmism is supposed to come in the form of "green jobs," only it won't. Various researchers are figuring out that we could lose more manufacturing and other jobs than we would gain, and that many of these green jobs as currently outlined would be non-productive and subsidized.

The capper of cap-and-trade is that the globe hasn't been warming lately and, according to one study, may undergo more cooling for another decade or more. Despite all the talk about sure-enough, catastrophic, human-induced warming, the number of doubting Thomases in the sciences is growing, as are some interesting ideas of relatively inexpensive means of saving ourselves if reliable evidence develops that the worst possibilities are almost certainly true.

Congress, spare us.

Real Clear Politics original OpEd here.

Alice in Medical Care

A recent report from the Fraser Institute in Canada shows that patients there wait an average of ten weeks to get an MRI, just to find out what is wrong with them. A lot of bad things can happen in 10 weeks, ranging from suffering to death.

...and this, folks, is exactly what's going to happen in our country when the government takes over the reigns of medical care.
More from Thomas Sowell here

EPA May Have Suppressed Report Skeptical Of Global Warming

Less than two weeks before the agency formally submitted its pro-regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty "decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data."

Whatever happened to the good ol' days when it used to take forever and a day to push things through? This administration is nothing if not efficient. They pushed the stimulus package through in a matter of weeks, global warming...er...climate change, cap and trade and healthcare should be in the rear view mirror by Christmas...er... the holiday season.
Read on here