Monthly Archives: November 2009

National Insecurity

More Mid-East Mess

B.O. administration non-decisiveness chickens are starting to come home to roost.

Is Yemen the most dangerous new front in the war on terror?

In case you don’t recall, one of Major Hasan’s internet e-mail pen pals is Yemeni Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki.

Sheikh Anwar’s latest blogpost describes Major Hasan as a “hero”, a man of conscience. Given that the cleric says other Muslims have a right, or a duty, to behave similarly, army investigators will no doubt be keen to see who else was in contact with him. But the blog is worth reading for other reasons, too. Last month, for instance, Sheikh Anwar told us to expect the unexpected. But the message had nothing to do with Fort Hood. Instead, his focus was closer to hand: “Could Yemen be the Next Surprise of the Season?” he asked.

The Yemen situation is truly what the Brits might refer to as “a sticky wicket”.

The multiple crises afflicting Yemen are not a surprise to anyone who has been watching, and certainly not to those in Washington. There is every reason to suppose that the US authorities are far more alarmed over events there than they were over Major Hasan, but they have been similarly unsure how to react. Some commentators in the Middle East are starting to see this as a trend: an uncertainty over how to deal with the Muslim world is leading to disaster.

Yemen, which occupies an important position at the tip of the Red Sea and on the borders of Saudi Arabia, is home to three separate conflicts. One is against al-Qaeda, which has put down strong roots in the territory, the ancestral home of the Bin Laden clan. One is against secessionists in the south. The third is the most obscure, the most seemingly pointless, but the most destructive: a long, drawn-out campaign against an insurgency by a group of Shia tribalists known as the Houthis.

Fir the gory details of Yemen (“It ain’t that pretty at all.”) go to the piece. Meanwhile, on other fronts of WW-IV, formerly known as the G.W.O.T., things aren’t much better:

…In the Occupied Territories, America has scuppered its Palestinian ally Mahmoud Abbas by allowing him to set conditions for talks with Israel which it then allowed Israel to ignore.

On Iran, Washington set a deadline for a response to a proposed deal on enriched uranium, and then let the deadline pass. Israel and Saudi Arabia, who both regard Iran as a mortal enemy, are taking counsel.

In Afghanistan, it has just given itself more time to decide whether to send extra troops. Can Hamid Karzai even consider himself a friend of America any more?

The trend was summarised by Riad Kahwaji, the chief executive of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, in a research note yesterday: “It is a bad time to be an American ally.” He quotes one Arab official as asking, “With a weak and hesitant ally, who needs enemies?”

No such uncertainty affects the Houthis, whose slogan could not be clearer: “God is Great; Death to America; Death to Israel.” [emphases added]

As is common these days…one needs to go to the UK press to get a decent picture of events.

Obamunism

Another B.O. Advisor Run Down by Bus!

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Dunn to Step Down as White House Communications Chief

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn will step down by the end of November and be replaced by her deputy Dan Pfeiffer, Fox News has learned.

Dunn’s departure had been expected as she took the position on an interim basis earlier in the year. But her exit comes at a critical time for the White House, with the administration trying to push the Senate to follow the House of Representatives’ lead in passing health care reform.

Apparently cheerleading for mass murderer Mao Tse Tung also didn’t contribute to her remaining in office.

Looks to the Chief  like the B.O. White House waited just long enough to provide plausible deniability that the Mao comments were not in IMMEDIATE memory before throwing her under the same bus that took out Van Jones.

Obamunism

Pelosi Obamascare Budget Holes

Say it isn’t so!  A major new governmental program proposal (this one from the Donkey Party) that will exceed it’s initial estimated cost?

AHHEEEEEEE!  What’s the world coming to!

‘Fuzzy math’ could drive health bill cost higher

The official $1.1 trillion price tag for the House Democrats’ health care bill excludes dozens of unfunded programs that could drive up costs when future congresses look to fund them.

Republicans said the health care bill includes two dozen programs whose funding is listed as “such sums as may be necessary.” That amounts to legislative jargon, they said, for “We’ll bill you later.”

The list of projects ranges from the “No child left unimmunized against influenza” project to 10 programs in the Indian health care system. There are also programs to encourage people to go into nursing and to spur states to restrain medical-malpractice lawsuits.

Shocking! Simply Shocking! Who would have EVER expected this?…oh, yeah, anyone who pays attention to government. Right.

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Ft. Hood Jihad Update 3

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In spite of what some may think out by Lake Madison, this is some tangible evidence that the Chief isn’t making something out of nothing in his concerns about P.C. trumping realism in the latest episode of domestic terrorism.

EDITORIAL: Too scared to recognize terrorism

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was declared “not a terrorist” before the facts were out – even before officials were sure whether the attacker was alive or dead. Failing to honestly name a terrorist attack despite the evidence is as destructive and dishonest as leaping to call an attack terrorism without the facts to support that.

Apparently, the claim was based largely on the fact that Maj. Hasan appears to have been a lone gunman. However, terrorism is defined not by the number of people involved, but by the motivations and intentions of the attacker. If reports about him are true, Maj. Hasan clearly was a terrorist.[emphasis added]

Hear, hear!

Those who want to explain this away as the result of stress, workplace violence or the “stretched force” are willfully blind. Condemned Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad…petitioned for clemency on the basis that he suffers from severe mental illness and Gulf war syndrome. Surely someone who hunts down and murders strangers is not in his right mind, but the primary motive in both Muhammad’s case and Maj. Hasan’s was jihadism.

The refreshing candor of someone like Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the shooter in the June attack on the Army recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., is rare. Reportedly, he said he was a practicing Muslim angry with the U.S. military for its crimes against Muslims and would have shot more than the two soldiers he killed if more had been available. This incident also was called “not terrorism. “

The United States is engaged in a global struggle with violent adherents to an extremist Islamic creed. It does not besmirch the Muslim faith – or the vast majority of American Muslims – to admit that fact. The politically correct tendency to define attacks as something other than terrorism simply to avoid addressing the motives of the attacker is dangerous. Anyone who shouts “Allahu Akbar” and opens fire on a crowd of unarmed people is a terrorist. If Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is not a terrorist, no one is. [emphasis added]

Couldn’t have said it better!

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Big Brother Arrives in Airstrip One

Every phone call, email and internet click stored by ‘state spying’ databases

Big Brother is arriving in what used to be known as Britain…but which now might more appropriately be given Orwell’s designation from 1984: “Airstrip One”.

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they are contacting, when, where and which websites they are visiting.

Despite widespread opposition over Britain’s growing surveillance society, 653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to access the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

From across the pond, here’s the commentary from Samizdata from the UK.  They are similarly unimpressed, maybe there’s still some hope for Britain NOT to morph into Airstrip One, at least just yet.

NOW do you get what the movie “V for Vengeance” was about?  (By the way, Guy Fawkes Day was last week on November 5th.)

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Ft. Hood Jihad Update 2

The plot thickens.

U.S. had al Qaeda intelligence on Fort Hood shooter

U.S. intelligence agencies learned an Army psychiatrist tried to contact Islamists with suspected al Qaeda links and relayed that information to federal authorities before the man allegedly went on a shooting spree in Texas last week, U.S. sources said on Monday.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said intelligence agencies intercepted electronic communications between the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, and anti-American Islamists starting last year and reported the contacts to federal authorities, including the FBI. The sources did not identify who Hasan contacted but described them as Islamists associated with and sympathetic toward al Qaeda.

Who might these “Islamists with suspected al Qaeda links” be? Why, just the friendly fiendly neighborhood Imam.

U.S. Knew of Fort Hood Suspect’s Tie to Radical Cleric

Intelligence agencies intercepted communications last year and this year between the military psychiatrist accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., and a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings.

But the federal authorities dropped an inquiry into the matter after deciding that the messages from the psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, did not suggest any threat of violence and concluding that no further action was warranted, government officials said Monday….

Given the radical views of Mr. Awlaki, however, the conduct of the F.B.I. and the military is likely to come under intense scrutiny from Congress. Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, on Monday asked intelligence and law enforcement officials to preserve all records of their dealings with Major Hasan.

The communications provide the first indication that Major Hasan was in direct communication with anyone who espoused militant views. On Monday, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan on his Web site, saying that he “did the right thing” in attacking soldiers preparing to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq.

The officials said the communications did not alter the prevailing theory that Major Hasan acted by himself, lashing out as a result of combination of factors, including his outspoken opposition to American policy in Iraq and Afghanistan and his deepening religious fervor as a Muslim.

Major Hasan, who was shot by a police officer, has regained consciousness at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and is able to talk, though he declined on Sunday to speak to federal investigators about the shooting rampage. “He is critical but stable,” said a hospital spokeswoman, Maria Gallegos.

Ms. Gallegos added that Major Hasan had come out of a coma on Saturday and had been conversing with his doctors ever since. A lawyer for Major Hasan told The Associated Press on Monday that he had asked investigators not to question his client and expressed doubt that he could get a fair trial. The lawyer, John P. Galligan, a retired Army colonel, said he was contacted by Major Hasan’s family on Monday and was traveling to San Antonio to consult with him.

The imam whom Major Hasan made contact with is an American citizen born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents. He wrote on Monday on his English-language Web site that Major Hasan was “a hero.” The cleric said, “He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

Mr. Awlaki added, “The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the U.S. Army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.”

Meanwhile Homeland Insecurity Sec’y Napolitano continues to beat the PC drum about not offending Islam…

Homeland chief warns against anti-Muslim backlash

The U.S. Homeland Security Insecurity secretary says she is working to prevent a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment after the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas.

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

The shootings left 13 people dead and 29 wounded.

This is more of the same, with similar vaporizations on the subject from the Army Chief of Staff, His Imperial Mightiness B.O. hisself, and others.

Apparently 300 witnesses, many of whom clearly heard the perp yell “ALLAHU AKBAR”, and then SAW him shooting isn’t enough, along with the above mentioned reports according to the administration and their ilk to give enough evidence for us to move beyond cautions about making a judgment about his motives, or even for that matter the fact that he did it.

“Homeland Security?”  What a joke!

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Fort Hood Jihad Update

Army Chief Concerned for Muslim Troops

General George Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said on Sunday that he was concerned that speculation about the religious beliefs of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian and wounding dozens of others in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, could “cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers.”

“I’ve asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that,” General Casey said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union. “It would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was — it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.”

Quick – somebody hit him upside the head with a cluebat!

IS HE NUTS? Speculation?  Like the following collection of random facts?

Jihad at Fort Hood

On May 20, 2009, a man giving his name as “NidalHasan” posted this defense of suicide bombing (all spelling and grammar as it is in the original):

There was a grenade thrown amongs a group of American soldiers. One of the soldiers, feeling that it was to late for everyone to flee jumped on the grave with the intention of saving his comrades. Indeed he saved them. He inentionally took his life (suicide) for a noble cause i.e. saving the lives of his soldier. To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause. Scholars have paralled this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory. Their intention is not to die because of some despair. The same can be said for the Kamikazees in Japan. They died (via crashing their planes into ships) to kill the enemies for the homeland. You can call them crazy i you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam. So the scholars main point is that “IT SEEMS AS THOUGH YOUR INTENTION IS THE MAIN ISSUE” and Allah (SWT) knows best.

Of course, it may not be the same Nidal Hasan. But there is more. One of his former colleagues, Col. Terry Lee, recalled Hasan saying statements to the effect of “Muslims have the right to rise up against the U.S. military”; “Muslims have a right to stand up against the aggressors”; and even speaking favorably about people who “strap bombs on themselves and go into Times Square.”

Maybe he just snapped, perhaps under the pressure of his imminent deployment to Iraq. But it’s noteworthy that if he did, he snapped in exactly the same way that several other Muslims in the U.S. military have snapped in the past. In April 2005, a Muslim serving in the U.S. Army, Hasan Akbar, was convicted of murder for killing two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait. AP reported: “Prosecutors say Akbar told investigators he launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq. They said he coolly carried out the attack to achieve ‘maximum carnage’ on his comrades in the 101st Airborne Division.”

And Hasan’s murderous rampage resembles one that five Muslim men in New Jersey tried to carry out at Fort Dix in New Jersey in 2007, when they plotted to enter the U.S. Army base and murder as many soldiers as they could.

That was a jihad plot. One of the plotters, Serdar Tatar, told an FBI informant late in 2006: “I’m gonna do it….It doesn’t matter to me, whether I get locked up, arrested, or get taken away, it doesn’t matter. Or I die, doesn’t matter, I’m doing it in the name of Allah.” Another plotter, Mohamad Shnewer, was caught on tape saying, “They are the ones, we are going to put bullets in their heads, Allah willing.”

Nidal Hasan’s statements about Muslims rising up against the U.S. military aren’t too far from that, albeit less graphic. The effect of ignoring or downplaying the role that Islamic beliefs and assumptions may have played in his murders only ensures that – once again – nothing will be done to prevent the eventual advent of the next Nidal Hasan.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, the Chief calls it a duck.  In other words, A TERRORIST IS AS A TERRORIST DOES!

Apparently the Chief isn’t alone in his evaluation of the situation.

Lieberman Suggests Army Shooter Was ‘Home-Grown Terrorist’

A senior U.S. senator on Sunday said the shootings at Fort Hood could have been a terrorist attack, and that he would launch a congressional investigation into whether the U.S. military could have prevented it.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who heads the Senate’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said initial evidence suggested that the alleged shooter, Army Major Nidal Hasan, was a “self-radicalized, home-grown terrorist” who had turned to Islamic extremism while under personal stress.

’nuff said.

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Pelosiscare Hellth Bill Passed

Landmark health bill passes House on close vote

SanFranNan was able to beat the bushes enough to get her abortion of a hellth-care bill passed by a close margin.

The Democratic-controlled House has narrowly passed landmark health care reform legislation, handing President Barack Obama a hard won victory on his signature domestic priority.

Republicans were nearly unanimous in opposing the plan that would expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans who lack it and place tough new restrictions on the insurance industry.

The 220-215 vote late Saturday cleared the way for the Senate to begin a long-delayed debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress.

On to the Senate, where the prospects for approval are less favorable.

House health care overhaul faces Senate stone wall

The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.

Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and “take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people.”

The problem is that the Senate won’t run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.

If a government plan is part of the deal, “as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome GOP filibusters.

“The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.

Democrats did not line up to challenge him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has yet to schedule floor debate and hinted last week that senators may not be able to finish health care this year.

Hopefully this thing dies a much-deserved death in the Senate.

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Pelosiscare Update

House Dems struggle for final votes on health care

Amid intense lobbying by the Obama administration, House Democratic leaders struggled Friday for the final votes needed to pass sweeping health care legislation, working to ease concerns among Hispanic holdouts and abortion foes.

“We’re very close” to having enough votes to prevail, said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, although he added a scheduled Saturday vote could slip by a day or two and sought to pin the blame on possible Republican delaying tactics.

“Nice try, Rep. Hoyer, but you can’t blame Republicans when the fact is you just don’t have the votes,” shot back Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for the GOP leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio.

You just KNOW the press-gangs will be out to try to Shanghai the votes.

Meanwhile, South Dakotas own self-proclaimed blue dog isn’t making SanFranNan’s life any easier:

Herseth Sandlin says she will vote against health care reform

SOUNDS good…but she HAS left herself some room to waffle with.

Her answer is “no.”

For now, at least.

U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin on Friday ended speculation on how she would vote on the much-amended, much-debated House version of health care reform, giving it a thumbs down.

In a hastily called conference call Friday morning, the South Dakota Democrat told reporters she would oppose a House reform plan expected to face a floor vote this weekend. Despite improvements, it still costs too much, burdens states with increased Medicaid costs and reduces long-term coverage for senior citizens, among other problems, Herseth Sandlin said.

Here’s the “but-monkey” part of teh statement:

But she also said further work by the House, Senate and President Barack Obama might produce a better version of reform that she could eventually support.

How this ultimately ends up is anybody’s guess.

Defense Matters!

Islamo U.S. Army Shrink Goes Whacko, Whacks 12

Suspected Gunman in Custody After 12 Killed in Rampage at Fort Hood

An Army psychiatrist who reportedly feared an impending war deployment is in custody as the sole suspect in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas that left 12 dead and 31 wounded, an Army official said Thursday night.

The news that the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was alive and in stable condition came as a sudden reversal of early reports that the gunman was among the dead.

“I would say his death is not imminent,” Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said. Col. Ben Danner said the suspect was shot at least four times.

Dang! Survived four bullets. Too bad.

The rampage was believed to be the deadliest at a U.S. military base in history. The exact motive wasn’t clear, though Hasan, a Virginia native and a Muslim, reportedly was against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had been the target of harassment for his ethnicity.

The Chief has experienced harassment in a military setting. It can be a real annoyance, but certainly survivable without taking out frustrations by attacking his fellow sailors.

UPDATE: Troubling portrait emerges of Fort Hood suspect

His name appears on radical Internet postings. A fellow officer says he fought his deployment to Iraq and argued with soldiers who supported U.S. wars. He required counseling as a medical student because of problems with patients.

There are many unknowns about Nidal Malik Hasan, the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base. Most of all, his motive. But details of his life and mindset, emerging from official sources and personal acquaintances, are troubling.

According to the reports he had a problem with some of his fitness reports, and apparently had some sort of problems dealing with patients. That may or may not have any significance, but the following does raise some concerns:

At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.

They had not determined for certain whether Hasan is the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.

Wonder what it takes to get investigated these days. (Probably bad-mouthing B.O.!) They probably couldn’t proceed due to fears of being caught “profiling”.

One of the officials said late Thursday that federal search warrants were being drawn up to authorize the seizure of Hasan’s computer.

They can hack out anything that’s there…even stuff that had been erased…of course, that doesn’t mean that anything about it will ever see the light of day. For instance, the IMMEDIATE response was that this was no way terrorism.

Uh…how could they know, if there had been no previous investigation? Also, IMHO, a terrorist is as a terrorist does. One does NOT have to have an official notarized al Qaida membership card to be a terrorist. By MY reckoning, this sure seems like terrorism to me!

UPDATE II: Fort Hood shooting: Nidal Malik Hasan ‘said Muslims should rise up’

Maybe some of this has to do with being harassed:

Col Terry Lee, a retired officer who worked with him at the military base in Texas, alleged Maj Hasan had angry confrontations with other officers over his views.

Maj Hasan was reportedly fighting orders to be deployed to Iraq at the end of the month, claiming that he was the victim of harassment and insults because of his Arab background and his faith….

“He was making outlandish comments condemning our foreign policy and claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans,” Col Lee told Fox News.

“He said Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor and that we should not be in the war in the first place.” He said that Maj Hasan said he was “happy” when a US soldier was killed in an attack on a military recruitment centre in Arkansas in June. An American convert to Islam was accused of the shootings.

Col Lee alleged that other officers had told him that Maj Hasan had said “maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Time Square” in New York.

This is in side of an Army community…is it any wonder that this might get a negative reaction?

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Legislative History

The Worst Bill Ever
Epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, rationed care, dishonest accounting: The Pelosi health bill has it all.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she’s prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that’s what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which President Obama hailed as a “critical milestone,” may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.

In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.

Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan “reform” and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be “universal coverage.” The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country’s fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.
Features of this legislative Obamination:
•The spending surge.
The Congressional Budget Office figures the House program will cost $1.055 trillion over a decade, which while far above the $829 billion net cost that Mrs. Pelosi fed to credulous reporters is still a low-ball estimate. Most of the money goes into government-run “exchanges” where people earning between 150% and 400% of the poverty level—that is, up to about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—could buy coverage at heavily subsidized rates, tied to income. The government would pay for 93% of insurance costs for a family making $42,000, 72% for another making $78,000, and so forth.
• Expanding Medicaid, gutting private Medicare.
All this is particularly reckless given the unfunded liabilities of Medicare—now north of $37 trillion over 75 years. Mrs. Pelosi wants to steal $426 billion from future Medicare spending to “pay for” universal coverage. While Medicare’s price controls on doctors and hospitals are certain to be tightened, the only cut that is a sure thing in practice is gutting Medicare Advantage to the tune of $170 billion. Democrats loathe this program because it gives one of out five seniors private insurance options.

As for Medicaid, the House will expand eligibility to everyone below 150% of the poverty level, meaning that some 15 million new people will be added to the rolls as private insurance gets crowded out at a cost of $425 billion. A decade from now more than a quarter of the population will be on a program originally intended for poor women, children and the disabled.
• European levels of taxation.
All told, the House favors $572 billion in new taxes, mostly by imposing a 5.4-percentage-point “surcharge” on joint filers earning over $1 million, $500,000 for singles. This tax will raise the top marginal rate to 45% in 2011 from 39.6% when the Bush tax cuts expire—not counting state income taxes and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. The burden will mostly fall on the small businesses that have organized as Subchapter S or limited liability corporations, since the truly wealthy won’t have any difficulty sheltering their incomes.

This surtax could hit ever more earners because, like the alternative minimum tax, it isn’t indexed for inflation. Yet it still won’t be nearly enough
• The insurance takeover.
A new “health choices commissioner” will decide what counts as “essential benefits,” which all insurers will have to offer as first-dollar coverage. Private insurers will also be told how much they are allowed to charge even as they will have to offer coverage at virtually the same price to anyone who applies, regardless of health status or medical history.

The cost of insurance, naturally, will skyrocket.

There are more gory details listing the specifics in the piece…read it and weep!

All of this is intentional, even if it isn’t explicitly acknowledged….

As Congress’s balance sheet drowns in trillions of dollars in new obligations, the political system will have no choice but to start making cost-minded decisions about which treatments patients are allowed to receive. Democrats can’t regulate their way out of the reality that we live in a world of finite resources and infinite wants. Once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable—especially for the innovative high-cost technologies and drugs that are the future of medicine.

Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of “change,” but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi’s handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated. [emphasis added]

Kill it before it grows!

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Not Exactly Party Time for GOP Establishment

First, the positive outlook for the GOP on this bye-election eve:

Republicans Are Poised for Gains in Key Elections

Republicans appear positioned for strong results in three hard-fought elections Tuesday. But isolated, off-year contests aren’t always reliable indicators of what will happen in the wider federal and state races held in even-numbered years.

Democrats and Republicans are jostling to glean messages from voters in a race for a U.S. House seat in far northern New York, as well as from contests for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. Republicans, increasingly optimistic, say the contests foreshadow trouble for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party’s ambitious agenda heading toward the 2010 congressional elections.

“We will be looking very closely at the results in these three races and reminding Democrats of the message they send about the agenda that they are forcing on American taxpayers,” said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which coordinates GOP House races.

It’ll be very interesting to see how these votes turn out…especially NY-23, and New Jersey.

At the same time, there is this recent polling result, which should give the GOP party leaders some pause:

Partisan Trends
Democrats Inch Up in Partisan ID during October, GOP Slips

For the third straight month, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats inched up while the number of Republicans fell slightly.

Hmmm. On the eve of some potentially significant GOP gains, this other trend seems at first glance to be a bit contradictory.

Obviously something else is at work here….

What NY-23 Says About The GOP And Its Voters

THIS is interesting…it provides an local example that helps explain both of the above reports.

The race in New York’s 23rd Congressional District highlights the concerns many Republican voters have about their party leaders.

At a time when 73% of Republicans believe their party’s representatives in Congress have lost touch with the GOP base, 11 county leaders in upstate New York picked a nominee for Congress who supported the Democratic president’s stimulus package, his health care reform plan and “card check” legislation designed to make union organizing easier. All three items are overwhelmingly opposed by Republican voters – and even by Republicans in Congress.

The decision by county GOP leaders to nominate such a candidate seemed almost designed to provoke the party’s core voters, and it did.

A Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman, entered the fray and picked up endorsements from many leading national Republicans.

Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, urged voters to stick with the party’s official nominee. He said a decision by local party leaders was good enough for him, but most Republican voters don’t have such confidence in the party leadership.

In spite of his obvious talents and ability, IMHO Gingrich has shown himself to be thoroughly in the country-club wing of the GOP that is…uncomfortable…if not hostile, to the GOP’s would-be grass-roots conservative base.   Once the inside initiates anoint their candidate, and the conservatives go out and support him/her, then they are supposed to fade back into the lawn until needed again for the next election cycle.

Been there.  Done that. 

“Ain’t gonna work on THAT farm no more!” increasingly seems to be the attitude of the potentially GOP conservative base, as it indicated even more strongly in this result:

73% of GOP Voters Say Congressional Republicans Have Lost Touch With Their Base

President Obama told an audience at a Democratic Party fundraiser Wednesday night that Republicans often “do what they’re told,” but GOP voters don’t think their legislators listen enough to them.

Just 15% of Republicans who plan to vote in 2012 state primaries say the party’s representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing Republican values.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 73% think Republicans in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters from throughout the nation. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided. These numbers are basically unchanged from a survey in late April.

Time will tell if the GOP leadership starts to get the picture or not.

Uncategorized

Paying the Danegeld

Payments to Taliban widespread

Yet ANOTHER sign of the fecklessness of the age of B.O.’s role as the so-called leader of the NATO alliance.

NATO officially denies that any of its members pay insurgents in Afghanistan for peace, but military sources said yesterday the practice is widespread among foreign forces fighting the Taliban….

The Times newspaper said 10 French troops killed in Sarobi, near Kabul, last year had not properly assessed the risks, because their Italian predecessors failed to inform them they had paid the Taliban not to attack them.

The Italian government described the British newspaper’s report as “totally baseless” and said it had “never authorised any kind of money payment to members of the Taliban insurrection in Afghanistan”.

No, of COURSE not. They are SHOCKED at such a thought!

But a senior Afghan official suggested otherwise. “I certainly can confirm that we were aware that the Italian forces were paying the opposition in Sarobi not to attack them,” he said….

I can tell you that lots of countries under the NATO umbrella operating out in rural parts of Afghanistan do pay the militants for not attacking them,” the senior Afghan official said.He added that it “seems to be the practice with military forces from some NATO countries, excluding the US forces under NATO, the British forces and the whole coalition forces” under the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom.

“I think more than 50 per cent of NATO forces deployed in rural Afghanistan have such deals or at least have struck such deals” to ensure peace, the official said.

At least the U.S. isn’t yet sucked into this deal, nor apparently is the U.K.  (Perhaps they still remember the original Danes!)  One wonders why B.O. can’t call upon his worshipful Euro friends to buck up and take care of the business at hand.

In Western history this has been tried repeatedly, going back to the days of the Saxon Kings of Britain (up to and including Alfred the Great) who learned a sad lesson:

DANEGELD

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
“We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:

“We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”

– Rudyard Kipling

The U.S. itself historically confronted this lesson early in the Republic’s history when the North African Islamic states demanded “tribute” money to protect merchant ships from government-sponsored piracy.  In response Congress proclaimed “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!”, they went on and voted to build a real Navy, and then sent the ships to the Mediterranean to FORCE the Pirates of Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli to refrain from attacking U.S. ships any more. This provided the setting for the line in the US Marine Hymn: “…to the shores of Tripoli.”

Of course now, with the enervated state of the Western powers, including the U.S., no one can muster the intestinal fortitude to deal with the Somali piracy, either. It’s comparable to the sometimes encountered inner city phenomena called the “known crack-house”. Everyone knows who and where the bad guys are, but no one with the power to act has the cojones to pull the chain on them, for whatever reason….

The barbarians are through the gates!

Uncategorized

B.O. Wins Overseas Respect? Well…

One of the big things that B.O. promised during his campaign was that a new style of engaging diplomacy would absolutely get us positive results. This of course was supposed to be contrasted with the alleged failures and lack of respect that resulted from Bush’s harder line policies (which the Chief doesn’t really consider to any too consistent in their own right).

So, here’s how impressed Ahmadinejad “Ah’m-mad-on-a-jihad” is with this form of “Change” that HE believes in:

Ahmadinejad: Iran’s Enemies a ‘Mosquito’

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday compared the power of Iran’s enemies to a “mosquito,” saying Iran now deals with the West over its nuclear activities from a position of power. The comment from Ahmadinejad came as Iran is negotiating with the West over a U.N.-backed proposal to ship its uranium abroad for further enrichment….

“While enemies have used all their capacities … the Iranian nation is standing powerfully and they are like a mosquito,” a government Web site quoted Ahmadinejad early Sunday as saying.

Ahmadinejad also said Iran doesn’t trust the West when it sits for talks. “Given the negative record of Western powers, the Iranian government … looks at the talks with no trust. But realities dictate to them to interact with the Iranian nation,” he said according to the site.

Did you get that last bit? “Realities DICTATE to them…” – in other words we are in a position where we are now FORCED to deal with Iran due to Iran’s successful exercise of power!

So much for the results of B.O.’s and Hilary’s “new” diplomatic attitude. Appeasement works every time…from the point of view of the appeased.