Archive for December, 2009
“the Constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land”
Mark Tapscott: What is Barack Obama doing?
by Mark Tapscott, Editorial Page Editor, Washington Examiner, December 31, 2009
Some distressing civil liberties questions must be asked about an ever-lengthening list of decisions, proposals, and observations by President Obama.
To begin, Obama is the first president to give an international law enforcement organization like Interpol free rein within the territorial confines of this nation, presumably not excluding the arrest and exportation of Americans to be charged with crimes under international law.
Put simply, this means the Constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land in America. Thanks to Executive Order 12425 , which Obama signed Dec. 16 without explaining why, the supreme law of the land is now arguably whatever Interpol says it is, most likely as directed by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, in conjunction with the United Nations.
Maybe it’s just a bureaucratic snafu. Or perhaps Obama sincerely means to subsume U.S. law to what he views as a morally superior international body.
But what if he simply sees it as an innocuous path to the arrest and prosecution of selected political opponents for “crimes against humanity” in, say, Iraq and Afghanistan? The Far Left would get its pound of Bush-Cheney flesh, while leaving minimal blood on Obama’s hands and giving his defense and foreign policy critics reason to think twice before speaking candidly against him in the future.
Read more at http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/What-is-Barack-Obama-doing_-8700165-80341107.html
Obama gives foreign cops new police powers in U.S.
by Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily, December 28, 2009
A little-discussed executive order from President Obama giving foreign cops new police powers in the United States by exempting them from such drudgery as compliance with the Freedom of Information Act is raising alarm among commentators who say INTERPOL already had most of the same privileges as diplomats.
At David Horowitz’s Newsreal, Michael van der Galien said the issue is Obama’s expansion of President Ronald Reagan’s order from 1983 that originally granted those diplomatic privileges.
Reagan’s order carried certain exemptions requiring that INTERPOL operations be subject to several U.S. laws such as the Freedom of Information Act. Obama, however, removed those restrictions in his Dec. 16 amendment to Executive Order 12425.
That means, van der Galien wrote today, “this foreign law enforcement organization can operate free of an important safeguard against government and abuse.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=120363
Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law?
by Andy McCarthy, The Corner at National Review, December 23, 2009
You just can’t make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.
Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol’s property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act. Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.
On Wednesday, however, for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpol’s property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.
Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America’s defense).
Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?
Steve Schippert has more at ThreatsWatch, here.
From http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGY3MTI4YTRjZmYwMGU1ZjZhOGJmNmQ0NmJiZDNmMDY=
Oops! Freed Gitmo alumni plotted airline bombing
by David Freddoso, Washington Examiner, Online Opinion Editor, December 28, 2009
From ABC News:
Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents.
American officials agreed to send the two terrorists to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an “art therapy rehabilitation program” and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Gee, who would have expected “art therapy” to fail on terrorists?
From http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Oops-Gitmo-alumni-plotted-airline-bombing-80222247.html
From ABC News: Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by U.S.
Why is this not surprising? And why don’t the “smart people” in Washington understand this?
Paul Ryan: Editorial off the mark; this bill is a huge mistake
From “Your Opinions”, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, December 27, 2009
I wanted to offer a response to the Journal Sentinel’s editorial pushing Congress to pass its health care overhaul (Editorials, Dec. 23).
The Editorial Board expresses regret that Republicans chose not to “contribute to the debate.” The board might not agree with my proposal (H.R. 2520, The Patients’ Choice Act). It might not have noticed the 20 health care town halls held across southern Wisconsin, the series of Republican amendments offered (but rejected) at the committee level, the alternative Republican proposal offered (but rejected) on the House floor, and my tireless efforts - in your conference room and elsewhere - to promote patient-centered alternatives.
But disagreeing with Republican contributions doesn’t negate their existence. Our opposition to the Democratic leadership’s overhaul is neither political opportunism nor legislative gamesmanship. It is a rejection of Washington’s ideological crusade to irrevocably expand government and transform this country into a European-style social welfare state.
The editorial is premised on a favorite refrain of those who run Washington, enamored with their self-aggrandizing fixation to make history. You are correct: “This is history.” You use this fact to bolster the argument that serious concerns should be set aside, and instead, members of Congress ought to march in lockstep with party leadership.
I couldn’t disagree more.
The consequences of this bill will be felt for generations and forever alter our nation’s health care system and our relationship to our government. The gravity of this bill is exactly why many Wisconsinites watch in disbelief as Congress rushes consequential votes in the dark of night, rejects Republican input, bribes discerning Democrats, and gets away with trillion dollar budget gimmicks.
Wisconsinites want health care reform - we all do - but this overhaul isn’t reform. It represents the worst of Washington - and is the latest in the federal government’s continued assault on individual liberty and free enterprise. This legislation would be tragic mistake of historic proportions.
Paul Ryan
Member of Congress
First Congressional District
Janesville
History of climate gets ‘erased’ online
By Chelsea Schilling, December 21, 2009, WorldNetDaily
A new report reveals a British scientist and Wikipedia administrator rewrote climate history, editing more than 5,000 unique articles in the online encyclopedia to cover traces of a medieval warming period – something Climategate scientists saw as a major roadblock in the effort to spread the global warming message.
Recently hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit expose a plot to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period, a 400-year era that began around A.D. 1000, the Financial Post’s Lawrence Solomon reports.
The warming period is said to have improved agriculture and increased life spans, but scientists at the center of the Climategate e-mail scandal believed the era undermined their goal of spreading concern about global warming as it pertains to today’s climate.
Solomon noted the warming period presented a dilemma long before the Climategate e-mail scandal.
. . . Through his role as a Wikipedia administrator, Connolley is said to have created or rewritten 5,428 unique Wikipedia entries.
“When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it – more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand,” Solomon wrote. “When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred – over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions.”
Meanwhile, followers who adhered to Connolley’s climate views “were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings,” Solomon contends.
Through his control of the Wikipedia pages, Connolley is said to have “turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=119745
Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional
by Randy Barnett, Nathaniel Stewart and Todd F. Gaziano, December 9, 2009
Legal Memorandum #49
A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.[1]
This statement from a 1994 Congressional Budget Office Memorandum remains true today. Yet, all of the leading House and Senate health-care reform bills being debated in Congress require Americans to either secure or purchase health insurance with a particular threshold of coverage, estimated by CBO to cost up to $15,000 per year for a typical family.[2] This personal mandate to enter into a contract with a private health insurance company is enforced through civil and criminal tax penalties in section 501 of the House bill[3] and with a freestanding mandate and equally questionable civil tax penalties in sections 501 and 513 of the pending Senate bill.[4]
Read more at http://www.heritage.org/research/legalissues/lm0049.cfm
Happy specific holidays
by Patrick McIlheran, editorial columnis, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, December 12, 2009
About 60 to 80 cars this Sunday afternoon will parade through Milwaukee-area streets, menorahs stuck to the roofs. Inside will be Jews wishing all the world a happy Hanukkah.
Are you, the non-Jewish majority of Wisconsin, offended?
Of course not. Nor should you be. These are people joyfully commemorating a miracle, a triumph of light over dark, fidelity in exile, religious freedom - good things. The parade, sponsored by the Wisconsin branch of the Jewish Lubavitch movement, leads to a lighting of a big, public menorah at Bayshore Town Center. As with most human celebrations, food and music will follow.
What are these people up to?
“In this modern age, what better way to publicize this miracle than by putting it on our cars?” said Rabbi Mendel Shmotkin when I asked. He runs adult education for Lubavitch of Wisconsin, and he says he saw such public Hanukkah parades when he studied in London. The Chabad Lubavitch movement has spread the idea to other big cities for a couple decades now, and in Milwaukee, it’s gone well, Shmotkin feels.
“People are very supportive,” he said, “waving, (saying) ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ ‘Season’s greetings,’ whatever.”
Which season would that be? Remember, with only about 21,000 Jewish people in all metro Milwaukee, one can conclude the majority of strangers seeing the parade pass are not Jewish. Hanukkah isn’t their holiday.
Based on demographics, Christmas probably (though not certainly) is. For years, commerce has opted for neutrality, advertising to all possible customers with the emolliently generic “happy holidays.” The phrase has become almost universal in advertising, so much that it’s crept, as well, into the greetings individual people dispense this time of year.
“Happy holidays,” people say, and if you complain about such blandness on days when people have specific reasons to celebrate, as I did on my blog recently, you may hear this rationale: I celebrate Christmas personally, the reasoning goes, but I wouldn’t want to offend someone who doesn’t.
Please note that I’m not suggesting that getting merry about Christmas be made forcibly universal. But how did our culture back into this self-censoring notion that joyful religious sentiments must be kept strictly private - that they must be assumed offensive to strangers?
Shmotkin, for one, doesn’t buy into such ideas. He’s not offended, he says, to see Christians celebrating publicly. Justly so: In America, no one can compel you into a faith you don’t share. One runs into rudely pushy people, and while Judaism does not proselytize, parts of Christianity are big on it (as are other faiths). But such earnestness isn’t the point of holidays. Celebrating is.
What’s more, holidays celebrate very specific things. They’re rooted in real events with transcendent importance: The oil in the temple lasted miraculously long. For Muslims on Eid al-Adha a few weeks ago, it was Abraham’s trust in God. For Christians on Christmas, a child so different as to change history was born. These transcendent events give meaning to believers, life-changing meaning. They give joy.
This is the error in believing that it’s an insult to accidentally wish joy to a stranger of another creed. “Happy Hanukkah,” “Blessed Eid” or “Merry Christmas” are not usually demands on unbelievers. They are a well-meant overflow of goodwill.
To say them means you’re not hoarding your joy but sharing it, knowing that it’s human nature to feel uplifted a little upon seeing someone, even a stranger, smile or laugh or dance or celebrate. Joy is catching, and it’s in our nature to express it.
Besides, is our society’s liberty bruised by a parade of menorahs? No, nor does hearing the word “Christmas” in public harm it. It’s in a public sphere filled with many faiths that we come to see tolerance as normal. An enforced public secularity teaches us that other faiths should grateon us.
“Happy Hanukkah,” says the Lubavitch parade today, to which anyone can reply, “Thank you for trusting us to hear it.”
Scott and Tonette Walker’s Frosted Christmas Pecans
Scott loves to host our friends at Christmas.
Every year, our home is filled with laughter and love when we invite friends from our church, our relatives, Scott’s staff, classmates of Matt and Alex, friends of mine from my work at the Lung Association, and others for gatherings during the weeks surrounding Christmas. Scott always starts our parties with a prayer giving thanks and we end our gatherings together singing our favorite Christmas carols. It’s really special, especially with Scott’s busy schedule, to have the the chance to spend time around the holiday with so many people we love.
Another annual tradition in our family is helping Scott make his “frosted Christmas pecans.” Scott seems to make more and more pecans every year – we are running out of counter space and mixing bowls to make them all! Everyone looks forward to his pecans - even our Milwaukee County radio stations get excited when Scott delivers them around town.
I know Scott wishes he could give his pecans to EVERYONE this Christmas, so I thought I’d help him out with the next best thing – sharing our family recipe with you (see below)! I hope your family enjoys this Christmas treat as much as ours does.
I am so proud of Scott, and thankful for the opportunity to share my husband with the people of Wisconsin. We are humbled as a family by the tremendous outpouring of support from you and supporters across our state who have already given so much of your time, talent, and treasure to support Scott in his campaign for governor. There is a long road ahead for Scott, and he will need our continued support in the months to come.
Thank you again, and Merry Christmas!
Sincerely,
Tonette Walker
Scott and Tonette Walker’s Frosted Christmas Pecans
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pound pecans
1 egg white
1 Tablespoon water
In a bowl mix together, brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Pour pecans in another large bowl. In a separate small dish mix well the egg white and water. Pour egg and water mixture over pecans and mix well. Pour dry ingredient mixture over pecans and mix until all pecans are well coated. Spread pecans on a cookie sheet.
Bake 1 hour at 250 degrees, stirring every 15 minutes. Enjoy.
VOTES FOR SALE: The Price of ‘History’
Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2009
Harry Reid delivers a bundle of special-interest favors.
Blanche Lincoln and Evan Bayh must feel like saps. The Arkansas and Indiana Democrats spent months caterwauling about this or that provision in the Senate health-care bill, then at 1 a.m. Monday they voted to speed its passage without getting so much as a lousy T-shirt.
In Harry Reid’s Senate, this qualifies as dereliction of duty, as the Majority Leader said himself on Monday in defense of his frantic deal-making to get 60 votes. “I don’t know if there is a Senator that doesn’t have something in this bill that was important to them,” Mr. Reid said at a press conference that offered an unintentional commentary on modern democracy. “And if they don’t have something in it important to them, then it doesn’t speak well of them.”
James Madison, phone home.
Truth be told, even Tom DeLay must be jealous of Mr. Reid’s handiwork. We summarize some of his most notorious political payoffs nearby, including the legendary $300 million “Louisiana Purchase” for Mary Landrieu, and $100 million for Chris Dodd’s favorite Connecticut hospital.
But special attention should go to Senator Ben Nelson, who played hard-to-get the longest and in return for being the 60th vote won an exemption for Nebraska from paying any of the additional costs for the bill’s Medicaid expansion, which is worth $100 million. He also won millions of dollars of exemptions from the $6.7 billion in health insurance fees for Nebraska-based companies like Mutual of Omaha.
This is the same Senator who declared a few weeks ago that “my vote is not for sale.” Well, he never said: at any price.
Read more at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704304504574610473077223550.html
Skeptics dominate hearing on Guantanamo detainees in Illinois
By Mark Guarino, Yahoo News, Tue Dec 22, 2009
Sterling, Ill. – Federal and state officials faced a vociferous public and skeptical state legislators here Tuesday at a public hearing on the proposal to transfer Guantánamo Bay detainees to the Thompson Correctional Center in northwest Illinois.
Three issues dominated the debate: whether or not the state will lose money in selling the correctional center to the federal government, whether giving up an underused facility was wise given the overcrowding in the state’s prisons, and finally, whether the safety of Illinois residents is at stake in housing terror suspects in their backyards.
“We’re talking about bringing terrorists to Illinois,” said state Sen. Bill Brady (R). He was one of several who chastised state officials such as Illinois Department of Corrections Director Michael P. Randle with “doubletalk” in suggesting the state prison was at average capacity while at the same time endorsing an early release program for 200 prisoners to shore up bed space.
“Our enemy is the terrorists and we’re detaining their troops. By concentrating [100 to 150 detainees] in one location, we’re increasing the risk,” said Mr. Brady.
Read more at http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091223/ts_csm/270290
Now They Tell Us: CBO Double Counted Medicare Savings
By Philip Klein, American Spectator, December 23, 2009
After allowing Democrats for weeks to argue that their Medicare cuts would both help finance the new health care legislation and extend the solvency of Medicare, the Congressional Budget Office explained today that the bill could do one or the other, but not both at the same time.
Read more at http://spectator.org/blog/2009/12/23/now-they-tell-us-cbo-double-co
* * * * * * *
And not only did the double-count the savings from the Medicare cut, the expect us to believe that cutting funding for a program that’s already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy is going to result in deficit reduction.
Of course, I don’t think they were ever really serious about making these cuts anyway. Once this bill is passed and their foot is in the door with the health care bill they’ll skip the cuts and start ringing up the deficits and debt.
Read more at http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/shocker_cbo_double-counted_deficit_savings_from_medicare_cuts/
CHINA: ‘The world does not have Money to buy more US Treasuries’…
By Zhou Xin and Jason Subler, Shanghai Daily, December 18, 2009
IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US’s shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday.
The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, referred to the overall situation globally, not specifically to China, the biggest foreign holder of US government bonds.
Chinese officials generally are very careful about commenting on the dollar and Treasuries, given that so much of its US$2.3 trillion reserves are tied to their value, and markets always watch any such comments closely for signs of any shift in how it manages its assets.
China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange reaffirmed this month that the dollar stands secure as the anchor of the currency reserves it manages, even as the country seeks to diversify its investments.
In a discussion on the global role of the dollar, Zhu told an academic audience that it was inevitable that the dollar would continue to fall in value because Washington continued to issue more Treasuries to finance its deficit spending.
Read more at http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200912/20091218/article_423054.htm
America Under Barack Obama: An Interview with Nat Hentoff
By John W. Whitehead, December 11, 2009
“I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had.”—Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff has had a life well spent, one chock full of controversy fueled by his passion for the protection of civil liberties and human rights. Hentoff is known as a civil libertarian, free speech activist, anti-death penalty advocate, pro-lifer and not uncommon critic of the ideological left.
At 84, Nat Hentoff is an American classic who has never shied away from an issue. For example, he defended a woman rejected from law school because she was Caucasian; called into a talk show hosted by Oliver North to agree with him on liberal intolerance for free speech; was a friend to the late Malcolm X; and wrote the liner notes for Bob Dylan’s second album.
A self-described uncategorizable libertarian, Hentoff adds he is also a “Jewish atheist, civil libertarian, pro-lifer.” Accordingly, he has angered nearly every political faction and remains one of a few who has stuck to his principles through his many years of work, regardless of the trouble it stirred up. For instance, when he announced his opposition to abortion he alienated numerous colleagues, and his outspoken denunciation of President Bill Clinton only increased his isolation in liberal circles (He said that Clinton had “done more harm to the Constitution than any president in American history,” and called him “a serial violator of our liberties.”).
Read more at http://www.rutherford.org/oldspeak/articles/interviews/oldspeak-Hentoff_2009.html
Trillions Of Troubles Ahead
by Bert Dohmen, Forbes, December 18, 2009
A crushing burden of debt threatens to sap America’s growth for years to come.
Not too long ago, a billion dollars in a governmental budget was a lot of money. Then we got into hundreds of billions. People understood that this was a lot, just because of all the zeros. Now, unfortunately, the number has become small: the world “trillion,” as in $1.2 trillion for health care reform, seems so tiny. But it has 12 zeroes behind it, which is so easy to forget.
. . . . Our colleague Rob Arnott, who always does terrific research, wrote in his recent report that “at all levels, federal, state, local and GSEs, the total public debt is now at 141% of GDP. That puts the United States in some elite company–only Japan, Lebanon and Zimbabwe are higher. That’s only the start. Add household debt (highest in the world at 99% of GDP) and corporate debt (highest in the world at 317% of GDP, not even counting off-balance-sheet swaps and derivatives) and our total debt is 557% of GDP. Less than three years ago our total indebtedness crossed 500% of GDP for the first time.”
Add the unfunded portion of entitlement programs and we’re at 840% of GDP.
CBO: Real 10-Year Cost of Senate Bill Still $2.5 Trillion
by Jeffrey H. Anderson, Weekly Standard blog, December 19, 2009
With Obamacare, you get the good, the bad, and the ugly — except for the first part.
The Congressional Budget Office’s score is in for the final Senate health bill, and it’s amazing how little Americans would get for so much.
The Democrats are irresponsibly and disingenuously claiming that the bill would cost $871 billion over 10 years. But that’s not what the CBO says. Rather, the CBO says that $871 billion would be the costs from 2010 to 2019 for expansions in insurance coverage alone. But less than 2 percent of those “10-year costs” would kick in before the fifth year of that span. In its real first 10 years (2014 to 2023), the CBO says that the bill would cost $1.8 trillion — for insurance coverage expansions alone. Other parts of the bill would cost approximately $700 billion more, bringing the bill’s full 10-year tab to approximately $2.5 trillion — according to the CBO.
In those real first 10 years (2014 to 2023), Americans would have to pay over $1 trillion in additional taxes, over $1 trillion would be siphoned out of Medicare (over $200 billion out of Medicare Advantage alone) and spent on Obamacare, and deficits would rise by over $200 billion. They would rise, that is, unless Congress follows through on the bill’s pledge to cut doctors’ payments under Medicare by 21 percent next year and never raise them back up — which would reduce doctors’ enthusiasm for seeing Medicare patients dramatically.
. . . And this is the bill that Ben Nelson has decided to support?
Read more at http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/cbo_real_10year_cost_of_senate.asp
Dreading our future (by an Obama voter)
by Michael Goodwin, NY Post, December 20, 2009
I am a baby boomer, which is to say my life has coincided with turbulent and awesome times. From the Cold War to Vietnam, from Watergate to Monicagate, through the horrors of 9/11 and the stunning lifestyle advances, my generation’s era has been historic and exciting.
Yet for all the drama and change, the years only occasionally instilled in me the sensation I feel almost constantly now. I am afraid for my country.
I am afraid — actually, certain — we are losing the heart and soul that made America unique in human history. Yes, we have enemies, but the greatest danger comes from within.
Watching the freak show in Copenhagen last week, I was alternately furious and filled with dread. The world has gone absolutely bonkers and lunatics are in charge.
Mugabe and Chavez are treated with respect and the United Nations is serious about wanting to regulate our industry and transfer our wealth to kleptocrats and genocidal maniacs.
Even more frightening, our own leaders joined the circus. Marching to the beat of international drummers, they uncoupled themselves from the will of the people they were elected to serve.
President Obama, for whom I voted because I believed he was the best choice available, is a profound disappointment. I now regard his campaign as a sly bait-and-switch operation, promising one thing and delivering another. Shame on me.
Read more at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/dreading_our_future_EmFMYk61Kja4iC3EMYePVP
At least Mr. Goodwin is learning. A little late, but he is growing.
The Year’s Worst Reporting
The Coronation of the Messiah Award for Fawning Inaugural Coverage
Winner: Andrea Mitchell (2755 Votes)
“What a day it was. It may take days or years to really absorb the significance of what happened to America today….When he [Barack Obama] finally emerged, he seemed, even in this throng, so solitary, somber, perhaps already feeling the weight of the world, even before he was transformed into the leader of the free world….The mass flickering of cell phone cameras on the Mall seemed like stars shining back at him.”
— NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on the January 20 Nightly News.
Read more crazy media quotes at http://mrc.org/notablequotables/bestof/2009/publicballot/results.aspx?page=1
Damn Those Conservatives Award
Winner: Keith Olbermann (2171 Votes)
“Flatly, it may be time for Mr. Cheney to leave this country. The partisanship, divisiveness, and naivete to which he ascribed every single criticism of his and President Bush’s delusional policies of the last eight years have now roared forth in a destructive and uninformed diatribe from Mr. Cheney that can only serve to undermine the nation’s new President….You, Mr. Cheney, you terrified more Americans than did any terrorist in the last seven years, and now it is time for you to desist, or to be made to desist.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann in a “Special Comment” reacting to former Vice President Cheney’s warnings about future terrorism, February 5 Countdown.
Read even more crazy media quotes at http://mrc.org/notablequotables/bestof/2009/publicballot/results.aspx?page=4
Laughing at the Left
By Quin Hillyer, American Spectator, December 18, 2009
If the consequences for this great nation of ours weren’t so serious and the policies preferred by the left weren’t so dangerous, one would really laugh, almost uncontrollably, at the beliefs and (il)logic of American liberals. Based on things they have actually said or done, here are some of the things they really, truly seem to believe.
They believe we can spend our way out of debt. They believe taking money from one part of the economy to give to another part somehow makes the economy bigger. They believe people who have never run a business can run a business better than people who have spent their whole lives running businesses. They believe that what appears to be a 20-year spike in global temperatures (a spike itself that hundreds of scientists dispute) can mean doom for a planet whose temperatures have swung much more widely for 6 billion years — but that an eight- or ten-year flattening or even drop in temperatures can be ignored because it doesn’t comport with the “models” based largely on the previous 20 years. They believe that punishing “developed” nations for carbon consumption is a good idea even if it means that developing countries without the same environmental controls will take over the production/manufacturing forced away from the developed countries. So, somehow, in the name of saving the environment from carbon emissions, they would create even more carbon emissions (and other, real pollution) elsewhere — and call it progress.
Read more at http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/18/laughing-at-the-left