Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton – I am just about ready to adopt the position of “separation of school & state” or at least that state and federal dollars in education should follow the student and the relationship should end there. That position may seem extreme, but as I have been doing research for my upcoming book on public education I can tell you with absolute certainty that the overwhelming majority of parents of public schoolers have no idea how bad the education is their child is getting, or the degree of indoctrination the children are subjected to.
When inner city minority students get in charter and public schools they do better.
Of course, in reality this is about putting the lower scoring kids with the worst teachers. Think about it. If a teacher isn’t very good and needs to only get a 74% student proficiency to meet goal those teachers will be with the black kids, and the most brilliant teachers will be put with the Asian kids. This may be a play to help the teacher’s union.
The Florida State Board of Education passed a plan that sets goals for students in math and reading based upon their race.
On Tuesday, the board passed a revised strategic plan that says that by 2018, it wants 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of black students to be reading at or above grade level. For math, the goals are 92 percent of Asian kids to be proficient, whites at 86 percent, Hispanics at 80 percent and blacks at 74 percent. It also measures by other groupings, such as poverty and disabilities, reported the Palm Beach Post.
The plan has infuriated many community activists in Palm Beach County and across the state.
Political Arena Editor’s Note – To test how well we did fact checking we compared some of the the elite media’s fact check with our own. What is in italics is how we did.
UPDATE II– It seems we missed that Biden lied about how he voted on the wars. He said he voted against them and trashed Ryan for voting for them, but it turns out that Biden voted for all of the wars. Usually politicians get their own voting records right so we took that one for granted. We will NEVER make that mistake again – Editor.
I have been writing about politics since the early 1990’s and I have to say that while we expect politics to dissemble and spin and occasionally lie to get themselves out of trouble I have never seen a politicians just flat-out lie about facts and subjects that most anyone can check in minutes and out as just plain false. Parts of the debate that are directionally accurate but not precise comes with the territory of a debate with a two minute format so we will be focusing on the whoppers and rank dishonesty.
Ryan lost his assertive footing a few times, but Biden’s smirking and laughing was over played. In general Biden was almost on an emotional roller coaster which comes across as too slick by half and insincere. I would make a commercial with just the faces and the changes in emotions edited together. The way that the debate worked out was that if you listened to it on the radio Biden sounded better, but if you watched it on TV Biden came across as rude and too slick.
In this video you will see Brit Hume’s take which was similar to ours –
UPDATE II – And here is the ad we predicted would be made –
Biden did not want to talk about how the Obama Administration lied about the embassy attacks for two weeks. Every time it came up he changed the subject to Afghanistan or the Iraq surge and such and the moderator let him get away with it.
Washington Post Fact Checker:
“We weren’t told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security.” —Biden, speaking of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya
“All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources,” said Eric Nordstrom, the top regional security officer in Libya earlier this year. A Utah national guardsman who led a security team, Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, said: “We felt great frustration that those requests were ignored or just never met.”
Maybe Biden was too busy in debate prep to watch?
The embassy attacks issue came back up later. Biden tried to blame the lack of security at our embassies on Paul Ryan who voted to cut a part of the embassy budget some time ago. The Obama Admin was using the Embassy Budget to buy Chevy Volts for diplomatic staff… and its Ryan’s fault that the Obama Admin cut security in Benghazi? That was so dishonest that it even set an old pro like me aback. Ryan hit home with (paraphrase) “Look this was the anniversary of 9/11 and they had security taken away”.
Washington Post Fact Checker:
“The congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for.” –Biden
Ryan, as head of the House Budget Committee, set broad targets for spending in his budget blueprint that would have cut nondefense discretionary spending by 19 percent in 2014.
There were no specific cuts in embassy security, but Democrats have extrapolated the number, across the board, to come up with this statistic. But it is not a real number with true budget impact.
By the way, our definitive timeline on shifting administration statements on the Libya terrorist attack can be found here.
Again about Libya Biden pivots to Osama bin Laden:
Washington Post Fact Checker:
“Prior to the election, prior to him being sworn in, Governor Romney was asked the question about how he would proceed. He said, ‘I wouldn’t move heaven and earth to get bin Laden.’” –Biden
Romney made this statement in a 2007 interview with the Associated Press: “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”
But Biden has ignored the rest of the interview, in which the AP quoted Romney as saying “he supports a broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.” Just a few days later, Romney expanded on his remarks during a debate:
“We’ll move everything to get him. But I don’t want to buy into the Democratic pitch that this is all about one person — Osama bin Laden — because after we get him, there’s going to be another and another. This is about Shia and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate.”
The subject turns to Iran. Ryan charged that the Obama Administration counted on watered down sanctions. That is true and is compounded by the fact that oil rich countries are VERY good at getting around such sanctions…. Saddam Hussein was getting around the sanctions and the UN was helping Iraq get around them with bribes all the way up to Kofi Annon’s son. Sanctions just let the Obama Administration talk tough, while really doing very little and giving Iran time to enrich uranium.
USA Today Fact Checker:
The facts: This is mostly true. Iraq’s exports fell from 2 million barrels of oil a day in early 2012 to 1 million barrels a day by July, though they recovered to 1.2 million barrels by September, according to the Financial Times of London. [Political Arena Editor’s Note – Iran has already recovered 20% of the lost oil exports that we tried to block through the sanctions….and that is just what we are able to measure.]
Joe Biden says “we will not let Iran get a nuclear weapon and they don’t have a weapon to put uranium into”, this was my “throw the brick at the TV” moment. The simple truth is that once Iran has the uranium, making the weapons is easy. Every test detonation of a nuclear warhead with the proper amount of fissionable material in history has resulted in a nuclear detonation (there have been fizzles from failures to achieve critical mass but state sponsored bomb programs have always been able to get by that problem eventually and there is a great deal more nuclear know how readily available today); I know as I have expertise on WMD’s. There is no way that Biden doesn’t know this. This level of dishonesty is just not acceptable.
Washington Post Fact Checker:
“When Barack Obama was elected, they [Iran] had enough fissile material — nuclear material to make one bomb. Now they have enough for five. They’re racing toward a nuclear weapon. They’re four years closer toward a nuclear weapons capability…In Congress, I’ve been fighting for these sanctions since 2009. The administration was blocking us every step of the way.” –Ryan
Ryan greatly simplifies things here. Iran has built up its supply of nuclear material, but none of it is useable in a weapon yet [Political Arena Editor’s Note – as far as the Washington Post knows. Remember that Ryan and Biden get intelligence that the public will never see. What does matter is that Iran is producing uranium that is enriched over 20% and when that is achieved the ability to make a bomb becomes simply a matter of time.] Most experts say the United States and its allies would have ample warning if Iran tried to enrich its nuclear material to weapons grade. (Biden confused matters by asserting that both the Israelis and the United States would know when Iran starts “building a weapon”–that is much more difficult to track.)
Meanwhile, the debate on Iran sanctions is rather familiar. If you go back four years, you will see that it was the Obama campaign that made claims of weakness and fecklessness on Iran. President George W. Bush had considered the building of a multinational coalition seeking to negotiate with Iran as one of his foreign-policy legacies, but Obama officials were critical, saying it offered “weak carrots and weak sticks.”
Joe Biden blasted Romney for saying that we need “let foreclosures hit the bottom”. Folks this is a fact of basic market economics. The market needs to bottom out before it can recover. People jump back in when people thinks it hits bottom and the result is a quicker recovery. The housing problems lingers and drops over 40 months because government is trying to prop up housing prices… and they are failing miserably in the process.
Joe Biden pulled the old nonsense class envy card, so Ryan pulls out “This is not what a real recovery looks like” card and goes right into the “Five Point Plan” which are solid and simple talking points. That got repetitive during the debate and was a wash.
Paul Ryan went into a “Mitt Romney is a good man” speech which was devastatingly effective. A YouTube moment that we are going to see for a long time and we will post the video as soon as it is available.
Biden said that the economic collapse was because of the Iraq war and the highly successful (came in 40% under budget folks) prescription drug benefit passed by Republicans. Wow, even for a politician that is a whopper. Biden then went after Paul Ryan for helping some constituents apply for stimulus dollars. Wait a minute – so when Ryan’s office helps a constituent apply for stimulus dollars that is a policy position?? Joe knows better than that. It is the duty of every Member of Congress to help with such requests once the law is enacted. There is no excuse for this.
When the debate turned to Medicare Paul Ryan started quoting the published numbers from Obama’s own Medicare Actuary which showed that ObamaCare will drive up deficits and health care costs and Biden denied his own administrations published numbers and conclusions (that they have not publicize but has been reported). This very writer wrote about the Medicare Actuary and these numbers HERE – HERE – HERE and HERE.
Washington Post Fact Checker:
“Their own actuary from the administration came to Congress and said one out of six hospitals and nursing homes are going to go out of business as a result of this.” –Ryan
“That’s not what they said.” –Biden
Ryan is right, and Biden is wrong.
“It is doubtful that many [hospitals and other health care providers] will be able to improve their own productivity to the degree” necessary to accommodate the cuts, Medicare actuary Richard S. Foster has written. “Thus, providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantial portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable, and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing care for beneficiaries. [Our] simulations…suggest that roughly 15 percent of [hospitalization] providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection as a result of the [spending cuts].”
Last time we checked, 15 percent is just shy of “one out six” (16.67 percent) .
When Ryan talks numbers he does well. He drew a solid contrast when he talked about how the Obama Administration wants to tax small businesses at 44% and Romney wants to tax them at 28%. Ryan also points out that Canada has lowered their business taxes to even quite a bit lower. NOTE – Ryan’s 44.x figure includes payroll taxes, but if memory serves the 28% figures does not, so it would have been more accurate for Ryan to say 39.9% vs 28%. So in this case Ryan is getting cute with that comparison and should not have. There is no excuse for that kind of mistake, unless of course, the Romney 28% proposal includes payroll taxes.
When Paul Ryan hit Biden on the illegal abortion mandate against Catholic institutions it hit home so Biden of curse, lied about it. Biden – “No Catholic Institution has to pay for abortions or abortion drugs or birth control and that is a fact”. Yes, it is today, BUT next year when the MANDATE KICKS IN then the mandate is the fact Joe. Then Catholic institutions will be forced to pay for abortions services and drugs etc through any insurance they buy. I am still in shock over the level of dishonesty.
Washington Post Fact Checker:
“With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear: No religious institution, Catholic or otherwise — including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy, any hospital — none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact.” –Biden
Biden went a bit far saying it is “a fact” that religious groups will not pay for contraceptives under the health care law.
Biden was referring to the so-called contraceptive mandate, which requires insurers to provide coverage for birth control without charging additional co-payments. (We has touched on this issue in two separatecolumns).
Biden was instrumental in brokering that accommodation in an effort to quell an outcry from Catholic leaders otherwise sympathetic to the Obama administration.
The Obama administration made a decision to fully exempt religious institutions such as churches from this rule. It also said it will exempt religiously affiliated organizations such as Catholic schools and hospitals, but their insurance providers must still cover birth control with no out-of-pocket costs for the insured. [Political Arena Editor’s Note – So all that has happened is that the person who writes the final check has been one step removed. The premiums will rise and if a religious institution wants to buy health insurance for its employees it MUST provide the birth control/abortion mandate. Biden’s accommodation amounts to a distinction without a difference].
Rep. Paul Ryan pointed out that the accommodations failed to satisfy many religious groups. “If they agree with you … why would they keep suing you?” he asked.
As far as Syria, if we help the forces who are fighting Assad we will be effectively handing the country over to the Muslim Brotherhood. There is no good way the Syrian problem ends so our take is that Biden and Ryan are both wrongheaded on this issue.
It is likely that Ryan had other factual deficits, but Biden’s were so whopping and fast coming that I was working to keep them straight. I will look over the YouTube later and focus on Ryan more. This piece also focused less on Ryan because the things he said in the debate are things the Romney/Ryan team has been saying for some time now so there was very little that was new.
Washington Post Fact Checker:
“He’ll keep saying this $5 trillion plan, I suppose. It’s been discredited by six other studies…Six studies have guaranteed — six studies have verified that this math adds up.” –Ryan
Romney would cut tax rates by 20 percent and eliminate the estate tax, the alternative minimum tax and reduce the corporate tax, which analysts say will reduce revenue by $5 trillion over ten years. But Romney also has said he will make his plan “revenue neutral” by eliminating tax loopholes and deductions, much as Ronald Reagan did when he passed a tax reform in 1986. [Political Arena Editor’s Note – Like we said previously HERE ].
The fact checkers, if they do their job, are going to hit Biden good tomorrow. The best line in the debate was probably from Paul Ryan when he said, “If you can’t run on your record paint your opponent as someone to run from.” That is what Biden tried to do tonight.
Editor: Biden’s Performance the Most Dishonest I Have Ever Witnessed – LINK
Chuck Norton – Joe is a very likable fellow. He always has been. Look at how fast he changed the subject to Bin Laden.
Chuck Norton – Ryan has good points, but he is being a tad scripted. But granted any normal human would be nervous.
Chuck Norton – Oh come on Joe, the Obama Admin was using the Embassy Budget to buy Chevy Volts for diplomatic staff… and its Ryan’s fault that the Obama Admin cut security in Banghazi? Gimme an effing break….
Laurie Blackert Harris – ONLY good point…he has to stick with the only thing they have..
Chuck Norton – Look this is the anniversary of 9/11…. and – Go Paul Ryan – totally correct.
Laurie Blackert Harris – I MEAN Bin laden dead… is the ONLY thing they have… then got our seals killed when they bragged about it… STUPID
Chuck Norton – OK the administration counted on watered down sanctions…. but to be fair, oil rich countries are VERY good at getting around such sanctions…. Saddam Hussien was getting around the sanctions and the UN was helping Iraq get around them with bribes all the way up to Kofi Annon’s son.
Chuck Norton – Paul Ryan is talking too much. Let Joe talk so he can gaff… because he always does….
Chuck Norton – Joe says that “we will not let Iran get a nuclear weapon and they don’t have a weapon to put uranium into” – OH COME ON – once they have the uranium making the weapons is so easy it is silly. I know as I have expertise on WMD’s.
Chuck Norton – Sanctions just give the illusion of doing something while Iran gets time to enrich uranium.
Chuck Norton – Joe says – Romney says “let foreclosures hit the bottom” the market needs to bottom out before it can recover. The problem came about and lingers because government is trying to prop up housing prices… and they are failing miserably in the process.
Kimberly Eason Saunders – Why the hell is Biden laughing all the time?
Chuck Norton – Joe pulls the old BS class envy card – so Ryan pulls out “This is not what a real recovery looks like” card and goes right into the “Five Point Plan” which are solid and simple talking points.
Chuck Norton – Wow – Paul Ryan did his “Mitt Romney is a good man” speech which was devastatingly effective. A YouTube moment that we are going to see for a long time.
Kimberly Eason Saunders – Ryan better come back on this one — show me something? Where’s your budget?
Chuck Norton – Wow the war and the prescription drug benefit caused the collapse Joe??? WTF – Wow such lies. Wow, even for a politician that is a whopper.
Chuck Norton – Wait a minute – so when Ryan’s office helps a constituent apply for stimulus dollars that is a policy position?? Joe knows better than that. It is the duty of every Member of Congress to help with such requests once the law is enacted. – This is terribly dishonest.
Kimberly Eason Saunders – Moderator sucks — she keeps changing topic and not let Ryan answer
Chuck Norton – Yes when Ryan is moving in for the kill she wants to change.
Chuck Norton – Wow the dishonesty is really getting thick. The fact checkers are going to cream Biden tomorrow.
Kimberly Eason Saunders – interrupting again! UGH! I want to slap him
Kimberly Eason Saunders – How many times has he said Martha? Good thing this isn’t a drinking game!
Chuck Norton – Biden is denying what his own Medicare Actuary is on the record saying.
Chuck Norton – 28% of small business income vs 44% of that income Obama wants to take – that one hit home.
Chuck Norton – Ohh these taxes on small business speech Ryan is going is devastating – another youtube moment.
Chuck Norton – Reagan and Tip O’Neill – lets do what they did – smart
Chuck Norton – Arguing statistics against Paul Ryan – Ryan will win every time.
Chuck Norton – Getting in the weeds vs Paul Ryan is a losing strat Joe – Hit Paul Ryan on specifics ….Ryan can give them to you.
Chuck Norton – Joe is right about the budget deal – Boehner got totally out foxed.
Kimberly Eason Saunders – Gotta give Ryan credit for keeping his cool against this dimwit
Chuck Norton – Joe Biden: Afghan security is THEIR responsibility not ours. A good point, but unless the Taliban is whipped they will own Afghanistan again and we will be right at square one. We are being too restrained in fighting the Taliban.
Kimberly Eason Saunders – it is almost unbearable to watch Biden’s smug face
Chuck Norton – Let me be clear, either go ape on the Taliban and wipe them out whatever it takes, or take all our allies and those who want to leave (like all the women who hate the taliban) and we leave. We must NOT leave the innocent to twist in the wind.
Kimberly Eason Saunders – Why is Biden yelling?
Rey Brandt – Because he is losing?
Rey Brandt – Just talk over the top Joe it’s not like the moderator will call you on it.
Chuck Norton – Joe knows how to sound assertive – even when he is just so full of it.
Chuck Norton – I think people tuned out after the medicare part of the debate – now only the politiwonks are watching.
Chuck Norton – Both of them are wrong on this Syria thing……..
Chuck Norton – LOL, Biden can take a pile of nonsense and make it sound like a good answer, but like I said, wow are the fact checkers going to skewer Biden tomorrow.
Kimberly Eason Saunders – I am totally against forcing religious hospitals to cover abortions as it’s against their religious beliefs
Chuck Norton – Ryan nailing them on the abortion mandate against catholic institutions hit home.
Chuck Norton – Oh wow, Biden is going to get hammered tomorrow – “That is a fact” Yes, it is today – BUT next year when the MANDATE KICKS IN then the mandate is the fact Joe. Then Catholic institutions will be forced to pay for abortions services and drugs etc.
Kimberly Eason Saunders – LOL! Yeah, like Kagan had no hidden agenda? gimme a flipping break?
Chuck Norton – I read Kagen’s law review article that argued against the First Amendment – it was scarey.
Chuck Norton – OK all they are closing up – While both sides had a few factual deficits, Joe Biden was repeatedly and fantastically dishonest on several points. So much so that even I am a bit surprised. Ryan’s closing is devastating.
Rey Brandt Closing time to blame Bush!
Chuck Norton – Joe was on an emotional roller-coaster and that is the ad to make against him – it comes across as insincere… as slick. Ryan had a few times where he was not asserting himself well.
Rey Brandt – Best line? “If you can’t run on your record paint your opponent as someone to run from.”
When a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) panel associated with the ObamaCare Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) [ Also at times referred to as the death panel – Editor] targeted breast cancer screenings for women over age 40 talk radio and the alternative media was able to make such a stink that even some of the Obama favoring elite media couldn’t help but report on it. As a result it was reversed.
Why is it that women’s and minority health are the first to be targeted for cuts as ObamaCare takes over? It is because those groups vote Democrat in such large numbers, that the Democrat leadership can do whatever it wants and likely keep that group secured as a voting block. With the elite media covering for them most of the time they can get away with it. Do you ever wonder why inner city minorities get the worst teachers, worst schools, worst city services and worst police protection in cities and areas ran by Democrats? It is for the same reason. No matter what the Democrats do they believe they will always get 85% or better of the black vote, so they put resources in swing districts to win swing voters.
Nov. 20, 2009 (Bloomberg) — A medical debate over breast-cancer screening that has turned political may set the tone for a battle over President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul that will resonate for years.
The furor over a federal panel’s recommendation against mammograms for most women in their 40’s shows the obstacles the U.S. may face trimming costs in a $2.5 trillion health system, even when research suggests the cuts may be appropriate, said Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University economist.
With a health-care overhaul nearing a Senate vote, Republicans said the recommendations by the panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, for fewer mammograms proved Obama’s agenda will lead to rationed care. Democrats, fearful of antagonizing a key voting group in women, said the U.S. won’t change federal reimbursements to support guidelines that most women shouldn’t get regular mammograms until age 50.
The panel’s suggestions provided “the perfect place to throw a bomb into the health-care debate,” said Representative Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat of California and co-leader of the 82- member Congressional Progressive Caucus, in an interview. “We’re not going to ration anything. We’re going to give people choices based on science.”
‘Worst-Case Scenario’
The new guidelines would reduce annual mammograms by more than half under a “worst-case scenario,” said Junaid Husain, a Boston-based analyst at Soleil Securities, in a note to investors Nov. 17. Senator Sam Brownback, a Republican of Kansas, said the task force’s recommendations represent the start of an Obama administration plan to ration health care to pay for its overhaul.
“There are other ways to reduce costs,” Brownback said in an interview.Data show that 17 percent of breast-cancer deaths occur in women from ages 40 to 50, he said. Those statistics mean the panel “is effectively saying 17 percent wasn’t high enough to warrant spending the money to save lives.”
Democrats active in supporting the health-care overhaul legislation sought to distance themselves from the panel’s advice. Woolsey said resources will have to be used more efficiently, “but we’re not going to start with women.”
Medical economists said the U.S. will have to prepare itself for these kinds of decisions if it wants to cut health- care costs. Health-care legislation calls for comparative effectiveness research, as a way to determine whether treatments and procedures aren’t being overused.
Oh they are basing those decisions on science alright – political science; and politics is exactly why they reversed it. After all if it was based on “real science” and decisions are based on that basis only then why reverse it? Almost one if five breast cancer deaths are women aged 40-50. So to Obama’s appointees one in five breast cancer deaths is a safe gamble to ensure that services aren’t overused. They are not going to start with women? Oh really?
My wife had her routine physical today and she was asked to sign the new “voluntary” HHS data mining form for the BarryCare IPAB rationing panel. She said I’m not comfortable signing this. And, they told her, well we can’t bill Blue Cross if you don’t sign it. Oh, so it’s not really voluntary then? THEN her doctor informed her of the new “guidelines” on pap smears. Kathleen Supercillious has decided that pap smears are only needed every 5 years now. Folks, Ameritopia is already upon us. ” Forward” …. to Cervical cancer.
So I started doing some digging and look at this, not only are these “voluntary” ObamaCare becoming mandated over time, but the IPAB is targeting women’s pap tests for cuts [the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is a part of HHS/IPAB]. What happened to not letting the government get between you and your doctor? Here is the positive spin from NBC News:
Most women can go as long as five years between cervical cancer screenings as long as they make sure to get both a Pap smear and an HPV test when they do get examined, a government panel said Wednesday.
The interval between cervical cancer screenings can safely be extended for women between the ages of 30 and 65, according to the new recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
Women ages 21 to 30 should still get a Pap smear every three years, the interval currently recommended. But those younger than 21 and older than 65 can skip the screen altogether, the experts concluded.
The panel is urging a extended intervals in screenings in an attempt to cut back on the number of women who end up being treated for lesions that might resolve on their own.
The downside could be a very small potential increase in the number of women who might die of cervical cancer, experts said.
“It’s a trade-off,” said Dr. Michael LeFevre, co-vice chair of the task force and a professor of family and community medicine at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
Some expert who is also a far left professor that helped come up with this guideline says it’s safe so it must be so right NBC? Let is by clear, like the 17% of breast cancer deaths above, this isn’t science, it is gambling. It is gambling with women’s lives and if they get away with this minorities will be next. These recommendations will be phased into being mandatory over time.
There is a reason why insurance companies have set their guidelines for pap screenings to every three years, they did it because it was better for customers, saved lives, and it increased profits as fighting cancer is the early stages is much cheaper than fighting it at a late stage…BUT that is not the case when you factor in these same patients when they retire and go on Medicare. Fending off and fighting cancer in those over 65 with a history of it is very expensive, so the IPAB is content with letting such citizens die off, but all that death panel talk was just fear mongering…
Related:
Obama’s Own Cousin Dr. Milton Wolf – ObamaCare does harm, rations care – LINK
British National Health Service: late cancer diagnosis kills 10,000 a year – LINK
Unfortunately this is not an unusual happenstance at our universities today. The progressive secular left is very well entrenched in public education and antisemitism is very fashionable on campus and as actively promoted by many faculty and university administrators. Unless one is active on following campus issues, one would have no idea how extreme and prevalent antisemitism on campus has become. Colleges across the country even sponsor “Israeli Apartheid Week” on campus with student funds. At these events they call for the genocide and elimination of Israel.
To combat this, famed actor Robert Davi has narrated and helped create the following video to combat the lies used to indoctrinate students with at these events and to show what happens at events at colleges across the country. This is a must see video.
You had no idea such nonsense is being preached to your kids on campus did you? Most parent’s don’t.
At universities that are not quite so entrenched by progressive secular antisemitism the hated and discrimination is not so bold, but rather is demonstrated in other ways such as the denial of Jewish and Christian student groups for recognition, which is illegal, and groups such as FIRE and the Alliance Defense Fund have been somewhat successful and overcoming such tactics by campus administrators. As a former Chief Justice of Student Government at my alma mater I was made aware of several cases if professors and administrators discrimination against such students (fortunately a warning from me was enough to help make the offender back off in most cases). It amazed me the leaps of “logic” that academics and radicalized administrators would take to justify their illegal actions and it amazed me how they could make the most unreasonable positions sound reasonable in order to justify their outrageous actions.
I contacted R. Tamara de Silva of the Thomas Jefferson Legal Institute, the attorney involved in the case, to comment but she informed me that the judge in the case has asked both sides to not speak to the press. The institute has said that “religious freedom goes to the heart of the First Amendment. The desire of people to freely exercise their religion has been and is, one of the most powerful political forces in the world”.
CHICAGO (CN) – Northwestern University is discriminating against the Jewish faith by dissociating with a Chabad organization that has been on its campus for 27 years, the group claims in federal court.
Chabad-Lubavitch is a hasidic movement and major form of Orthodox Judaism with more than 3,300 institutions, or Chabad houses, worldwide.
“At the very inception of the Tannenbaum House, in the early 1980s, Chabad had to litigate its right practice religion freely in the city of Evanston,” according to the complaint. “The court, in hearing the matter, determined that ‘the real fear of the defendant city and intervenors is that [Chabad] will use its property to permit the plaintiffs to practice their ancient religion in the way they have conducted it for the past centuries.’ Today, Chabad once again has to fight for that right.”
As a university chaplain, Rabbi Dov Hillel Kelin uses a stipend to obtain kosher food from a third-party vendor, Sodexo.
But on Sept. 11, 2012, the university allegedly sent Klein a letter that it was disassociating from Tannenbaum House.
Though the complaint does not quote from the letter, it says hints that allegations of misconduct against Klein are at the root.
“Northwestern had no legal reason to disassociate from the Tannenbaum House,” the complaint states. “The university knew that its proffered reasons were specious and based upon innuendo and falsehood. The reasons offered for that disassociation were wholly pretextual and meant to single out Chabad against all other faiths for removal from Northwestern University.
“Even if the reasons offered for that disassociation were not false, many other campus organizations including religious organizations, had committed the same acts for which Rabbi Klein stood falsely accused,” it continues. “The university was aware of this, and chose only to disassociate with Chabad.”
The Chabad House says Northwestern disassociated “solely on the basis of Rabbi Klein’s, LCI’s and the Tannenbaum Chabad House’s affiliation with Chabad Chassidism.”
“Northwestern University would not have taken this action if plaintiffs were not adherents of Chabad Chassidism,” it adds.
Northwestern has allegedly barred Klein from renewing his contract with Sodexo or “sponsoring a Birthright Israel trip.
“If Rabbi Klein is enjoined from participating in the above referenced activities, and contracts, and if Rabbi Klein is cut off from providing authentic Jewish and Chassidic experiences to Northwestern University students, it would case irreparable harm to Rabbi Klein, to the charter and purposes of the Tannenbaum Chabad House, and to Lubavitch-Chabad of Illinois,” the complaint states. “It would also cause irreparable harm to Jewish students of Northwestern University.”
Klein, Lubavitch-Chabad of Illinois and Lubavitch-Chabad of Illinois dba The Tannenbaum Chabad House sued Northwestern University, University Chaplain Timothy Stevens and Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia Telles-Irvin.
They seek punitive damages for violations of the Civil Rights Act, and an injunction for Klein.
Tamara de Silva represents the Chabad House and Klein.
Northwestern spokesman Al Cubbage told Courthouse News that he was not aware of the lawsuit and declined to comment on Northwestern’s motivation for dissociating from Chabad House.
Israeli Prime Minister Natanyahu’s speech to the United Nations where he explains his nations struggle to survive against the tide of genocidal threats and acts of violence from jihadist states.
Netanyahu also makes the case that Iran should not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. His speech was great politics, but strategically not so much. Due to reported pressure from the Obama Administration Netanyahu postponed his “red line” date to March. The truth is that no one really knows when Iran will have enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons, perhaps they do already and by drawing the red line in March Iran has already been given six more months to do what they have been doing. Some have been touting the economic sanctions that are in place against Iran, but this also benefits Iran. Why? Two reasons. Sanctions do not work well against oil producing states and that is just a fact of history and Iran is served by the idea of sanctions because it gives the illusion of “doing something” while giving Iran the time it needs to enrich uranium.
Joe Donnelly is a member of the House of Representatives in Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District (South Bend) and is running for Senate in Indiana against Republican Dick Mourdock.
In the interests of full disclosure, Joe is my Congressman and I have talked with him a few times.
Joe Donnelly is one of “those” swing district politicians. What do I mean by that? Donnelly plays a very dishonest balancing act of keeping his right foot in Indiana and his far left foot in DC. Joe Donnelly is a reliable vote for the far left on any close vote, but on some big votes where the party leadership knows it has enough to pass what they like, Donnelly will vote ‘No’ so he can come home and tell the South Bend Tribune what an independent conservative Democrat he is; all while ensuring that Pelosi and the Democrat leadership get what they want. The most famous player of this game in Indiana politics is former Congressman Tim Roemer, who of course is also from South Bend.
One of the most famous examples of Roemer’s play of this style of politics was on the 1993 Clinton tax increase and budget. Roemer voted to preserve Clinton’s new taxes and spending increases in the new budget 44 times in votes as the Bill was being amended and debated, but on the final vote, knowing it had enough voted to pass the House, he voted ‘No’ so he could come home and tell the people that the Clinton Budget spent and taxed too much.
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell once said that we need ‘Blue Dogs’ like Donnelly because they help cover what the real socialists are doing.
Indiana has a great deal of medical device manufacturing, Bayer, Miles Labs, and countless others have a long history here. While the 2.3% tax that Donnelly voted for on medical devices might not seem like a lot if you are talking about a device such as a personal blood sugar meter from Bayer, which is made in Donnelly’s home district, on a top of the line MRI Machine that tax translates into a $11,500 tax on every machine. In order to stay competitive with overseas competition cuts will have to be made and often that means outsourcing. While not every medical device costs as much as an MRI, X-Ray machines and defibrillator’s etc still cost tens of thousands of dollars so the 2.3% tax makes the difference between being competitive and non-competitive. While Democrats are still struggling to explain how ObamaCare will make health care cheaper by slapping over 20 new taxes on it, the medical device tax is already costing Indiana much needed jobs:
An Indiana company’s decision to scrap expansion plans due to a looming tax on medical devices has renewed pressure on the Senate to consider a House-passed bill repealing the tax.
House Speaker John Boehner, in a written statement, urged the Senate to take up the bill “as soon as possible.”
Companies in the medical device industry for months have been calling on Congress to strip the provision. Amid the complaints, though, several firms have already taken steps to cut back U.S. investment out of concern for the tax’s impact.
Cook Medical, an Indiana-based medical equipment manufacturer, last week said it’s nixing plans to open five new plants in the next five years — claiming the tax will cost between $15 million and $30 million a year, cutting into money that would otherwise go toward expanding into new facilities in the Midwest.
“Unfortunately, we have had to shelve these expansion plans and look overseas for that,” Allison Giles, vice president for federal affairs with the company, told FoxNews.com. “It’s a huge amount for us.”
This is one of the big problems I have with the progressive secular left; if you read their heroes from Lenin, Walter Lippmann, almost anyone from the Frankfurt School, Antonio Gramsci, Max Weber, Saul Alinsky etc, they all advocate deception as a legitimate political tactic.
Leftism assumes that people cannot govern themselves and that freedom leaves too much to chance, and therefore the rabble must have rationality imposed upon them from above, preferably by incrementalism, but eventually by force if need be. All forms of leftism, from liberalism, progressivism, socialism, communism, marxism, critical theory, grievance studies are all favor movement towards a leviathan state ran by an oligarchy, some of the flavors wish to maintain the illusion of limited government and a genuine democratic process, some don’t.
The Obama campaign would like voters to believe that Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan would “end Medicare as we know it” — privatizing the whole system and costing seniors more than $6,000 extra a year.
But the campaign, even before Ryan was selected as Mitt Romney’s running mate, has effectively been running against the wrong Ryan plan.
The president’s accusations largely refer to Ryan’s 2011 plan, ignoring the fact that the House Budget Committee chairman rolled out a different version in 2012 — taking into account Democratic critiques. Though the 2012 plan is more moderate, Obama and his surrogates have all but ignored the newer version as they amp up their accusations against the Romney-Ryan ticket.
Most glaringly, the campaign has omitted a key point.
While Ryan’s 2011 plan proposes to give seniors a government payment to buy private insurance, his 2012 plan offers seniors a choice.
Under the blueprint, seniors could use the payment to buy private insurance or stay in traditional Medicare.
UPDATE II – Obama lied about his campaign not linking Romney to “murder” – LINK – LINK.
Coulter is right. This is an embarrassment. Andrea Saul did not even seem to have the best facts straight before responding on behalf of the Romney Campaign. The question is, why does a presidential campaign have a twenty-something hottie for a campaign spokesman?
In case you missed it, here is Andrea Saul responding to an Obama ad accusing Mitt Romney of costing a man his job and health care for his family. His wife didn’t want to report she was sick and died of stage four cancer. The accusation is silly on its face. We will give the answer she should have given in a moment, but first watch this spectacle:
SAUL: To that point, you know, if people had been in Massachusetts under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care. There are a lot of people losing their jobs and their health care in President Obama’s economy.
2 – The company was dying and Bain tried to rescue GST Steel. The man in the video has Bain Capital to thank because without them GST Steel would have died three years earlier.
3 – The woman who died had insurance when her husband left GST Steel.
4 – And she didn’t get very ill until 2006!
5 – The Obama campaign says that the ad was done by a 527 group and that it has no control over what they do, but what they don’t say is that Obama Cabinet members are the ones funding the 527.
6 – Obama is directly responsible for almost 100,000 energy jobs lost and those are top jobs with insurance. Obama is also responsible for retirees at Delphi losing many of their benefits. Only FDR beats Obama when it comes to sustained job losses over time.
UPDATE – Soptic was offered a buyout from Bain when he worked for the company and CHOSE NOT TO TAKE THE INSURANCE – LINK.
That is why this ad is such an outrage. So it is not as if Andrea Saul did not have plenty of legit ammo to use in her response. You can be sure that some conservative voters will stay home on election day simply because they saw Andrea Saul’s remarks.
Ann Coulter:
I am going to get in trouble for what I am about to say here but it must be said. There is a problem in insider American politics that people should be aware of.
Let me preface my remarks by saying that candidates for Congress ask me for advice often as well as communications pros from around the country. While we are not nearly as popular as Hotair.com or Gateway Pundit this web site has a big enough impact that many in political journalism are very aware of us (and at the risk of being immodest have been aware of yours truly for several years). I spent some time in DC. When looking for work I learned that my competition for most any position included at least a dozen ladies who all are wielding serious cleavage, sparkling hair, a come hither smile, and a Masters Degree. I know through experience that countless women like this come to DC to get their Congressional and Executive Branch knee pads. If anyone thinks that “Monica Lewinsky’s” are uncommon they have not spent time in DC. Sex appeal is a weapon in politics and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you or hasn’t actually spent time in the district.
With that said does this mean that we are accusing Andrea Saul of sleeping her way to the top? No we are not. But what we will say is that she has been around for a few years, we are aware of her, and while she is certainly a hottie, her skills as a crisis communications pundit have never seemed particularly impressive [Editor’s Note – we take no pleasure in saying this and we understand that Miss Saul is a real person with real feelings. With that said this is a presidential camnpaign and the stakes are just too high to have this kind of a problem. We wish Miss Saul all the best in her future endeavors].
By happenstance I found myself helping a kind young lady get her car ready for a trip. I asked her where she was going and she said “Texas”. I asked “Anything fun?” and she answered, “I hope so. I am going to a retreat for military widows”. Something had taken away my breath. Then she let it all come out. Her husband was killed in Iraq and she has two young children, the youngest never got to meet her father.
I was crushed.
Why?
I was in the military during the first Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush. This was my generation’s war and it didn’t seem right that this sweet young lady standing in front of me had to pay the price.
How is this related to citizenship?
During my time our military was in Iraq with 500,000 men led by General “Stormin'” Norman Schwarzkopf. We were in a MUCH better position to finish the job than President Bush the younger. But Bush the elder wanted to make the United Nations happy. You see the UN did not want to offend some Islamic countries by “allowing” the Christian United States oust an Arab dictator, no matter how bad he was. Since all George H.W. Bush could talk about in speeches was “the vision of the UN’s Founders” he complied with the UN and had our military pull out with the job unfinished.
Understand; “everyone” in the military knew that some day, some way, we would have to come back to finish the job. This was the topic of many a conversation between officer and enlisted alike.
President Bush the elder encouraged Saddam Hussien’s domestic enemies to try to oust him, but without our help they were simply outgunned. Saddam slaughtered many of the Kurds in the North and genocided the Marsh Arabs in the South. He want on a reign of terror rooting out his internal enemies. The result was hundreds of mass graves and it is estimated that his reign of terror resulted in 680,000 dead – and that is only counting Kurds and Shiites. Saddam went on to fund terrorist groups including the PLO and Al-Qaeda.
You cannot do evil and expect good to come of it. Take a moment to consider the suffering brought about by a decision to just make the easy choice.
George H.W. Bush was an “establishment guy”. The “establishment” GOP had always opposed Ronald Reagan and Reagan probably would have had a convention fight on his hands if he had rejected their insistence that George H.W. Bush be brought on to the ticket as Vice President. When Vice President Bush became President Bush (41) it did not take him long to abandon the Reagan legacy, raise taxes, get all “internationalist” on us and pretty much go back to big government business as usual, which is why he ended up being a one term president. So damaging was President Bush’s single term that even Mitt Romney was saying on television that “I don’t want to go back to the time of Reagan/Bush”.
It is my generation that let this happen and the consequences of our lazy citizenship was standing in front of me in the form of this sweet, heart broken young lady who is raising two children on her own. She told me of the fights she had with the VA and other benefits the government tried to deny her and her children. It took everything I had to hold back the tears. All I could do was apologize to her and take responsibility as I explained to her how my generation had dropped the ball. She graciously accepted my apology, but of course, she had figured out long ago the reality that had just hit me in the face.
Get along to go along, big government business as usual, can never be allowed to happen again. The consequences of allowing it to happen are dire and very real. I am grateful that a new generation of Americans is at trying to get the Republican Party back on track.
UPDATE – A reader sent us the following message:
Bigger factors were happening and had to be considered before we went against the UN mandate to get Iraq out of Kuwait. Don’t think if we would have gone in and removed him that the situation would have solved itself. WW3 was diverted by not going in in which saved thousands of lives. By containing him and restricting air space proved the best course of action. Remember at that time, The UN mandate was to get military forces out of Kuwait, not to overthrow a government. This was a joint action with members. ANY aggressive action with forces in the field would have prompted a HOLY war against western aggression. The surrounding countries to Iraq, were already at this time planning the breakup of Iraq and there oil reserves. This would have caused a power vacuum in the region as it did in the second gulf war. They knew this, so they avoided the aftermath by containment not invasion.
Also consider Israel which was another BIG factor in this. In the further study of tactics used and not used in desert storm need to be looked at but not by military means but by the other political, economical, territorial and cultural aspects of the region. The Pres did what he had to do and he did it.
Political Arena Editor responds – This was the spin and conventional thinking at the time, but as a matter of political science, and as a matter of history such a case is not very convincing. How often have “containment” policies stopped madmen from being madmen? With that said, while my piece was philosophical in nature, the challenge is more policy directed so I offered this policy response:
In other words, President H.W. Bush made a political decision to please the wrong people. Sir, there are five reasons in history, mostly recognized by international law, that cause a country to lose its sovereignty:
1 – If you invade other countries – /check
2 – If you screw around with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) – /check
3 – If you mass slaughter your own people – /check
4 – If you fund terrorism/piracy – /check5 – If you violate a cease fire agreement – which Saddam did later
And then Saddam invented a 6th – Mass eco-terrorism when he lit up the oil wells and made a huge mess that the rest of the world had to clean up.
It would have been better to let a few countries in “the coalition” drop off and finish the job. I was in the military during that time as well, and “everybody” knew that we would have to go back. Why? because it was obvious that letting such an evil to fester was going to be a problem; understanding this even at the time wasn’t rocket science. I got out of the military in ’94 and I cannot count how many conversations I had about when circumstances would cause us to come back and finish the job.
I am well aware that we asked Israel to stand down – the whole Israeli angle – I get it. Sir it is called making a trough, but correct political decision when there are no “clean” answers.
The UN Mandate? Really? Really? Was this about defending an ally we had a treaty with (Kuwait) and preserving the Straight of Hormuz and preventing Saddam from invading Saudi Arabia and toppling the House of Saud – OR was it about trying to make the UN the super-sovereign?
So let us examine the consequences of President H.W. Bush’s decision and just look at what happened before the 2003 invasion.
1 – We left and Saddam wiped out the Marsh Arabs in the south (where was the UN then huh?)
2 – He made war on the pro-Western Kurds in the North of Iraq and even used chemical WMD’s on them – for which later we had to institute the no fly zone.
3 – Saddam continued to fund terror multiple terror groups including Al-Qaeda
4 – While Saddam destroyed and/or shipped out most of his WMD cache, he continued to actively pursue a long range missile program, preserved his WMD programs in static and was stockpiling raw materials in violation of the sanctions and the cease fire agreement, so he could go back into WMD production any time he wanted (I read the David Kay and Charles Duelfer Inspection Team Reports).
5 – After we left we encouraged elements inside Iraq to try and overthrow Saddam, but without much support from us, so they got wiped out. Saddam went on a purge that would have made Stalin green with envy. There are several estimates that Saddam killed up to 680,000 people he considered political enemies – NOTE – many of those people killed threw in their hat with us and/or were sympathetic to our first war with Iraq – and now they are in thousands of mass graves that are STILL being found to this day in Iraq. Of course there were also the political prisons and torture camps.
This is why history shows us time and time again that it is beyond foolish to let evil fester. I said this before the 2003 invasion and I am saying it now and I was far from the only one.
Quite simply – George H.W. Bush’s head was misguided from the get-go, his often stated desire of achieving the goals of the U.N.’s Founders was wrong headed to put it mildly. He broke the first rule of foreign policy, which is that there are no permanent allies, just permanent interests; and look at the good people who have been made to pay the price for that one very bad decision.
[In the interests of full disclosure I know the people running the Facebook page and web site to raise money for this outstanding young lady. They are dignified career professionals and pillars of their community. This is totally legit. You can be certain that Rachel will get the money raised. And I must confess, I donated. How can you not? She is just so perfectly adorable. – PoliticalArena Editor]
Rachel – The face of Chick-Fil-A’s legendary customer service.
The Facebook page is called A Tip for Rachel and the title reads:
Have you seen the video? No matter what side of the debate you are on, nobody should harass someone trying to make a living. Give Rachel the tip she deserved for dealing with Mr. Smith! http://www.indiegogo.com/a-tip-for-rachel?a=974057. [Note – Indiegogo is having technical issues, but on the A Tip for Rachel page is another link that Rachel controls directly]
The site has been up for less than a day and donations are already coming in.
On Friday, employees of a Chick-fil-A in Torrance, California, were greeted with the words “tastes like hate” scrawled in large black letters on the side of the building, the Los Angeles Times reported.
One Chick-fil-A employee was berated by Adam Smith, who recorded the incident. Smith was later fired from Vante, a Tucson-based medical equipment company.
An article at Twitchy noted that liberal “tolerance bullies” celebrated the vandalism.
“Chick-fil-A vandalized overnight with hateful graffiti. That’s very good. I would have set fire to it,” one person tweeted.
One thing is certain, when the radicalized progressive secular left seeks to boycott you and trash you with their friends in the elite media, if you stand up to them with dignity it results in record breaking sales.
CFA handled this PR crisis perfectly. They were gracious under fire, corrected the record when asked civilly, but most importantly they did not give in to a radicalized anti-capitalist pressure group. The value in letting them talk to the hand cannot be understated. Why? Because when a radical pressure group targets you, if you give in they will use that victory to promote themselves to others and to the media at YOUR expense. Any apology to such a group will be twisted into an admission of bigotry (the left calls anyone who stands up for freedom a bigot). Also – AND THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT – if you give in to a pressure group they will keep coming at you again for more and more. They are like the dog coming back after you give them treats, no pennance will ever be enough. Your caving in will also be a signal to other pressure groups that you are ripe for the picking. The extortion will never end.
On the other hand, if you hold your ground, eventually, and it won’t take long, the elite media and the pressure groups will go away. Why? Because when you refuse to capitulate they realize that they are being ineffective and are being made to look ineffective to others – if that continues their effectiveness as a pressure group will evaporate.
UPDATE – Adam Smith apologizes, but still admits his anti-Christian bigotry by calling Christian groups “anti-human rights” and other such nonsense. Smith says that human rights are threatened by Chick-Fil-A. It is amazing that after all that Smith has been through he has no idea of the tremendous about of charity work Chick-Fil-A corporation does, as a result I have doubts about his sincerity as it seems he really has not learned much. – LINK.
There is also another lesson to be learned from this. No matter how someone enters the public arena wackos and “internet trolls” (bitter people people who get off by finding any excuse to cause misery on the net) will pile on and do what disturbed people do. Everyone who is in the public arena even just a little gets impacted by this including yours truly.
Let me be CLEAR! This issue is not about gays, it is about freedom. The “gay” issue is just the crutch being used today to disguise an attack on capitalism and freedom. Next time it will be some other crutch, but the attack will be the same. The gay people on my friends list support capitalism and freedom as well as anyone can and in that cause they have my support!
No matter the charge when the left cries wolf:
GAYS! (insert leftist cause here – this time it is let politicians punish freedom of religion)…
RIGHTS FOR WOMEN! (government forces the church and all private enterprises to pay for your birth control)…
RACE! (let government regulate all sorts of things that violate property rights)…
DISABLED VETS! (let government micromanage all sorts of aspects to private business including how high your mirrors are and how the steps to your door are built) …
ENVIRONMENT! (allow government to regulate all forms of production and virtually take over the energy industry picking winners and losers)…
DRUG GANGS! (Efforts to take away guns specifically from the law abiding – LINK)….
GLOBAL COOLING! (Solution is centralized control of the economy, the expansion of the state and abandoning of limited government and capitalism)…
GLOBAL WARMING! (Solution is centralized control of the economy, the expansion of the state and abandoning of limited government and capitalism)…
The waving left hand is the wedge issue, the right hand is doing what they want to accomplish. This is the modus operandi of the far left. The headline from the Huffington Post below is merely an example of this truth”
An association of black church leaders has come out against the attempt to redefine marriage and has spoken out against the Democrat Party leadership. You will notice that the so called “gay groups” have nothing to say about it. Why? Because the leadership of groups such as GLAAD could give a rip about gays and are functioning as a leftist radical group of pure ideology, much like the NAACP whose leadership constantly acts against the interests of inner city black families to support teachers unions and a far left political agenda. If this is about principle why aren’t these same “gay advocacy groups” doing “kiss off” protests at black inner city churches? [Answer – because it could chase away votes from Democrats].
Please enjoy this slideshow from Chick-Fil-A at South Bend and Mishawaka, Indiana
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Radicalized homosexual groups problem is not that they are homosexual, that is just the wedge issue they are using as a distraction, the problem with them is that they are radicalized leftist groups that use the claim that they speak for homosexuals as just another vehicle to attack capitalism and their pro-capitalist political enemies which is their true objective.
The case of MN Forward is another example of this truth – “radicalized homosexual activists” called MN Forward a hate group using all the same rhetoric. MN Forward is a group that supports business in Minnesota, their “crime” is that they gave a small donation to a Republican candidate who supports small business and happens to support traditional marriage. MN Forward is a small group that few had heard of that has no stake in the culture war, but they are effective at lobbying state government in Minnesota in preserving an free economic environment that is favorable for creating wealth and jobs. The average voter didn’t know that MN Forward even existed.
When people act on principle they have no need to lie and in fact have a vested interest in telling the truth to support their cause. GLAAD had this to say about actor Kirk Cameron:
“Saying that gay people are ‘detrimental to civilization’ might be ‘loving’ in Kirk Cameron’s mind, but it’s gay youth and victims of bullying who truly suffer from adults like Cameron who espouse these ideas. Cameron used his platform to attack gay Americans and is now attempting to play victim in an effort to sell his upcoming movie. That Cameron would risk the health and safety of young people in order to do so speaks for itself.
There is one problem, Cameron did not say that. Actually there are two problems, GLAAD changed what Cameron said, and then used the false accusation to paint him as an accessory to violence. GLAAD is making a bogus case that Cameron engaged in some kind of crime, or at least what should be considered a crime. By tying Cameron to violence falsely they are inciting others to do violence to him.
Radicalized leftist groups such as GLAAD falsely accuse the political enemies of the left of being tied to violence, and are, in turn trying to incite others to do violence against them, in this case Christians. It is the worst form of bigotry imaginable. The leadership of GLAAD does this because Christians are more likely to vote for free market Republican candidates and as we pointed out above, you won’t see GLAAD attacking associations of black churches who oppose gay marriage. Why? Because they tend to vote for Democrats who oppose free markets and favor government control of the economy. Such leftist groups are not even the slightest bit interested in protecting the freedom of religion, conscience, speech and association of those with whom they disagree.
The GOP needs to get the message out that the tax the Democrats wish to raise does not have much impact on millionaires and billionaires, because most of their income is defined as “unearned”; rather it will impact the small businesses who actually employ people the most.
President Barack Obama blamed Republicans on Saturday for a stalemate that could increase taxes on Americans next year while a leading Senate Republican cast Obama and his Democratic Party as obstructionists who want to place the tax burden on businesses during an economic slowdown.
In his weekly radio and online address, Obama pressed the Republican-controlled House to extend Bush-era tax cuts for households making $250,000 or less while letting lower rates on wealthier taxpayers expire and go up. The Democratic-controlled Senate narrowly passed such a measure earlier in the week, but the House is not expected to follow suit.
“Instead of doing what’s right for middle-class families and small-business owners, Republicans in Congress are holding these tax cuts hostage until we extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans,” Obama said.
Responding on behalf of the congressional GOP, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said Obama’s plan would do more harm to the economy and criticized him with almost identical language. He called for extending current tax rates for all taxpayers and spending 2013 overhauling and simplifying the tax code.
“Raising taxes as our economy continues to struggle is not a solution, and the majority of Americans and businesses understand that,” Hatch said. “The president and his Washington allies need to stop holding America’s economy hostage in order to raise taxes on those trying to lead our economic recovery.”
One would think that a university that has a law school could grasp something a simple as the First Amendment, but you would be wrong if you thought that. Censorship and discrimination against conservatives, Jews, Christians and other groups not in favor with the radical left are under some form of attack at our public universities. This problem is so huge that there are at least half a dozen civil rights organizations that use most ore all of their resources fighting just this type of illegal discrimination; and they are so overwhelmed with cases that they have to be selective on what cases to draw attention to.
If you thought college was a place for young people to speak out, challenges one another’s deeply-held beliefs and grow intellectually, chances are you’ve never been to Indiana University Southeast.
The school, located just 10 miles north of Louisville, Ky., is the latest college to see its speech code come under fire from a group that advocates freedom of speech on campuses. One stipulation in the code requires that students may only “express opinions” within a free speech zone, which is antithetical to what a college should stand for, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an advocacy organization which defends the free speech and due process rights of college students.
“It’s the price you pay for living in a free society,” Robert Shibley, Senior Vice President of FIRE, told FoxNews.com.”The entire enterprise of a university is to express scholarly thoughts and opinions…restraints on that are impossible.”
The broad regulation probably doesn’t even state what its clumsy crafters meant it to say, said Samantha Harris, FIRE director of speech code research.
“IUS almost certainly doesn’t mean this–if you want to tell your friend that you think it’s hot outside, you have to go to the zone to do it…it’s an indicator of just how poorly written and unconstitutional this policy is,” she said.
IUS’s code also requires university approval for acts of ‘expressed opinions’ by submitting an application at least five days in advance.
But the school defended the speech code, expressing concern the exercise of First Amendment rights outside designated zones could disrupt others’ pursuit of an education.
“[The guidelines] were intended to provide some guidance on the issue so that those wishing to gather and express an opinion could do so without endangering people or property,” the school told FoxNews.com in a statement. “The guidelines also were intended to protect the rights of all students to have unfettered access to educational activities on campus (in other words, the exercise of free speech rights should not result in blocking access to buildings or disrupting classes or campus events).”
The university also said that it has never had any complaints about the policy since its implementation in 2004, and it welcomes the FIRE’s feedback.
“We have to regulate other groups who come from off campus. Some come and preach a lot of hate. We just can’t have them wandering around campus with bullhorns over here,” Joseph Wert, associate professor of Political Science and Dean of the School of Social Sciences at Indiana University Southwest, told FoxNews.com.
Oh that sounds so reasonable doesn’t it? Yes you see, IUS had this problem with people roaming about aimlessly with BULL HORNS shouting so no one could study…….yup that must be it.
Yup, and Joseph Wert had to get a PhD. to come up with that one. Professor Wert you are an idiot, and you are even more of an idiot if you think that anyone is going to fall for such an excuse. First of all, the First Amendment has never been construed by the courts to allow what is known as a “heckler’s veto” meaning that the speech in question is not so much about content as it is about disrupting the lawful activities of others. Your university speech code is written in such a way to adjust the universities illegal reaction depending on the content of the speech; meaning that “Students for Pushing Israel Into the Sea” get a prominent place to hold their speech event, but “Students Against Abortion” get to have their event in a tiny room no one can find. College administrators and professors like Joeseph Wert gets lots of practice making the totally unreasonable sound reasonable.
That is why the policy is written so broadly and poorly, so that it can be used for selective enforcement. There are countless cases of FIRE and other groups helping students who have had such speech codes used against them illegally. This is why FIRE in league with other groups have been suing universities to have such speech codes thrown out by the courts. Universities know about these lawsuits, but too often they go to court anyways knowning full well they are going to lose only for the purpose of forcing civil rights groups to expend more resources. After all it’s only your tax dollars funding your local university.
The constant blurring of distinctions and the rewriting of history in political communications get really old.
The economy suffered after the Clinton tax increases and that is one reason why the Republican Revolution hit him in 1994 (along with gays in the military and HillaryCare which featured federal health care police with guns). Bill Clinton had campaigned on a tax cut to help get the economy growing again. He delivered just the opposite.
It is important to keep in mind that President Bush 41 went along with Democrats in increasing taxes in violation of his “read my lips no new taxes” promise. At the time Democrats praised President Bush saying “he had grown”, but when the tax increase resulted in a short 1-2 quarter recession the Democrats blasted him for reneging on his no new taxes pledge. Clinton ran against that tax increase and promised to lower them again.
But what about the Clinton economy and the surplus? Well that was in Clinton’s second term when Newt and the House Republicans balanced the budget, passed welfare reform over Clinton’s initial VETO threats and of course, the new GOP majority in Congress cut taxes.
One of the most dangerous myths that has infected the current debate over the direction of tax policy is the oft repeated claim that the tax increases under President Bill Clinton led to the boom of the 1990s. In their Wall Street JournalOp-Ed last Friday, for example, Clinton campaign manager James Carville and Democratic pollster and Clinton advisor Stanley Greenberg write the increase in the top tax rate to 39.6% “produced the one period of shared prosperity in this past era (since 1980).”
While this myth is now a central part of liberal Democratic folklore, it is contradicted by the political disaster and poor economic results that followed the tax increase. The real lesson of the Clinton Presidency is the way back to prosperity lies not through increased taxes on “the rich,” but through tax and regulatory reform and a return to a rules based monetary policy that produces a strong and stable dollar.
The 1993 Clinton tax increase raised the top two income tax rates to 36% and 39.6%, with the top rate hitting joint returns with incomes above $250,000 ($400,000 in 2012 dollars). In addition, it removed the cap on the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax, raised the corporate tax rate to 35% from 34%, increased the taxable portion of Social Security benefits, and imposed a 4.3 cent per gallon increase in transportation fuel taxes.
If these tax increases were good for the middle class, then they should have been popular. Yet, in the 1994 elections, the Democratic Party suffered historic losses. Even though Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell had declared the unpopular HillaryCare dead in September of that year, the Republican Party gained 54 seats in the House and 8 seats in the Senate to win control of both the House and the Senate for the first time since 1952.
Second, Messrs. Carville and Greenberg are contradicted by their former boss. Speaking at a fund raiser in 1995, President Clinton said: ”Probably there are people in this room still mad at me at that budget because you think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much, too.”
During the first four years of his Presidency, real GDP growth average 3.2%, respectable relative to today’s economy, but disappointing coming as it did following just one year of recovery from the 1991 recession, the end of the Cold War and the reduction in consumer price inflation below 3% for the first time (with the single exception of 1986) since 1965.
For example, it was a half a percentage point slower than under Reagan during the four years following the first year of the recovery from the 1982 recession.
Employment growth was a respectable 2 million a year. But real hourly wages continued to stagnate, rising only 2 cents to 7.43 an hour in 1996 from $7.41 in 1992. No real gains for the middle class there.
However, with his masterful 1995 flip-flop on taxes, President Clinton took the first step toward a successful campaign for re-election and a shift in policy that produced the economic boom that occurred during his second term.
Welfare reform, which he signed in the summer of 1996, led to a massive reduction in the effective tax rates on the poor by ameliorating the rapid phase out of benefits associated with going to work.
The phased reduction in tariff and non-tariff barriers between the U.S., Mexico and Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement continued, leading to increased trade.
In 1997, Clinton signed a reduction in the (audible liberal gasp) capital gains tax rate to 20% from 28%.
The 1997 tax cuts also included a phased in increase in the death tax exemption to $1 million from $600,000, and established Roth IRAs and increased the limits for deductible IRAs.
Annual growth in federal spending was kept to below 3%, or $57 billion.
The Clinton Administration also maintained its policy of a strong and stable dollar. Over his entire second term, consumer price inflation averaged only 2.4% a year.
The boom was on. Between the end of 1996 and the end of 2000:
Economic growth accelerated a full percentage point to 4.2% a year.
Employment growth nudged higher, to 2.1 million jobs per year as the unemployment rate fell to 4.0% from 5.4%.
As the tax rate on capital gains came down, real wages made their biggest advance since the implementation of the Reagan tax rate reductions in the mid 1980s. Real average hourly earnings were (in 1982 dollars) $7.43 in 1996, $7.55 in 1997, $7.75 in 1998, $7.86 in 1999, and $7.89 in 2000.
Millions of Americans shared in the prosperity as the value of their 401(k)s climbed along with the stock market, which saw the price of the S&P 500 index rise 78%.
Revenue growth accelerated an astounding 59%, increasing on average $143 billion a year. Combined with continued restraint on government spending, that produced a $198 billion budget surplus in 2000.
Shared prosperity indeed! But one created not by raising tax rates on high income but not yet rich middle class families, and certainly not by raising the capital gains tax rate or by imposing the equivalent of the Buffett rule, a new alternative minimum tax of 30% on incomes over $1 million, nor by massively increasing federal spending.
Rather, it was a prosperity produced by freeing America’s poor from a punitive welfare system, lowering tariffs, reducing tax rates on the creators of wealth, limiting the growth of federal government expenditures, and providing a strong and stable dollar to businesses and families in America and throughout the world.
Related: Obama Advisor Valerie Jerrett’s Cook County Luxury Towers Assessed at 25% of Value – LINK
by Chuck Norton
Who gets damaged when journalists pining for access allow themselves to be the tools of political corruption?
Access is king for journalists and all too often journalists will do most anything to secure it. Just as CNN was forced to admit that it not only whitewashed the atrocities of Iraqi regime, but it also published and disseminated Saddam Hussien’s propaganda for over a decade in exchange for access. Such actions are not without consequences. The suffering associated with such corruption is very real.
Yesterday the Chicago Sun Times reported that, “two analysts working for Cook County’s tax appeals board were arrested and charged Wednesday with accepting a $1,500 bribe in exchange for greasing the wheels to slash property taxes to the tune of $14,000 on three properties”. According to federal prosecutors the two employees for the Chicago Board of Review (BOR), “discussed scheming with others to make property tax reductions in exchange for bribes” and “The two men worked for Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Larry Rogers Jr. when the bribe was allegedly paid in 2008 …”.
Dane Placko, A MyFox Chicago Reporter Who Traded In His Ethics For Access
Enter MyFox Chicago News reporter Dane Placko. Larry Rogers at the Chicago Board of Review (BOR) hands Placko a ready made, seemingly picture perfect scandal accusation. Members of the BOR accuse former employee Victor Santana of using his access to the BOR office and his former employee relationship with BOR member and Cook County Democratic Chairman Joe Berrios to peddle influence for the purpose of getting tax appeals greased for friends of the Democratic Party. The BOR, using Placko, very publicly assails Santana, singles him out and bans him from the BOR office premises; thus destroying his tax consulting business.
Placko even goes so far as to include the spin that Santana must have acted inappropriately because only attorneys are allowed to represent clients in front of the BOR and Santana is not an attorney; thus implying that Santana is somehow acting illegally. Of course this leaves out the fact that many such tax appeals are done without an attorney by private citizens acting on their own behalf. Santana, along with other tax consultants, merely aid their clients up to the point of the actual hearing in front of the BOR. Similarly, when one goes to a local H&R Block to have taxes prepared it is expected that each person in the office is not a tax attorney, but merely a trained consultant. But when a story is just too juicy to check, critical truths end up unreported.
Members of the BOR were aware that they were under investigation, so in order to present themselves as crusaders for justice, they invent the allegation against Victor Santana, who was a safe pick because he never made campaign donations to Rogers, Berrios, or his cronies. Santana was also friends with former Illinois 56th District Representative Paul Froehlich. Froehlich, who was an active member of the Republican Party, wished to continue to serve after his district had been redrawn to be a majority Democratic district, switched parties. Believing that he could represent constituents better than a hand picked machine candidate Froehlich defeated was victorious in the Democratic primary and went on to with the election. Froehlich became a targeted man, elements in the GOP wanted revenge and the Democratic machine didn’t trust him.
[See the RICO filing against the Chicago BOR HERE. The RICO complaint charges the Commissioners on the Board of Tax Appeals and their staff with extortion and bribery. It states that the Commissioners, powerful members of the Cook County Democratic Party and the Machine, grant tax reductions based upon the campaign contributions made by property tax law firms and lawyers who practice before the Board of Review. Institutionalizing “bribery and quid pro quo as the mandatory means for the adjudication of tax appeals” in Chicago.
I would like to see the property tax appeal success rate for Micheal Madigan’s property tax law firm that donates to the campaigns of all elected members of the BOR. Shall we ask Dane Placko to report it? In either case, the civil RICO filing is just the beginning as now it is known that the state and federal authorities have been investigating since 2008 – Political Arena Editor]
The Berrios machine now had their way to kill three birds with one stone and MyFox Chicago reporter Dane Placko, reveling in his access, became their willing tool. How?
It is no secret that after the mortgage bubble collapsed that millions of Illinois residents and businesses were left with tax assessments that were based on highly inflated values that required adjustment. Froehlich, having formerly been a township assessor, reached out to these constituents to help them get their tax assessments brought in line with post collapse market values as allowed by law, in some cases even going door to door. In short, Froehlich was doing what any concerned representative would do for his constituents.
Of course, since there were thousands of people that needed to have their assessments adjusted after the collapse, some of Froehlich’s constituents were willing to have a sign placed in their yard and some were campaign contributors.
Along comes Dane Placko to paint Froehlich as a corrupt politician who was trading tax assessments quid pro quo’s for donations and/or permission to place yard signs. It gets even better for the Berrios machine, because after Placko’s irresponsible reporting the BOR used that as an excuse to reverse the previously approved post mortgage collapse tax adjustments for Froehlich campaign contributors such as Sharad and Harish Dani who own a hotel in Schaumburg.
Perfect.
Victor Santana’s livelihood is destroyed because he wouldn’t pay to play, Froehlich’s career in politics is destroyed because he made the mistake of putting his constituents ahead of the political machines, those who would donate to candidates not entrenched in the machine are made an example of with inflated property tax bills, the corrupt party bosses at BOR appear as those who helped “root out this corruption”, and the icing on the cake; all of the genuine victims of this political corruption had their reputations trashed on MyFox Chicago courtesy of Dane Placko.
Paul Froehlich, A Man Falsely Accused
Placko’s “proof” – 94% of property tax adjustment Froehlich assisted with were approved, which is higher than the “traditional” number of approvals, but when have property values precipitously fallen for the length of time we are experiencing? Have not the number of property tax appeals and approvals gone up since the mortgage collapse? Is there anything traditional about this mortgage crisis?
Some of those whose reputations were trashed by Dane Placko such as Sharad and Harish Dani sued MyFox Chicago claiming defamation and false light regarding the stories that ran on MyFox Chicago News and subsequently by the blog Illinois Review, alleging the statements published and posted on the website were false and defamatory, and assumed criminal wrongdoing, but the plaintiffs will have to appeal all the way to federal court because a state law called the Illinois Citizen Participation Act is written in such a way that it gives news organizations near absolute libel immunity which stands at odds with Supreme Court precedent on libel law. How convenient. In short, the political machine in exchange for access, can use feed stories to reporters destroying the reputations of anyone they like until the law is challenged in federal court; an expensive proposition. The Illinois Citizen Participation Act is sold on the basis that it protects the little guy who speaks out, in practice it creates a David & Goliath scenario that favors media corporations and the state.
Is it any surprise that Dane Placko was the only reporter invited to a virtually closed hearing of the BOR on this matter? Attorney R. Tamara deSilva, who is representing some of the victims of this travesty tells us that Dane Placko demanded an exclusive interview with her clients or he would use (read edit in) the worst parts of his footage on the air just as he did in the following video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nrq_nuDdc8] trashing Paul Froehlich. DeSilva’s answer to Placko’s threat is not suitable for publication.
Now that the cat is out of the bag and there are federal charges against employees of the BOR where is Dane Placko with a carefully edited video and big expose? Where is MyFox Chicago? All they have isthis automated line story from the Associated Press on their web site with no local followup [and I head to use a search tool to find it].
No charges were ever filed against former Rep. Froehlich and the investigation resulted in no wrongdoing on his part. Froehlich said in a letter to Dane Placko:
Yet I still have the perpetual stigma of “under criminal investigation.” As the public record now stands, my obituary some day will repeat he “under investigation” accusation. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never been officially charged, much less indicted, I’m still guilty in the minds of Fox Chicago News viewers who translate repeated reports of “under criminal investigation” into “another crooked Illinois politician.” In other words, I get pretty much the same stigma as if I had been indicted and convicted — but without the due process.
When the news media public identifies someone as the target of criminal investigation, nothing ever comes of it, and there’s some doubt he ever was the target, who does he see to get his reputation back? Do journalists have any professional responsibility to update, if not to correct, the record? Or does the person whose reputation was sullied simply have to live with an indelible blot that follows him to the grave while the reporter keeps his award?
In a statement forwarded to us from Paul Froehlich:
I don’t agree with much that Rush Limbaugh has to say. I ran across this quote that hit home:
“The drive-by media. It’s like a drive-by shooter except the microphones are the guns, and they drive into groups of people, they report a bunch of totally wrong libelous stuff about people. Sometimes people get really harmed. They go out and try to destroy people’s careers.”
Were truer words ever spoken?
UPDATE – R. Tamara deSilva, attorney for the plaintiffs, will be in oral arguments in federal court this Tuesday July 24, 2012. Please examine the press release at the link below.
UPDATE II– Interesting link shows how the machine uses access as a weapon: Washington Times reporter files battery charges against Rahm Emmanuel’s staff – LINK
I know what the Romney camp is thinking: They have conservatives locked up so they don’t need Palin; since she is polarizing some independents won’t like her. That thinking while having some merit is still very wrong headed.
Independents have voted for TEA Party candidates in droves in 2009 and 2010. Sarah Palin was the driving force behind it. People tell pollsters what they want to hear very often. People who intend to vote GOP and don’t want their friends to know have a history of lying to pollsters. On the other hand I know LOTS of conservatives who intend to stay home this November. The travesty from Chief Justice Roberts helped to motivate them, but make no mistake, there is still a real problem that true conservatives have with Mitt Romney.
If Palin is a master of one thing it is political payback. When Gov. Christie said something stupid about her she let him have it so hard that he never did it again. If Sarah Palin is not invited to the convention with a prominent roll there will be a price to pay and she WILL exact it. She may even stage her own event nearby to suck the wind out of a key Romney event. Palin is far more charismatic than Romney, she knows it and so does the media. She may even rip up the Republican establishment “Good Ole Boy” network at her event. Palin has a long and very effective history of doing just that.
Canadian Free Press:
In the roughly three years since she quit as the state’s chief regulator of the oil industry, Palin has crushed the Republican hierarchy (virtually all male) and nearly every other foe or critic. Political analysts in Alaska refer to the “body count” of Palin’s rivals.
“The landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed Sarah,” says pollster Dave Dittman, who worked for her gubernatorial campaign. It includes Ruedrich, Renkes, Murkowski, gubernatorial contenders John Binkley and Andrew Halcro, the three big oil companies in Alaska, and a section of the Daily News called “Voice of the Times,” which was highly critical of Palin and is now defunct.
The bottom line is that Sarah Palin is still the most powerful figure in the Republican Party and too many in the beltway still haven’t managed to accept that. Palin is also a fund raising machine who can help Romney raise funds for the election. In either case, if you guys at the Romney camp think you can out-smart her, you can’t. Just the attempt will raise her ire and you will only end up paying a heavier price.
This is what bothers me about these two candidates. While Obama’s attacks are far less honest today, Mitt Romney is not innocent either and in the primary Romney’s attacks on the other GOP candidates were often sickeningly dishonest.
Interesting how the Democrat brings up the Swiftboat Vets Ads from when John Kerry ran for President as an example of a distraction. But he leaves out a fundamental truth – John Kerry made the three months he spent in Vietnam in the Navy a cornerstone of his campaign. At the convention Kerry had it military themed and he was saluting and the whole nine yards. The problem is that John Kerry misrepresented his service in his campaign and the people he served with and other veterans took issue with it. John Kerry, in a most unpatriotic way in the view of many war heroes, took the side of Jane Fonda when he came back and the North Vietnamese used John Kerry’s actions for great propaganda value.
With that said, the economy at the end of President Bush’s first term was doing rather well and national security and military policy was front and center which is another reason why the Swiftboat ads were no mere attempt at distraction. The economy today is a disaster and the Obama campaign wants to talk about anything but. And why the Obama Administration is declaring executive privilege to delay the release of documents relation to huge scandals such as “Fast & Furious” and is still hiding all sorts of documents form his past, all they want to talk about is how Mitt Romney had not released his tax returns from ten years ago? THAT is a distraction.
The simple truth is that most people are outraged at what Obama and the Democrats have done with our money and are not overly concerned with what Mitt Romney did with his own money ten years ago.
The Congressman is right. Listen to what he said – he said that you have to have a plan to get back to it (constitutional limited government) and you just can’t say “I stand for the Constitution” and expect to win. He never said or implied, to set the Constitution aside like he was accused. Immediately the TEA Party activists took what he said and converted it into something he never came close to saying in the video.
The Congressman is right when he said half the people do not believe in the Constitution – largely because they are clueless to what it says. Just the other day I had to sit down and talk with a 59 year old women who was furious and decided that she would never vote again. Why? Because she had just heard about the Electoral College and so she thought that no ones vote counted any more.
I LOVE TEA Party people, but the kind of knee jerk over reaction to what he said, without actually LISTENING to what he said, is the kind of stupidity that will render them irrelevant. No one wants to talk to you when talking to you is like talking to a Klingon. Knee-jerk over reaction rampage is not how to win people to your side.
With that said there is a lot of truth to what the TEA Party activist at the end said about the erosion of the Bill of Rights.
No one is going to win an election by campaigning on going back to 1787 overnight. Campaigning on going back to 1787 is not electorally possible when half the people are more familiar with Justin Bieber’s love life than they are with Separation of Powers.
Much like the abortion battle, we are winning more and more people to the pro-life cause and there are fewer and fewer abortions because we are educating people and winning hearts and minds. This is why pro-life people did a whole lot more than block the doors to abortion mills.
The Founders repeatedly and ad nauseum went to King George and appealed to him and others and yes they even offered compromises, and while it did not influence the king it did influence others and brought allies to our cause when shots were fired.
If in 1743 When Sam Adams started bring people onto his “radical” cause had gone around saying “War with England tomorrow if we do not get all of our demands tonight” he would have gotten no where. It is the journey to get there that brought him allies that he could never had gotten if he tried to go from 1743 to 1787 overnight.
I am not saying that we should sell out, what I am saying is that getting back to limited government is a path that will take time, it is not just something one can do overnight.
I would like to remind our TEA Party friends of my initial point: the group of activists in that video basically applied a point of view to the Congressman that he never said or advocated in the video. They took what he said, converted it to something MUCH worse, and applied that to him. Those are the tactics of Saul Alinsky.
Today Justice Roberts engaged in one of the most politically motivated acts of judicial activism in the history of the court.
The Commerce Clause, whose “interpretation” expanded in 1942 as a result of a political threat from FDR to pass a judicial act to add a dozen or so members to the court and appoint them with political cronies if the court didn’t start ruling in his favor, finally had a line drawn in the sand with this ruling. Every lawyer knows that the expanding Commerce Clause interpretation lacked a certain legitimacy because of this history and even some more liberal inclined legal scholars have been coming to terms with this reality. Government expansionists have wiped their feet on that interpretation and as is so often the case, they were given an inch and took a mile.
Today, Justice Roberts along with four other Justices (Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy) properly ruled that using the Commerce Clause to compel entrance into a market goes too far and that the Commerce Clause does not allow the government to compel market activity. This is good but is rendered almost hollow by what Roberts did as I will explain below.
Keep on mind that Ginsburg, Kagan, Breyer and Sotomoyor would have a Commerce Clause unlimited in power meaning that government can compel you to do most anything from the womb to the tomb. Anyone who tells you that the left does not want a leviathan state ….
So Roberts, in a nakedly political move to save ObamaCare, decided to rewrite the law and convert the mandate penalty into a tax. [/SARCASM ON] You see, Congress is stupid and in spite of the fact that they write and modify tax law every year, obviously somehow with this law, Congress had somehow forgotten to write it as a tax, or even call it a tax, but lucky for us we have Justice Roberts to come along and rewrite the law to teach those silly dopes in Congress how to write tax law [/SARCASM OFF]. Of course it is a responsibility of the court to ascertain and apply the legislative intent of the law as best the court can, GREAT! Except that the problem is that the President and members of Congress said repeatedly that the mandate penalty is NOT a tax.
When the Court asked for briefs on the ObamaCare law (ACA) they asked for briefs on the mandate, the denial of all Medicaid funds if states didn’t comply, the Commerce Clause etc. The Court did NOT ask for brief’s on the tax law implications of ObamaCare. This shows that web sites that watch the Supreme Court such as Prof. Volohk are very likely correct in their assertion that Roberts’ interpretation came very late in the process and in fact he probably changed his vote at near the last moment.
Tax law has to come in certain forms, either as a direct tax (called a capitation tax), an excise tax, or an income tax. The Constitution, in Article I Section 2, puts limits on the types of taxes that can be levied and there is plenty of case law defining these issues, all of which was ignored by Justice Roberts (by Amendment the income tax is an exception to Article I Section 2). In the opinion Roberts could not even tell us what kind of tax the ObamaCare mandate is. Is it a direct tax which must be apportioned equally, but look who is exempt; or is it an excise tax? In some ways the Roberts decision seems to act like it is parts of both.
[Editor’s Note: Some readers do not understand the tax law problem I was referring to so I will elaborate. Is the mandate an income tax? No. Is the mandate an excise tax? Well an excise tax is a fee for service so the answer is no. Is it a direct tax (capitation tax) no, because it is not equally apportioned among the states and the people (just look at who gets exempt for starters, states that get waivers ets etc). In short, as a tax it is not a constitutional one and goes against all previous tax precedent.]
There is also the issue of the Anti-injuction Act. The Anti-injuction Act says that the Court may not rule on a tax, no plaintiff has standing in court, until they are actually hit with paying the tax, thus preventing the Court from ruling on the matter further. Roberts, somehow in his ruling out of thin air, rules that it is not a tax for the purpose of the Anti-injuction Act, but is a tax when it comes to the health insurance mandate and penalty, even though Congress specifically said it was not a tax. So for part of the ruling it is a tax and for the other part is is not a tax. This is insanity. Again, the fact that Roberts and the Court did not ask for briefs on this subject indicates that this scheme to save ObamaCare was invented at the last minute out of thin air.
Roberts’ ruling uses twisted logic to get from Point A to Point B. This is a ruling with a goal in mind and an attempt to justify it after the decision was made. Charles Krauthammer wrote that what Roberts pulled out of his hat is a dodge.
The Chief Justice (Roberts) was hell-bent to find a way to make this law applicable, so he just decided, you know what, as a tax increase it works… – Rush Limbaugh.
According to Roberts, the government is not punishing you and mandating you to enter the market, thus penalizing inactivity, instead they are merely taxing inactivity and somehow that makes it OK. This amounts to a distinction without a difference. Why? Now the penalty is low, but when the penalty for those who do not buy the government mandated insurance goes up to thousands of dollars a year in (2018) and the costs of health insurance are already skyrocketing because of ObamaCare, what are low income people going to do? Go to jail for not paying their (as now defined by Roberts) ObamaCare taxes? In every way that matters in the application of the ObamaCare law per the Roberts ruling it is a mandate with a penalty and the IRS will not be forgiving. The IRS has no enforcement mechanism for ObamaCare now, but does anyone expect that to last? Roberts actually has the gall to make the case that since the penalty is low it is not a “real” mandate.
The Secretary of Health and Human services can essentially regulate health care to the point of virtually nationalizing it over time. In practice the government’s power to reach into our lives is greatly expanded in spite of the feckless words in the ruling that limit the Commerce Clause. It is Roberts’ job to uphold the basic tenant of limited government. The power grab in ObamaCare is off the charts which is why even the liberal minded Justice Kennedy made it clear that such a grab is unconstitutional in its entirety.
The Roberts’ ruling is lawless. If his goal was to galvanize traditional America for Romney, he did it.
See what I mean –
UPDATE: After the Supreme Court Ruling on Obamacare What is Next? – LINK
[Editor’s Note – I can see the objections now: Chuck, sure you have legal training, but you are not a lawyer and some of the people you have quoted are not lawyers (such as Limbaugh and Krauthammer). In coming weeks there will be law review and professorial articles critiquing this ruling in detail. Time will tell if I am correct in my analysis, but my record of accuracy in such articles leaves me confident.]
UPDATE II – Dissents Back Political Arena Editor’s Analysis
Editor’s Note – I deliberately did not read far into the dissent because I wanted to form my own view of the ruling and also because I was so steamed after reading Roberts’ incoherent pretzel logic that I had to walk away. The Weekly Standard has a nice summary of the ruling with some notes in plain English to make it easier to understand. Of course the entire ruling and dissents can be seen at the pdf link at the top of the page.
Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito Dissent: ‘We Cannot Rewrite the Statute to Be What It Is Not’
“Judicial tax-writing is particularly troubling.”
Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito forcefully disagree with Roberts in their dissent. “[W]e cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not,” the four Justices write. “[W]e have never—never—treated as a tax an exaction which faces up to the critical difference between a tax and a penalty, and explicitly denominates the exaction a ‘penalty.’ Eighteen times in §5000A itself and elsewhere throughout the Act, Congress called the exaction in §5000A(b) a ‘penalty.'”
The dissenting Justices also argue that “judicial tax-writing is particularly troubling,” since the Constitution requires tax bills to originate in the House of Representatives, “the legislative body most accountable to the people, where legislators must weigh the need for the tax against the terrible price they might pay at their next election, which is never more than two years off.”
The dissent goes to to destroy in details the pretzel logic and lack of legal reasoning and precedent of the Roberts ruling. Continue reading HERE.
“The Roberts ruling is so incoherent and full of internal contradictions that I would be embarrassed to put my name on it.”
UPDATE IV – First Paragraph of the dissent:
The first paragraph in the dissent hits it out of the park –
The case is easy and straightforward, however, in another respect. What is absolutely clear, affirmed by the text of the 1789 Constitution, by the Tenth Amendment ratified in 1791, and by innumerable cases of ours in the 220 years since, is that there are structural limits upon federal power—upon what it can prescribe with respect to private conduct, and upon what it can impose upon the sovereign States.
[Street Translation via the Editor – There are generally accepted limits on government power that have been repeated in the Founding Documents and in 220 years of law that tell us countless times that government power is limited. The fact that ObamaCare goes in excess of those limits is a no brainer. – Amen]
UPDATE V– Curt Levey: Top 10 Lessons from the Roberts ObamaCare Ruling – LINK
UPDATE VI – Mark Levin and Megyn Kelly on the Supreme Court: There is no silver lining (video) – LINK
UPDATE VII – Explanation of the ObamaCare Ruling for the Non-lawyer – LINK
UPDATE VIII – Mark Steyn: A lie makes Obamacare legal – LINK
UPDATE IX– Prof. Paul Moreno: A Short History of Congress’s Power to Tax – LINK
The New Democracy Party won in Greece, but did not win so much that they can run the show because they use a proportional representation parliamentary system (a very poor system of government because it favors extremes), they will have to form a coalition government with the Socialists who have created this problem in the first place.
In Greece a hairdresser can retire at age 50 with a fat government pension and they want hard working Germans, Americans etc to bail them out?
Socialists spend until t5hey run out of other peoples money and business can no longer function. Their economy is coming to a halt as I will discuss in an upcoming post.
Rush Limbaugh was trying to use absurdity to demonstrate her absurdity and went to far; then there is Bill Maher donated $1 million to Obama’s SuperPAC and he regularly uses the words c*nt, tw*t, b**ch, boob, etc to describe female politicians and others he doesn’t like.
Now this is not justification for Limbaugh’s mistake, but when I look at the facebook pages of those having a fit about Limbaugh, I see nothing about Bill Mahar, or so many others. In fact, as far as the elite media goes, they were blaming Sarah Palin for the Arizona shooting and that went on for days… and these are the people acting as if they are the civility police.. please.
Much of the time, those shouting *civility* are the biggest hypocrites imaginable. For some shocking evidence of just what I am talking about take a look at About Civility Part I and About Civility Part III[you can see our previous Sandra Fluke coverage HERE and HERE.]
Special thanks to National Review for doing some good homework:
The Democratic party continues its bold stand against hateful rhetoric, such as the C-word, this time in Alabama:
An Evening with Bill Maher
March 17, 2012 Chairman’s Reception at 7pm
Performance at 8pm
Come join Alabama Democrats at the Von Braun Center Concert Hall in Huntsville for an Evening with Bill Maher. 700 Monroe Street Southwest, Huntsville, AL 35801.
Tickets are $100 and include admission to the pre-event Chairman’s reception and prime seating at the performance.
Paid for by the Alabama Democratic Party. P.O. Box 950. Montgomery, AL 36101. (334) 262-2221. (800) 995-3386.
Michelle Malkin
Also, Michelle Malkin, who is routinely called every dirty name in the book and more in a constant smear campaign from the left that never ends, has a must see column today titled The War on Conservative Women.
I will just deal with the objections right up front:
This is just two whacky professors…
No it is not. This is the Journal of Medical Ethics which is a peer reviewed publication. In order for this article to appear a committee of “medical and academic professionals” had to study the piece, find it credible and agree to publish it believing that it has academic and cultural value. Academic journals are written in part to promote each others work in the academic community; meaning that those who authored it and who decided to publish it had to believe that doing so would be accepted by their peers, good for their careers etc.
The Journal of Medical Ethics doesn’t speak for all doctors…
But it speaks for enough of them. This article will be presented as evidence in abortion and infanticide cases as a defense in the courts and in the elite media. It will be bandied about by radicalized professors on campus to indoctrinate and morally confuse students.
When the American Psychological Association (APA) published in its journal a piece that was a naked attempt to normalize pedophilia; Dr. Laura Schlessinger, many state legislatures, and even the Congress of the United States spoke out and passed resolutions against this until the APA retracted.
Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say.
Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued.
The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.
The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article’s authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.
The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.
They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”
Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.
What a huge loss for America and the cause of freedom. The world is less bright today. I feel so fortunate to have spoken with him a few times; a wonderful man to be sure.
Breitbart was walking near his home in Brentwood, Calif just after midnight Thursday when he collapsed according to his father-in-law Orson Bean. Someone saw Breitbart fall and called 911. Emergency crews tried to revive him and rushed him to the emergency room at UCLA Medical Center, Bean said. He is survived by his wife Susannah Bean Breitbart, 41, and four children.
Tucker Carlson remembers Andrew Breitbart (video) – LINK.
Matt Drudge comments:
DEAR READER: In the first decade of the DRUDGEREPORT Andrew Breitbart was a constant source of energy, passion and commitment. We shared a love of headlines, a love of the news, an excitement about what’s happening. I don’t think there was a single day during that time when we did not flash each other or laugh with each other, or challenge each other. I still see him in my mind’s eye in Venice Beach, the sunny day I met him. He was in his mid 20’s. It was all there. He had a wonderful, loving family and we all feel great sadness for them today… MDRUDGE
A good friend of mine sent me a link to a piece that contained every bigoted false claim in the book that progressive secular leftists use to smear traditionalists, Jews and Christians. Of course, only those who aren’t aware of history and the use of such smears, which are nothing more than discredited cliches, actually believe such nonsense. My friend asked me, “Does part of conservatism stand against reason in the sense of being simply anti-intellectual?”.
To answer my friend’s question I said, “Let me be clear; anti-conservatism is anti-intellectualism”. Why?
American Conservatism demands that we look at our history and traditions to use them as a guide. To ascertain works and what doesn’t in order to have the happiest and healthiest society we can while recognizing that man’s nature is flawed and that society will never be perfect.
Leftists, by and large, believe that rationality must be imposed from above. They believe in a rule of the elite (oligarchy) over the “ignorant masses”. The believe that freedom leaves too much to chance. This kind of thinking is what our Founders, Alexis de Tocqueville and traditional American conservatives would call out as tyrannical. The progressive secular left believes that our traditions, Biblical codes, and history are merely mysticism (anti-intellectualism); thus they believe that 6,000 years of human experience means nothing now that they are here to enlighten us.
The left even rejects Aristotle’s Law of Identity, they believe that truth is fungible, relative to ones own ideology, and that there are no truths that are self evident.
The left pushes for top down government and central planning for our economy and society, a plan and philosophy that has failed every time it has been tried; often with massive bloodshed to boot. Even in cases where there was not much bloodshed there was still a large amount of human suffering. We see this in Western Europe even now, and we see more suffering here at home as a result of our own dabbling in leftism.
We have seen study after study show that people are more free and have more wealth when they live in a society with the the Judea/Christian ethic.
Those who push Marxism/Leftism/Utopianism/Socialism/Communism/Progressivism or whatever one may wish to call it are selling a defective product and use deceptive advertising to sell it.
Indiana Republicans: We have gotten a great deal of policy heavy lifting done in recent years; Right To Work, School Choice, government union reform, budget reform, the South Bend to Indianapolis highway etc.
While some issues and tweaks need to still be made you must keep in mind that you are NOT the sovereign people’s nanny. Smoking bans and other nonsense that regulate every day life are what will get you tossed out of office over time as people get sick of that kind of legislating because that is not what Republican voters send you there to do.
Do not engage in what George Orwell called “the pansy left” by focusing in on “problems” that are really non-problems just so you can say that you did “something to protect the children”. Fred Upton’s light bulb ban (which he later opposed) is a good example.
Workman’s comp is a mess in this state, as is care for the mentally ill. There are small things that can be done to improve these and other problems.
Regulating where we can smoke, or how we use our cell phone and the list goes on is a prescription for government that harasses our citizens and eats out their sustenance. If people want a nanny state there is a party for that, it is called Democrats.
Why would Obama want to fund the umbrella organization that oversees Hamas, the PLO, parts of Hezbollah and other terror organizations? The Muslim Brotherhood is who Obama helped to take over Egypt and Libya and they have been using armored military vehicles to mow down Christians and people who protest actions by the new government that Obama helped put in place. The Muslim Brotherhood has promised Sharia Law, persecution of women and swears to have war with Israel.
Obama has been arming the middle-east with weapons sales (including 125 M1 Tanks to Egypt) and now wants to hand them $800 million of your money while Americans are losing their homes. Be sure to look at the “related” section below.
Here is perhaps the world’s greatest living historian Prof. Niall Ferguson predicting what a disaster this would likely blow up into back in late February 2009 and time has proved Prof. Ferguson to be spot on:
The White House announced plans on Monday to help “Arab Spring” countries swept by revolutions with more than $800 million in economic aid, while maintaining U.S. military aid to Egypt.
In his annual budget message to Congress, President Barack Obama asked that military aid to Egypt be kept at the level of recent years — $1.3 billion — despite a crisis triggered by an Egyptian probe targeting American democracy activists.
The proposals are part of Obama’s budget request for fiscal year 2013, which begins October 1. His requests need the approval of Congress, where some lawmakers want to cut overseas spending to address U.S. budget shortfalls and are particularly angry at Egypt.
Related:
Islamic militants receive two-thirds vote in Egypt – LINK
AP: Egyptian Women March Against Abuse by Military – LINK
This perfection double standard could apply to any candidate, but since Newt Gingrich is the subject of the current news cycle he will make a fine example.
Like many people, Newt’s ideology has changed over the years. Reagan’s influence changed the ideology of a great many. Did you know that Charles Krauthammer and George Will both opposed Reagan?
I see many people on FaceBook, blogs, and message boards blasting a candidate for saying something nice about a Democrat in 1972, while engaging in pretzel logic justifying their own candidate’s recent imperfections. By that standard every candidate is disqualified including President Reagan.
Ronald Reagan campaigned for FDR and Truman. So by the standard applied to Newt Gingrich this week Reagan was unfit to serve as a Republican.
Michelle Bachmann campaigned for Jimmy Carter.
Rick Perry was Texas Chair for Al Gore for President.
Zell Miller was a life long Democrat before he spoke at the Republican Convention against John Kerry as the Keynote Speaker.
Dennis Miller used to be a Democrat. David Horowitz, a conservative icon in every sense of the word, used to be a full fledged Communist radical.
I see many people posting videos of Glenn Beck criticizing Newt, but Beck cannot meet the standard that he applies to Newt Gingrich because Beck was a liberal alcoholic just a few years ago by his own admission.
I have particularly noticed this “perfect conservative consistency standard complete with a 20/20 hindsight rider” used against Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum by supporters of Mitt Romney… yes that is right Mitt Romney, who of course has a record that isn’t nearly as conservative as the other two.
On line and in other communications I have seen more and more Romney supporters get so caught up and emotionally charged with the anti-Newt media narrative that they are ready to vote for:
The guy behind RomneyCare over the man behind the Contract with America (Newt), America’s premier social conservative (Santorum), and the best job-creating governor in America (Perry – but he just dropped out), all of whom would also be more electable.
The “perfectionists” are selectively and conveniently applying a standard no candidate can meet. They are making the perfect the enemy of the good as evidenced by a recent Romney narrative “Newt supported Rockefeller in 1960’s” line. Really guys… the 1960’s?
The propaganda from those who oppose TEA Party conservatives and newly involved independents is designed to target the sensitivities of those TEA Party conservatives – by using that tactic those who are far less conservative have TEA Party activists attacking the candidates that would actually govern more conservative.
When Santorum started going up in the polls what did Romney and his attack dogs call him in ads – a Big Government non-conservative who was contrary to the Reagan Revolution. The Ronbots ran with it and spouted a similar narrative.
At first Rick Santorum was too conservative and now he is akin to Nancy Pelosi… many TEA Party activists are being lead about by the nose with these false narratives that are so brilliantly designed to target their sensitivities.
As a trained propagandist myself, I am like the magician who shows you how the other guys “made it disappear”.
One can be certain that Mitt Romney and President Obama have hired a team people all with similar training to what I have. Their propaganda is focus-grouped to be tested to generate exactly the narratives I am explaining to you here. The tactics and psychology of communication they use IS that sophisticated. You need to be as aware of this as possible. And make no mistake, even educated conservatives who believe they are informed are as easily influenced by negative ads and attitude change propaganda as anyone.
Mitt Romney is attacking candidates far more conservative than he is for not being perfectly conservative throughout history and voters are falling for it…. and emotionally investing in it with zeal.
But Chuck, Romney can get independents and is more likely to win….
Besides the fact that the political strategy just outlined was the political strategy of Gerald Ford, Bush 41 vs Clinton, Bob Dole and John McCain… and it is precisely that strategy that Reagan opposed; just who are these “Independents”??
In the 2010 elections, in 9 of the top 10 presidential swing states, women and Catholics voted for GOP/TEA Party candidates in the largest numbers since the 1984 Reagan 49 state landslide. Woman and Catholics are the two most notorious 50/50 swing voters.
So let me ask you. Were those swing voters responding to a moderate message of not being too conservative? Were they responding to “lets not be too strident in our opposition to Obama” (That is a Romney quote by the way)? Or were they responding to the TEA Party message of Allen West, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin?
Newt’s early previous statements, which I will freely admit are all over the place, do cause one to pause, but policy is where the rubber meets the road. not statements. Look at the policy heavy lifting Newt got done for conservatives.
While some are content to vote for the man who continues to defend RomneyCare and government mandates; I am more inclined to vote for an imperfect man who passed the Contract With America, balanced the federal budget, cut taxes, grew the economy, and passed Welfare Reform.
I heard Trent Lott on the radio trashing conservatives to protect Mitt Romney. I can’t say that I am very surprised but I sure am disappointed.
Sometimes I really believe that the so called “inside Republican establishment” would rather have a Democrat elected than a Reagan conservative; just as Charlie Crist tried to do, much of whose senior staff works for Mitt Romney.
The same establishment that opposed Ronald Reagan now pretends that he doesn’t exist with narratives like “People like Newt can’t win” – meaning conservatives can’t win elections… only people like Dole, Ford, McCain and Romney can. Then they have the gall to claim that they are more like Reagan.
If the GOP does not perform and present serious change in a big way against institutionalized leftism people will conclude that there is not enough difference between Democrats and Republicans and it will be Ross Perot’s and such all over again.
The GOP “establishment STILL has not learned the lessons from 2006, 2008 and 2010.
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 