The Hebron Massacre

"Oh, if only the Israelis would -

-vacate their settlements
-forfeit land
-ease the blockades
-stop responding to provocations
-commit mass suicide

...then we would have peace in the Middle East!

Really.

The next time you hear your neighborhood ignoramus make these worldly and well-accepted pronouncements, perhaps you can remind them that slaughtering Jews is an Arab sport that goes back well before the establishment of Israel. Let's turn the wayback machine to almost exactly eighty years ago...

Debbie Schlussel has some of the historical background:

It began on Friday afternoon when Arabs attacked Jews with clubs and murdered a yeshiva student. The next morning, joined by local villagers, Arabs swarmed through Hebron screaming “Kill the Jews.” They broke into the home of Eliezer Dan Slonim, where many Jews had gathered for safety. There they wielded knives and axes to murder 22 innocents. In the Anglo-Palestine Bank, where 23 corpses were discovered, blood covered the tile floor. That day, three children under the age of five were murdered. Teenage girls, their mothers and grandmothers were raped and killed. Rabbis and their students were castrated before they were slain. A surviving yeshiva student recounted that he “had seen greater horrors than Dante in hell.”

When the slaughter finally subsided, 67 Jews had been murdered. Three days later, British soldiers evacuated 484 survivors, including 153 children, to Jerusalem. The butchery in Hebron, Zionist and religious officials alleged, was “without equal in the history of the country since the destruction of the Temple.” Sir Walter Shaw, chairman of an exhaustive British royal investigation, concluded that “unspeakable atrocities” had occurred.

Nothing has changed in the Middle East in the last 80 years; only now the existence of a Jewish states gives the Arab apologist an easy target to blame for their uncivilized behavior towards their neighbor. (The sub-headline in the above newspaper reads "Arab Horde Slaughtered Little Children During Mad Orgy in City." Ah, for the days that newspapers actually reported the truth, without the filter of political correctness. These days, after a similar incidence, we see the word "occupation" or some other type of moral equivalence by the end of the first paragraph).

Meanwhile, Hamas is bringing Holocaust-denial to new heights, Fatah won't even talk to Israel unless it stops building settlements (an Obama decree, incidentally, that is a red herring, and all parties involved know it), and most importantly (and most ignored) - both parties implicitly refuse to recognize Israel's right to even exist.

At least eighty years ago, we were honest enough to call the Arab's blood lust for Jews what it was - unadulterated hatred.

Now we enable it, coddle it, make excuses for it, and ignore it. And we wonder why it keeps happening, while at the same time we refuse to recognize the realities of the present, which are a mere continuation of the Arab policies of the past - kill thy neighbor.

Yeah, maybe a settlement freeze will end all that.

Government Swines Lie About the Flu

Reuters reports something I already knew:

The new H1N1 swine flu is estimated to have infected about 800,000 people in New York City in the spring, a top U.S. health official said on Sunday, citing a study due to be released later this week.

I remember when they were telling us only 20-30,000 cases were to be expected nationwide...

I was acquainted with three people who had the swine flu this spring - a little boy, a teenage girl, and an adult female.

The teenage girl went to the doctor with all the flu symptoms; the doctor agreed that she likely had H1N1, but refused to test her. Why? As the doctor told the concerned father, the CDC had informed them "not to inflate the numbers of the infected", and recommended only testing younger children and senior citizens.

The little boy was tested and came up positive. He was kept home for a week from school; and the administration was properly informed. About three days later, the school sent out an email-blast to all parents telling them there was no cause for swine flu fears as not a single student in the school had been reported as infected.

The adult female? Also told she likely had swine flu but not tested. Perhaps the doctor should have; as this women's flu turned into a pneumonia that had her hospitalized and in bed for almost two weeks. Is this a pattern we need to be aware of? We'll never know, as apparently records are not being kept...

Right out of Stephen King's "The Stand", no? A pandemic races through the nation, and the government lies about its potency, while it sits in protected offices fretting about the danger.

While I have always believed that the swine flu scare was a bit overblown - and as likely to be fatal as any other flu that makes its way through the population - it is beyond me why the government would ask doctors to deliberately under-report its severity. And why doctors would comply. And why school officials would lie to parents about their children's safety.

The government has set a dangerous precedent here in the realm of public health, intentionally withholding information that could have put the public at great risk, should the strain had mutated and turned more severe.

The question is, what do we do next time, if we cannot trust our government? Looks like we are going to have to set up our own public database, with all the flaws and faults that would be inherent, as an alternative to reliance on the CDC. Perhaps some enterprising doctors, more concerned with their oath than reprisals from the government, can be counted on to run a state-by-state information system. Anything is better than the mess we just encountered, where the people were lied to so that the government would not have to deal with the public health issues involved.

And to think: These same liars are asking us to "trust them", as they attempt to take over the entire medical establishment...

Here comes the "Suburb Tax" !

Oh, you just knew this was coming, with the liberal's base concentrated in big cities and uniformly contemptuous of the suburban lifestyle:

The National Research Council will release a congressionally mandated report next week that looks at "suburbanization" and how it impacts driving habits, reliance on petroleum, and greenhouse emissions.

According to advance info distributed to the news media by the National Academies, "The report looks at studies on compact, mixed-use development where people live in denser environments with jobs and shopping close by, to determine whether a shift to this type of land use could lessen vehicle use, energy consumption and CO2 emissions."

The report is titled, "Driving and the Built Environment: The Effects of Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use and CO2 Emissions."

The left has been building the hate for the suburbanite for a little over a decade now; with the sneer at the "McMansions" and the rage against SUVs. Now in power, they are going to have an opportunity to legislate this hate into law; perhaps with commuter taxes, additional fees levied on single-family homes, and perhaps a national property tax for those Americans who choose to live with a backyard.

It'll be covered by reports such as the one above; and it will allow the sanctimonious nanny-staters to start forcing suburbanites to cough up more money for city-dwellers as penance for their sin of choosing a different (better?) life. Soon the country-dweller will be as un-American as the man or women who speaks out at a health care town hall....

Remember, Barack Obama, the leader of the anti-suburbanite movement, famously said the following:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.

That National Research Council report above ? There's the opening Barack Obama will use to show his "leadership" on this matter. Because our lifestyle is "not going to happen" anymore.

Batten down the hatches, my fellow suburban Americans. Barack Obama and the Democrats are bringing the war to your front door...


Hat tip: Instapundit

The EPA's Lisa Jackson: Jersey Failure Going National

In a tale so bizarre, it can only happen in New Jersey:

Lisa Jackson, for those of us who are thankfully unaware, headed the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection until she was tapped by Barack Obama to run EPA . Bye-bye, Lisa....

But in an ironic twist, EPA has released a reported criticizing the job Lisa Jackson did while running the New Jersey DEP:

Federal officials are criticizing how New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection operates, a report in the Record said.

An Environmental Protection Agency audit found "significant shortcomings," especially in the DEP's division that handles contaminated site cleanups. The EPA said the site remediation program lacks oversight, and the DEP takes contractors hired by polluters at their word without checking.

The report also found the agency has failed to take corrective action to fix problems uncovered in a 2005 audit.

The DEP remedies were outlined in a plan issued by Lisa Jackson, who now heads the federal agency. Jackson was DEP commissioner from 2006 to 2008.

Classic. And what was the NJ DEP known for while Lisa was running the show?

The DEP is a state agency that lets the big guys slide while picking on the little folks. It needs to be cleaned out.

Hey, that's not a bug, that's a feature! Lisa J. is a perfect fit with the Obama administration! Need more evidence? Some comments on Lisa's negative evaluation of Lisa's job performance:

Bill Wolfe, a former DEP analyst who now is director of the New Jersey chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, says “This audit is an indictment of DEP management for failing fundamental tests of competence.”

She not competent?? Hmmm...again - how does that make her any different from the rest of Obama's pathetic cabinet?

And if you needed any other assurances that Lisa J. is Obama's true dream date, let's see what she's been writing about in the Huffington Post:

The inauguration of the first African American president, and my confirmation as the first African American Administrator of this Agency, has begun the process of changing the face of environmentalism in our country....

Environmentalism...now it's a racial thing, like everything else in our new age of post-racial relations!

So lets get this straight: Lisa Jackson ran a DEP in New Jersey that hired crooked contractors, and picked on ordinary citizens while letting the big guys slide, while otherwise engaging in what fellow analysts call "rank incompetence". As a reward, she get promoted to the top slot at the EPA, where she gets called out for doing such a crappy job in Jersey. In return, she points out that's she - like the president - is black.

She is the quintessential Obama appointee, and the best of what the New Jersey Democratic machine has to offer at a bureaucratic level.

Good luck with that, America!

A Health Care Hand Grenade

Former Clinton hand George Stephanopoulos, writing on his ABC News blog this morning:

Mike Huckabee tossed a hand grenade into the debate over who's politicizing Ted Kennedy's death Thursday morning when he told his radio audience that under Obamacare, Kennedy would be told to "go home to take pain pills and die."

Which Democrat will toss it back first?

Will any Republicans jump on it by challenging Huckabee head-on?

One thing's for sure: by joining the debate in this time in this way, Huckabee is showing how determined he is not to be outmaneuvered by Sarah Palin in the early 2012 bidding for the GOP's conservative base

How will Mitt Romney respond?

Stephanopoulos , of course, wants this hand grenade to explode, hopefully in a Republican's face. Never debating the merits of Huckabee's claim, he labels it a smear, mocks him as Palin-esque (which, of course, is actually a compliment), and attempts to belittle the conservative "base".

But of course, Huckabee speaks the truth. The intent to ration health care to the elderly has been all but admitted by the president, who claims he can find half a trillion dollars in Medicare "savings" (read: diminished treatment for seniors), and by Ezekiel Emanuel, a top health-care adviser to President Barack Obama and older brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who has said the following:

He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia"

So it doesn't matter if you led a full productive life as an American citizen...once you are too old, and no longer can continue to serve the state, you will be allowed to die, so that your resources can be re-allocated to the younger and healthier.

More:

Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).

So Huckabee's point is valid - the elderly will be given a choice (by the government, the sole health-care provider) of living in agony, or a quick death. Unless, of course, elderly politicians are exempt from Dr. Emanuel's gleeful elimination of "non-productive" citizens. Which, no doubt, there will be...

But Stephanopoulos refuses to even discuss the merits of Huck's claim; he just labels it a "hand grenade" that he expects to blow up in the Republican's face - perhaps he is counting on a nation he believes is mourning in sorrow over the loss of Teddy "Killer" Kennedy?

But hey - maybe George is right, and it is a grenade. In that case, I would love for a Democrat to pick it up - as he advises, and others are daring - and attempt to exploit this issue. Perhaps Stephanopoulos realizes that this is a bomb waiting to blow up ObamaCare, and perhaps that's why rather than try to debate this with the facts, he instantly politicizes and Palin-izes it.

C'mon, Dems. Pick this grenade up, as Georgie so eagerly suggests. You know somewhere Sarah Palin is smirking, waiting for someone stupid enough to do so. Who was the last one who take her on? Oh, yeah - Barack Obama, who claimed there were no "death panels" - only to hastily scrub them out of the health-care bill.

If you guys are smart, you'll let this one die, because you can't debate it or defend it.

Then again, "smart" and Democrats" are two words that rarely belong in the same sentence together...

A Tale of Two Rush Holts

Via More Monmouth Musings ...

Here's the picture my congressman, Rush Holt (D-NJ, 12th), sent out with the invitation to his tightly controlled town-hall meetings.

How young! How dashing! Exactly the way you would expect a man to look who, when speaking of himself, starts with "As a scientist and teacher", and who uses those titles to declare that he takes "a distinctive approach" towards governing....

"But gee", you might say, "his record of governing is so rabidly partisan - not surprising for a guy who's a second-generation Democratic politician - I expected him to look more like a worn-out old hack."

You mean, like this?


According to "More Monmouth...", this is what he looked like when he heard that he would be opposed in 2010 by Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre. Not sure if that is tongue-in-cheek, but it is certainly what he looked like at his town hall on Wednesday, when our aging "scientist" was trying to explain how adding a trillion dollars to the national deficit via nationalized healthcare was actually going to save us all money....

What's the matter, Congressman? All that lying you are doing in the name of science - oops, I mean partisan politics - starting to wear on you a bit? That's not a bad thing; look at how good John Edwards looked, and look at the horrors and deceit he was hiding. You may no longer have your youthful laboratory looks, Congressman, but at least you still have something of a reputation. For the moment, anyway. Much more of that liberal flim-flammery under the cover of your scientific expertise is going to make people think that E=MC2 is just a new tax code.

Still, I'll bet even that current picture of Rush Holt is a phony. Pull off the mask, and I'll betcha this is the guy we find underneath:

"Everyone's always in favour of saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a great white shark, ooh, suddenly you've gone too far" - Professor Hubert Farnsworth, 3001 AD

Ted Kennedy: Chappaquiddick Was Funny!

...I guess you had to be there, as only Teddy K and poor Mary Jo Kopechne were....

Ed Klein, former foreign editor of Newsweek and editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine, talks about how Ted Kennedy liked to joke about Chappaquiddick.

I don't know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, "have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?"

I guess murder is funny, if you're the one getting away with it, and not the ones left with a lifetime to mourn the inexplicable death of a young daughter, one in which power and money conspired to keep you from ever seeing justice delivered.

Maybe this is part of the reason that liberals need to invent (and project) so much hatred on conservatives ("un-American right-wing town-hall terrorists!") . They have so much blood on their own hands - and the palms of their heroes are dripping with it, from Che to Castro to Kennedy - that they need to "normalize" their behavior by constantly intuiting equal crimes and bloodlust on the Right.

Let's see how much main-street Americans appreciate the Left's - and the media's - love affair with such a deeply, deeply flawed man...

Video at Gateway Pundit

Rush Holt: The Disgrace of the 12th District Ignores His Constituents (again)

Here's Rush Holt (D-NJ) on Rush Holt:

"As a scientist and teacher I take a distinctive approach to representing people - first I listen to people to understand their concerns, next I look at the facts and then I get to work to get results," said Holt. "I don't let partisanship crowd out evidence and thought."

Oooh, a scientist! Can't you hear the elitism drip like pancake syrup? But people ain't particles, Congressman, and you're full of sh*t. Here's one take on Rush Holt's town hall meeting last night, in which he saw 238 of his constituents (leaving at least twice that many out in the heat):

His basic premise is that for the “majority of Americans the system is broken” and what he wants is to “impose elevated national standards” on insurance companies and eliminate things like lifetime caps on coverage and co-pays and to “require insurance companies to spend 85% of the premiums they receive on health care.”
He feels that people are not well served by their insurance companies now and he believes that we will be better served by the government forcing companies to “compete in an insurance store” (This seemed to be his answer to all of our problems; he said it so often that it got to be a running joke in the group of folks I happened to be sitting with)

...sounds like he already had his mind made up, and wasn't prepared to do much "listening":

His answers were fairly consistent, and always contained one or more of the following: “Medicare savings will pay for it”, “insurance store”, or, my personal favorite, “maybe”, which was the answer always given when the question was the type that you or I would answer “yes” or “no” to, although at one point he did say “it remains to be seen how much savings there will be.”

He was asked “why are we moving so fast” to which he replied that “the country won’t recover if we are saddled with these health care costs; time is of the essence; it’s not happening fast enough.” Not having a PhD in physics I am unable to grasp the concept of how spending trillions and creating a massive new bureaucracy “unsaddles” those costs....

And the truth comes out from our friendly progressives in the audience:

There was a rather revealing moment in a subsequent question along these lines, which asked “why are you forcing this plan on us?” and the response from the more vocal supporters of the plan was “because we won the election!”

Incidentally, Holt only took pre-written (pre-selected) questions from the audience. Which leads to this Asbury Park-Press headline:

Holt's town hall keeps tight rein on audience

Nice way to listen to your constituents, right Rush? Sharply limit the number by choosing a tiny venue, then pre-screen the questions. The Park-Press is skeptical:

With the auditorium's capacity at 258 people, it didn't take long for the space to get filled and for hundreds of people to be left outside.
Unlike at other town hall meetings related to health care, where several sessions were held to allow everyone a chance inside, only one session was held on Wednesday.

Charles Gizzi walked out of the meeting long before it was over. Outside, the Middletown resident said that Holt was not responding to the questions, only saying what he felt like saying.

"There's no flexibility from (Holt)," said Gizzi, 78, who is concerned health care reform would negatively impact him. "Apparently, (Holt) is going to do what he wants."

Holt has always done what he wants - not what the residents of his district want - which is what gives him an 86% rating on the "progressive" meter. But he's got some good competition this year - and one of them took advantage of his shifty venue selection:

Some of the hundreds of people who could not make it inside the Middletown Arts Center spoke their minds during a rally held outside by Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre, who intends to challenge Holt in 2010.

A report from the Halfacre rally:

... Halfacre spoke briefly on HR3200. Halfacre's assertion that we needed to take a scalpel to the health care system, not a sledgehammer, was met with cheers, as were many of his remarks about the bill, which the mayor had printed and available for review.

After his comments, Mayor Halfacre invited anyone who wanted to speak to line up and have their turn at the microphone. He asked the crowd to be civil and respectful, and, when they jeered at pro-HR3200 supporters, repeatedly encouraged respect and consideration for both sides.This was a difficult forum. While about ninety percent of the people who spoke were against the bill, as is Halfacre, the mayor listened to every single person in that line, standing in the near dark until almost nine o'clock last night to make sure that everyone who wanted to be heard had their say, whether he agreed with them or not.

Last night, while Rush Holt hid inside taking pre-written questions from 238 people, Mike Halfacre rolled up his sleeves, stood in front of all the people who were left out, and listened to what each and every person had to say. He listened carefully, quieted the crowd to allow people to have their turn, and never lost his cool.

Holt must be vulnerable, as the able Halfacre will have a Republican primary opponent in former Holmdel Mayor Alan Bateman- who ran against Holt in '06 and got killed, and deservedly so. Invisible, with no district presence to this day (why hasn't Bateman ever done an event like Halfacre's ?), it took me quite a bit of research to even find out who was running against Holt (good job, Republican party of New Jersey!) in the 12th.

But back to Holt. A man who obviously considers himself an intellectual superior to his constituents, and who enjoys constantly strong re-election prospects due to a bizarrely redrawn district map, he's not listening to the people he represents at all. He's the lifetime academic and government employee, dictating to his people what he intends to do, with little to no realization how it will affect the lives of the middle classes he pretends to represent.

Time to send Rush Holt back to the Princeton particle accelerators, where theory and practice collide less than they do in the real world.

In the meantime, let's see if Halfacre has what it takes...

Teddy Kennedy as Cindy Sheehan

Liberals have great use for the dead; unable to defend the abduction of their life stories, they can be manipulated in any way necessary without protest; criticism of such re-writing of history is the only thing deemed disrespectful of the dead.

Remember the "absolute moral authority" of Cindy Sheehan, who used her son Casey's death to launch a personal anti-war campaign that every media outlet and left-wing group hitched their wagon to? Never mind that Casey was a model soldier and enthusiastic patriot; his mother left his grave unmarked and lie in it for photos while the media hailed her with kudos - iconic earth-mother , indeed...

Well, despite media enthusiasm for her cause - end the war, death to Bush, viva Chavez, et al, she was widely viewed as a nutcase by middle America, and her self-serving jihad based upon the desecrated memory of a fallen soldier faltered. The media dumped her like ten pounds of sh*t in a five pound bag (God forbid she should embarrass Nancy or Baracky!), and looked for a new liberal icon, preferably one who had the stench of death on him, so that their cause could be advanced without criticism.

And so we have the demise of Ted Kennedy, perfectly placed in the midst of the battle to create/prevent socialized medicine in the United States, one beloved by liberals and their handmaidens in the mainstream media. And so, instead of stories asking (hoping) whether Cindy Sheehan can end the war in Iraq, we get stories like these:

Health Overhaul Backers Seek Boost by Citing Kennedy’s Support

Democrats are invoking the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s commitment to universal health-care coverage in seeking regain political momentum to pass a U.S. health overhaul plan by the end of the year.

“Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said

Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat who shepherded a health-reform measure through Kennedy’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, said he hoped his colleague’s death “would remind people to calm down” and debate “in more civil tones about what needs to be done, because that’s what Teddy would do.”

Ah. So the late Senator's "inspiration" will help insure the passage of health care reform, and it will be done in "civil tones", because that's what Teddy would want.

In other words, we're passing heath care reform, and you naysayers better shut the hell up. After all, it's what we claim Teddy would have wanted. So lie down and take it, lest I curse you with a decree of "dishonor to the dead".

But using his name to wage partisan warfare and disrespect the wishes of the republic is fine, by the lights of the Left and the media.

Let's hope the Democrats have as much success using Teddy's death as a bludgeon as Cindy Sheehan did with her late son....

NEA: Using Stimulus Money To Blackmail Artists?

So the NEA gets just over $80 million from Barack Obama's stimulus package; certainly a questionable grant while deficits are skyrocketing and unemployment continues to mount. Offensive enough that some of this money has been "plowed" into funding and supporting pornographic ventures ("Perverts Put Out") under the guise of "art".

But should they be organizing artists to support administration causes? Patrick Courrielche was on the conference call, and he describes what he heard:

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.

It sounded, how should I phrase it…unusual, that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me.

The people running the conference call and rallying the group to get active on these issues were Yosi Sergant, the Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts; Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for United We Serve; Thomas Bates, Vice President of Civic Engagement for Rock the Vote; and Michael Skolnik, Political Director for Russell Simmons.

We were encouraged to bring the same sense of enthusiasm to these “focus areas” as we had brought to Obama’s presidential campaign, and we were encouraged to create art and art initiatives that brought awareness to these issues. Throughout the conversation, we were reminded of our ability as artists and art professionals to “shape the lives” of those around us.

Interesting. Mobilizing an "army of artists" (to paraphrase Glenn Reynolds), in order to disseminate government propaganda, with the expressed intent of shaping the "lives" (opinions) of their fellow Americans.

Hmmm....unusual, indeed. Maybe George Bush should have done the same thing in the run-up to the Iraq war; some four-color prints of Saddam engaged in one brutal act ot another...

Anyway - here's the unspoken threat, which I am sure was not wasted on the conference call crowd:

The NEA is the nation’s largest annual funder of the arts. That is right, the largest funder of the arts in the nation - a fact that I’m sure was not lost on those that were on the call, including myself. One of the NEA’s major functions is providing grants to artists and arts organizations. The NEA has also historically shown the ability to attract “matching funds” for the art projects and foundations that they select. So we have the nation’s largest arts funder, which is a federal agency staffed by the administration, with those that they potentially fund together on a conference call discussing taking action on issues under vigorous national debate. Does there appear to be any potential for conflict here?

So we're seeing some more Chicago-style politics as usual, Al Capone style. "We need help pushing our radical agenda down the people's throat, and we need you guys to create an artistic basis for the changes we wish to make. So hop to it, or don't be surprised if subsequent requests for funding are summarily rejected."

Perhaps this blackmail from the NEA will finally wake up artists to the fact that government money in the service of art is not free; it comes with strings attached - strings that the lender may feel free to pull at any time, to demand your work in his service, on the threat of being deprived of your livelihood. "Who's gonna care about another starving artist, boy? So shut up and start cranking out those health care lithographs pronto; I want to see proofs on my desk by the end of the week. Capish?"

Curious to see what comes out of this ugly little effort. Another "Hope" poster? Or something more akin to the now-infamous "Joker"?


UPDATE: This story is getting bigger play since I posted this yesterday. More here and here

Cash for Clunkers: The Scam Exposed !

Best ye learn this lesson well, my fellow subjects...what Obama giveth, Obama taketh away. And if you think you've gotten a great deal on your "clunker", well....you remember what mama told you about something being too good to be true?

'cause it's all about the taxes. The taxes. The taxes. To explain:

When you buy a new car you pay tax on the difference between the new car's purchase price and the trade-in you present to the dealer. This is an intentional distortion in the law that is intended to favor dealers over private-party used car sales; if you sell your used car privately the new buyer pays sales tax but you do not get the offset on the purchase of your replacement vehicle - the only way to get that is to trade the car.

Dealers use this, of course, in negotiations, effectively pocketing the sales tax - and why not? It's a real difference to you!

But the "cash for clunkers" is not a trade-in... [it's] a $4,500 check from the government...

And while Tony Soprano may set you up to earn a nice paycheck, well - you know what he expects from you at the end of the month: a nice, fat envelope, delivered with good cheer, full of kickback cash:

So you get nailed at least once and possibly twice. Specifically, you pay sales tax on the full vehicle price (effectively paying sales tax on the $4,500!) and what's worse those states that tax income (that would be most of them!) might wind up counting this as income for state income tax purposes too, effectively taxing you twice.

Oh, and the shakedown ain't over yet! Why, it's even caught on in the nation's heartland....Dispatch: South Dakota:

[Minnehaha County Treasurer Pam] Nelson adds that if you did recently purchase a vehicle, ensure your dealer gets you the paperwork in time because if they don't you could pay extra interest and penalties.

Scam-a-palozza! The taxpayer foot the bill for each $4500 clunker check, which is used to destroy cars that still have life/parts, which the dealers use to increase their profits from the buyer, who then has to pay tax once, maybe twice, and fork over penalty fees if he isn't snappy about it. And to reiterate the delicious irony of it all...his taxes paid for the $4500 rebate check in the first place!

Welcome to Obamaland!

Doug Ross has a few more thoughts:

Let's count the unintended consequences of the National Socialist Democrats' idiotic clunkers program:
- So many SUVs were purchased by consumers that even the mainstream media was forced to report that the Obama administration fudged the sales data
- Speaking of which, the program drove huge increases in sales of Japanese-made vehicles
- Best of all, consumers who used the program are going to get slammed with taxes they never anticipated!

Isn't a faceless, unaccountable, centralized government grand?

Barack Hussein Obama: Traitor/Murderer/Coward

Well, I guess "The War on Terror" has taken on a new meaning, as the president, his Attorney General, and the media try to portray CIA interrogators as the ones who were really creating/causing"terror".

Granted, that terror was only in the mind of the captured jihadi, but to the American liberal, there is no difference between the terror of empty threats and the terror of being forced to jump out of a 99th floor window, hoping to die before you hit the ground, whispering "I love you" to a family that will never see you again, only to have the words stolen by the wind...

The AP describes the terror unleashed by our CIA agents against the masterminds of 9/11:

According to the material, CIA interrogators conducted mock executions, threatened to kill the children of one detainee and implied that another's mother would be sexually assaulted...

Representative Peter King, duly outraged:

It’s bulls***. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on," he said of the Attorney General's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense.""It’s a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he’s lost control of his administration," said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

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

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

No, to a "man" like Holder, it is shocking that the CIA even made these threats, while 9/11 itself was not shocking, it was merely "chickens coming home to roost".

Of course, what's funny in all this is that we are now using Predator drones to eliminate "high-value targets" within the badlands of Afghanistan. With those "targets", we are usually taking out about 10-20 additional people, usually the relatives of the target, and almost always killing innocent children in the process.

Remember: It is OK for Obama to order the killing of innocent women and children while hunting down terrorists. However, it is criminal to capture live terrorists, and threaten to kill their women and children.

All this, while Obama hides behind "family time" in the exclusive beaches of Marth'a Vineyard, unavailable to answer questions.

So brave. I guess it takes a man like that to prosecute the very people who may have, at some time, saved his life...

A Neanderthal, Am I ?

....or perhaps I should have titled it: Maxine Waters: Anti-Semitic Racist!

Because really - as a Jew, I have been called "subhuman" since the middle ages. I thought in an enlightened, progressive nation led by liberal Democrats, the last insult I would here again is "subhuman".

Now granted, she didn't use that word exactly, but by calling all those opposed to Obamacare "Neanderthals", she is tagging me with the subhuman moniker. And I take offense. And so should you, at this ignorant, angry, hate-filled bitch masquerading as a lawmaker:




Hey - if the word "macaca" could bring down Senator George Allen, than calling Americans whom disagree with her "Neaderthals" should be enough to force the resignation of Maxine Waters.

Oh wait. My mistake. She's a Democrat. And she's black! So anything goes, I guess...including the laws of respect and and human decency...they go out the window.

Hat tip to JammieWearingFool

Giving Janet Napolitano the Swine Flu

With the fall flu season on the horizon, it's time for the Doomsayers of the Great God Influenza to come to the forefront (of your newspapers and TV screens) and warn us all of an impending pandemic that may in fact kill us all. Yawn.

You wanna know what's really scary, though? "The President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology" are screeching the same alarmist sh*t into the president's ear, with recommendations that can turn a run-of-the-mill fall flu season into an Orwellian nightmare. Let's hear what the president is hearing:

Swine flu may infect half the U.S. population this year, hospitalize 1.8 million patients and lead to as many as 90,000 deaths, more than twice the number killed in a typical seasonal flu, White House advisers said.

President Barack Obama today was urged to speed vaccine production and name a senior member of the White House staff, preferably the homeland security adviser, to take responsibility for decision-making on the pandemic. Initial doses should be accelerated to mid-September to vaccinate as many as 40 million people, the advisory group said.

Sounds like a tempting offer to a president who desperately needs a heroic moment; why not seize the moment and become the great preventer-in chief?

Ah, but this is a slippery fish, fraught with many a sharp dorsal. Rush the vaccinations to start inoculating in September? Really?

Data from clinical trials to assess the safety and effectiveness of swine flu vaccines will start to become available in mid-September, health officials reported Aug. 21. Full results from the two-dose trials won’t be available until mid October.

Is the threat of a deadly flu outbreak that certain that the government must inoculate 40 million Americans with an untested vaccine? And should there be an adverse reaction, one not gauged by the short testing period the President's advisers allow, that kills, say a mere million (hey, it's only 1/40th!) or so? Hmmm...can we say genocide?

And giving Janet Napolitano the "responsibility" to "decision make"? What types of decisions are those, pray tell? Maybe - who gets the vaccine, and who doesn't? And if so, can we trust Janet to operate on need, not on politics? (just how long would Texas have to wait on line behind Chicago, Boston, and the key swing states anyway)? Hmmm.."

We are God's partners in matters of life and death," indeed....

Well, let's go to a Jersey guy - Peter Gross, chief medical officer at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey - who talks some sense:

The predictions seem “overblown,” Gross said, given that swine-flu outbreaks in 1968 and 1957 failed to cause as many deaths, even with medical technology and disease surveillance less advanced than today.

“Influenza, you can make all the predictions you want, but it’s more difficult than predicting the weather,” Gross said in a telephone interview today, after the advisory report was made public. “If influenza was a stock, I wouldn’t touch it.”

And like with "global warming", our president seems more than willing to risk the lives of the people he's sworn to protect in exchange for centralizing power in the central government.

May the swine flu spare no one this year...

But I thought this Krugman fellow was an economist..?

Paul Krugman, who has spent much of his last few columns demanding that the president and his party ignore the will of the majority and impose health care reform by fiat, makes an interesting point about the "public option":

Mr. [Ben] Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance — which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer.

Of course, every person on the government plan is one more person to be supported by taxpayers. It makes the collapse of private insurance (especially if the government is using taxpayer cash to create a "gold-plated" plan) that much more likely, pushing even more people onto a public plan. And that precludes companies who find it cheaper to pay a health care "tax" than actually provide healthcare.

Can our system absorb that? Well, let's see where we are under Obamanomics (a subsidiary of Krugmanomics) before we socialize medicine:

In news leaked late Friday to the Reuters news agency, the White House conceded that the national debt will increase by $9 trillion over the next ten years, nearly doubling a national debt that now stands at $11.67 trillion.

Since the beginning of the republic in the late 18th century, the U.S. government has accumulated a total of $11.67 trillion in debt. In the next decade, under the budget plans the Obama administration has in mind, that debt will almost double to about $20.67 trillion.

Until this year, according to historical budget tables published by the White House Office of Management and Budget, the largest annual budget deficit the U.S. government ever ran was in fiscal 2008, when the deficit was $458.5 billion. The average deficits the Obama administration is now planning to run in each of the next ten years will now almost double that.

Charles Krauthammer - not a Nobel Prize-winning economist - talks about the effect this will have on our economy, and the effect it should have on Obama's health care "reform":

This is a huge increase in the deficit. And if you think of it, this is an estimate over a decade, which means that the annual [deficit] will be nearly $1 trillion. It will be $900 million every year for ten years, which is unsustainable.

It will destroy the dollar. The only way that kind of debt is paid off is not in taxes. It is in inflation. And everyone will see it coming. It will raise interest rates.

This is a crisis in and of itself. And one of the reasons health care is in trouble — there are a lot of reasons — but one of them is Americans understand that when you are looking at [health-care] deficits which are...adding $1 trillion or $1.6 trillion, as the CBO has estimated in the Senate plan, adding that onto it gratuitously is insane.

Insane, indeed. So where does that place Krugman, a man who is screaming that we must have that additional trillion-plus deficit now, even if it tears the nation asunder? What does this say for Krugman's economic credentials when writes pieces that says that the more people on public health care, the better, and refuses to even bring up the topic of the enormous financial burden it will place upon the nation?

Well, let's say this: I would sooner ask Nobel medalist Yassar Arafat (may he rot in hell) for his guidance on Arab-Israeli relations than ask Krugman for his advice on matters economic.

For the man is - to paraphrase Dr. K - gratuitously insane.

Health Care Reform: The AP's Fantasy Edition !

The impending defeat of Obama's socialization of American medicine reminds me a bit of the last days of Nazi Germany; the propaganda machine exhorted the citizens to fight on as top party officials sought safe haven; all while Hitler ordered counterattacks by German armies that existed only in his fevered imagination.

Anyway - this AP "analysis" blames the "sales tactics" of the Democrats for the failure of ObamaCare to gain any traction (if those stupid Americans only understood it, they would want it!), and creates fictitious enemies for Obama to defeat.

First, the stupidity meme:

"The people don't have sufficient information, and I'm surprised the administration and others backing reform haven't done much more to educate the public," said Robin Lauermann, professor of politics at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa.

If only we understood the machinations of our betters....!

And here's the straw men:

As the health care argument swirls during the August congressional recess, Americans have witnessed ugly and offensive attacks on the motives of Obama and those who support changing the system, even though it is held responsible for a majority of private bankruptcies in the world's No. 1 economy.

The article makes no mention of the ugly and offensive attacks by the administration on those private citizens who oppose their legislation - un-American liars, indeed!

And when in doubt, blame the ex-governor of Alaska:

The lack of one specific piece of legislation for the president to sell has opened the door for opponents inside and outside government to heap unfounded allegations on the reform process.

Some have been outrageous, including an assertion by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, last year's Republican vice presidential nominee, who said the plan would include "death panels."
She appears to have created that scare tactic out of a now-abandoned portion of House legislation that would have required Medicare payments for consultation with a physician about a patient's wishes for treatment at the end of life.

So Palin's assertion is outrageous, except for the fact that the provision she actually spoke about was then removed after she brought it to light. In other words, it actually existed, and she was telling the truth - which, to a media that loathes her and loves Obamacare, is therefore a lie.

Got that?

Regardless, the writer of this piece (Steven Hurst) makes his true feelings known in a throwaway line halfway through:

...bringing the United States in line with the world's other wealthy democracies that guarantee health care to everyone.

Ah. To be France, or Spain, nations that have unemployment consistently around 10-11%, with a taxation system that leaves little chance for improvement, or the growth of one's personal status.

This is the crux of the matter. Mr. Hurst, and the Democrats, want America to be more like France. Americans, however, like who and what they are, and prefer not to mimic the dying throes of a dead culture.

And their in lies the struggle, not in "tactics" or talking points. The battle for the soul of America has been joined, and no amount of media scolding of our intelligence and immaturity will end it before its course has been run...

Frank Rich: Fantasy Edition !

I usually never bother to read Frank Rich - he's little more than Keith Olbermann in print - but I thought his piece today railing against the hatred and violence of "the right" revealed a bit too much.

Quoting the widely discredited Homeland Security report casting pro-lifers as potential terrorists while referencing the Southern Poverty Law Center (who create and fan the flames of racism where it doesn't exist in order to give itself a purpose), Rich quails at a political atmosphere that "keeps getting darker", due to "far-right fanatics bearing arms at presidential events".

No mention, of course, of the only act of political violence so far in the Obama era, a black conservative beaten by union thugs in St. Louis. No, the facts would mess with Rich's storyline, so he disposes of them, and goes to a 1962 sociologist to explain why the people are restive. And we get the same old, same old: it's because we're dumb, scared animals:

“What the right as a whole fears is the erosion of its own social position, the collapse of its power, the increasing incomprehensibility of a world — now overwhelmingly technical and complex — that has changed so drastically within a lifetime.”

Wait! It's because the right is made up of dumb, scared, white animals!

The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat.

So we can add Frank Rich to Michael Moore , Politco, and Bill Maher school of thought that it is the stupidity of Americans (particularly white ones) that are preventing the implementation of the utopian liberal dream. Let's also add Rich, with his premature dismissal of the Republican party, to co-worker Paul Krugman's school of ramping up the unilateralism, disposing with dissent, and dismissing all those whom disagree with liberal doctrine. After all, they're just overwhelmed by a world that has become too technical and complex for them - why bring them in to the conversation at all?

I'll go a step further. Rich bemoans what he sees as signs of potential violence, but in his black heart he fervently hopes for this violence to occur. Obama's agenda is on the ropes from a Republic which disdains government interference in their lives, and can see the liberal agenda for what it is: government control - liberal control - of almost every key decision in a citizen's life. Rich sees what will likely be his last chance for power (as a voice of liberal morality, no doubt) about to slip from his grasp, and he dreads the return to angry minority status. So he believes that (hopes for?) an attack on the president, or an attack on any liberal symbol, would turn Americans against "the right", against their better judgement, and into the arms of the Left, who will take care of them via government enslavement for the rest of their lives.

And of course, it would prove him right - and after all, what is more important to an op-ed columnist than that?

One would hope - for many different reasons - that Rich's Tarentino-like fantasy does not become a reality. One suspects it will more likely be the Left who will strike out in rage first, as the bussed-in and paid-off union thugs and ACORN brownshirts continue to angrily confront law-abiding citizens everywhere.

Then who will Rich blame? Certainly not the Left, or his party, or even himself. After all, they're the "smart" ones...right?

"Progressively" missing the point....

All of New York is astir over Governor Paterson's comments yesterday that his declining approval ratings (and those of Deval Patrick and Barack Obama) are due to racism. Well, nice try, I guess. It's like Obama blaming his free-falling poll numbers on those dirty Republicans...

Anyway, New York Daily News grievance columnist and token angry liberal black Errol Louis is trotted out to tell the governor that no, it's not about race. But in doing so, he reveals his true blindness to Paterson's woes as well as his ignorance of what is driving voter revolt these days:

... it's up to Paterson alone to decide if, when and whether he'll step aside - and it's premature to write him off.

Paterson is the most progressive governor in decades. He raised taxes on the wealthy, has championed same-sex marriage and raised the basic welfare grant for the first time in 18 years.
He also reformed the Rockefeller drug laws, began a historic reworking of the penal laws, and made good use of federal stimulus dollars for programs such as the $200 back-to-school grants for low-income families.

The political attacks on Paterson, gleefully magnified by the media, rarely acknowledge the good he has done...

Well, the wealthy wouldn't agree. Nor the middle-class taxpayer, who saw welfare moms getting "raises" and withdrawing $200 per kid at ATMs while bragging about receiving "free" money - paid for with their tax dollars. Not sure if these same folks are pleased that Paterson gone soft on crime either, or consider a budget this year that hiked taxes by $8 billion -- and spending by $11 billion - to be part of the "good" that Paterson has done.

There's a huge chasm these days in the way "progressives" view the world, and the way everyone else in America seems to (can someone say oddly detached from reality?). Recent polls show that only around 20% of Americans identify with the far-left label, but unfortunately, they currently hold 100% of the nation's political power.

And these same folks wonder why it's so hot in the town hall meetings....man, they are never going to see the truck that hits them...

"Scare Quotes": Bad News for Obama

{UPDATE 7:15PM: The AP still has the second article/link up, but they've removed the scare quotes. Think they read the following post? Hmmm...}

Ah, the good old days: When the only word that the media put in scare quotes was "terrorism", as its way of mocking the Bush administration's fight against radical Islam.

Check out the scare quotes that jumped out at me this morning:

Obama again tackles "myths" on healthcare reform

Obama calls for 'honest debate' on health care

Seems to me that these articles are questioning whether those "myths" are in fact that, or perhaps more akin to "truths". And in the same vein, if "honest debate" is in scare quotes, are we seeing a feeling from the media that Obama's portion of the debate has been less than truthful?

Seems like the media is getting wise to Obama's play on words, like these:

"As every credible person who has looked into it has said, there are no so-called death panels — an offensive notion to me and to the American people," Obama said. "These are phony claims meant to divide us."

So if you claim there are death panels - which are actually used today by the VA, re-instated under Obama (as well as in Canada), you are simply "not credible". Sarah Palin, thus becomes "not credible", and a divider to boot. Disagree with Obama, and armed with an armful of facts? Sorry, you're just "not credible"

Words and phrases like that are usually a wink to the radical base and an instruction to the liberal media on how to proceed with the talking points. Seems to me like those "scare quotes" are a "wee" bit of backlash from the rank and file in the MSM.

"Scared" yet, Baracky, of losing the last of your diehards? If you're as smart as everyone claims you are, you ought to be...

Just How Many Race Cards Are In This Marked Deck ??

Now it's New York Governor Patterson (unelected, promoted into the position when Democrat Elliot Spitzer was busted with his panties down) whining that his 30% approval rating is not due to the miserable job he's doing, it's because of the color of his skin! And just look; Whitey is doing it to everybody:

Paterson alleged he and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick - both of whom are the first African Americans to hold their respective positions and are tanking in the polls - are being treated unfairly by the media due to the color of their skin.
The governor said he thinks the same thing is happening to the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, who also seen his approval rating drop due to his controversial efforts to overhaul the health care system.

"This state is not in the trouble that Michigan is in, Pennsylvania is in and Massachusetts is in, but you don’t see in those other states this crescendo about getting rid of the governor just because we’re in a recession," Paterson told Louis this morning on AM 1600 WWRL.

"And I submit that the same kind of treatment that Deval Patrick is receiving right now in Massachusetts, and I’m receiving; the way in which the New York State Senate was written about, calling them a bunch of people with thick necks - they’re talking about Malcolm Smith and John Sampson - that we’re not in the post-racial period."

"And the reality is that the next victim on the list - and you see it coming - is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than try to reform a health care system that’s now 10 percent of GDP and will be 20 percent of GDP in the next four years only because he’s trying to make change."


Golly, where do I begin? Maybe with pointing out another thing that Paterson, Patrick, and Obama have in common - they are all hard-core liberals at a time when there is a tremendous backlash against that governing philosophy. Obama's approval ratings have dropped 20 points since inauguration; did 20% of the American people become racist after voting for him to be their leader?


Not to mention this Triumvirate from Hell are all Democrats, a party affiliation that is more associated now with socialism than freedom. Think that's got something to do with it?

And what about Governor Arnold? He's not getting love letters from the population either...must be because he's an immigrant, right?

New York baseball fans will remember the remark made by then-Mets manager Willie Randolph, who, when asked if he thought he was being picked on by the media:

As for why Joe Torre's calmness in the dugout was praised as a virtue while he's vilified when not ejected, Randolph had said: "Is it racial? Huh. It smells a little bit."

Hey Willie: If you had won more games, you would have kept your job. It's called performance, and it is all that matters.

Hey Governor Paterson: If you run the state better, you will be able to keep your job. It's called perfromance, and it is all that matters.

For all Democrats who are blaming their electoral woes on racism: Your employers will decide this November or next whether or not you keep your jobs. Perhaps you should concentrate on performance, rather than claiming victimization. Performance is all that matters.

Just ask Jackie Robinson.