Obama Shuts Out Republican Lobbyists

By John Feehery

President, The Feehery Group, and The Feehery Theory, Republican
“What the President meant to say was that he wasn't going to listen to Republican lobbyists or Republican-leaning advocates.”

During his campaign, candidate Barack Obama decided to make villains out of those in Washington who petition their government on behalf of their clients. Lobbyists are easy targets, because they make more money than the average American and they reside in Washington, which is generally a despised place in the USA. Obama said that lobbyists wouldn't unduly influence his Administration, and that he would take on the special interests. He said that he wouldn't collect money from those hated lobbyists and that he wouldn't listen to their pleas on behalf of their clients. Almost nothing he has said that he would do has worked out. He collects lots and lots of money from lobbyists, usually on behalf of his allies on the Hill. He allows lobbyists come to the White House pretty much all the time. Andy Stern, a lobbyist who actually works on behalf of government expansion, has practically lived at the White House. Other well-known Democratic lobbyists, according to White House records, have also spent considerable time working the White House on whatever issue they ...
“What the President meant to say was that he wasn't going to listen to Republican lobbyists or Republican-leaning advocates.”

During his campaign, candidate Barack Obama decided to make villains out of those in Washington who petition their government on behalf of their clients. Lobbyists are easy targets, because they make more money than the average American and they reside in Washington, which is generally a despised place in the USA. Obama said that lobbyists wouldn't unduly influence his Administration, and that he would take on the special interests. He said that he wouldn't collect money from those hated lobbyists and that he wouldn't listen to their pleas on behalf of their clients.

Almost nothing he has said that he would do has worked out. He collects lots and lots of money from lobbyists, usually on behalf of his allies on the Hill. He allows lobbyists come to the White House pretty much all the time. Andy Stern, a lobbyist who actually works on behalf of government expansion, has practically lived at the White House. Other well-known Democratic lobbyists, according to White House records, have also spent considerable time working the White House on whatever issue they are currently working.

He has declared war, for example, on the biggest business advocate, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Of course, if he had openly declared war on Republican lobbyists, it would have destroyed the Obama post-partisan myth. But nobody is buying that myth anymore anyway. So, the President should just come clean. He should say that if you are a Republican or if you advocate for the free-market, don't bother to talk to me. I am not going to listen. That would give the American people a better sense of where this President is really coming from.

Re-booting the debate--I like this quite a bit

Taken from American Thinker
By Michael D. Harbison
A former college roommate once gave me a very succinct piece of wisdom, passed on from his Father, when he viewed me engaging in an ideological debate. The advice? "Never argue with a pig. It will waste your time, and it will just annoy the pig."

I am now observing how conservatives willingly cede the defining moments of a debate by accepting, and even parroting the terminology of the left. As long as we continue to let the left frame the argument, the picture we attempt to paint may not matter. When the debate is defined by their vernacular (global warming, gun control, healthcare, and all the rest), we sustain the uphill battle in our quest to have our views completely understood. Our words should define our beliefs in as much as the Liberal terminology defines the beliefs of the Left.

For Example:

Liberal Phraseology: "Global Warming" or "Global Climate Change."

You mean - "The theory of man-made global climate change", or "The theory of mankind's interference in the Earth's natural temperature fluctuations".

The operative word being "Theory", because regardless of what non-scientists like Al Gore say, the debate isn't over. There is no consensus. The temperature has been changing since the beginning of time


Liberal Phraseology: "Greenhouse Gasses".

You mean - "Carbon Dioxide - the essential ingredient for all plant life"

Where are the tree huggers when you need them?


Liberal Phraseology: "Gun Control".

You mean - "Disarming the law abiding populace".

The reason the Founders endowed us with the second amendment was to protect us from a tyrannical Government.


Liberal Phraseology: "Universal Health Care".

You mean - "Access to affordable health Insurance".

We have the best Health Care system in the world. What we need is more competition among Insurers and cost effective group plans.


Liberal Phraseology: "Equal Rights for (fill in the blank)"

You mean - "Preferential Treatment for (fill in the blank)".

If any member of society gets preferences, it cannot be considered "equal". If we substitute the words "White" or "man" for (fill in the blank), would it still be considered "equal"?

Liberal Phraseology: "Public Assistance Programs" or "Government program"

You mean - "Taxpayer subsidized entitlement programs" or "Taxpayer funded appropriation"

Rule Number One - The Government has no money. They are not a revenue generating entity. The Government is a drain on prosperity. They re-allocate resources. How much more money would you have in your pocket if you had a 50% tax cut?


Liberal Phraseology: "The plight of the Homeless".

You mean - "People who are victims of their own poor choices - with the exception of the mentally incompetent".

People have learned they don't have to be responsible for themselves if the Nanny State continues to bail them out. And go ahead and concede the bank bailouts as the same thing.


So, when you hear a Liberal (or even a Moderate) use the Liberal phraseology, just chime in with "Oh, you mean . . .". They will have no argument, and you have re-booted the debate on your terms.

Thinking about Mark Twain on his birthday

Taken from American Thinker



They sure don't make American icons like they used to.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the man who "came in with Halley's Comet," was born on this day (November 30) back in 1835. Better known by his pen name Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens was the great American icon of his time.

For many Americans, the name Mark Twain generates a certain rush of warm feelings. We picture a distinctive looking man seated with a smoking pipe (or cigar) in hand, wavy hair, thick mustache, and a white suit. We fondly recall his Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher characters as though they were real. We still laugh at Mr. Twain's many witticisms.

Mark Twain was an American icon because, without the help of a speechwriter, a teleprompter, a pair of fake Greek columns, and a larger than life broadcast screen, he could move an audience with his spontaneous oratory.

Mark Twain was an American icon because, without using a ghostwriter, he could write from his own head and heart and wondrously translate the American experience onto paper.

Mark Twain was an American icon because his travels abroad never turned out to be apology tours.

Drawing the distinction between those in the world who do "things because they have been done before," Mark Twain explained that, "An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before." Mark Twain believed in American exceptionalism. In fact, he reveled in it. Mr. Twain thought America was best and the last thing on our minds should be emulating Europeans.

They sure don't make American icons like they used to.

Exactly how and where Mark Twain would fit in today is hard to say. I believe he would have embraced a multicultural America but would have condemned our out of control political correctness, finding it dangerous, repressive, and a hindrance to creativity. Besides being a famous humorist, novelist, and short story writer, Mr. Twain might have made one heck of a radio talk show host.

Mark Twain was never short on opinion. If he were alive today, I wonder what his opinion of Congress and our president would be, or what he might say about our American dream slipping away. Personally, I would love to know how he would address those who claim that American conservatism is dead.

Perhaps Mr. Twain would smile, take a puff from one of his 5-cent cigars, and tell them, "Rumors of the death of American conservatism have been greatly exaggerated."

The Feminine Mistake..a real eye opener for libbers

Taken from Sunday's American Thinker
By Larrey Anderson
The philosophical basis of Hegelian/Marxist philosophy is not only antithetical to the family, but irreconcilable with the rights of women everywhere. The philosophy is at its core misogynist. Hitching the feminist wagon to Marxism was and is the feminine mistake. In this article, I will dig deeply into the Marxist notions about women, the family, and the workplace. As I will show, Marxism and the far left are not female friendly.

First, a little history: Betty Friedan (1921-2006) is often cited as the pioneer of the modern women's rights movement. Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. Her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, is credited with launching radical feminism in America. What is not often discussed is how entrenched this movement was in the radical left and international communism.

Friedan was active in the labor movement and toyed with communism in her youth [i]. As she grew older (and wiser), Friedan pulled away from the main argument of The Feminine Mystique (which was based on the flimsy -- and superficially Marxist -- idea that women should be free to abandon the home and move into the workplace). Friedan's The Second Stage (1981) backtracks, somewhat, from her adolescent misreading of Marxist philosophy that grounded the earlier The Feminine Mystique.

The works of French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) greatly influenced Friedan's writing. In fact, The Second Stage mimics the title of de Beauvoir's two-volume work, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949). Friedan once stated of de Beauvoir:

I had learned my own existentialism from her. It was The Second Sex that introduced me to that approach to reality and political responsibility ... [and] led me to whatever original analysis of women's existence I have been able to contribute.


Simone de Beauvoir was a brilliant woman and a gifted mathematician. She was also a devoted admirer of both Hegel and Marx. Thus, de Beauvoir was a hard-core leftist [ii]. Her writings on feminism are filled with the typical Marxist rhetoric of class identity and economic struggle against the male-dominated "bourgeoisie."

Like most leading French intellectuals of the time, de Beauvoir was influenced by the lectures and unpublished writings of Alexandre Kojève [iii]. It is by reviewing certain portions of the works of the Hegelian/Marxist Kojève that we will be able to vividly see the feminine mistake.

Alexandre Kojève (1902-1968) was a world-class thinker -- undoubtedly one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. His influence on intellectuals in Europe (and to some extent, in the U.S.) was enormous.

Kojève published few of his manuscripts during his lifetime. His work was so honest, and his views so explosive, that he avoided directly expressing his ideology to the general public [iv].

Kojève did not hesitate in his work to disclose to us what Hegel and Marx really thought about women. Both Hegel and Marx grounded their philosophical theories in Hegel's infamous master/slave dialectic. Kojève explained the essence of the master/slave dialectic in a lecture on Hegel (see Note iii below) in 1939:

Man is desire directed toward another desire -- that is, desire for recognition -- that is, negating action preformed for the sake of satisfying this desire for recognition -- that is, bloody fighting for prestige -- that is, the relation between master and slave -- that is, work -- that is, historical evolution that finally comes to the universal and homogenous state and to the absolute knowledge that reveals complete man realized in and by this state. [Emphasis added.]


In other words, men become self-conscious and fully human by subjugating other men. This historical process of certain classes of men enslaving other classes of men eventually ends in the "universal and homogenous state" when all men are either (depending on one's perspective) "free and equal" or enslaved to a monolithic one-world government.

Kojève's studies of Hegel and Marx taught Kojève that only men could participate in this struggle. (Man in the passage above means "male human being," not "any human being.")

Kojève explained why only men would attain "absolute knowledge" by serving in a one-world state in his posthumously published Esquisse d'une phenomenology du Droit (Outline of a Phenomenology of Right):

It is because man has already been made human (by the negation of his animal nature through fighting and work) that man also "negates" his animal sexuality and transforms his pairing [with a woman] into a family. It is because he is now a master (of a slave) ... that the man behaves differently [than an animal] towards his woman and becomes a "husband" of a "wife." [Page 486 footnote.]


Two pages later, in another footnote, Kojève clarifies and reemphasizes his position:

The humanization of the wife is mediated by the man (the husband) in the same way as the slave (by working) is made human by the mediation of the master (and through rebellion); this is the basis of the analogy between the wife and the slave.


Women are tied to life. They give us life. They are not inclined to fight and die for recognition or the "struggle" or the revolution -- so according to Kojève, women can never be fully "human."

It gets worse. In another footnote in the same chapter Kojève remarks:

The newly born [son], when assumed to be unable to be humanized, ... may be killed like any animal (and also the daughter -- since she cannot be humanized, humanity being refused to women). [Emphasis added.]


Now you know where the idea of forced abortion comes from in communist China...and why John Holdren, Obama's "science czar," espouses the notion of "compulsory sterilization" and the creation of a "planetary regime" (read: universal and homogenous state) that would control the number of human beings allowed on earth.

The garden-variety (university professor) Marxist will object to Kojève's position, explaining that women will, in the end, be equal to men by working the same jobs as men in the "universal and homogenous state." (Remember, that's the position that Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir both held.) Other faux leftist intellectuals will add that the family is the last great obstacle to attaining universal freedom and equality through labor. Ridding ourselves of the patriarchal family will bring about "happiness" (more accurately, "satisfaction") -- or so we have been told [v].

My response to these café philosophers is this: someone in your perfect state will have to mop the floors, stock the shelves, and work in the assembly lines. I have done all three jobs at various points in my life, and I can assure you that neither "happiness" nor "satisfaction" is a term used by anyone (male or female) performing these mundane tasks.

This pseudo-intellectual phoniness runs rampant through the hard left. Betty Friedan could rant about women getting out of the home and into the workplace because her workplace was Cosmopolitan magazine. Simone de Beauvoir could talk and talk and talk about women as a subjugated class at her numerous lectures and book signing-events (and make a good sum of money while doing it).

Alexandre Kojève was straightforward about the results of what people would really experience in the "universal and homogenous state." In a very famous footnote in his lectures on Hegel, Kojève states:

[The] end of human time or history -- that is, the definitive annihilation of man properly so-called or of the free and historical individual -- means quite simply the cessation of action in the full sense of the term.


Stated differently, in the universal and homogenous state there is no freedom, no choice, just equal (and equally meaningless) work for all.

There is a reason why the left is so dead-set on a woman's "right" to an abortion -- and why the health care bill in the Senate will have the central government pay for this "right." State-controlled abortion moves the left that much closer to eliminating the family and establishing its much-desired universal and homogenous state.

As Alexandre Kojève so bluntly showed us, women who have bought into the radical feminist agenda must eventually trade their freedom for slavery. In his 1939 lecture on Hegel, Kojève stated:

Hegel also sees, and he is the first to say so in so many words, that truly human existence is possible only by the negation of life.... [Emphasis in original.]


In my view, most women are (and should be) above this "Maoist" view of human existence.

Feminism, by grounding itself in the philosophy of Hegel and Marx, is condemning women to a new servitude: slavery to the state. Not to worry, liberated ladies: In the paradise of the universal and homogenous state, you will still be able to mop the floors.

[This article is dedicated to Ann Kucera (1925-2009) of Garland, Maine. Ann was a poet, writer, and, most of all, a dear friend. May her sweet spirit find peace.]

Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. He is the author of The Order of the Beloved, and the memoir, Underground: Life and Survival in the Russian Black Market.


[i] Daniel Horowitz outlines Friedan's ties to the far left in "Rethinking Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique: Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in Cold War America," American Quarterly, March 1996. (It is the lead article, if memory serves.)

[ii] She was also the sometime lover of Jean Paul Sartre. She never married and had no offspring.

[iii] It is possible, if not probable, that de Beauvoir attended at least some of Kojève's famous series of lectures on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. The lectures were delivered at the École des Hautes Études from 1933 to 1939. Kojève's classes were frequented by a literal who's-who of leading French intellectuals, including Merleau-Ponty, Raymond Aron, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Andre Breton, and Raymond Queneau. Queneau took meticulous notes of the Kojève lectures. The notes were eventually published under the title Introduction à la Lecture de Hegel in 1947. Even Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault were "students" of Kojève. See Stanley Rosen's Hermeneutics as Politics, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 91-110 for details.

[iv] Kojève's stunning masterpiece on the law, Esquisse d' une phenomenology du Droit, was completed in 1943. It remained unpublished until 1982.

[v] As Hegel, Marx, and Kojève all asserted: human beings will be truly "satisfied" only as a result of their labors in a universal and homogenous state. Not happy ... satisfied.

After losing power, Leon Trotsky claimed that the reason communism had not been successful in Russia was that Stalin had not been ruthless enough in his efforts to eliminate the family. See Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed, trans. Max Eastman, New York, 1965, pp. 145ff.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_feminine_mistake_1.html at November 29, 2009 - 04:42:07 PM ES

Well you be the judge!

Leaving Corporate America

We are at the mercy of economic "experts." These practitioners of the "dismal science" are managing large sectors of our economy in accordance with theories learned in Ivy League Universities. They have assured us that the lessons learned from the Great Depression will prevent another such occurrence.

The problem is that every forecast by an economic expert can be matched by an equal and opposite forecast. Often these conflicting forecasts are made by the same individual. Economist Howard S. Katz provides an explanation for this situation in his book, The Paper Aristocracy: "Modern economics claims to be a science. This is a sham and a fraud." Katz bases this conclusion on his observation that "[w]hen it fails to predict future events it does not act like the scientist, disregarding false theories in search of the truth; it acts like the Indian Medicine Man who has failed to make rain. It equivocates, rationalizes and tries to make minor adjustments." Unlike an Indian medicine man, an influential economist might not only be unable to bring rain, but he may also cause drought.

The State of New York provides an example of the disastrous effects of an economic policy. When Governor Paterson, a politician with a long tax-and-spend record, came into office, he declared that taxes were too high. Paterson stated, "We will rue the day that we tax the rich, if the rich, who are the job-creators in New York, stop doing it, and then people are leaving to find jobs in other states." Yet Paterson signed a budget which included 6.1 billion dollars in projected new taxes and fees. Paterson seemed to realize the folly of his action, stating, "None of this makes sense." Tax revenue from these increases was running 20 percent below projections. In a lucid moment, Paterson responded, "Tax the rich, we've done that. We've probably lost jobs and driven people out of the state."

There is a popular idea that the loss of the "rich" is not a problem. Governor Paterson apparently joked that Rush Limbaugh's decision to leave New York due to tax increases was a good thing. Paterson stated, "If I knew that would be the result I would've thought about the taxes earlier." The New York Times concluded, "Limbaugh's vow won't change much" in a state with such a massive deficit.

Of course, the taxes on one individual, no matter how wealthy, will not have a noticeable impact on government revenue. But is Limbaugh alone in his decision to leave? Buffalo Sabers hockey team owner Tom Golisano announced that he was moving to Florida shortly after the New York State budget was passed. Galisano reportedly pays $13,000 a day in taxes. The head of New York's ACORN-affiliated Working Families Party is reported to have said "good riddance to Golisano."

According to the New York Times, "people don't relocate because of high taxes." However, Deadline Hollywood reported that "Oprah and her people have long limited the time she spends in Montecito so she doesn't exceed the number of days mandating her to pay exorbitant taxes as a California resident." Apparently Oprah Winfrey does not read the New York Times. Perhaps Limbaugh, Golisano, and Winfrey are isolated examples -- or perhaps not.

The problem of avoiding taxes is not only a state issue. David Farr, the CEO of Emerson Electric Co., asserted, "I'm not going to hire anybody in the U.S. I'm moving. They (Washington) are doing everything possible to destroy jobs." The Obama administration disagrees. Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, replied with an e-mail from Singapore: "This administration has made a significant commitment to U.S. manufacturing, including reforming the country's health insurance system to bring down costs and make American companies more competitive globally."

Farr is not alone in his determination to abandon the anti-business climate of the United States. Eleven major companies have relocated or are in the process of relocating overseas: Tyco International Ltd., Foster Wheeler AG, Weatherford International Ltd., Nabors Industries Ltd., Noble Corp., TransOcean International Group, United America Indemnity Ltd., Cooper Industries, Covidien, Ingersoll-Rand PLC, and Accenture Ltd. The U.S. has the world's highest corporate tax rate after Japan, but we have been promised that free health insurance will make American companies competitive.

In addition to increased taxes, there are other incentives to relocate outside of the United States. The federal government now sees the need to regulate executive compensation. This is a very popular idea, and politicians like popular ideas. Paying executives tens of millions of dollars a year does not seem reasonable. And the majority of Americans agree: high salaries for American CEOs must be regulated.

The market proves otherwise. If the market offers executives significantly larger incomes to relocate, many will relocate. Josef Ackerman of Deutsche Bank reportedly stated, "We can't wait to get our hands on all that top talent." A reasonable person might say, "The market be damned." The market can at times be very unreasonable. As an illustration, suppose the owner of an NBA team were to conclude that bouncing a ball was worth only $100,000 a year. Where would his team be in the standings? What would the team's attendance figures be? As a result of this change, how many hot dog vendors would be laid off?

In February 2008, Michelle Obama stated,

We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we're asking young people to do. Don't go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we're encouraging our young people to do that.


As corporations relocate overseas, we will become a progressive utopia of teachers teaching social workers and social workers ministering to the needs of teachers. Somehow I do not think this will work.

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy, Algora Publishing.

NYT: Obama’s an amateur

Borrowed from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air


It only took them three years to figure it out, of course. The Gray Lady’s ire focuses on the disaster Obama has made of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which is usually a rolling disaster anyway. American Presidents haven’t been able to do much to make it better, but as the Times explains, this one’s made it a lot worse than it had to be — mainly because he’s a diplomatic novice with team full of incompetents (via Geoff A):

Peacemaking takes strategic skill. But we see no sign that President Obama and Mr. Mitchell were thinking more than one move down the board. The president went public with his demand for a full freeze on settlements before securing Israel’s commitment. And he and his aides apparently had no plan for what they would do if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no.

Most important, they allowed the controversy to obscure the real goal: nudging Israel and the Palestinians into peace talks. (We don’t know exactly what happened but we are told that Mr. Obama relied more on the judgment of his political advisers — specifically his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel — than of his Mideast specialists.)

The idea made sense: have each side do something tangible to prove it was serious about peace and then start negotiations. But when Mr. Netanyahu refused the total freeze, President Obama backed down.

Mr. Netanyahu has since offered a compromise 10-month freeze that exempts Jerusalem, schools and synagogues and permits Israel to complete 3,000 housing units already under construction. The irony is that while this offer goes beyond what past Israeli governments accepted, Mr. Obama had called for more. And the Palestinians promptly rejected the compromise.

The editors go on to castigate George Mitchell a little more for blowing the effort with the Saudis, who took their signals from Team Obama. When Obama publicly demanded a halt to all settlements, the Saudis made that their line in the sand. The Times scolds them for doing so, but the fact is that once the US made that demand, it put all the pressure on Israel and took all the pressure off of the other parties in the talks.

As the editorial says, Obama and Mitchell couldn’t think past their own opening move and game out the possibilities. Why might that be? The foreign-policy team that includes Emanuel and Samantha Power (at the National Security Council) has ideological interests in getting Israel to surrender. Power suggested a few years ago that the Western nations should invade and occupy Israel in order to set the Palestinians free. With that kind of advice flowing at the White House, this diktat on settlements is hardly surprising, nor is its end result.

When Newsweek and the New York Times tells a Democratic president that he’s screwing up foreign policy, it’s time to clean house and start getting professional help. Unfortunately, neither of these publications considered the ramifications of endorsing an inexperienced ideologue for the top job when it counted.

Obamazilla Is America's True Nemesis, Not Fellow Patriots

Borrowed from American Thinker
Eleven months ago, he landed on the shores of the presidency, destroying everything in his path. A gigantic, fire-breathing monster wreaking havoc, consuming private sector industries, crushing institutions which have made America great, and destroying lives. With fear and trembling we dare to utter his name...Obamazilla! Though appearing indestructible and unstoppable, millions of brave patriots arose to challenge the beast, vowing not to sit idly by as America as we know it is terminated.

As a patriot, I am totally focused on defeating Obamazilla, America's true nemesis. I will not allow myself to be sidetracked into participating in Tea-Party-movement family feuds. We are blessed to have brilliant, strong-willed strategists on our side who think they know which direction is best for the movement. That is fine. However, it is unfruitful and misdirected to boycott, trash, and waste time and resources suing those on our side who have varying opinions.

No one person or organization can claim ownership or take full credit for this amazing, historical Tea Party movement. It belongs solely to We, the People. It still blows my mind how without media support, but through online social networks and word of mouth, 1.7 million patriots showed up in Washington, D.C. on 9/12 to oppose tyrannical government.

Some have even attempted to force me to take sides. They threatened, "Lloyd, if you sing at their tea party, I will no longer be your fan." Unless a tea party group is wacko, while I may not totally agree with their approach, I consider them an ally. Again, my total focus is on the big picture: stopping the huge monster which is destroying our freedom, liberty, and culture.

Back in April, an upset California patriot e-mailed me after a successful tea party. His local organizers were gung-ho about fighting the battle on the national level. My e-mailer had a fire in his belly to fight locally. I advised my patriot brother to follow his passion. Our incredible movement was sparked by the passion of one man: Rick Santelli. What began with passion can be sustained only by passion, by everyone doing what he or she feels passionate about doing.

Besides, we need patriotic freedom-fighters in all areas and on all levels.

Unfortunately, feuding over strategies has become a major distraction in the tea party movement. No, I am not asking anyone to compromise beliefs or ideas. Quite the opposite. Whatever way you and your group choose to fight Obamazilla is fine with me. But do not feud with tea party patriots who disagree or do not share your passion. Remember, your target is Obamazilla.

Like everyone else, I have opinions regarding the focus of the movement, but I will not allow my opinions to cause me to break fellowship with my fellow freedom-fighters.

For example, some think the Tea Party movement should remain "pure" by not supporting any political candidates. I disagree. We can tea party until the cows come home, but if we do not work to put true conservatives in office, we are simply making noise without achieving anything.

Another source of contention in the movement is talk of a third political party. I believe a third party would ensure the election of Democrats. Remember how Ross Perot got Clinton elected?

Having said that, you third-party patriots, if you feel strongly about starting a third party, go for it. You will not get any flack from me. My efforts are targeted solely on stopping Obamazilla. I only ask that you graciously accept me not wearing your t-shirt.

For crying out loud, patriots, Obama has awarded a terrorist the same legal rights as an American citizen. Reid is muscling health care through the Senate. Cap-and-trade is next on the agenda. In America, we have a "pay czar." The list of horrors grow daily, and we patriots are fighting amongst ourselves. Please stop it. Stay focused on the real monster, the real enemy, the real threat to America: Obamazilla!

The Tea Party movement has birthed countless grassroots organizations. It is truly a wonderful thing. I find it extremely exciting that patriots all over America are fighting to defeat this monster administration and restore our great nation in their own way. I met many of these committed patriots while traveling on the national Tea Party Express II tour. Conservatives from twenty-something to eighty are running for office for the first time. Old ladies are bombarding their congressmen and senators with phone calls and letters. Everyone is doing his part.

As corny and clichéd as this sounds, it still holds true: "United we stand, divide we fall." Let's stand together, brothers and sisters. Let's stand!

Lloyd Marcus, (black) Unhyphenated American

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/obamazilla_is_americas_true_ne.html at November 27, 2009 - 08:54:59 AM EST

Riding the Back of the Tiger

Posted By Victor Davis Hanson
…is what America has done since 1941. Obama wants to get off. Fine. Many of our countrymen are tired of the ride. But what makes him think that on the ground with the gnashing beast is any safer than on his back?

What Causes Wars?

I do not mean here the existential reasons for strife, brought about through pride, status, envy, honor—or even the supposed desire for riches and natural resources. But rather, less grandly, what allows those aggressions to devolve into legalize murder on a vast scale?

I ask that question, because I am not sure our President or his advisors have ever raised it. But in almost every case in the past, wars were not caused by Bush-like ‘smoke-‘em-out’ rhetoric—no more than they were prevented by “reset” button outreach or bowing to thugs or the League of Nations or the United Nations or things like the Wilsonian Cairo speech.

Usually aggression, bullying, and nationalist agendas evolve into wars—when the aggressive party is convinced it has more to gain through war than lose. And such perceptions, wrong or not, emerge when a Xerxes, a Napoleon or a Hitler are assured that their targets either cannot or will not stop them. Or, if they belatedly try to roll the dice, the resulting losses will be small in terms of what might be perceived as gain.

I am not discounting error and miscalculation. Hitler, after all, got more natural resources through purchase from the Soviet Union (a willing ally) for the Reich between late summer 1939 and June 1941 than he ever did by looting Russia between mid 1941 and 1945.

Hitler also would learn that only postfacto. By June 1941 he was convinced that given Stalin’s poor performance in the recent Finnish War, the Red Army’s so-so record in splitting up Poland in 1939, and the well known past purges of the Soviet officer corps—all collated with Stalin’s mysterious efforts to placate Hitler, and denials of the impending threat—the Soviet Union would be impotent, like Norway or France. He deemed its finish a 4-5 week cakewalk. (Remember, Hitler was also using WWI (faulty) analogies: 4 years /defeat in France vs. 2 years /victory in Russia meant 23 years later, a 6 weeks /victory in France would mean 3 weeks / triumph in Russia.

In the Arena

Take a war. Even the trivial can create dangerous impressions.

Korea? Dean Acheson’s inadvertent slip that South Korea lay outside the US protective shield, coupled with (wrong) impressions about Truman, who was on record as wanting to diminish US conventional forces (remember the ‘revolt of the admirals’?)—all that and more helped to convince the communists that the US would not or could not react to aggression, a perception almost confirmed by the time we were encircled at Pusan.

How about the weird Falkland War (‘two bald men fighting over a comb’)? Why would Argentina take on the reputation of the centuries-old British navy over a few windswept rocks?

Let us count the ways: the sinking Argentine dictators needed a nationalist distraction? They thought the new “female” Thatcher would not be so macho? They thought the withdrawal of a British minesweeper from the Falklands would mean that their invasion would be seen as a fait accompli, not as something the far away, supposedly decadent British would fight over.



Hitler could have been stopped during the Rhineland crisis, during the Anschluss, and in Czechoslavakia, given the paucity and vulnerbality of the late 1930s Panzers. But he gambled that the French and UK were far more traumatized as winners in the Great War’s killing fields than were the defeated Germans.

What is the point of this pop historicizing?

Like it or not, the fragile postwar order was largely enforced by the US and its Western allies, along with a general understanding that the ‘system’ had allowed a Russia, China, or the Gulf monarchies to thrive through maintenance of the “rules”. We spent trillions because we thought it cheaper for us and the world than what started in 1914 and 1939. And we were largely right.

There was a general recognition among unhinged regimes—a Cuba, Saddam’s Iraq, a Libya, a North Korea, a Syria, Venezuela—that regional aspirations were, well, contained. Redlines were everywhere—Taiwan was sacrosanct; so was South Korea. Israel would not be destroyed. Europe would not face a Russian invasion. And so on. A Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Mao, Kim Il-sung, Gaddafi, Arafat, etc. would be “corralled” and not allowed to destroy the Western-inspired global order.

Not now. Ever so insidiously in just a year, with the best intentions, the President, driven by narcissism, fueled by post-Enlightenment ignorance, is undermining old-fashioned deterrence. Chavez may have called Bush a “devil” and he may appreciate his handshakes with Obama, but an “incident” along the Colombian border is now more, not less likely.

Call him pathetic (he is), but Chavez has visions of a unified South America, communist, totalitarian, and with himself as titular head. He need not invade and occupy Colombia, only bully it, shoot a bit, humiliate it, anything to show his neighbors that he is a little crazy, mean, unpredictable, and worth kowtowing to. He thinks either that Obama will do nothing or cannot do anything, or perhaps contextualizes Chavez’s own socialist indigenous grievances against “them.”

Ditto that soon most everywhere. We bow to the Chinese and think, “Wow, our Harvard Law Review, three-pointer outside the key shooter, looks great as he breezily strides through the majestic hallways and handles his Q&A in full campaign mode.”

They in turn review his apology tours, dithering on Afghanistan, his bows, his trashing of Bush, his past demagoguery of the Iraq war and prior anti-terrorism protocols, his efforts to be liked, and always the soaring debt, and think “Wow, it’s soon time to make some regional readjustments and then remind old U.S. friends and allies, that we, unlike America, are terrible people to have as enemies, but rather loyal and devout friends.”

1979 On the Horizon

So I think we are going to see soon some regional flare-ups, minor in themselves, but terribly important as the world pauses to gauge the US reaction. Syria and Iran feel liberated and think they can act with impunity. Turkey is an emerging regional hegemon. I would not want to be a former Soviet republic—at least if I were consensually governed, pro-Western, and democratic.

If I were in Manila, I’d start learning Chinese; if in Tokyo, I’d think about massive rearmament. I would not wish to be in NATO if east of Berlin—“allies” in the West would (cf. 1939) stay theoretic and distant, enemies would be concrete and proximate.

The survival of Israel now depends on its pilots and missiles, not on any guarantees from the US. In today’s currency, what we guarantee is worth about as much as US treasury bills, or promises of missile defense for Eastern Europe. If I were an Israeli, I’d either pray for the skill and audacity of the nation’s Air Force pilots, or begin cultivating India, Russia, and China, or that and more.

The problem with all this pessimistic view of human nature is that our elite and anointed smirk at it. They seem to say, “Tsk, tsk, we are 21st century Ivy-Leaguers in the postmodern age. The world is no longer like it was in 1914. I explained all this in my latest piece in Foreign Affairs. Cell phones and the World Court are the order of the day, not Neanderthal notions of something called “appeasement””. But does anyone think human nature has changed since the Greeks due to improved diet, or that brain chemistry has altered with video games?

A Cautionary Tale

Obama inherited, he did not make the rules—whether he thinks he can hope-and-change them away or not.

He can read all the Paul Krugman’s essays all he wants that swear that deficits don’t matter that much, or the borrowing is too small, or that the mega-creditor always supposedly has leverage over the lender (reader: would you rather owe a million or be owed a million?), but that does not make a soon to be $20 trillion dollar debt go away.

Such fantasy does not mean interest rates won’t climb to 5-6% and more, and does not mean that we soon will not be paying a $1 trillion a year in interest to pay back what we owe.

The President can Van-Jones the energy question all he wants, in soaring tones bellowing out “solar, wind, and millions of new green jobs!” But that does not mean that, when the global recovery begins, oil won’t go back to $100 plus a barrel. Indeed, our import tab will grow by leaps and bounds in direct proportion to the new gas and oil we find that remains off limits here at home.

And, yes, again, we can give 100 Cairo speeches, back flip even, apologize to the world for being mean to blacks, Indians, Hispanics, Europeans, Japanese, women, birds, plants, butterflies, whatever. And still an Ahmadinejad, a Chavez or a Putin will not be impressed.

With Bush’s first-term swagger, he may have made things unpopular for America among the masses. But his enemies knew that he would do what it takes to protect the US. His friends abroad assumed that the more they hated him publicly, the more privately they counted on his support in extremis.

Now? The more the masses hail Obama, the more overseas elites in private shudder that they are on their own.

And, of course, they are.

Article printed from Works and Days: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/riding-the-back-of-the-tiger/

Reality before the Day of Celebration

Perhaps the timing is off but I feel compelled to print this article from "American Thinker" now. It is just to awfully "right on the money" The Berkeleyite who so honestly wrote it needs to be heard by all who browse the conservative blogs etc.

I met Sarah Palin during her run for V.P. and was impressed. Not only is she beautiful she IS smart, charming, and as I have said many times over the "real liberated woman". Like the article points out "drop her off and she will survive".

That is what she is doing right now, in her own independent way. I have been reluctant to seriously think she had a chance to run for President and do anything more than take votes away from a Republican candidate. That is if she went "Rogue" and ran as a third party. But I am convinced that although I know I would be almost assuredly putting another 4 years of Obama or the likes of a very moderate Republican. I would vote for her out of simple principle.

The article spells it out in no uncertain terms. The visceral "hate" that the demented thinking left has filled their ranks with , and the reactionary venom spit that emanates from these followers.

I am not one to put much stock in the literal interpretation of the "Bible". But if I were going to point a finger at who represent all the fallen angels and their leader, the anti-Christ I would think that BO is a pretty good candidate along with his electorate.


The Wilding of Sarah Palin
By Robin of Berkeley
When I was in college, I read a book that changed my life. It was Susan Brownmiller's tome, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which explained rape as an act of power instead of just lust. What I found particularly chilling was the chapter on war -- how rape is used to terrorize a population and destroy the enemy's spirit.

While edifying, the book magnified the vulnerability I already felt as a female. Fear of rape became a constant dread, and I sought a solution that would help shield me from danger.

The answer: seek safe harbor within the Democratic Party. I even became an activist for feminist causes, including violence against women. Liberalism would protect me from the big, bad conservatives who wished me harm.

Like for most feminists, it was a no-brainer for me to become a Democrat. Liberal men, not conservatives, were the ones devoted to women's issues. They marched at my side in support of abortion rights. They were enthusiastic about women succeeding in the workplace.

As time went on, I had many experiences that should have made me rethink my certainty. But I remained nestled in cognitive dissonance -- therapy jargon for not wanting to see what I didn't want to see.

One clue: the miscreants who were brutalizing me didn't exactly look Reagan-esque. In middle and high schools, they were minority kids enraged about forced busing. On the streets of New York City and Berkeley, they were derelicts and hoodlums.

Another red flag: while liberal men did indeed hold up those picket signs, they didn't do anything else to protect me. In fact, their social programs enabled bad behavior and bred chaos in urban America. And when I was accosted by thugs, those leftist men were missing in action.

What else should have tipped me off? Perhaps the fact that so many men in ultra-left Berkeley are sleazebags. Rarely a week goes by that I don't hear stories from my young female clients about middle-aged men preying on them. With the rationale of moral relativism, these creeps feel they can do anything they please.

What finally woke me up were the utterances of "bitch," "witch," and "monster" toward Hillary Clinton and her supporters early last year. I was shocked into reality: the trash-talk wasn't coming from conservatives, but from male and female liberals.

I finally beheld what my eyes had refused to see: that leftists are Mr. and Ms. Misogyny. Neither the males nor the females care a whit about women.

Women are continually sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. If under radical Islam women are enshrouded and stoned and beheaded, so be it.

My other epiphanies: those ponytailed guys were marching for abortion rights not because they cherished women's reproductive freedom, but to keep women available for free and easy sex.

And the eagerness for women to make good money? If women work hard, leftist men don't have to.

Then along came Sarah, and the attacks became particularly heinous. And I realized something even more chilling about the Left. Leftists not only sacrifice and disrespect women, but it's far worse: many are perpetuators.

The Left's behavior towards Palin is not politics as usual. By their laser-focus on her body and her sexuality, leftists are defiling her.

They are wilding her. And they do this with the full knowledge and complicity of the White House.

The Left has declared war on Palin because she threatens their existence. Liberals need women dependent and scared so that women, like blacks, will vote Democrat.

A strong, self-sufficient woman, Palin eschews liberal protection. Drop her off in the Alaskan bush and she'll survive just fine, thank you very much. Palin doesn't need or want anything from liberals -- not hate crimes legislation that coddles her, and not abortion, which she abhors.

Palin is a woman of deep and abiding faith. She takes no marching orders from messiah-like wannabes like Obama.

And so the Left must try to destroy her. And they are doing this in the most malicious of ways: by symbolically raping her.

Just like a perpetuator, they dehumanize her by objectifying her body. They undress her with their eyes.

They turn her into a piece of ass.

Liberals do this by calling her a c__t, ogling her legs, demeaning her with names like "slutty flight attendant" and "Trailer Park Barbie," and exposing her flesh on the cover of Newsweek.

And from Atlantic Magazine's Andrew Sullivan "Sarah Palin's vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy."

Nothing is off-limits, not actress Sandra Bernhard's wish that Palin be gang-raped or the sexualization of Palin's daughters.

As every woman knows, leering looks, lurid words, and veiled threats are intended to evoke terror. Sexual violence is a form of terrorism.

The American Left has a long history of defiling people to control and break them. The hard core '60s leftists were masters of guerrilla warfare, like the Symbionese Liberation Army repeatedly raping Patty Hearst. Huey P. Newton sent a male Black Panther to the hospital, bloodied and damaged from a punishment of sodomy.

The extreme Left still consider themselves warriors, righteous soldiers for their Marxist cause. With Palin, they use sexual violence as part of their military arsenal.

Palin is not the only intended victim. As Against Our Will described, the brutality is also aimed at men. By forcing men to witness Palin's violation, the Left tries to emasculate conservative men and render them powerless.

The wilding of any woman is reprehensible. But defiling a mother of five with a babe in her arms, and a grandmother to boot, is particularly obscene. It is, of course, Palin's unapologetic motherhood that fuels the leftist fire.

Because as a mother and a fertile woman, Palin is as close to the sacred as a person gets. She is not just politically pro-life. Her whole being emanates life, which is a stark contrast to the darkness of the Left, the life-despoilers.

These "progressives" are so alienated from the sacred that they perceive nothing as sacred. And they will destroy anyone whose goodness shines a mirror on their pathology. The spiritually barren must annihilate the vital and the fertile.

It has been almost two years since I woke up and broke up with liberalism. During these many months, I've discovered that everything I believed was wrong.

But the biggest shock of all has been realizing that the Democratic Party is hardly an oasis for women. Now that it has been infiltrated by the hard Left, it's a dangerous place for women, children, and other living things.

In the wilding of Sarah Palin, the Left shows its true colors. Rather than sheild the vulnerable, leftists will mow down any man, woman, or child who gets in their way. Instead of a movement of hope and change, it is a cauldron of hate.

From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.


In these dark times, with spiritually bankrupt people at the helm, thank God we have bright lights like Sarah Palin to illuminate the darkness.

A frequent AT contributor, Robin is a psychotherapist and a recovering liberal in Berkeley.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_wilding_of_sarah_palin.html at November 25, 2009 - 07:33:59 PM EST

Dismiss General Casey ,

We don't yet know how bad the Ft. Hood shooter's case was. We do not know -- and we must find out -- how it was possible for an Army medical officer to openly express treasonous statements and not be court-martialed. We do not know if the shooter or his family members were under surveillance by the FBI or other federal law enforcement agencies. We must soon find out.

But we do know this much: Gen. George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, raced to the Sunday morning talk shows to express his deep concern. Gen. Casey's concern was not for American victory in the war on terror, nor for the safety of the American people, nor for the safety of U.S. military personnel. Gen. Casey's greatest concern was for diversity.

He said that if diversity were a "casualty," then it would be an even greater tragedy than the murders of fourteen innocent Americans.

If we want to know how such an obvious terror threat was ignored, how such a mass killer was enabled, we need look no further than the command climate created by Gen. Casey and his politically correct subordinates.

If you are serving in a forward unit of the Army today, can you have confidence that your fellow soldier can be trusted to "have your back"? Can you sleep soundly in an Army barracks wondering whether your bunkmate might be a jihadist?

Unit cohesion is essential to any effective fighting force. Troops must trust one another when their lives are on the line. By winking at treason, Gen. Casey and his subordinates allowed Major Nidal Hasan's conduct to taint every Muslim currently serving in the U.S. military.

No one has a right to serve. Service is an honor and a privilege, but it is not a right. Colorblind people and people with heart murmurs are perfectly loyal Americans. It casts no aspersion on them or their families to be excluded from military service.

All military personnel in the U.S. Armed Forces must demonstrate their loyalty to the United States of America. When they raise their right hand and take that oath before God to protect the Constitution of the United States "from all enemies foreign and domestic," Americans have a right to expect that that oath will be enforced. No one gets a pass.

Gen. Casey has clearly failed to do this. No action could reassure our troops more in the wake of the worst case of domestic terrorism since 9/11 that national security and loyalty to the United States is the first requirement for military service than the dismissal of Gen. Casey.

Our all-volunteer military should know that even a four-star general is held to the same high standard that we expect of the lowest-ranking enlisted man or woman. From now on, it should be understood by all our serving men and women that you can report disloyal, insubordinate, and treasonous statements by anyone in the military and that that report will be acted upon promptly.

Only if this lesson is forcefully taught by the prompt, public dismissal for cause of Gen. Casey will the troops have renewed confidence that they can trust all their fellow soldiers. They must know that the United States will be loyal to them as they are loyal to the United States.

In this, as in so many things, George Washington said it best. In his historic letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport in 1790, he wrote:

[The] Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.


Notice this strong pledge of respect for rights of religious minorities comes with a stern requirement: All good citizens must give their "effectual support." Can anyone say that Major Hasan -- after more than a decade of taxpayer-funded education and special treatment -- gave the United States his effectual support? Of course not.

There were warning signs aplenty. Many of the shooter's classmates and fellow officers raise concerns about this man's loyalty and reliability. The command climate created by Gen. Casey stifled those warning cries. The result is the death of innocents. Gen. Casey must be replaced as Army chief of staff.

Ken Blackwell is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/dismiss_general_casey.html at November 25, 2009 - 09:57:16 AM EST

Angelina Jolie Can’t Stand Obama – Says He’s a Socialist

Well surprise surprise, besides her looks she is actually beginning to show some intelligence. Not that I ever questioned her brain power. It's just that she has never really shown that she could think outside the Hollywood box when it comes to her pollitical views.

The article below says she "hates" Obama. I don't really think that is a fair .It is not in quotes. Perhaps she "hates" what he stands for not the man personally. Although it is interesting to see that she did not attend the White house shindig last evening.

Angelina my just turn out to really be a "chip off the ole block".


Borrowed from Gateway Pundit
Jim Hoft

There is Hope for Hollywood after all…
Angelina Jolie “hates” Obama.
jolie iraq
Jolie recently met with Iraqi refugees in Syria. (US Magazine)

Angelina Jolie says Obama is a socialist.
US Magazine reported:

Barack Obama does not have Angelina Jolie’s seal of approval.

“She hates him,” a source close to the U.N. goodwill ambassador, 34, tells the new issue of Us Weekly (on newsstands now).

“She’s into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts. She thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise,” adds the source.

But don’t expect to see the Salt actress rally against Democrats on Fox News like her staunch Republican father, Jon Voight.

“Angie isn’t Republican, but she thinks Obama is all smoke and mirrors,” the source says.

Losing Nicaragua

Taken from next weeks Weekly Standard

I wonder what all those American Liberal "NICA" FREAKS who bought what was supposed to be dirt cheap property, and beach front lots, in the "Best kept secret in Central America" over the last 10 years and became "big fish" in a tiny pond, will be doing as their property rights and their bank accounts become part of the Ortega plan.

Already there has been one journalist or I should say small time American publisher who has been kangaroo courted and convicted of murder and is now still trying after 3 years to get the American Ambassador to help his ass out, to no avail.

The fact that there are also thousands of Iranians opening up obscure businesses there also comes into question as to their true motive.Where is our CIA when you need them.

Actually they are there but have had their hands tied as to being able to do anything without a "go pass' from the White House, which is having trouble making up its mind as to what we should do about Afghanistan let alone a good buddy of the Obama administration.


The Sandinistas are slowly crushing democracy.
by Jaime Daremblum



With U.S. policymakers distracted by the situation in Honduras, Nicaragua continues to move toward authoritarianism. On October 19, a Nicaraguan Supreme Court panel overturned a constitutional provision limiting presidents to two non-consecutive terms in office. The ruling will allow incumbent Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega--the Sandinista party leader, former Soviet client, vociferous critic of the United States, and current Hugo Chávez acolyte--to run for another term in 2011.

If there were any doubts that Nicaraguan democracy is slowly being extinguished, this latest development should remove them. The Nicaraguan Supreme Court is composed of 16 members. Thanks to a political deal made by Ortega and Arnoldo Alemán, a former Nicaraguan president who went to jail for massive corruption, half the magistrates are appointed by the ruling Sandinistas, and the other half are appointed by the opposition Liberals. But due to the May 2009 death of one Liberal-appointed magistrate, and the fact that his seat still has not been filled, the Sandinistas currently enjoy an 8-7 majority, which means the court is effectively a Sandinista rubber-stamp.

Six magistrates made the decision to let Ortega seek reelection. And guess what? All six were Sandinista appointees--even though the court's six-member constitutional panel includes three Liberal magistrates. Those three Liberal judges were not summoned to the meeting at which the decision was made. Instead, the Sandinistas called in three "replacement" judges to guarantee their preferred ruling.

The Supreme Court's action represents a gross Sandinista power grab. It makes a mockery of Nicaraguan democracy. It is the kind of thing we expect from tin-pot dictatorships.

Unfortunately for the Nicaraguan people, the anti-Sandinista opposition parties are tainted by corruption and prone to infighting. Indeed, in its latest Corruption Perceptions Index, Transparency International ranks Nicaragua as the most corrupt country in Central America. Ortega has skillfully manipulated and divided opposition figures, just as the dictatorial Somoza regime (which ruled Nicaragua from 1936 to 1979) once did. The lack of a united opposition has made it easier for Ortega and his cronies to trample the democratic process.

In November 2008, the Sandinistas committed widespread fraud to rig municipal elections, leading to a suspension of U.S. and European aid. This was a particularly egregious example of Ortega's broader attempt to weaken or obliterate the checks on Sandinista authority. His party has embraced the thuggish mob tactics used by Chávez (and, prior to his arrest, by former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya). Just ask Robert Callahan, the U.S. ambassador in Managua. After Callahan criticized the pro-Ortega Supreme Court ruling as "improper," Sandinista followers vandalized the U.S. embassy. "A day later," the New York Times reports, "Ortega supporters surrounded Mr. Callahan at a university fair, forcing him to dash to his sport utility vehicle in a hasty getaway that was televised locally."

Despite being freely elected in 2006, Ortega never accepted the principles of democracy. During his previous stint as president of Nicaragua--following the 1979 Sandinista revolution, which toppled the Somoza dictatorship--he governed as a leftist autocrat and received aid from the Soviet Union. After losing a free election in 1990, Ortega worked to consolidate his influence over the Sandinista party. In 1999, he made a sinister pact with Alemán, one of the most corrupt leaders in recent Latin American history, who was then serving as Nicaraguan president.

The Ortega-Alemán pact established a power-sharing arrangement between the Sandinistas and the center-right Liberals. It was designed to let the two parties dominate Nicaragua's key political institutions--and to shield both Ortega and Alemán from possible legal troubles. Unfortunately for Alemán, it was not enough to save him from receiving a 20-year prison sentence in December 2003 (nearly two years after he left office). This past January, however, the Nicaraguan Supreme Court cleared Alemán of all charges and released him from jail. "In exchange for his freedom," Time magazine reported, "Alemán returned the favor by essentially forgiving the Sandinistas last November's electoral theft by providing the congressional votes needed to give Ortega control over the National Assembly, which had been considered the 'last democratic holdout.'"

Ortega's own 2006 election was made possible by his 1999 deal with Alemán, which led to constitutional reforms that lowered the popular-vote threshold needed to win presidential contests. In 2006, Liberal supporters were divided between José Rizo (the candidate of the Liberal Constitutional Party) and Eduardo Montealegre (the candidate of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance). Together, Rizo and Montealegre received a majority of the popular vote. But Ortega received 38 percent, which was enough to make him president.

As the poorest country in Central America, Nicaragua may seem insignificant to U.S. interests. Yet Hugo Chávez views Nicaragua as a crucial member of his anti-American bloc. As long as Ortega and the Sandinistas control Nicaragua, Chávez will have at least one ally in Central America. So will Russia and Iran, both of which have warm relations with the Ortega regime. Indeed, Nicaragua has even honored Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with two of its most prestigious awards (the Liberty Medal and the Rubén Darío Medal).

There is no question that Ortega is trying to secure an authoritarian grip on his country. In the 1980s, the U.S. government spent huge amounts of money and adopted controversial policies to support the cause of Nicaraguan democracy. Today, supporting that cause would require much less from the United States. But the Obama administration must first make Nicaragua a priority. Thus far, it has not.

Jaime Daremblum, who served as Costa Rica's ambassador to the United States from 1998 to 2004, is director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Hudson Institute.

Obama’s decision: 34,000 troops to Afghanistan

Combined with yesterday's leak about negotiating with the Taliban, the scenario, I laid out as early as last February is not that off the mark. I would still look in the end for Obama to put the blame of Kharzi,and American public pressure to accept the Taliban in his cabinet and Parliament from the provinces that they will take over.

McClatchy reports that Barack Obama made his decision last night on Afghanistan, and has decided on a number between McChrystal’s medium- and high-risk plans. Instead of 40,000 or 20,000, Obama will send an additional 34,000 troops to bolster the NATO forces and employ the counterinsurgency strategy that he publicly demanded for two years and made official US policy in March. However, McClatchy also reports that Obama won’t announce the new numbers until next week:

President Barack Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he’s called “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

Obama is expected to announce his long-awaited decision on Dec. 1, followed by meetings on Capitol Hill aimed at winning congressional support amid opposition by some Democrats who are worried about the strain on the U.S. Treasury and whether Afghanistan has become a quagmire, the officials said.

The U.S. officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and because, one official said, the White House is incensed by leaks on its Afghanistan policy that didn’t originate in the White House.

Perhaps part of their reluctance would also be that Obama threatened to fire anyone who leaked information about his decision. The comment about “not originating in the White House” seems odd, too. Did the White House want to pin the leaks on the Pentagon? Sourcing these as “US officials” makes it as generic as possible; that term could apply to an EPA clerk.

The new plan contains the “off-ramps” Obama demanded from his national security team. Those begin to arrive as early as June, according to McClatchy, giving the US a few easy outs if Obama chooses to retreat. If the “political side” or the war itself doesn’t improve, Obama apparently wants to get out altogether. In other words, this looks like McChrystal’s last stand. Next week, McChrystal will return to DC in order to help Obama roll this out, where Obama will almost certainly get significant pushback from Democrats in Congress over the cost and the need to keep fighting.

The increase in troops is a good decision, but the off-ramps almost completely undermine it. The point in extending our footprint is to win the trust of the local communities and prove our reliability in providing them security, which is the central thrust of McChrystal’s COIN strategy. By getting them to trust our commitment, we can get them to help fight the Taliban themselves, as we did with the Anbar Awakening in Iraq against al-Qaeda, and greatly improve the intel we get from the locals. If we send 34,000 more troops but give ourselves a six-month time frame for success or bug-out, the locals will very quickly come to the realization that allying with us will be suicide. The COIN strategy only worked in Iraq because George W. Bush was adamant that we would stay until we won.

A Commander in Chief doesn’t need “off-ramps.” Any President can call an end to a deployment based on his own judgment. Putting these conditions into the American strategy signals weakness — a desire to pull out without getting blamed for the decision. Obama wants to be off the hook for an eventual withdrawal by claiming that he’s forced to do it because of these benchmark failures. And if Obama’s that keen to retreat, he should just do it now

W.T.F., I hate it when I am right !

I said it months and months ago that the POTUSSOB, would do this!. God I hate it when I am right. We need to find something to IMPEACH THIS GUY!.

This will be a crippling blow for our military, and our National Security. The propaganda will be phenomenal as a victory for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Obama will leave a legacy that I predict right now will be the crowning underachievement of his 4 year reign. This and this alone will mark him as the worst President ever !!!, in the history of the United States.

So many blunders in so little time!. Everyone keeps saying that Obama is calculated about what he does. I don't think so. As far left as he is I am convinced that this guy is nothing but a pure straw man.An idiot! HE BELONGS IN THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS (Sorry guys for the insult, you rate much more than the likes of him). Actually a real straw man (a scarecrow) would have more sense than this "Borat Obamination."

Can he take the United States any lower? This is shear abandonment of our allies, who stood beside us in this conflict. HOW CAN HE DO THIS.

Obama says he sleeps at night! Yes I imagine he does. So do all the rest of the dimwits in the sanitarium. (scuuzie me for being unpolitically correct).

This is an outrage!! an outrage!!. WE NEED TO STOP THIS INSANITY! this man knows not what he does. Who the F... are his real advisors? Find a wall and pull a Che' now!

I am soooooo angry right now I have to go stand in a cold shower to cool off.


Afghan Source: The U.S. Has Offered the Taliban Control in Return for Quiet

An Afghan source in Kabul reports that U.S. Ambassador in Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry is holding secret talks with Taliban elements headed by the movement's foreign minister, Ahmad Mutawakil, at a secret location in Kabul. According to the source, the U.S. has offered the Taliban control of the Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, Kunar and Nuristan provinces in return for a halt to the Taliban missile attacks on U.S. bases.

Source: Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), November 22, 2009


Posted at: 2009-11-22

Someone is still keeping an eye on it.

I borrowed this late today because I think it is extremely important to continue in follow up. It was posted on and thank goodness there are still bloggers and pundits who want to see justice done, despite the silent opposition by the MSM.

Thanks to those who are much better at being consistent than I.


Walpin firing update

Byron York continues on the Walpin case, even if hardly anyone else is paying attention (something the Obama administration is banking on).

York writes that, just a few hours after Senator Charles Grassley and Representative Darrell Issa had presented a report on their investigation into the Walpin firing, the White House released previously-withheld documents germane to the case. No doubt the timing is a mere coincidence.

Here is some of what is disclosed in the new information:

The new documents support the Republican investigators’ conclusion that the White House’s explanation for Walpin’s dismissal — that it came after the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, unanimously decided that Walpin must go — was in fact a public story cobbled together after Walpin was fired, not before…

Pressed for the reason Walpin was fired, Eisen told House and Senate aides that the White House conducted an “extensive review” of complaints about Walpin’s performance before deciding to dismiss him. According to the new report, Eisen told Congress that “his investigation into the merits of removing Gerald Walpin involved contacting members of the Corporation for National and Community Service [CNCS] board to confirm the existence of a ‘consensus’ in favor of removal.” But Republican investigators later discovered that during that “extensive review,” the White House did not even seek the views of the corporation’s board — the very people whose “consensus” purportedly led to Walpin’s firing.

It goes on. But to anyone who’s been paying attention to this particular story, or to the actions of the Obama administration in general, none of it should come as a surprise.

At the risk of redundancy, let me just ask: can you imagine what the headlines would have been had Bush done this?

[NOTE: As for the Grassley/Issa report, it goes into some new details on the allegations against Johnson that IG Walpin was investigating when fired. It indicates that:

…Walpin was in fact fired because of the dispute over St. Hope and concludes that the White House “orchestrated an after-the-fact smear campaign to justify” Walpin’s dismissal.

The report says the [newly revealed] allegations of sexual misconduct and a cover-up “provide important context for Walpin’s insistence that the St. Hope matter should not have been settled without further inquiry.” In light of those allegations, the report says, complaints that Walpin was being too aggressive seem unfounded. “The content of the referral tends to undermine any notion that the [inspector general’s] investigation was driven by inappropriate motives on the part of Walpin,” the report says. “Rather, it appears to have been driven by non-political, career investigators simply following the facts.”

Obama and his Chicago friends: continuing to demonstrate the Chicago Way of doing the government’s business.]

I only hope he is right !

Taken from a cross post at Pajama's Media

Where Has the Thrill Gone?

Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On November 22, 2009 @ 9:04 pm In Uncategorized | 46 Comments

The Harder They Fall?

Who appointed over 40 ambassadors on the sole basis of campaign contributions, or has as many lobbyists in government as did any President in memory? And who releases touchy news—whether increased unemployment or trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civil courts—on Friday nights, or wants his Democratically-controlled Congress to debate unpopular legislation on Saturday nights?

You see where this is going. Prophets fall harder than normal politicians. When you claim that seas recede and planets cool before your presence, and that Latin mottos, new presidential candidate seals, neo-classical victory trophies, and faux-Greek temple sets are the appropriate backdrops for Your speeches, then you raise the bar a bit high. Obama is not necessarily any more partisan than a Nixon or Reagan or Bush, only just as partisan—but when he claimed something quite different.

Add in the hope/change mantra, and a cadre of lackies talking about tingling legs, his majesty Caesar, and apotheosis into a “god”, and our young Icarus was simply soaring too near the sun for his own fragile wax-feather wings. The problem is not just that Obama is proving Clinton-like in his Chicago hardball partisanship (cf. the trash-talk of Rahm Emanuel, Mao-admirer Anita Dunn, or the Truther Vann Jones), but that his entire persona was fabricated on a touchy-feely “there is no red state, no blue state America.”

Despite Obama’s vows to restore science to its rightful place in government (I think that was his dig at George Bush’s opposition to human embryo, stem-cell research), we get superstition. Instead of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ non-partisan, depressing unemployment figures, we are instead to rely on a new unproven notion of jobs “saved” and “created”, and in nonexistent, made-up congressional districts, listed, no less, on a government recovery.gov official website. War against reason?

Remember the “reset” button promises abroad? Do we have a safer, saner relationship with Putin? Is Iran closer to disarmament? North Korea quieter? Did George Mitchell transform the Middle East? Is the “good” war still good, the “bad” one still bad? Do the Brits feel the special relationship is stronger? Maybe Sarkozy is more impressed now with America, or are the Poles and Czechs?

And do Chavez, Castro, Ortega, Morales, Zelaya, and others in Latin America feel more pressure to be democratic or less? Is one third of the planet in India and China more comfortable with the messiah Obama or with the hated Bush?

At Home

And the future? Will the country look eagerly forward to cap-and-trade taxes? The new income tax rates? Will small businesses like the caps off FICA taxable income, and health car surcharges? Perhaps the people can get behind impending “comprehensive immigration reform” (in the way we are now for “comprehensive health care”), which will deemphasize enforcement and emphasize amnesty?

As Obama’s popularity falls, expect his own partisanship to increase, and the Chicago brass knuckles to be more evident. Obama knows that he can hope and change only until he hits 35-40% approval ratings, and is rendered shouting to half-empty audience halls and a triangulating congress.

Full Steam Ahead

A final prognosis—or why Obama is in deep, deep trouble, since he won’t quit in his dream to transmogrify American into something like Belgium at best and Brazil at worse.

Millions of independents and swing voters went for Obama for five reasons: (1) they believed the media hype that Bush was the “worst” (fill in the blanks); (2) the sudden financial panic of September 2008 and the anger at Wall Street banditry and bail-outs; (3) Obama’s youth, charm, and oratory; (4) the feel-good novelty of voting in our first African-American president; (5) Obama’s centrist campaign message of paying down debt, working with allies, drilling, being tough against Al Qaeda, and being bipartisan.

It’s taken almost 11 months, but voters now know that propositions 1-5 are now refuted or irrelevant:

1) Bush is history. Like Truman, in time he will begin to look better not worse. More importantly, Bush’s sins that bothered voters— too much big government and big deficits—were simply trumped by Obama’s gargantuan deficits and federalization of health care, banking, and the auto industry. “Bush did it” doesn’t work any more. “Obama did it even more” is the new worry.

2) The panic that we would lose all our 401(k’s) and home equity has passed. What we are left with in its wake is a sinking feeling that badgering small business and the Chamber of Commerce, as if they are Goldman Sachs grandees, isn’t working. Raising income, payroll, and surcharge taxes at a time state, local, and sales taxes are surging, is, well, a good way to turn a recession into a depression—or at least a stagflating, weak recovery. Sometime around next March, “Bush’s did it” will transmogrify into Obama’s recession. Obama can’t run against the economy, but must fix it—or take the blame. His best hope is that the Republicans don’t run a demagogic figure such as he himself acted in 2007-8.

3) Obama’s smoothness is getting old. All of us can almost write the next Obama speech: a) “some” say/do, but “I” say/do… The bad straw man is set up, followed by the contrast of the annoited “I” and “me” ad nauseam. b) then comes the apology for the sins of the rest of us—mitigated somewhat by the election of , yes, Barack Obama, the first black President; c) third is the impossible: spending more on health care saves more; cap and trade massive taxes will result in economies; no more lobbyists means gads of them, Bush shredded the Constitution equates into I’m copying his anti-terror protocols; d) an end with hope and change ruffles and flourishes. Bottom line: the oratory is old and trite, given the lack of commensurate accomplishments.

4) On the matter of racial landmarks, some of the voters think, righty or wrongly, that they did their thing, proving America is not racist by the fact of Obama’s election. Now? A lot of independents, however, won’t seem obligated to vote in 2010 or 2012, motivated by the same sense of liberal assuagement of guilt. This been there/done that feeling will be accentuated should Obama’s supporters continue to play the race card as his popularity dips as a result of a statist and neo-socialist agenda.

5) We know now that the campaign was a centrist deception. Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright make logical the presence of the Truther Vann Jones and Anita Dunn (cf. her encomium to Mao). His most partisan Senate record presages his near suicidal effort to ram through statist health care, tax hikes, and partisan appointments, in addition to polarizing rhetoric. His campaign promises to meet with Ahmadinejad were not only met, but again trumped by serial apologies, selling out the Poles and Czechs and outreach to Chavez and Castro. In other words, the so-called right-wing nuts who tried to scare the hell out of voters are proving to be Nostradamuses of sorts.

All sorts of things can happen. Printing and borrowing can give us a brief, though unsustainable recovery around 2010. A war could break out. We could get hit big-time again as in 9/11.

That said, I think not merely the thrill is gone, but a righteous anger about an Obama trifecta— of serial apologies and bows abroad, massive borrowing and deficit spending, and government-take overs of private spheres of life—is swelling up in the electorate. I haven’t seen in my lifetime anything quite like it. And this furor of being had has the potential not just to take Obama down, but also his ideology and supporters along with him for a generation.

Article printed from Works and Days: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson

Obamanomics 101; No cheers for Capitalism

Back in February, President Obama met with a group of CEOs in the White House, seeking their support for his economic stimulus package. One of his chief targets was Jim Owens, the head of Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois. The day after the session in Washington, the president flew to Peoria to speak at the Caterpillar factory and took Owens and newly elected Republican representative Aaron Schock, the youngest member of Congress at 28, with him.

Aboard Air Force One, Obama chatted amiably with Owens and Schock. Owens showed Obama two pages of a PowerPoint presentation. The first gave the details of China's stimulus, devoted mostly to infrastructure. The second was Obama's stimulus (drafted by congressional Democrats), with far less money going to building and repairing roads, bridges, and other projects. That was the problem, Owens told Obama: too little for infrastructure and thus too little to engage companies like Caterpillar, which had just furloughed 20,000 workers.

When Obama delivered his speech in Peoria, he either hadn't understood what Owens told him or simply refused to accept it. The stimulus package, he said, would be "a major step forward on our path to economic recovery. And I'm not the only one who thinks so." Owens, the president said, had told him that "if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off."

This was not only untrue, but proved to be embarrassing for Obama. After the speech, Owens talked to reporters at the foot of the podium. No, he wouldn't be bringing back any workers. (Later, Caterpillar announced that 2,500 of the layoffs would be permanent.) Owens and Schock flew back to Washington on Air Force One. This time, Obama ignored them. There was a chill. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and adviser David Axelrod walked past Owens and Schock repeatedly to speak to the press pool in the rear of the plane. They didn't stop to chat either.

I bring up Obama's Peoria adventure because it bears on the Jobs Summit for which he has summoned business leaders to the White House on December 3. In February, the president and Owens were not on the same wavelength. That's likely to be the case with Obama and the business community at the summit as well--unless Obama has changed his economic tune significantly. There's no reason to believe he has. Nor have congressional Democrats.

Obama has his own theory of our current economic situation. His "first job," he told Chuck Todd of NBC News, was to stave off another "Great Depression," save government jobs (police, firefighters, teachers), and "make sure certain sectors of the economy were supported," such as "construction and infrastructure." "We've gotten that job done," he said.

"Our next job is to make sure we can accelerate the job growth," he said. "   So what we're seeing now is businesses are starting to invest again, they are starting to be profitable again, but they haven't started hiring again."

What's the matter with these business guys? The suggestion here is they ought to be hiring. But they're "sitting on the sidelines," the president told Major Garrett of Fox News. He regards them as not-very-conscientious objectors, avoiding the struggle to revive the economy and put people back to work. They're not doing their part, their duty.

Stronger words from Obama may follow. During the Depression, President Roosevelt demonized business and the wealthy ("economic royalists") and raised their taxes. When they declined to invest and stir economic growth, he accused them of staging a "capital strike." The Obama equivalent, if it comes to that, would be a "hiring strike."

We haven't gotten there yet. But Obama has made clear in his 10-month presidency that he has minimal respect for business or the profit motive. Ambitious, talented young people should work for nonprofits. Last summer, he criticized doctors who gouged by insisting on expensive tonsillectomies to cure simple sore throats. They reflected a "business mentality," he said.

And what the president doesn't understand--or, to be more charitable, refuses to acknowledge--about free markets, the economy, and competition could fill a book, or at least an Obama speech. The economic growth he sees was produced, in part, by cash-for-clunkers and the first-time homebuyers tax credit. It foreshadowed an unusually weak recovery. And the profits came largely from cost-cutting, not a flood of new revenue.

Obama told Garrett that spending cuts or tax increases would jeopardize the recovery. But what do businesses, small and large, see staring them in the face? Tax increases--President Obama's tax increases. He backs an increase in tax rates on income, dividends, and capital gains that will go into effect in 2011. Obama-care, should it pass, is loaded with tax hikes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants a Value Added Tax.

The president is looking at "tax provisions" to spur hiring, but he's done that before. Last winter, he spoke fondly of a two-year tax credit to boost small business hiring, but congressional Democrats declined to put it in the stimulus. Instead, they produced a measure that bailed out profligate state and local governments and rewarded liberal interest groups.

That stimulus has failed to stimulate, and the administration's claims of jobs it has supposedly created or saved have been discredited and become a national scandal. Obama's excuse: Calculating a jobs number is an "inexact science."

Small, targeted tax cuts like the one aimed at small business won't do much for hiring. "This is an anti-risk-taking climate," says Republican representative Paul Ryan. "You have to give them [businesses and investors] incentives to lower the price of risk." Ryan recommends cutting the business income tax to 25 percent from 35 percent, eliminating the tax on capital gains for two years, and providing a 100 percent tax writeoff for equipment, plant construction, and other expenses the first year. Hiring would follow.

Presidents from Calvin Coolidge to John Kennedy to Ronald Reagan to George Bush understood that strong incentives are necessary to trigger rapid growth and hiring. Strong incentives, plus more investment in infrastructure, would no doubt have won the endorsement of Jim Owens of Caterpillar. He didn't get them from Obama, and my guess is he never will.

Taken from Weekly Standard November 30

Out to Destroy America

Taken from "Protein Wisdom"


ObamaCare — it really wasn’t ever about “health”, Darleen Click

Michael Ramirez

The power to tax is the power to destroy and ObamaCrats need to tear down America to rebuild it in their image. Hence:

The U.S. Senate recently released its long-awaited proposal for a government-run hostile takeover of the entire U.S. health care system. Predictably, it includes a barrage of higher taxes to pay for the bill’s immense price tag. [...]

All these increases, combined with state and local income taxes, would raise the average top marginal rate in the U.S. to over 52 percent. This would be higher than traditionally high-tax countries such as Italy, Spain, and even France. [...]

Below is a list of the tax increases Congress and the Administration have proposed to finance health care reform. This list includes taxes in the bill passed by the House of Representatives, the bill the Senate is currently debating, and other taxes mentioned as a possible way to pay for health care reform.

•An income surtax on taxpayers earning more than $500,000 a year,[1]
•An excise tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance plans that cost more than $8,500 a year for individuals or $21,000 for families,[2]
•An excise tax on medical devices such as wheelchairs, breast pumps, and syringes used by diabetics for insulin injections,[3]
•A cap on the exclusion of employer-provided health insurance without offsetting tax cuts,[4]
•A limit on itemized deductions for taxpayers with a top income tax rate greater than 28 percent,[5]
•A windfall profits tax on health insurance companies,[6]
•A value-added tax, which would tax the value added to a product at each stage of production,[7]
•An increase in the Medicare portion of the payroll tax to 3.4 percent for incomes great than $200,000 a year ($250,000 for married filers),[8]
•An excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages including non-diet soda and sports drinks,[9]
•Higher taxes on alcoholic beverages including beer, wine, and spirits,[10]
•A tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage of up to 2.5 percent of their adjusted gross income,[11]
•A limit on contributions to health savings accounts,[12]
•An 8 percent tax on all wages paid by employers that do not provide their employees health insurance that satisfies the requirements defined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services,[13]
•A limit on contributions to flexible spending arrangements,[14]
•Elimination of the deduction for expenses associated with Medicare Part D subsidies,[15]
•An increase in taxes on international businesses,[16]
•Elimination of the tax credits paper companies take for biofuels they create in their production process–the so-called “Black Liquor credit,”[17]
•Fees on insured and self-insured health plans,[18]
•A limit or repeal of the itemized deduction for medical expenses,[19]
•A limit on the Qualified Medical Expense definition,[20]
•An increase in the payroll taxes on students,[21]
•An extension of the Medicare payroll tax to all state and local government employees,[22]
•An increase in taxes on hospitals,[23]
•An increase in the estate tax,[24]
•Increased efforts to close the mythical “tax gap,”[25]
•A 5 percent tax on cosmetic surgery and similar procedures such as Botox treatments, tummy tucks, and face lifts,[26]
•A tax on drug companies,[27]
•An increase in the corporate tax on providers of health insurance,[28] and
•A $500,000 deduction limitation for the compensation paid by health insurance companies to their officers, employees, and directors.[29]

On top of our income tax, surtaxes and fees, note above (bolded) a VAT tax, a marriage penalty and increasing the death tax.

This is not stupidity, this is the kind of maliciousness borne of a radical commitment to an un-American ideology that sees Liberty as a problem to be crushed on the way to Utopia.

Work site arrests of illegals fall dramatically

The article below shows that if you want to work for substandard wages that you still can. After all the Government "not of your country of origin" is willing to subsidized you additional needs if you do so.

What a wrong message to be putting out! This will not stop illegals from coming to the U.S.. Especially at such a crucial time in our economy.

Article from Washington Times

Stephen Dinan

Arrests of illegal immigrant workers have dropped precipitously under President Obama, according to figures released Wednesday.

Criminal arrests, administrative arrests, indictments and convictions of illegal immigrants at work sites all fell by more than 50 percent from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009.

The figures show that Mr. Obama has made good on his pledge to shift enforcement away from going after illegal immigrant workers themselves - but at the expense of Americans' jobs, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the Republican who compiled the numbers from the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

Mr. Smith, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said a period of economic turmoil is the wrong time to be cutting enforcement and letting illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans otherwise would hold.

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"Those stolen jobs should be returned to out-of-work citizens and legal immigrants," he said. "The Obama administration should put citizens and legal immigrants first, especially when it comes to jobs."

One area where the Obama administration has made progress was in audits of businesses' I-9 forms, which jumped 300 percent. Those audits could produce fines in the future, but Republicans said that most businesses consider them a cost of doing business, not a deterrent.

The numbers were released just days after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the administration has made such advances on border security that Congress should now work on legalizing illegal immigrants.

"These statistics reflect a myopic, outdated and distorted view of effective enforcement," said Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler. "Just a week ago, we highlighted the more than 11,000 murderers, rapists and kidnappers identified in our jails by the Secure Communities program in the last year, nearly 2,000 of which have already been deported. ICE has prioritized its enforcement efforts by focusing on hardened criminals and employers who knowingly hire illegal workers and break the law."

Frank Sharry, founder of America's Voice, an immigrant rights advocacy group, said Mr. Smith shouldn't be surprised - this is what Mr. Obama promised to change from the George W. Bush administration, which focused heavily on illegal immigrant workers rather than employers.

He said it marks a major change from former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to Ms. Napolitano, and that it will pay dividends as employers take heed.

"I would argue that Napolitano's being tough and smart, rather than what Chertoff did, which was looking tough but giving employers a pass," Mr. Sharry said. "I would suggest Lamar Smith is more interested in expelling millions of illegal workers than truly getting tough on bad-actor employers."

After Mr. Bush's efforts to pass an immigration bill failed in 2007, Mr. Chertoff said he would step up enforcement on his own and that workplaces would be a key target.

That led to high-profile raids and drew protests from immigrant rights groups who said families were being separated by the actions.

During last year's presidential campaign, Mr. Obama said those efforts were misplaced and he promised to refocus on unscrupulous employers who made a pattern of hiring illegal immigrants.

According to the newly released figures, administrative arrests of violators of immigration laws fell 68 percent from 2008 to 2009, criminal arrests fell 60 percent, criminal indictments fell 58 percent and convictions fell 63 percent.

Fiscal 2008 ran from Oct. 1, 2007, through Sept. 30, 2008. Fiscal 2009 began Oct. 1, 2008, and ran through Sept. 30 of this year. Mr. Obama took office Jan. 20.

In an April memo, Marcy M. Forman, director of ICE's Office of Investigation, laid out the new enforcement policy.

She said arresting illegal immigrant workers is still important but the focus must shift to employers.

"Enforcement efforts focused on employers better target the root causes of illegal immigration," she said, pointing to numbers that showed that under the Bush administration in 2008, employers made up just 2 percent of all work site arrests.

She also said ICE agents also should go after employers not just for hiring, but also look for mistreatment of workers and evidence of human trafficking, identity fraud or money laundering.

The Obama administration has promised to pursue a new legalization program next year. It would create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who commit to steps such as paying back taxes and waiting a set period of years.

In a speech last week, Ms. Napolitano said they have made enough progress on border security and immigration enforcement that Congress can now turn its attention to legalization.

But Republicans said her speech was premature. They pointed to uncertainties about the numbers and that with hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants still being apprehended on the borders, the flow has not been controlled.

They also argue that legalizing illegal immigrants in the middle of a recession is unfair to Americans looking for jobs.

Led by Mr. Smith and Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, House Republicans are holding a forum Thursday to look at how illegal immigrants are affecting the job market.