Freedom Over Fear

May, by the grace of God, still prevail in the Twenty-First Century

It may turn out to be one of the most important facts of the 21st century that the American people - as exemplified by, but not limited to, the tea-party fighters – came down on the side of freedom over fear. I don't know if there is another people on the planet who would have had a similar impulse and judgment. It is, to use a word, exceptional (as in "American exceptionalism").

It is why we live in hope this Christmas season that we may yet claw back our government in time to protect our grandchildren's freedom and prosperity.

"Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind." - Lord Byron. [My emphasis]

From a Washington Times article, 'Yet, Freedom!', more below:

The Spirit of ’76 Lives! | “Not a man can be a slave, / While shouting the battle cry of “Freedom!” | “Let tyrants shake their iron rods, / And slavery clank her galling chains / We fear them not, we trust in God. / New England’s God forever reigns.” | It was on Christmas, actually, when Washington demolished the Hessians at Trenton. | Merry Christmas to all.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

'Yet, Freedom!' [/] Tuesday, December 22, 2009 [/] Tony Blankley

Taking stock this second Christmas after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, as a conservative Republican (with growing tea-party tendencies) I'm filled with a thrilling, unexpected hopefulness that the president may be well on his way to losing his battle for the hearts and minds of the American people - tempered by a shocked disbelief that so much long-term damage could have been perpetrated on the American economy, national security and way of life in just 11 months of ill-judged governance.

Inevitably, Charles Dickens' immortal opening sentence to "A Tale of Two Cities" comes to mind:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."

Remarkably, this view could apply equally to the left and to the right. Mr. Obama first thrilled, then disappointed and now enrages the left with his policies of (as they now see it): (1) giving the banks, health insurance companies, drug companies, for-profit hospitals and Washington lobbyists everything they want; (2) doing nothing for middle-class homeowners; and (3) escalating the war in Afghanistan.

Of course, conservatives are appalled at (among other things) the trillions of dollars in new deficits, the nationalizations, the trillion-dollar partisan slush fund (i.e., stimulus packages), the attempted federal government takeover of the private economy via carbon taxing and regulating, the weakening of our anti-terrorism efforts, the never-ending worldwide apology tour, the undercutting of allies while appeasing enemies, and the ongoing effort to destroy our health care system and replace it with a socialized, rationing Euro-system.

Remarkably, the president cannot even credibly make the claim that if he has the left and right agitated it is because he is going down the sensible middle. The Dec. 9 Quinnipiac Poll mirrors what other polls are showing: Mr. Obama is losing the independents, too. In that poll, overall, the president's approval/disapproval was 46 percent to 44 percent. However, with independents he was at 37 percent approval and 51 percent disapproval.

Of course, for both the left and the right, all our hopes and dreads hinge on how an increasingly volatile American public expresses itself on Election Day. Currently, in head-to-head polling of generic party voting intentions, the Republicans, who had been steadily down by double digits (and as much as 18 percent) to the Democrats, in the past few months have surged to a 2 percent to 3 percent advantage (RealClearPolitics' latest average: 43.3 percent to 41 percent).

But all is not solidity on the right. In one of the more remarkable entrances into American politics, the tea-party movement, which did not exist until spring, already has gained a second-place affiliation status in Scott Rasmussen's poll last month: Democratic Party, 36 percent; tea party, 23 percent; Republican Party, 18 percent. [/] That number is, if anything, probably understated because the polling respondents are taken from voter registration lists. And based on what I have observed while attending tea-party events (and from other sources), it is my sense that many tea-party people may not even have registered to vote in the past. (They are registering now, by golly.)

Keep in mind: They have no national leaders - no billionaire Ross Perot-type nor nationally admired Barry Goldwater-type. Of course, individuals are stepping up across the country to help organize, but they are the purest example of what Thomas Jefferson might have called an aroused yeomanry (back then, the small freeholders who cultivated their own land). They are a reaction (in the very best sense of the word) to the ongoing attempted power grab by Washington of a free people's wealth and rights.

In the aftermath of the economic collapse and the election of a glamorous new, young president who seemed to many people as a fresh force, unentangled with entrenched special interests (emphatically not my view, during the election or afterward) - the country could have gone one of two ways: Fearing the rigors of economic hard times, people could have sought shelter under the wing of a stronger government (as Americans did during the Great Depression), or, fearing the power of government, they could seek shelter in freedom - come what may economically. […] [/] Tony Blankley is the author of "American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century" (Regnery, 2009) and vice president of the Edelman public-relations firm in Washington. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Obama Hides His Credentials!?!

Yet demands credibility!!! | While touting openess, accountability, and transparency!!!

The real issue, however, is not about birthers or theories or racism or whatever else you want to add. The real issue is about the secrecy of Barack Obama, and it involves more than the release of his complete birth records. Hospital records; high school, college and law school records; transcripts; writings; and passport info have been requested, and all are being withheld by Obama.

Mr. Obama is presented as the smartest man in the country, yet we have not seen his college course list or grades. Hmm, hmm, hmm.

A normative democratic society cannot allow a president to continue to speak disingenuously about transparency while withholding basic information. [My emphasis]

From an American Thinker .com article, Mr. Obama: Tear Down Your Wall of Secrecy, more below:

Just how foolish are the media --- and the electorate?!?

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

Mr. Obama: Tear Down Your Wall of Secrecy [/] December 22, 2009 [/] By Monte Kuligowski

Everyone has gotten the memo by this point: Do not question Barack Obama. Even conservatives have been warned by other conservatives about mentioning the secrecy issue: It's pointless and can only harm conservatism. [/] Recently, Rusty Humphries broke the rule and asked Sarah Palin if she would make the "birth certificate an issue" if she runs for office. In her answer, she noted that people "still want answers" and "it's a fair question." Her enemies pounced quickly, casting her as a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist.

[…] We happen to have a president who touts openness, accountability, and transparency in a way that is unparalleled when compared to all previous presidents. Yet we know less about this man than about his predecessors. Consequently, there are twists of irony and feelings of distrust at almost every turn in the Obama presidency.

I therefore suggest a couple of reasons for the president to hit the reset button and release the requested information. [/] People have asked to see the records. [/] That doesn't seem to be too much to ask from a man of outspoken transparency. And these are not just any people, but citizens of the U.S., over whom he presides, who have asked. They're not asking for the moon and the stars -- just simple documents.

The "natural born" requirement of the U.S. Constitution was inserted to prevent conflicting loyalties and ideologies in a president. Citizens have the right to feel assured in that constitutional protection. [/] Mr. Obama is the only president in U.S. history whose father was a foreign national in the U.S. on a student visa. His father was a non-practicing-Muslim-turned-atheist, and his mother later remarried another foreign national, this one from from Indonesia, who was also a Muslim.

Some believe Obama was adopted and became a citizen of his stepfather's country. Obama's mother moved him to Indonesia in 1967 to live with his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro. While other children Obama's age in America were pledging allegiance to the U.S. and learning to respect America, Obama as a schoolboy (grades 1-5) registered as Barry Soetoro, was reading from the Koran, reciting Muslim prayers, and learning the civics of Indonesia (the Indonesian school records were released independently prior to Obama's blockade).

Mr. Obama is the only president in U.S. history to have been raised in nontraditional/non-Christian homes. Based on what he's said, his mother was an agnostic. Obama's grandparents, with whom he lived for a period, were extremely left-leaning in their religion and politics. As Obama admits in one of his two pre-accomplishment autobiographies, he associated with Marxists and radical leftists during his college days.

The president's situation is remarkably unique, and his uniqueness has nothing to do with the color of his skin. People have an assortment of reasons for wanting to see Obama's complete birth certificate and other records. [/] Yes, Mr. Obama has posted a bare-bones "certification of live birth" (which doesn't name the hospital or physician), and Hawaii has confirmed that the long-form certificate exists. However, it is no secret that births were routinely registered in 1961 by affidavit under the laws (Act 96) of the newly admitted state. On affidavits of non-hospital deliveries, certifications of live birth were generated in Hawaii.

Now, my argument is not that a foreign birth was registered as Hawaiian on a false affidavit. (Also, I don't argue that dual citizenship or a foreign adoption disqualify Obama.) That misses the point. My argument is that because Obama says he is transparent, he should be transparent -- especially when people have asked for the info. [/] No one should have had to file in court for Obama's records, including his birth records showing his hospital and delivering physician. And taxpayers should not have to foot the Justice Department's efforts in defending the withholding of basic information. Releasing the information would cost virtually nothing. The president should want to provide all the requested documents, especially when doubt exists. By withholding the requested information, Obama is slapping transparency in the face while trying to make it a feature of his presidency.

Mr. Obama might want to reconsider releasing simple documents to show that he respects the people. By refusing to do so, it sort of makes him look really arrogant, as if releasing the information would be beneath him. If he has nothing to hide, all that remains is inexplicable arrogance. […] [My ellipses and emphasis]

Obamacare: Horrendous Backlash!?!

And well deserved by Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and assorted co-conspirators!!!

3. The problem isn’t simply with how substantively awful the bill is but how deeply dishonest and (legally) corrupt the whole process has been. There’s already a powerful populist, anti-Washington sentiment out there, perhaps as strong as anything we’ve seen. This will add kerosene to that raging fire.

4. Democrats have sold this bill as a miracle-worker; when people see first-hand how pernicious health-care legislation will be, abstract concerns will become concrete. That will magnify the unhappiness of the polity.

5. The collateral damage to Obama from this bill is enormous. More than any candidate in our lifetime, Obama won based on the aesthetics of politics. It wasn’t because of his record; he barely had one. And it wasn’t because of his command of policy; few people knew what his top three policy priorities were. It was based instead on the sense that he was something novel, the embodiment of a “new politics” – matured, high-minded and gracious, intellectually serious. That was the core of his speeches and his candidacy. In less than a year, that core has been devoured, most of all by this health-care process. [My emphasis]

From a Commentary Magazine .com article, The Health-Care Backlash, more below:

The people are awakening from their stupendous stupor. 56% now disapprove, 46% strongly disapprove Obama’s performance.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

The Health-Care Backlash [/] Posted By Peter Wehner On December 21, 2009 @ 3:07 PM In Contentions [/] Here are some thoughts on where things stand in the aftermath of the certain passage of the Senate health-care bill.

1. Few Democrats understand the depth and intensity of opposition that exists toward them and their agenda, especially regarding health care. Passage of this bill will only heighten the depth and intensity of the opposition. We’re seeing a political tsunami in the making, and passage of health-care legislation would only add to its size and force.

2. This health-care bill may well be historic, but not in the way the president thinks. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything quite like it: passage of a mammoth piece of legislation, hugely expensive and unpopular, on a strict party-line vote taken in a rush of panic because Democrats know that the more people see of ObamaCare, the less they like it.

[…] Mr. Obama has shown himself to be a deeply partisan and polarizing figure. (“I have never been asked to engage in a single serious negotiation on any issue, nor has any other Republican,” Senator McCain reported over the weekend.) The lack of transparency in this process has been unprecedented and bordering on criminal. The president has been deeply misleading in selling this plan. Lobbyists, a bane of Obama during the campaign, are having a field day. [/] President Obama may succeed in passing a terribly unpopular piece of legislation – but in the process, he has shattered his carefully cultivated image. It now consists of a thousand shards.

6. This health-care bill shouldn’t be seen in isolation. It’s part of a train of events that include the stimulus package, the omnibus spending bill (complete with some 8,500 earmarks), and a record-sized budget. In addition, as Jim Manzi points out [1] in the new issue of National Affairs:

[Under Obama] the federal government has also intervened aggressively in both the financial and industrial sectors of the economy in order to produce specific desired outcomes for particular corporations. It has nationalized America’s largest auto company (General Motors) and intervened in the bankruptcy proceedings of the third-largest auto company (Chrysler), privileging labor unions at the expense of bondholders. It has, in effect, nationalized what was America’s largest insurance company (American International Group) and largest bank (Citigroup), and appears to have exerted extra-legal financial pressure on what was the second-largest bank (Bank of America) to get it to purchase the country’s largest securities company (Merrill Lynch). The implicit government guarantees provided to home-loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been called in, and the federal government is now the largest de facto lender in the residential real-estate market. The government has selected the CEOs and is setting compensation at major automotive and financial companies across the country. On top of these interventions in finance and commerce, the administration and congressional Democrats are also pursuing both a new climate and energy strategy and large-scale health-care reform. Their agenda would place the government at the center of these two huge sectors of the economy

Together, these actions tell quite a tale. Mr. Obama has revived the worst impressions of the Democratic party – profligate and undisciplined, arrogant, lovers of big government, increasers of taxes. The issues and narrative for American politics in the foreseeable future has been set — limited government versus exploding government, capitalism versus European style socialism, responsible and measured policies versus reckless and radical [policies].

Barack Obama is in the process of inflicting enormous damage to his presidency and his party [[and the Nation]]. And there is more, much more to come. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Key Verse | Faith | 2 | Eph 2:8-10

Ephesians 2:8-10

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (KJV)

Character of Justifying Faith: B, The Gift Of God

Salvation is on the basis of unmerited favor (grace) and through the instrument of justifying Faith.

This Faith is the gift of God.

Salvation does not come through works lest man should boast.

Good works are the result of God’s workmanship.

Good works are the pre-ordained result of the joint working of God and His new creation in Christ Jesus.

A work cannot truly be called “good” without the intimate joining of the wills of God and His new creature.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; - First John 1:1 KJV

Hear, and thy soul shall live. - Isaiah 55:3 KJV

Obama the Red Avenger

It’s rather obvious, actually.

Obama's early life indicates that young Barry may have been brought up as a Red Avenger against America. We know that he talks like an anti-capitalist and an anti-Constitutionalist, and that he compulsively apologizes for American actions during the Cold War. The Cold War was not something we started -- it was started by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and other totalitarian mass murderers long before the Korean War and the Vietnam War, our two hot proxies in the Cold War.

What we haven't understood is how deeply Obama was indoctrinated from childhood onward in the war against America. But every intelligence agency in the world has to have figured it out, because it's all in the public record. Leftists around the world have also known it from day one, and that includes leading Democrats. Obama was not an unknown to Democrat Party apparatchiks. Or the media. Only the American people were kept in the dark. The media and the Democrats are still doing their Obama cover-up today and hoping they will get away with it. [My emphasis]

From an American Thinker .com article, Obama the Red Avenger, more below:

His mother and her parents attended “the little red church in the vale”.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

Obama the Red Avenger [/] December 15, 2009 [/] By James Lewis

The French called Hitler a revanchiste -- a Kaiser soldier of World War I aching to avenge his old defeat. Hitler made no secret of his desire for revenge. He made it a Nazi slogan. Well, you can have ideological revanchisme as well -- for instance, a Marxist determination to take revenge for America's victory against worldwide Communism in the Cold War.

[…] I just talked with a professor who […] obviously thinks he's a hero by being a Marxist in America. But according to Marxist historians themselves, Red regimes killed at least 100 million people in "crimes, terror and repression," with still more dying today in North Korea. That's not even counting the dead and wounded in wars fought by Communist regimes.

[…] Why is Obama so deeply, emotionally opposed to America's defense of freedom and democracy in the Cold War? Because Barry Soetoro was born in 1961 and lived in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta from age six to ten, the years 1967-1971 --- right after the bloodiest civil war in Indonesian history, which took place from 1965 to 1967. The Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI, was wiped out and massacred during that civil war. There is absolutely no way a left-wing family living in Jakarta could not have been in a constant uproar during those years, even after the massacres had died down. After all, Barry's parents were active sympathizers, if not party members themselves, as was his biological father

Indonesia was host to millions of ethnic Chinese, some of whom were slaughtered in the "communal violence" which followed a failed coup. China was then in the middle of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which killed from 50 to 70 million people. Ann Dunham, Lolo Soetoro and Barry Soetoro were living in the very midst of the hottest front line between the West and totalitarian Communism.

Indonesia's dictator General Sukarno was overthrown in 1965 by either the Communist Party (the PKI) or the Indonesian army and Islamic parties -- and probably by all three. The PKI was the third biggest Communist Party in the world outside of the Soviet Union and Communist China. (See The Year of Living Dangerously.) PKI members were killed in the resulting riots and massacres throughout 1965 and 1966, starting in Jakarta, where Barry Soetoro's family lived. Imaging living in Atlanta, GA, right after General Sherman finished marchin' through Georgia, and not knowing anything about it.

There is simply no way those earth-shattering events could not have touched Barry Soetoro's life in Jakarta from the age of six to ten. Barry's temporary dad Lolo Soetoro was originally a supporter of General Sukarno and the Left; Sukarno's party had sent Lolo to Hawaii to get a graduate degree, where he met Ann Dunham. There is no real safety in such conditions. Revenge killings happened after World War II in Europe and after the Civil War in the United States.

The big question is, Why did Ann Dunham risk bringing her young child to Jakarta? She must either have been utterly naïve politically, or, much more likely, she knew that she and Lolo were protected by powerful political forces. [/] Ann Dunham was at least an active fellow traveler with the Communist Party. Remember, this was just fifteen years after the death of Stalin and the American domestic reaction to Stalinist infiltration, now dubbed "McCarthyism." We now know with historical certainty that the U.S. government, including the State Department and the White house, was in fact infiltrated by Stalin's Communist Party members, and that secrets of U.S. nuclear bombs were instantly passed to the Soviet Union by Manhattan Project member Klaus Fuchs, who was honored by the East Germany Communist Party when he went back there. Stalinist Communists were also very powerful in Hollywood, the newspapers, and the universities.

Barry's childhood and education under the guardianship of Communist Party rep Frank Marshall Davis, followed by an endless parade of far Leftist mentors from Hawaii to Harvard and Chicago, were all shaped by an identical political narrative. Every adult he ever knew told the same story. Everybody hated the same satanic enemy: American capitalism -- also known as freedom and democracy – the CIA, the U.S. military, Senator Joe McCarthy, President Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon. We now know that Nixon was overthrown by the American Left using the Watergate scandal, including the Washington Post's Ben Bradlee, in close coordination with the FBI's Assistant Director Mark Felt, who was Woodward and Bernstein's Deep Throat.

The Jesuits used to say, "Give us a boy before he is ten and we will have him for life." That's why the Ranting Reverend Wright's Church of Marxism was such a natural place for the Obamas to go every Sunday and bring up their own girls. It's what they were used to; it had that old home feeling.

When kids believe that their mothers and fathers are in danger, they often imagine themselves to be the saviors -- they can get a Savior Complex. (Sound familiar?) Children in abusive families often feel that way. Barry Soetoro grew up needing to rescue his side in the Cold War -- the Red side.

Human beings who think they are world saviors are narcissists from day one because they believe they have God-like powers. How else can you Save the Planet? How else can you "keep the seas from riiiiising," as Obama said in his acceptance speech to the Democrats? Narcissism is a standard character trait on the Left. It's one of the basic differences between ideological Leftists and conservatives. Edmund Burke, the granddaddy of Anglo-American conservatism, pointed that out in his most important book, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1791). Conservatives are generally normal people. Ideological Leftists are ambitious World Saviors who turn out to kill a lot of people who resisted being saved by coercive force. Can you think of any American conservative who acts like Obama?

Take a kid with a savior complex and raise him with an endless slew of Leftist mentors, from Mom onwards. He is the savior child as far as they are concerned -- the Red Avenger. He will redeem them in the bitter aftermath of the defeat of Communism. Barack Obama has had substitute parents -- patrons who eased his way -- throughout his life, including Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Emil Jones.

Notice that I have not said that Obama is dangerous. A lot depends on defeating ObamaCare, cap-and-trade, EPA regulation of CO2, and dozens of other mad and foolish schemes.

The American political system is resilient, but we must know the truth. I believe that "the Red Avenger" is the ground truth of who Obama really is.

It's not Obama's blackness that's at issue. It's his redness. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Jim Smiling's Tweet of the Day - 12/14/09

“I never seen nothin’ like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.” bit.ly/6WFjde

Grace is always amazing.

Jim Smiling Tweet of the Day 12/15/09

A working stove, hot water, a new pair of shoes. William "Bill" Jayson didn't want these "luxuries." Instead, he saved. bit.ly/8euhKn

Acts 20:33-37 KJV I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. 34 Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. 35 I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. 36 And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all. 37 And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him,

Liberal Talking Points Are So Yesterday

I get tired of hearing and reading the same old stuff.

Liberal talking points in posts are new to very few. Those who follow mainstream media have already heard them praised. Those who follow alternate media have already heard them ridiculed.

I, for one, would appreciate posts that are more informative and substantial.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalm 20:7

Brother Jonathan aka Jim Smiling aka Toto of Kansas

Link to my
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The Obama Four Year Plan to Re-make America

Link to the entire article. The devil is in the details.

This spirit of freedom which built our country is presently in jeopardy. It is being stealthily undermined by the peculiar form of government which the Obama administration is determined to institutionalize; a government with a lust for control that is more expansive in scope than many seem to realize; and one which tries to arrogate - contrary to the principles of the Founding Fathers- far more power than it was originally intended to wield.

Amongst the primary objectives the Obama administration has set out to accomplish are: a complete restructuring of our economy in accordance with the President's socialist construct; the establishment of a federally run Health Care System; the reshaping of our military prowess into an obsolete commodity; A gradual consolidation, under the Executive branch, of authority commonly delegated to the Judicial and the Legislative branches; and finally, the legal prohibition of aired dissent from any assembly or media outlet which happens to disagree with the President or seeks to divulge the potentially deleterious effects of his policies.

A key element of this strategy is to create a narrative which questions the plausibility of a majority elected government in a free society like ours, entertaining and eventually actualizing such illiberal aspirations, and portrays the Obama administration as one that is not engaged in clandestine operations as has been unfairly alleged; and that any evidences to the contrary are merely the unintended consequences of nobler initiatives which have been skewed by the media, or most likely part of a smear conspiracy from his right wing detractors. [My emphasis]

From an American Thinker .com article, The Obama 4 year plan to re-make America, more below:

Some Americans get it. Including the 20% that favor impeachment. According to the liberal Public Policy Polling December 4-7 [.pdf link, scroll down]:

Q6 Do you support the impeachment of President Obama for his actions in office so far? Yes - 20%; No - 67%; Not Sure- 13%

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

The Obama 4 year plan to re-make America [/] December 12, 2009 [/] By Miguel A. Guanipa

There are very good reasons why the United States of America is still worthy of being referred to as the greatest country is the world. This Nation's very existence is a tribute to the unflagging spirit of innovation, courage and self-determination. But most importantly, America provides an exemplary model for what the concept of freedom is supposed to look like in real time, which other countries seek to emulate. That is not the myopic and pretentious declaration of a naive urbanite -- it is a demonstrable truth. Try living overseas for a little while and you will see what I mean.

[…] But since the Obama administration has indeed shown that it does entertain such aspirations, and that it plans to make good on them, let us then briefly examine every one of these rather ambitious objectives in terms of their respective strategies, if for no other reason than to offer some kind of preparatory grounds for resistance.

[…] How then do we stop this well orchestrated assault on our freedoms?

Freedom means action, and it comes with great responsibility. Once we surrender our responsibility to preserve Freedom and are given over to complacency, our precious liberties naturally begin to erode. [/] So first we must sound the alarm and do our best to warn the uninformed, of the imminent peril our freedoms face. We must also resist by coming out in force to the voting booth. And finally, we must pray ardently. For if these objectives are allowed to see fruition, it will not matter who is chosen next time, for new administrations seldom take pains to rescind or diminish their fresh claims to power, once their predecessors have cast a wide net of dominance over that which they have been asked to preside.

If we avoid this great responsibility, we should not be surprised when we awaken one day to find that not only us, but also our children, have little choice but to endure the terrible consequences of our apathy. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Obamacare Dissed By Gov Actuaries Report

Government Medicare Actuaries Report Costs Hidden From Public

A report by analysts at the Health and Human Services Department said the bill would increase the nation's annual spending on health care beyond the current $2.5 trillion at a slightly faster rate than if Congress did nothing. It concluded that new taxes on drugs, medical devices and health insurance plans would trigger higher insurance premiums for consumers. [/] The report also said the Democrats' plan to pay for about half of the $1 trillion bill with Medicare cuts "may be unrealistic" and could undermine the Medicare program, warning the bill could force out of business one in five hospitals, nursing homes and home care providers. [My emphasis]

From a Washington Times article, Rising costs predicted in health care bill

Some of the enormous hidden costs to taxpayers, providers, and patients are reported by honest civil servants.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

Rising costs predicted in health care bill [/] Saturday, December 12, 2009 [/] S.A. Miller

Dealing an unexpected blow to Senate Democrat's health care bill, administration economists on Friday predicted the overhaul would accelerate rising costs of health insurance and medical services, and that its proposed Medicare cuts could reduce care for senior citizens. [/] The report, which included a disclaimer that it did not represent the Obama administration's position on the health care bill, supplied fresh ammunition to Republicans.

"Higher costs and cuts to Medicare are not the reforms the American people want and need," said Sen. Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, ranking Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "How many more devastating studies do we need before the Democratic leadership will agree we need to scrap these flawed bills and start over?"

White House spokesman Linda Douglass stressed the report's finding that the legislation would have a "a significant downward impact on future health care cost growth rates." She said opponents of President Obama's health care reform efforts were cherry-picking the report and ignoring the long-term benefits it cited. [/] "As savings from reform kick in, national health expenditures are projected to increase at a slower annual rate under the Senate bill than under the status quo," she said.

The report was prepared by the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which specializes in long-range cost evaluations for Medicare. It analyzed the total public and private cost of the health care bill over the next 10 years, in contrast to earlier studies by the Congressional Budget Office that said the measure would minimally lower the record-setting federal deficit over the decade. [/] Under the Democrats' plan, according to the analysis, health care spending would rise by an additional 0.7 percent between 2010 and 2019, mostly the result of more people getting medical services. [/] Although the increased access to health care would drive up costs, the report found that the bill would accomplish Mr. Obama's goal of expanding health care coverage. About 93 percent of Americans would have health insurance under the plan, removing about 33 million people from the ranks of the uninsured.

Perhaps the most startling revelation in the report, however, was an assessment that cuts to the Medicare program could undermine it. [/] "Providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable," the report said. "Absent legislative intervention, [physicians] might end their participation in the program, possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said the bill got a "failing grade." He said the report, coupled with a CNN poll on Friday that showed 61 percent of Americans oppose the health care bill, was a seminal moment in the debate. [/] "How much more do we need to hear before we stop this bill and start over?" Mr. McConnell said. [/] Democrats are embracing the budget office findings that said the bill would reduce the deficit and likely not increase premiums for most people who already have health insurance. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Obama Safe School Czar F%%%gate Links

From the Washington Times & Big Government .com & Gateway Pundit

Washington Times Obama’s risky-s%%-czar: http://bit.ly/6Le498

Big Government .com F%%%gate IV: http://bit.ly/8FE6CT

Gateway Pundit F%%%gate III: http://bit.ly/84Irqm

WARNING: This editorial includes discussion of topics that are sexually graphic. Under usual circumstances, we would never entertain these subjects or the rancid language involved. In this case, however, a very unusual exception must be made because the issues are central to the background of a senior presidential appointee at the U.S. Department of Education who is in a position to influence how and what our children are taught in our nation's schools. Thus far, out of fear or squeamishness, there has been public hesitance to examine closely the beliefs of this individual because many are afraid even to touch the risky content. Our scruples cannot be used against us when traditional moral precepts need to be defended. Simply, the deep level of depravity involved in this subject cannot be portrayed without providing a couple of examples to illustrate the inappropriate content. Please do not read any further if you will be offended by sexually graphic language. […] [My emphasis]

From a Washington Times editorial, Obama's risky-s%% czar

Distasteful language is sometimes needed. Particularly if one wishes to keep such language out of public schools.

The Gateway Pundit posts convincingly convict the Obama Safe School Czar of decade long detailed teaching of all sorts of pansexual activity to children. The organization he founded and headed taught such things to children in 2000, 2001, and 2005. Major public objections were ignored. Lessons that appear to have more to do with promotion of alternate life styles than promotion of tolerance for alternate life style practitioners.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

Totalitarian Sentimentality

”The social order is hard to achieve and easy to destroy.”

[The Liberal and Conservative] portraits are familiar to everyone, and I have no doubt on which side the readers of this magazine will stand. What all conservatives know, however, is that it is they who are motivated by compassion, and that their cold-heartedness is only apparent. They are the ones who have taken up the cause of society, and who are prepared to pay the cost of upholding the principles on which we all -- liberals included – depend. To be known as a social conservative is to lose all hope of an academic career; it is to be denied any chance of those prestigious prizes, from the MacArthur to the Nobel Peace Prize, which liberals confer only on each other. For an intellectual it is to throw away the prospect of a favorable review -- or any review at all -- in the New York Times or the New York Review of Books. Only someone with a conscience could possibly wish to expose himself to the inevitable vilification that attends such an "enemy of the people." And this proves that the conservative conscience is governed not by self-interest but by a concern for the public good. Why else would anyone express it?

By contrast, as conservatives also know, the compassion displayed by the liberal is precisely that -- compassion displayed, though not necessarily felt. The liberal knows in his heart that his "compassionating zeal," as Rousseau described it, is a privilege for which he must thank the social order that sustains him. He knows that his emotion toward the victim class is (these days at least) more or less cost-free, that the few sacrifices he might have to make by way of proving his sincerity are nothing compared to the warm glow of approval by which he will be surrounded by declaring his sympathies. His compassion is a profoundly motivated state of mind, not the painful result of a conscience that will not be silenced, but the costless ticket to popular acclaim. [My emphasis]

From an American Spectator article, Totalitarian Sentimentality , more below:

Is your compassion cost-free – or costly?

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE [/] Totalitarian Sentimentality [/] By Roger Scruton from the December 2009-January 2010 issue

Conservatives recognize that social order is hard to achieve and easy to destroy, that it is held in place by discipline and sacrifice, and that the indulgence of criminality and vice is not an act of kindness but an injustice for which all of us will pay. Conservatives therefore maintain severe and -- to many people -- unattractive attitudes. They favor retributive punishment in the criminal law; they uphold traditional marriage and the sacrifices that it requires; they believe in discipline in schools and the value of hard work and military service. They believe in the family and think that the father is an essential part in it. They see welfare provisions as necessary, but also as a potential threat to genuine charity, and a way both of rewarding antisocial conduct and creating a culture of dependency. They value the hard-won legal and constitutional inheritance of their country and believe that immigrants must also value it if they are to be allowed to settle here. Conservatives do not think that war is caused by military strength, but on the contrary by military weakness, of a kind that tempts adventurers and tyrants. And a properly ordered society must be prepared to fight wars -- even wars in foreign parts -- if it is to enjoy a lasting peace in its homeland. In short conservatives are a hard and unfriendly bunch who, in the world in which we live, must steel themselves to be reviled and despised by all people who make compassion into the cornerstone of the moral life.

Liberals are of course very different. They see criminals as victims of social hierarchy and unequal power, people who should be cured by kindness and not threatened with punishment. They wish all privileges to be shared by everyone, the privileges of marriage included. And if marriage can be reformed so as to remove the cost of it, so much the better. Children should be allowed to play and express their love of life; the last thing they need is discipline. Learning comes -- didn't Dewey prove as much? -- from self-expression; and as for sex education, which gives the heebie-jeebies to social conservatives, no better way has ever been found of liberating children from the grip of the family and teaching them to enjoy their bodily rights. Immigrants are just migrants, victims of economic necessity, and if they are forced to come here illegally that only increases their claim on our compassion. Welfare provisions are not rewards to those who receive them, but costs to those who give -- something that we owe to those less fortunate than ourselves. As for the legal and constitutional inheritance of the country, this is certainly to be respected -- but it must "adapt" to new situations, so as to extend its protection to the new victim class. Wars are caused by military strength, by "boys with their toys," who cannot resist the desire to flex their muscles, once they have acquired them. The way to peace is to get rid of the weapons, to reduce the army, and to educate children in the ways of soft power. In the world in which we live liberals are self-evidently lovable -- emphasizing in all their words and gestures that, unlike the social conservatives, they are in every issue on the side of those who need protecting, and against the hierarchies that oppress them.

[…] Bush was the voice of a property-owning democracy, in which hard work and family values still achieved a public endorsement. As a result he was hated by the European elites, and hated all the more because Europe needs America and knows that, without America, it will die. Obama is welcomed as a savior: the American president for whom the Europeans have been hoping – the one who will rescue them from the truth.

How America itself will respond to this, however, remains doubtful. I suspect, from my neighbors in rural Virginia, that totalitarian sentimentality has no great appeal to them, and that they will be prepared to resist a government that seeks to destroy their savings and their social capital, for the sake of a compassion that it does not really feel.

10% of Democrats want to impeach Obama

5% of those who voted for Obama want him impeached.

10% of Democrats want to impeach Obama [/] Public Policy Polling, the liberal polling service, asked 1,253 registered voters: “Do you support the impeachment of President Obama for his actions in office so far?” [/] 20% said yes. Among Democrats, 10% said yes. [/] Even more incredibly, 5% of those who voted for Obama want him impeached. [/] Now surely Joe Biden cannot have that many relatives. [My emphasis]

From a Charleston Daily Mail article, 10% of Democrats want to impeach Obama

An honest and responsible House member would have submitted a bill of impeachment after the first month or two in office.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

Palin On Politicized Science

Alaska Experience Enlightens Climategate, Copenhagen

With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue.

"Climate-gate," as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle -- the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won't change the weather, but they would change our economy for the worse.

The e-mails reveal that leading climate "experts" deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to "hide the decline" in global temperatures, and tried to silence their critics by preventing them from publishing in peer-reviewed journals. What's more, the documents show that there was no real consensus even within the CRU crowd. Some scientists had strong doubts about the accuracy of estimates of temperatures from centuries ago, estimates used to back claims that more recent temperatures are rising at an alarming rate. [My emphasis]

From a Washington Post article, Copenhagen's political science , more below:

Trusted pro-America, pro-humanity, voices agree.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

Copenhagen's political science [/] By Sarah Palin [/] Wednesday, December 9, 2009

[…] This scandal obviously calls into question the proposals being pushed in Copenhagen. I've always believed that policy should be based on sound science, not politics. As governor of Alaska, I took a stand against politicized science when I sued the federal government over its decision to list the polar bear as an endangered species despite the fact that the polar bear population had more than doubled. I got clobbered for my actions by radical environmentalists nationwide, but I stood by my view that adding a healthy species to the endangered list under the guise of "climate change impacts" was an abuse of the Endangered Species Act. This would have irreversibly hurt both Alaska's economy and the nation's, while also reducing opportunities for responsible development.

Our representatives in Copenhagen should remember that good environmental policymaking is about weighing real-world costs and benefits -- not pursuing a political agenda. That's not to say I deny the reality of some changes in climate -- far from it. I saw the impact of changing weather patterns firsthand while serving as governor of our only Arctic state. I was one of the first governors to create a subcabinet to deal specifically with the issue and to recommend common-sense policies to respond to the coastal erosion, thawing permafrost and retreating sea ice that affect Alaska's communities and infrastructure.

But while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs. And those costs are real. Unlike the proposals China and India offered prior to Copenhagen -- which actually allow them to increase their emissions – President Obama's proposal calls for serious cuts in our own long-term carbon emissions. Meeting such targets would require Congress to pass its cap-and-tax plans, which will result in job losses and higher energy costs (as Obama admitted during the campaign). That's not exactly what most Americans are hoping for these days. And as public opposition continues to stall Congress's cap-and-tax legislation, Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrats plan to regulate carbon emissions themselves, doing an end run around the American people.

In fact, we're not the only nation whose people are questioning climate change schemes. In the European Union, energy prices skyrocketed after it began a cap-and-tax program. Meanwhile, Australia's Parliament recently defeated a cap-and-tax bill. Surely other nations will follow suit, particularly as the climate e-mail scandal continues to unfold.

In his inaugural address, President Obama declared his intention to "restore science to its rightful place." But instead of staying home from Copenhagen and sending a message that the United States will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices, the president has upped the ante. He plans to fly in at the climax of the conference in hopes of sealing a "deal." Whatever deal he gets, it will be no deal for the American people. What Obama really hopes to bring home from Copenhagen is more pressure to pass the Democrats' cap-and-tax proposal. This is a political move. The last thing America needs is misguided legislation that will raise taxes and cost jobs -- particularly when the push for such legislation rests on agenda-driven science.

Without trustworthy science and with so much at stake, Americans should be wary about what comes out of this politicized conference. The president should boycott Copenhagen. [/] The writer was the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president and governor of Alaska from 2006 to 2009. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Obama’s Whiney Blame Game

Whopper of the Day: "One of the central goals of this administration is restoring fiscal responsibility."

The other day, I wrote that President Obama has "run out of both charm and ideas." I was too kind. [/] To judge from the string of whoppers in his dreary jobs speech yesterday, he's also run out of facts. And he's still whining about the problems he inherited and blaming Republicans. [/] He might as well be barking at the moon. That's sort of what he is doing, because the American people are tuning him out at a stunning pace. [My emphasis]

From a New York Post article, Bam's whiny blame game , more below:

The Bubble Crumbles On!!!

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

Bam's whiny blame game [/] By MICHAEL GOODWIN [/] Last Updated: 5:22 AM, December 9, 2009

[…] The latest Gallup Poll gives him a record low 47 percent approval. Only 26 percent in another poll say he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Naturally, his press secretary attacks the pollsters, likening them to children with crayons. [/] And Obama plunges on with his blame-game act. It's tired, unpresidential and ineffective, all the more so because he's banking on a bill of goods to prop himself up. [/] The most egregious example came when Obama said yesterday the $700 billion bank-bailout fund, or TARP, was "launched hastily under the last administration" and was "flawed."

Here are the facts. George Bush was in the White House, but Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Obama himself, as a senator, voted for the bailout in October 2008. [/] No one claims the bill was perfect, but there is no record --zero -- of Obama trying to fix it. Remember, it was John McCain who rushed back to Washington after the first version failed and tried to get involved to reshape it. [/] McCain flubbed the effort, but Obama made none. He only reluctantly joined a White House conference with McCain and Bush on the bailout after urging Congress "to step up to the plate and get this done."

He went on the Senate floor and said there wasn't time to fiddle with the bill before leaving the details to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said at the time, "No one knows what to do."

Fortunately, there were people who knew what to do. Timothy Geithner, then chairman of the New York Federal Reserve and now Obama's treasury secretary, was deeply involved with Bush's treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, in shaping the legislation that helped to avert a financial crash.

That 2008 vote released half the TARP money, with a second vote coming in January 2009, a week before Obama was inaugurated. He wanted the second installment of $350 billion, and most Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, voted to give it to him. [/] The record is clear: The $700 billion bailout was crafted on a bipartisan basis, with Obama's support and encouragement, and he has controlled most of the money. For him to now claim otherwise is disgraceful.

Of course, no Obama speech is complete without straw men bearing false choices, and yesterday's was no exception, as this passage shows: [/] "There are those who claim we have to choose between paying down our deficits on the one hand, and investing in job creation and economic growth on the other. But this is a false choice." [/] It's not a false choice, given the context of Obama's plan to use $200 billion of the TARP money as a slush fund to help small businesses. That's not the deal he made in January. [/] Angry over how Paulson and Geithner used the first half, Congress set tighter restrictions on the money because it was borrowed and thus added to the deficit. The intent was to repay it as soon as possible, not to turn it into a revolving pot of discretionary spending for the White House.

Still, Obama was just getting warmed up. The earlier misleading claims were mere prelude to his Whopper of the Day: "One of the central goals of this administration is restoring fiscal responsibility."

Does a single American believe that? Does he? […] [My ellipses and emphasis]

It's high time Barack Obama learnt some manners

The American president is acting like an elephant in a porcelain shop.

First Mr Obama declines an invitation to lunch with King Harald V, the Norwegian monarch, an event every other winner, from the Dailai Lama to Al Gore, has graciously accepted. Then he announces he won’t have time to visit the Oslo Peace Centre, where the achievements of previous winners are celebrated. As one Norwegian public relations expert puts it: “The American president is acting like an elephant in a porcelain shop.” [My emphasis]

From a Telegraph [UK] article, It's high time Barack Obama learnt some manners , more below:

Walking in darkness leads to stumbles.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

It's high time Barack Obama learnt some manners [/] By Con Coughlin World Last updated: December 9th, 2009

We here in Britain are well-aquainted with the haughty disdain with which U.S. President Barack Obama likes to treat his European allies. We might have the largest military force of any European country fighting alongside the Americans in southern Afghanistan, but that doesn’t seem to count for much at the White House, where Mr Obama’s shabby treatment of our prime minister has now become the norm. Whether it is offering him a box set of dvds, or forcing him to conduct important bilateral meetings in the kitchens of the U.N. complex in New York, Mr Obama’s charmless treatment of Gordon Brown has become a standard feature of the so-called special relationship.

But now, with his dismissive treatment of the Nobel peace prize committee, Mr Obama’s supercilious behaviour has plunged new depths. One might question why on earth the worthy souls responsible for awarding the prize decided on someone whose main claim to fame so far is simply to have got himself elected. But having accepted the award, the least Mr Obama could do would be to show the Norwegian hosts some respect. But no, Mr Obama insists on doing everything his way, even when it comes to something as banal as accepting a peace prize, and on this occasion he has managed to cause immense offence to the peace-loving Scandawegians.

[…] Con Coughlin, the Telegraph's executive foreign editor, is a world-renowned expert on the Middle East and Islamic terrorism. He is the author of several critically acclaimed books. His new book, Khomeini's Ghost, is published by Macmillan [My ellipses and emphasis]

Obama and Palin Autobiographies Compared

”Even the [New York] Times gets it”

The much ballyhooed Obama “biography”, Dreams From My Father , is more like a really crappy piece of abstract art. Nobody in the room wants to admit they don’t get it for fear of appearing unsophisticated. [/] Going Rogue is a chronology of the events that shaped Palin’s life with her character coming through entirely naturally. Dreams is a muddy admixture of scenes, many of them fictional, from the perspective of an angry, self obsessed young man with an aptitude for finding ersatz racism in absolutely any situation no matter how innocuous. Palin’s book recounts her numerous accomplishments. That option was not available to Obama. [/] Dreams is a meandering saga told disjointedly out of sequence suggesting the author’s lofty artistic aspirations far outstrip his actual talents. [My emphasis]

From a Canada Free Press .com article, Comparing Dreams of My Father and Going Rogue, more below. The New York Times article referred to is currently unavailable. But Google cache version is available.

The stumbling, in both word and act, of those who are walking in darkness is obvious to those who are in the Light, directly or culturally.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

Comparing Dreams of My Father and Going Rogue [/] The New York Times Hearts Palin [/] By Joy Tiz Tuesday, December 8, 2009

“When I walked into the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan last week, I headed straight for the bright young thing who wore an ‘Ask Me’ button, and asked her to point me to the section of the store where I might find Sarah Palin’s memoir, ‘Going Rogue: An American Life.’ She looked at me as if I had requested a copy of ‘Mein Kampf’ signed in blood by the author, and directed me to the nearest Barnes and Noble, where, presumably, readers of dubious taste and sensibility could find what they wanted.” [/] The audacious Stanley Fish of the New York Times persevered and was able to appropriate a copy of Palin’s book. Perseverance is a ubiquitous theme in her tome which is not to be confused with Barack Obama’s perseveration.

Fish liked the book and by extrapolation, Palin herself. Her autobiography is undeniably all Sarah: [/] “The questions to ask then are (1) Does Palin succeed in conveying to her readers the kind of person she is? and (2) Does she do it in a satisfying and artful way? In short, is the book a good autobiographical read? I would answer ‘yes’ to both.” [/] Fish is taken with Palin’s authenticity. Her many supporters figured that out long ago. The autobiography is a crisp and snappy read, telling the life story of Sarah Palin. Palin is a doer, not a dreamer, and unlike the current Oval Office occupant, Palin is keenly aware of how her actions impact other people.

[…] Obama spends most of his book whining. Everything that fails to go his way is due to racism. Most disturbingly, Obama never rages or whines about the legitimate traumas of his youth: abandonment by both parents. Instead he acts out and continues to do so from the White House. [/] Whining is not part of Sarah Palin’s disposition. Whiners wouldn’t last long in Alaska. Both Sarah and her husband Todd’s families imbued a compelling work ethic into their offspring. Unlike Obama, Todd Palin does not exploit his ethnic heritage for political gain.
Both Obama and Palin come from outlier states which were brand new to the union. Obama manifestly developed no love or respect for the country he now is supposed to lead. By contrast, Palin is American down to the cellular level. Even the Times gets it: [/] “The message is clear. America can’t be stopped. I can’t be stopped. I’ve stumbled and fallen, but I always get up and run again. Her political opponents, especially those who dismissed Ronald Reagan before he was elected, should take note. Wherever you are, you better watch out. Sarah Palin is coming to town.” [/] But beware of liberals bearing gifts. Chris Matthews, who has the impulse control of a two year old, is beseeching the GOP nominate Palin for 2012 in the fatuous belief that she will be the party’s most beatable.

Joy Tiz, Joytiz.com, born in Chicago, recalls when many democrats were actually normal people who were just wrong about everything. Joy holds a M.Sc. in psychology and a JD in law. [/] Joy has written extensively about current events and politics. She was a columnist at Americas Voices and now writes for Canada Free Press. Joy’s latest book, Obamanutz: A Cult Leader takes the White House provides an unblinking look at who Barack Obama is and what forces propelled him into the White House. [/] Email: joy@joytiz.com or Twitter at: Joytiz [My ellipses and emphasis]

Nat Hentoff: The cold heart of Obamacare

From an important liberal columnist:

Is there anything you want to say to your representatives in the House or Senate before the final vote is taken? If you don't act urgently now, you may become part of another collective statistic – American annual death rates.

I'm scared, and I do mean to scare you.

We do not elect the president and Congress to decide how short our lives will be. That decision is way above their pay grades.

Nat Hentoff: The cold heart of Obamacare - http://shar.es/aIK1c

Climategate Summary Tweeted

Climategate Summary From National Review .com (NRO) via Jim Smiling Tweets
The scandal surrounding Britain’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) is 3 scandals: science, media, political. nro.
1. Scientific scandal: the leading lights of the climate-research cabal conspired: fudge data & silence skeptics. ib
2. Media scandal: reporters and editors on the climate beat acted as stenographers & ignored the scandal. ibid
3. Political scandal: officeholders using bunk science to control & decimate the world’s energy. ibid.
http://tinyurl.com/ybqgd2n

Obama: Most Supporters Deserting

Examination of Three Groups of 2008 Supporters Fading Away

The magic is gone from Barack Obama. He's here, but the glamour has vanished. He still talks, but few people appear to be listening. [/] Sometime in spring, it began to be noticed (by Fred Barnes, among others) that he was losing the power to move people, or shape their opinions. When his agenda began meeting resistance, he gave a series of speeches and resistance grew stronger. The more he explained, the more people disliked what he said he was doing. [/] The base remained loyal, but three other subgroups had become disenchanted. "The thrill is gone," said E.J. Dionne, who seemed at a loss as to where it had gone to. In the interests of clarity, and of diagnosis, let us attempt to explain. [My emphasis]

From a Washington Examiner article, Obama is so last season, more below:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, / As I foretold you, were all spirits and / Are melted into air, into thin air: / And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, / The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, / The solemn temples, the great globe itself, / Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve / And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, / Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep. – Shakespeare, The Tempest, 4.1

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

More from a Washington Examiner article, Obama is so last season

Barack Obama is so last season [/] By: Noemie Emery, Examiner Columnist [/] December 2, 2009

[…] There was one group that fell for Obama the Moderate, the man who kept his head (or appeared to) in the financial meltdown last autumn, the temperamental conservative who seemed incremental, the one David Brooks would call "Burkean." Unfortunately, the temperamental conservative turned out to be an ideological radical, intent on ramming through on a narrow majority (and against the wishes of most of the country) a massive redo of the health care delivery system, an immense stack of paper that no one has read.

There was a second that fell for Obama the Story, the half-African waif, whose rise to the leadership of a powerful, once-slave-holding nation was the matter of legend, and tears. He was Reaganesque, he was JFK Redux, a figure of glamour and eloquence. [/] But Reagan and Kennedy saw themselves as temporary custodians of a tradition older and bigger than they were, and thought they were lucky to serve it. Obama seems to think he is doing the country a favor by gracing it. [/] Reagan and Kennedy wanted to project and increase American power and influence; Obama wants to walk it back from what he thinks its delusions of consequence. Reagan and Kennedy talked about freedom, which gave their speeches their eloquence. Obama is bored with the subject of freedom (ask Iran and Honduras), and talks of himself. [/] It is a topic that gets stale fairly quickly. In fact, it already has.

Then there's the third group, perhaps the most painful, which is the young voters, who fell for Obama the Fad. "In 2008 the torch really was passed to a new generation of voters," Dionne had said hopefully. A year later, however, the torch has gone missing, or simply slipped out of their hands. [/] Democratic pollster Celinda Lake found "a dramatically lower level of turnout from Obama surge voters," whose lack of interest seemed terminal. "I don't like what any of them are doing in Washington," an ex-voter complained. It was all so confusing, or perhaps so exhausting. "I'm tired of politics," as another one told her. "I need a rest." [/] "Barack Obama ... is now being treated as a new fashion icon," one fashion blog had reported. Anna Wintour held fundraisers for him. Diane von Furstenberg designed a tote in his honor. Donatella Versace dedicated her collection to him, during Fashion Week in Milan. [/] Obama was sold less as a pol than a fashion accessory, which is how the young bought him. It didn't hurt that he looked like the models in catalogs. He was so young and so hip, and so trendy and slender. [/] They bought less his ideas than his aura and ambiance. And what was the problem with that? [/] Well, quite a lot. As any fashionista will tell you, the problem with being this year's "in" fashion is that sooner or later, you're out. [/] Obama now is "so 2008," which might be 1908 to Celinda Lake's voters. They've been there and done that, and want the new model. [/] All presidents fail in some things, and some fail in most things, but Obama is the first to become a true fashion victim. Everyone knows what happens to fashions that go out of style: They get shoved on a rack to the back of the closet, and slide in a heap to the floor. [/] Examiner Columnist Noemie Emery is contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and author of "Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families." [My ellipses and emphasis]

POLL BJon GateCrashGate: Who to trust?

Salahi denies. Gibbs: the Salahis were gatecrashers. Hard choice. http://tinyurl.com/ydpfqko

Use tinyurl or see excerpt below, and: Vote! Make your opinion (or lack thereof) count!! Vote at Adult Christian Forum Thread 148832!!!. (Choices and link also given after article below.)

From a Yahoo .com AP article, Salahi denies being White House party-crasher:

Salahi denies being White House party-crasher [/] By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 3 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The man who got into a White House dinner without an invitation denied Tuesday that he and his wife were gatecrashers. [/] Appearing on a nationally broadcast morning news show with his wife, Michaele, Tareq Salahi said the furor surrounding their attendance at the state dinner for the visiting Indian prime minister has been a "most devastating" experience. [/] Salahi said in the interview Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show that there was more to the story — an explanation that would exonerate the couple from allegations of misconduct in the breach of White House security.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, appearing on the same program, stood by the administration's position that the Salahis were gatecrashers. […] [My ellipses and emphasis]

Hat tip to Jim Smiling tweet: GateCrashGate: Who to trust? Salahi denies. Gibbs: the Salahis were gatecrashers. Hard choice. http://tinyurl.com/ydpfqko

Poll Question: GateCrashGate: Who to trust? | Poll choices:

1. Sahali. O people dishonest. / 2. Sahali. O White House deceitful. / 3. Sahali. Doubt Dem. Officials. / 4. Sahali. O people inept. / 5. Sahali. O White House disfunctional. / 6. Sahali. What has O done right?. / 7. Sahali. Washington bureaucratic snafu. / 8. Sahali. . / 9. Do not trust either. / 10. Neither, both D.C. types. / 11. Trust both, but not O. / 12.Trust both, misunderstanding. / 13. Gibbs. . / 14. Gibbs. Mrs. S crashed Redskins. / 15. Gibbs. Had time to think. / 16. Gibbs. O staff had time to think. / 17. Gibbs. O had time to think. / 18. Gibbs. His ineptitude not perfect. / 19. No opinion. Important issues deserve much study.. / 20. No comment. / 21. No opinion. / 22. This poll is worthless. / 23. This poll is of negative value. / 24.Interesting, but stupid / 25 Other.

Climategate: Lead UN Warmist Scientists Dumped Data

Times UK: East Anglia U Climate Research Unit dumped raw data,

These people are the lead technicl activists for the UN and the worldwide global warmist cabal.

The dog ate Al Gore's homework.

Two Big Pictures: ClimateGate & Obama

Power Line/Muir/Ramiriz on Obama White House & Climategate.

Pictures worth 2000 words.

Climategate: Worst Science Scandal

Scientific Establishment Is Hopelessly Compromised

Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific scandal of our age.

A week after my colleague James Delingpole, on his Telegraph blog, coined the term "Climategate" to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails [/] from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.

The reason why even the Guardian's George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). [My emphasis]

From a Telegraph [UK] article, Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal , more below:

Millennium’s worst science scandal, so far. Sorry about that, Al Gore.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation [/] Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker. [/] By Christopher Booker [/] Published: 6:10PM GMT 28 Nov 2009

[...] Professor Philip Jones, the CRU's director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC's key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.

Dr Jones is also a key part of the closely knit group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history. [/] Given star billing by the IPCC, not least for the way it appeared to eliminate the long-accepted Mediaeval Warm Period when temperatures were higher they are today, the graph became the central icon of the entire man-made global warming movement.

Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the "hockey stick" were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann's supporters, calling themselves "the Hockey Team", and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.

The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a cast list of the IPCC's scientific elite, including not just the "Hockey Team", such as Dr Mann himself, Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa, but Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC's 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who similarly controversially pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Al Gore's ally Dr James Hansen, whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the CRU itself.

There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre's blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt's blog Watts Up With That), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws. [/] They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.

[...] The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to "adjust" recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.

[...] The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics' work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports. […]

Government Caused Economic Debacle

Subprime Quicksand In Giant Government Created & Backed Banks

Placing the roots of the housing boom and bust in the free market and the solution in government is very convenient for politicians and for those who favor government interventions. But such explanations are inconsistent with facts, however impressive they might be as exercises in rhetoric.
Both the genesis of unaffordable housing in particular local areas and the responses with national policies to make buying a home easier were political in origin, and government regulation is what forced lenders to meet arbitrary quotas by eroding traditional mortgage-lending safeguards. [/] The facts could not be plainer.

Market criteria had long required such things as substantial down payments, as well as income and credit histories that made continuing payments likely. But all that was brushed aside in the political crusade for "affordable housing" and bigger homeownership statistics. [/] Both the unrealistic nature of policies pursued in the name of "affordable housing" and the serious dangers that such policies posed to the entire economy provoked many warnings from economists and others. But these warnings were repeatedly brushed aside by political leaders, often by shifting the focus to the supposed benefits of creating more homeownership through "affordable housing." [My emphasis]

From a Investors [Business Daily [IBD]] .com excerpt from a book by Thomas Sowell, How Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac Sank In The Subprime Quicksand
, more below:

”An economic primer on the housing bubble, but more importantly, it is an examination of the ruling class's inability to leave well enough alone” – American Spectator on Sowell’s book

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7

More from an Investors [Business Daily [IBD]] .com excerpt from a book by Thomas Sowell, How Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac Sank In The Subprime Quicksand

IBD EDITORIALS [/] How Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac Sank In The Subprime Quicksand [/] By THOMAS SOWELL [/] Posted 11/27/2009 06:48 PM ET

[…] Who, if not the taxpayers, would pay for these government subsidies — much less the defaults from making riskier loans — was not revealed.

For some homebuyers, the standards were relaxed to the point where there was no down payment at all required, contrary to a long-standing tradition that homebuyers should have some stake in the home, so as to reduce the risk of default on the mortgage. The reduction or elimination of traditional safeguards in mortgage lending entailed a rising riskiness of the mortgages acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under the new and lower mortgage loan approval standards.

Under these political pressures, traditional mortgage loans with traditional safeguards began to decline and mortgage loans made under the "innovative" and "flexible" standards urged by government increased.

[…] What was crucial was that the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which was among the federal agencies pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make more loans to people who would not normally be approved for loans — the "underserved" population, in the phrase often used — "allowed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to count billions of dollars they invested in subprime loans as a public good that would foster affordable housing," according to the Washington Post.

In short, riskier loans were accepted as good loans by one of the key regulators of the housing markets.

Moreover, HUD was not just accepting subprime lending but pushing for more. After HUD became a regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 1992, these government-sponsored enterprises were set numerical goals — quotas — for what share of their lending was to be for "affordable housing" mortgages.

In practice, they were pushed to acquire more subprime mortgages.

This was important not only because of the risk to the assets of these two enterprises themselves but, because they are dominant forces in the housing market and major gigantic financial institutions, there were dangers to the whole financial market if things went wrong with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose securities were widely held by other financial institutions on Wall Street and beyond. [/] The importance of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the housing markets is demonstrated by the magnitude of their mortgage guarantees, which total more than two trillion dollars. That is larger than the gross domestic product of all but four nations.

Ordinarily, financial markets would become less willing to invest in an enterprise with ever-growing risks. But, although Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are officially private, profit-making enterprises, their size and the federal government's involvement in both their creation and their ongoing operations led many investors to assume that the federal government would never allow them to fail.

Which is to say, the increasing riskiness of the assets of these two mortgage market giants was an increasing riskiness for the taxpayers, whether the taxpayers knew it or not.
[…] Moreover, "creative" accounting within Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac themselves concealed the full extent of the risk until independent audits turned up discrepancies at both places, which led to the resignation of the heads of both institutions.

[...] Next week: Alan Greenspan's concerns and how such concerns were dismissed by Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd and others who resisted reform of Fannie and Freddie. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Thank God for America!

Thanksgiving: The Great American Holy Day

Thanksgiving is not simply about giving thanks for what we have. It is about giving thanks for a country that has enabled us to earn what we have, keep what we have earned and live the way we live because of its great and enduring foundational strengths. These foundational strengths include our constitution, and our commitment to property rights and the rule of law. They include the respect for the individual citizen. These might seem like core American features, but it was never inevitable that we would have managed to keep them for 200 plus years.

Bottom line: Thanksgiving is about giving thanks for the reality of America and the fact that year after year for more than two centuries, we as a people have been able to depend on this country as a peaceful and promising place. [My emphasis]

From a Fox News .com article, Thanksgiving: The Great American Brand, more below:

Give greater thanks for greater blessings. Greater thanks for persistent, uninterrupted blessings. And give the greatest thanks for eternal blessings.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. - Romans 1:21 KJV

More from a Fox News .com article, Thanksgiving: The Great American Brand:

Thanksgiving: The Great American Brand [/] John Tantillo - FOXNews.com - November 25, 2009

Thanksgiving is about giving thanks for the reality of America. [/] It is the one holiday that is most truly and powerfully ours as a nation. [/] July 4th, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Veteran’s Day –these are all important holidays— but there is nothing quite as American as Thanksgiving Day. At times, unfortunately, I think we can lose sight of the very essence of Thanksgiving.

[...] Lincoln seemed to have this in mind when in the middle of the Civil War he invited the nation to set aside a day to give thanks (it wouldn’t become a Federal holiday until 1941). [/] The Civil War might seem a strange time to give thanks, but not if you are giving thanks for the very strengths that assured Lincoln that this country would endure past the tragedy and that its best days still lay ahead. Here’s part of what he wrote:

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict

Let’s face it. Gratitude is a kind of discipline. It requires perceiving the good by recognizing all that could have gone wrong, all that you should never take for granted. To be grateful is to make a positive choice.

In Lincoln’s invitation to give thanks, he made the point that as bad as things obviously were, the important things like order, the law and a peaceable society had been maintained and liberty, the lifeblood of our nation, had not been disrupted. These are no small things, but he knew that we could easily overlook them if we didn’t make the positive choice to see them and to celebrate them. [/] Recently a 1795 reeded-edge United States penny was sold for $1.3 million dollars at auction. Across the top of the penny the words “Liberty” are written. What other country’s citizens can look back over the past 200 plus years and identify with the ideal of liberty and know that the promise of liberty has remained uninterrupted? -- No European can. No Asian can. No African can. No South American or Central American can. – But an American can.

With all the talk of other nations eclipsing America with their rapid growth (i.e., China) or dynamic social policies (i.e., universal health care reform), it is easy to forget that these nations simply don’t have the incredible track record of stability, justice and just plain domestic peace that we do. [/] Every one of those countries has suffered horrible upheavals in their not-so-distant past in which members of their societies lost property and lost their lives because of tyranny. But if you lost your bounty in America in the last two hundred years, you couldn’t blame a corrupt state, a dictator or a communist ideology, it was almost always your own fault.

[...] The opportunity that Meb is talking about wasn’t his family’s opportunity because of how good and talented they were, it was the opportunity that America itself affords anyone who is here. [/] Meb and his family saw it clearly because they only knew too well what opportunity doesn’t look like. And when you know what opportunity doesn’t look like and then find it, you “make sure you use it.”

Our American uniqueness and this opportunity should never be a reason to become complacent as a nation, but it should be a reason to celebrate and above all be thankful. [/] Happy Thanksgiving! [...] [My ellipses and emphasis]

Abortion Debate Definition

t’s hard not to think of the late Pennsylvania governor Robert Casey, another Catholic Democrat. In a speech at the University of Notre Dame in 1995, he said: “Human life cannot be measured. It is the measure itself. The value of everything else is weighed against it. The abortion debate is not about how we shall live, but who shall live. And more than that, it’s about who we are.”

From a National Review .com article, Providence Provides.

The greater measure is the One who is both Son of God and Son of Man.

I report and link. You decide. - BJon

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalms 20:7