According to the Boston Herald, WTKK talk show host Jay Severin has been indefinetly suspended for offensive remarks about illegal aliens and the swine flu.  Good Grief!!    Illegal aliens are illegal.  They are breaking the law.  That makes them criminals according to the laws of this country.  We can argue how serious the crime is, but it is still a crime.  The swine flu came into this country from Mexico--illegally or legally--it doesn't matter.  We need to be aware that it is here and use common sense in reacting to that fact.  I have no idea what he said, but to suspend him indefinitely for voicing an opinion on people who break the law seems a bit odd.  If you don't like what the man is saying, change the station.  There are all levels of offensiveness on the radio at any time of day.

I am not the world's biggest Jay Severin fan.  I listen to him occasionally because I think he is incredibly well informed and insightful on today's events and what they mean.  I turn him off occasionally because he sometimes offends me.  That's why there are other stations on my radio--I have the right to make that choice.

The Hill is reporting today that the Democrat-sponsored bill that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages (changing principle and interest payments--known in the industry as 'cramdown') has been defeated in the Senate.  The White House supported the bill, the financial industry strongly opposed it.  The bill would have played havoc with contract law--the bank or mortgage company contracts signed with consumers would have been worth nothing if they could be changed by a judge.  Financial institutions would have to charge more for mortgages to allow for the possibility of changes to the mortgages in the future without the input of the financial institution.

The interesting part of the defeat of this law is the list of the Democrat Senators who voted against it.  According to the article:

"Democrats voting against the measure were: Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Jon Tester (Mont.), Tom Carper (Del.) and (Arlen) Specter."

Well, Democrats, welcome to the world of Arlen Specter!

This is one of those stories you may not see in too many places.  It's a Minnesota story, but it concerns me because I believe it is an attempt to control what our children learn about the war on terror (which the Obama Administration does not acknowledge).  According to Power Line,   A coloring book from southeastern Minnesota, designed to help children deal with disasters, has been removed from the federal government website because of complaints about its content.  This is the controversial picture:

Have we forgotten?  Do we want our children to be ignorant of this event?

Arlen Specter is seventy-nine years old.  He is a fighter.  He has defeated cancer twice, and won six terms in the US Senate.  He does not like the idea of losing.  Therefore, it is pretty easy to understand why he has switched parties.  His evaluation of his chances of defeating Pat Toomey in the Republican primary in Pennsylvania showed him losing by a considerable margin.  That is why he stated that he was not willing to let his performance as a Senator be judged by Pennsylvania's Republican primary voters.  It seems to me that the Republican primary voters put him in the Senate last time, was their opinion valid then?

Power Line posted an article speculating what sort of deal was made in order for Specter to switch to the Democrat party.  It is interesting that President Obama has already endorsed him as the Democrat candidate for the Senate in Pennsylvania despite the fact that there were already other people running against him!  It will also be interesting to watch his vote on 'card check'.  Card check is a union activists dream and Pennsylvania is a big union state.  This could be interesting.

In my (sometimes less than) humble opinion, there are a few people to watch as this drama unfolds.  The theory is that Arlen Specter gives the Democrat party a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  I wonder if they can count on Specter's vote any more than the Republicans could.  There are also a few other people to watch in this current situation.  In the porkulus budget bill recently passed, there were three Democrats who did not vote yes.  Robert Byrd did not vote.  Evan Bayh of Indiana voted no.  Ben Nelson of Nebraska voted no.  I believe that Evan Bayh has his eye on the White House.  If President Obama's policies are obviously awful by 2012, I believe he could be challenged in a Democrat primary by either (or both) Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh.  Keep an eye on Evan Bayh's votes and on his appearances on TV news shows on Sunday mornings.  We have three and a half years to watch this show!

Prayers and condolences to the family of the young child who has died of swine flu in Texas.  The Washington Post has the details.  However, there are a few things that are interesting about this story.  Some questions have answers, some don't.

The child had traveled by plane from Mexico City to a Mexican town near the US border on April 4.  He crossed the border into Brownsville to visit relatives and developed symptoms on April 8th.  He was admitted to Brownsville Hospital and later transferred to a Houston hospital when he did not improve.  OK, here come the heartless questions and observations.

1.  Did the child enter the country legally?

2.  Did you notice that American hospitals treat people from other countries?  We have the best and most generous healthcare system in the world.  There is no mention of any sort of health insurance.

3.  The story says his relatives are healthy and have not shown any symptoms.  How long is the incubation period on this disease and should we quarantine them knowing they have been exposed?

According to an article in the Baltimore Sun:

"Meanwhile, the commandant of the Marine Corps said a Marine in southern California might have the illness and 39 Marines were being confined until tests come back. General James Conway told a Pentagon briefing an initial test indicated the sick Marine -- who was not identified -- might have swine flu but his illness did not appear life-threatening."

As usual, the military's response to this situation is much more logical than that of the people currently in power in Washington.  As other countries are restricting or putting up travel warnings regarding Mexico, we are leaving open a very porous border.  The Mexican border needs to be closed until we learn more about the disease, how long the incubation period is, and how long people with it are contagious.

In recent years, some of the detainees who were held at Guantanamo have been sent to Saudi Arabia for 'reeducation' after they were released from Cuba.  Little Green Footballs  posted an article about this reeducation program yesterday. 

The Saudi authorities treat them well, give them ample food, recreation and classes designed to persuade them that they may have had good intentions,  but that they had made the wrong choice.  (Just for the record, Guantanamo gives them good food and recreation also.  Meals at Guantanamo are prepared to be in keeping with Muslim food requirements.)  This quote from the article shows the success rate of the program:

"Now I know the rules and regulations for jihad," Hammami said. "First, it needs the consent of the government. Second, the consent of my parents."

Notice that there is no concept that killing innocent people is wrong--just the concept tht parental and governmental permission is needed.  Keep in mind that Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (former ruler or Iraq) was paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers $25,000 for each suicide bomber.  In that part of the world that amount of money combined with the extreme religious teachings made for an attractive offer.  I have no idea how to change that mindset, but it may explain why we have killed or captured many of these people on the battlefield after they have completed the program. 

Today's New York Post has a great editorial on the upcoming battle for universal government health care.  The White House and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are planning to block debate on health care reform by using 'reconciliation', which would mean that rather than needing 60 votes to pass (avoid a filibuster), the legislation could pass with 51 votes.  Since the Democrats have 58 Senate seats, that shouldn't be a problem.  According to the article:

"'Reconciliation' is a parliamentary device originally intended to limit Senate debate over the budget. Only 20 hours of debate are permitted; filibustering is not allowed, and the number of amendments is also limited."

By including his $634 billion so-called "down-payment" on national health-care "reform" as part of this year's $3.5 trillion-plus budget, President Obama can avoid a full debate on the actual changes he will be making to American health care.

It might be wise to remember that America presently has one one the best healthcare systems in the world.  In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!".                                                                  

According to Breitbart.com, today ninety-one protesters were arrested outside the White House.  They were asking the President to support legislations that would give people with disabilities in need of long-term care alternatives to nursing homes.  I am sure that there is a real need there, but why is the government being asked to address it rather than the private sector?  If the need is real, what is stopping an entrepreneur from starting up appropriate places, why in the world do we want the government involved?  An entrepreneur would bring jobs into the private sector, he would spend money in the private sector to support people that would aid him in his business.  Are we so overregulated that starting a business in this country is not possible? 

Part of the problem with our economy is the fact that we have forgotten how to be America.  We began as a country of innovation.  There were no paved roads going west.  No one knew what was really on the other side of those mountains (and that river).  I remember hearing stories as a child about my great grandmother dealing with drunken Indians on the back porch (she eventually returned to Philadelphia to raise her family), but imagine the courage it took to go west.  Where is our courage to innovate?  We cannot and should not rely on the government to supply anything that we ourselves are capable of creating!!!  That's not how we became America.  The job of the government is to defend our country--it is not to harass or spoonfeed its citizens.

Yesterday's Washington Post ran an op-ed piece by George Will regarding the current Supreme Court case involving the city of New Haven, Connecticut, and firefighter exams given in 2003.  The exams were given to 118 candidates, 27 of them black.  There were 15 available promotions, and none of the black candidates had scores high enough to qualify for these promotions.  Because no black candidates qualified, no one was promoted.  The case is now before the Supreme Court.

Promoting the top 15 candidates, regardless of their race, would not have been discrimination--it would have been giving the job to the most qualified applicant.  Giving the job to someone less qualified or denying anyone the job because the test did not produce the results wanted is discrimination and leads to a lower quality of work in general.  Anyone who runs a business will tell you that hiring the most qualified people allows his business to run more efficiently and more profitably. 

Admittedly the city of New Haven is not a business, but wouldn't we all be better off if our government ran more effeciently and more fiscally responsibly?

According to the Canada Free Press,  Al Gore lied about his financial interest in 'global warming' legislation during his Congressional testimony.  During the house Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing on the Waxman-Markey climate bill, the former Vice-President stated that all the money he made from his business activities went into non-profit efforts.  Not quite true.  According to a March 6, 2008 Bloomberg Report:

"Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore left the White House seven years ago with less than $2 million in assets, including a Virginia home and the family farm in Tennessee. Now he's making enough to put $35 million in hedge funds and other private partnerships.

Gore invested the money with Capricorn Investment Group LLC, a Palo Alto, California, firm that selects the private funds for clients and invests in makers of environmentally friendly products, according to a Feb. 1 securities filing. Capricorn was founded by billionaire Jeffrey Skoll, former president of EBay Inc. and an executive producer of Gore's Oscar-winning documentary film on global warming."

Tennessee Representative Marsha Blackburn confronted Mr. Gore about his profiteering from global warming legislation and obvious conflict of interest concerning his testimony before the subcommittee.   Combined with the rescinding of the invitation to UK's Lord Christopher Monckton (a global warming skeptic) to speak before the committee, I'd say that Mr. Gore's obvious unreported conflict of interest is a pretty good indication that this subcommittee isn't really interested in pursuing the truth on global warming.  I suspect they have already drawn their conclusions without having to deal with any inconvenient facts.

The Washington Examiner on Thursday ran a column by Byron York which gave Ted Olson's perspective on the upcoming investigations that will follow the release of the 'torture' memos.  Ted Olson was investigated for legal advice he provided the Reagan Administration, so he has some feel for the process.  He became the target of a Capitol Hill investigation and an independent counsel.  He was ultimately proven innocent, but that was many millions of our tax dollars (and his legal fees) later.  He is quoted in the article:

"Olson, who served as Solicitor General in the Bush Justice Department but was not involved in War on Terror policy decisions, knows all the figures involved. "What they were doing was endeavoring in every legal, conceivable way to protect people from being slaughtered," Olson said. "I'm not going to comment on whether it's good or bad to do things like this, but from what I understand, there was a very high level of concern regarding credible threats of imminent terrorist attacks that justified efforts to seek additional methods of interrogation.""

At some point, I really think you have to look at this whole issue in the context of 911.  We were caught off guard because of a wall someone had erected between the CIA and the FBI.  The wall seemed like a good idea at the time, but look where it got us.  The choices being made now regarding 'enhanced' questioning of prisoners may look noble, but are they going to result in another 911?

Yahoo News is reporting that an Italian cruise ship thwarted a pirate attack off Somalia Saturday.  The ship carried an Israeli security force that fired on the pirates and drove them away.  Whether you are dealing with pirates or terrorists (they are closely related), the Israelis are the best people to have fighting with you!!  The ship, the Msc Melody, carried  roughly 1,000 passengers and 500 crew members.  None of them were hurt.

According to the article:

"Domenico Pellegrino, head of the Italian cruise line, said Msc Cruises hired the Israelis because they were the best trained security agents, the ANSA news agency reported."

The article noted that the pirates are moving their attacks further away from the coast of Somalia, which is seen as an indication that they are improving their skills.  

Yesterday's Washington Post ran a column by Porter Goss, director of the CIA from September 2004 to May 2006 and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004, regarding the release of interrogation memos by President Obama.  His view is that the information was made public for partisan reasons--President Obama was hoping to gain political advantage.

Mr. Goss recalls that in the fall of 2002, senior members of Congress were specifically briefed on the interrogation techniques that had been developed and would be used.  The Chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were briefed and understood what the CIA was doing, gave bipartisan support, and gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities. 

Mr. Goss points out:

"Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to non-state actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost."

I am truly sorry President Obama chose to release the secret documents on questioning terrorists.  We need to remember that we were dealing with known terrorists (very few people were subject to intense questioning--it was used only on people we knew had planned and orchestrated previous attacks).  We need to consider whether the discomfort of a terrorist is more serious than the loss of thousands of innocent people in a terrorist attack.  We can call it noble to spare the terrorist any discomfort, but what will we say to the families of those who die because we decide to be 'noble'? 

How strongly do you believe in our national sovereignty?  Sounds like a hypothetical question, doesn't it?  Unfortunately, it's not.  According to Breitbart.com:

"The U.S. is obligated by a United Nations convention to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who allegedly drafted policies that approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects, the U.N.'s top anti-torture envoy said Friday."

Manfred Nowak, who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva,, listed what he considered the requirements the US must meet in dealing with the issue of torture.  He stated that to fail to prosecute the CIA operatives who conducted the interrogations violates the UN convention against torture.  Nice can of worms you have opened, President Obama.

This is the question--do we retain our sovereignty and handle the matter internally (keeping an eye on the circumstances surrounding the interrogations) or do we give up our constitution and surrender to the UN?  I wonder if we would be having this discussion if the UN building had been hit instead of the World Trade Center buildings.  Hmmm. 

Ed Thomas at American Thinker has an interesting post today on the Somali pirates.  His question is simply, "Who gains from their piracy?"  He states that:

"The piracy in the northern Indian Ocean raises large sums of money for fundamentalist Mullahs and puts a big hurt on Suez Canal traffic."

Anwar Sadat was assassinated for being moderate.  The Muslim extremists have had their eye on Egypt for some time--take a look at the relationship between Egypt and the formerly Israeli terroritories now held by the Palestinians.  Egypt has been willing to deal with Israel as a sovereign State for some time now, and that does not sit well with the Muslim fundamentalists who use the existence of Israel as an excuse for their terrorism.

The article concludes:

"Egypt needs those canal revenues and the benefits of being a regional center for trade. Other primary targets are the more progressive governments of the Middle East, with Western interests as secondary targets. We must avoid fighting the enemies involved here on the terms and ground of their choosing and definition. The governments of the region that are the real targets must step up to the plate instead of using the military forces of the west as their proxies. This puts the real stakeholders in the field, (with our backing), to protect our mutual self interest.

 

If we can break this daisy chain of being a wicked terrorist piñata, wracked with western guilt, and quit being suckered into being the Great Satan, we could be an honest ally to our deserving regional friends, then we will have made much progress. The pirates are an enemy flotilla and must be treated as such. Keelhaul 'em!"

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I am skeptical about the human effect on climate change and more specifically on the concept of global warming.  There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them is the fact that the people who are totally hysterical about the concept of global warming are making very large amounts of money from people who believe them.  The cap and trade concept that President Obama wants to push through Congress will make most Americans considerably poorer (much higher energy bills) while making a few Americans much richer (Al Gore conveniently owns a company that sells carbon credits).  Last week Congress began a debate on global warming--but they only allowed one side of the debate!

According to Climate Depot and wattsupwiththat.com, UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has stated that the House Democrats refused to let him testify on Friday, April 24, when Al Gore was testifying on global warming.  He stated that Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday.  This is Lord Monckton's statement:

"Once again I'm most grateful to Anthony Watts and his hard-working team for their kindness in exposing the less than democratic tactics of the Obama Democrats. The story circulated by the indefatigable Marc Morano is - as one would expect - accurate in every particular.

Early this week the Democrats told the Republicans they would have a "celebrity witness" for this morning's hearing on the Waxman/Markey Bill, but they would not say who. The Republicans immediately contacted me and asked if they could tell the Dems they too were putting forward an undisclosed celebrity witness - me.

When the Dems eventually revealed that their "celebrity" was Al Gore, the Republicans told them I was to testify at the same time. The Dems immediately refused to allow the Republicans their first choice of witness. By the time they had refused, my jet was already in the air from London and I did not get the message till I landed in the US.

At first the Dems tried to refuse the Republicans the chance to replace me with a witness more congenial to them, but eventually - after quite a shouting-match - they agreed to let Newt Gingrich testify. The former Speaker of the House gave one of his best performances.

I attended the session anyway, as a member of the public, and tried to shake hands with Gore when he arrived, but his cloud of staffers surrounded him and he visibly flinched when I called out a friendly "Hello" to him.

His testimony was as inaccurate as ever. He repeated many of the errors identified by the High Court in the UK. He appeared ill at ease and very tired - perhaps reflecting on the Rasmussen poll that shows a massive 13.5% swing against the bedwetters' point of view in just one year.

My draft testimony will be posted at http://www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org shortly, together with a brief refutation of Gore's latest errors.

Finally, I have never said what one of your less polite correspondents has said I said about HIV. However, in 1987, at the request of the earliest researchers into the disease, I wrote articles in journals on both sides of the Atlantic recommending that AIDS should be treated as a notifiable disease, just like any other fatal, incurable infection. Had that standard public-health measure been taken - immediate, compulsory, permanent, but humane isolation of the then rather few carriers - many of the 25 million (UNAIDS figures) who have died and the 40 million who are currently infected and heading for death would have been spared. Sometimes, unfashionable points of view are right, and sometimes ignoring them can be a matter of life and death."

There is further information on this at scienceandpublicpolicy.org.  Please read the information and draw your own conclusions.

According to ABC News the Obama Administration will be turning over to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.  The ACLU attorney has stated that the potographs "only underscore the need for a criminal investigation and prosecution if warranted".

Have we forgotten what happened to us on September 11th?  Have we forgotten OUR intellegence failures that led to September 11th?  When the 'wall' between the CIA and the FBI was put it, it seemed like a good idea.  It was only in hindsight that it proved to be a total disaster.  I fear that the hysteria we are exhibiting now in relation to terrorist interrogations will be as much of a disaster in hindsight as the 'wall' was.

Today's New York Times reports that the Obama Administration will use the "reconciliation" procedure on its health care program in order to get it through the Senate without it being filibustered.  This is not a good idea.  The changes the Administration proposes are drastic, and the public needs to be aware of the specifics so that they can weigh in with their Congressmen.  According to the article:

"Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota has advised using against reconciliation, saying it does not lend itself to such a complex issue as health care. But he came under intense pressure from the White House, his own leadership and the House to agree to include it."

What happened to the transparency that the Obama Administration promised?  Where are the details of the new health care program posted so that the American people can see what the program is?

Cliff May at the Corner at National Review Online has a short information column on the current debate about waterboarding and torture of terrorists.  He details the supervision that extreme interrogations were under and the restrictions on the people in charge of the questioning.  The article also puts to rest the idea that waterboarding was used often on prisoners and details what the numbers that have been released regarding waterboarding actually mean.  It's an interesting read simply because it clearly explains what went on and shows how some of the media has totally distorted what actually happened.

There's another aspect of this 'torture' debate.  First of all, none of the torture victims had their heads chopped off or were treated the way our soldiers have been treated when the terrorists manage to capture them.  But the aspect of this that has not generally been voiced can be found at Little Green Footballs.  According to their website:

"VIENNA - The U.S. is obligated by a United Nations convention to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who allegedly drafted policies that approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects, the U.N.'s top anti-torture envoy said Friday."

If this prosecution happens, we have essentially turned our national sovereignty over to the United Nations, and guess what, they don't give a hoot about preventing terrorism in America.  This is another reason we should end our support of the UN and ask them to leave the country.  We will be investigated for mistreating terrorists while the terrorists and their actions will be ignored.

Power Line posted an article yesterday regarding a decision by Benjamin Netanyahu's government to pause on peace talks with the Palestinians untill the United States makes some progress in stopping Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, has stated repeatedly that his goal is to destroy Israel.  Ignoring these statements or thinking that they are symbolic is not smart.

A peaceful Palestinian State is a great idea if that is what the giving up of further territory would create, but we know from experience that giving up territory by Israel does not bring peace--it just puts the rockets fired into Israel closer to their targets.  The United States has put and is putting pressure on Israel to give up more land.  If you look at a map of Israel, you realize that giving up the land they are being asked to give up makes the country indefensible and increases the chances of war--not peace.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line states that he hopes Israel will stick to its guns on this policy.  I agree.  The end of the Iranian nuclear program would be a good thing for everyone.  The Palestinian problem will not be solved until the Palestinians decide to govern the territory they have, not use it as a base for terrorism against Israel.  Some of the areas they now control were prosperous under Israeli control, but when they were given to the Palestinians, the Palestinians destroyed the greenhouses that produced the income that supported the region.  Until that sort of behavior stops, the area will be in poverty and the people angry and looking for scapegoats.

According to Breitbart.com, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ruled that 17-year-old girls will be allowed to buy the "morning-after" emergency contraceptive without a doctor's prescription or parental consent.  I have some serious problems with this idea. 

Despite the fact that 17-year-old girls are much more worldly than they used to be, how well informed are they on the risks, side effects, and future problems associated with this pill?  Does taking this pill create the emotional rollercoaster that teenage girls go through normally with hormonal changes or the mood swings that women go through with pregnancy?  How are the parents supposed to respond to a child (yes, she is a child) who is emotionally all over the place when they have no idea what is going on?  Why, in a nation that will not let your child get her ears pierced without parental consent until she is eighteen, are we letting a 17-year-old do something this serious without parental guidance and help?  How does this square with schools where a 17-year old can get in trouble for having aspirin in her pocketbook?

Regardless of what the issue is, I would want to have a place at the table for any serious decision regarding my child.  Maybe parenting is not valued anymore, but rules like this make it more difficult for parents to be parents.  Admittedly, communicating with your teenager is not always a picnic (I survived three daughters who were all teenagers at one time and I am still relatively coherent), but it needs to be tried and will pay off dividends after they grow up a bit.  This ruling is destructive to families and is a very bad idea.

The Wall Street Journal Online has an article today on the possiblity of prosecutions of the people who allowed the intense interrogation of terrorists under the Bush Administration.  The lead paragraph in the article states:

"Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret."

Up until now, a presidential administration has never criminalized the decisions of the previous administration.  In our country the law is not supposed to change according to who is in power.  President Obama has stated that he will not encourage the prosecution of individual CIA agents, but he has invited investigations against Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials.

The interesting part of this is that the Senate was informed about these interrogations when they were going on.  That is on the record.  It is going to be interesting to see how they excuse themselves from being part of what was happening.  It is also interesting that these interrogations kept our country safe from further attacks.  Is the Obama Administration going to make us less safe in order to gain political points?

Allahpundit at Hot Air has posted an article about an enterprising young man who decided to write a book studying the culture and habits of that rather stange cultural phenomenon called the students and facilty at Liberty University.  He even lined up a publisher -- Grand Central Publishing.  He was shocked to find the campus a place filled with generally normal people.  Who knew?   He even interviewed Jerry Falwell before Reverend Falwell died.  He still decided that the campus was filled with sincere, normal people. 

How did we go from a society that respected all religions to one that looks at Christians as an oddity worthy of anthropological study?  There was a man willing to write this book and a publisher willing to publish it.  That fact troubles me greatly.

The American Thinker has posted a transcript of a 2002 interview of Eric Holder on CNN regarding the interrogration of unlawful combatants.  In the interview, he states:

"It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war. If, for instance, Mohamed Atta had survived the attack on the World Trade Center, would we now be calling him a prisoner of war? I think not. Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of war? Again, I think not."

These three articles are from different sources and don't seem to be related, but they indicate a frightening trend in our national life. 

The first, from Breitbart.com recounts the story of an Iraqi veteran and two mothers of soldiers asking a federal judge in New Jersey to declare the war in Iraq unconstitutional.  The government argued that courts do not have authority to rule on a political matter.  Watch this, it will be interesting to see what happens next.

The second, from the Daily Mail Online says that President Obama may allow the Bush Administration officials who designed the 'harsh' interrogation techniques used on some terrorists may be subject to prosecution by the Attorney General.  Let me see, the techniques that uncovered terrorist plots against our country and prevented them are now going to be retroactively illegal.  There have to be all sorts of constitutional problems with retroactive laws aimed at a specific group of people.  I guess political prosecution is more important than national safety.

Last, but not least, CNS News has confirmed that the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed gave them information that allowed Homeland Security to stop a 911-style attack on Los Angeles.  According to the article:

"A CIA spokesman confirmed to CNSNews.com today that the CIA stands by the factual assertions made here.
 
In the memo itself, the Justice Department's Bradbury told the CIA's Rossi: "Your office has informed us that the CIA believes that 'the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qa'ida has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001."

The CNS article is rather long, but there is a lot of good information there about how a country defends itself from terrorism.  I don't like to see anyone put through intense interrogation, but I don't want to see thousands of people killed in Los Angeles either.  Sometimes you have to make hard choices to preserve your country from evil.  I'm not sure the present administration is willing to do that. 

The Baltimore Sun reported today on the amount of fraud that has occurred in the federal bailout program which began late last year.  According to the article:

"Investigators said Monday that they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax law violations, insider trading and mortgage modification fraud"

Neal Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the bailout program, has said that these are just the first invesigations, he expects more to follow.  He expects indictments to occur later this year.

The article reports that:

"The report lays out just how complicated the program has become. What started out last October as a single-purpose $750 billion effort to buy toxic securities has morphed into 12 separate programs that covers up to $3 trillion in direct spending, loans and loan guarantees.

The program has now committed an amount equal to the entire annual federal budget."

The amount of fraud could run into the tens of billions of dollars.  This is our tax money we are talking about.  It may be complicated to monitor all the money and all the programs, but part of the job of the government is to do just that and do it well. 

Yesterday, President Obama announced that he would be doing some serious budget cutting.  He met with his Cabinet and told them he wanted $100 million (I'm writing it that way because it's early in the morning and my brain can't handle all the zeroes) in budget cuts.  Wow!

According to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, this amounts to a 0.0029% cut on a budget of $ 3.5 trillion dollars (not to mention the pork-laden stimulus package of $787 billion).  This is not budget cutting--this is a symbolic response to the tea parties last week.  I hope the voters are paying enough attention to the numbers to realize that this is a scam.

According to Fox News, Dick Cheney is calling for the release of the memos that show the results of extreme interrogation techniques used on some terrorists.  Before I continue, there are two obvious things I would like to point out--first, the people being interrogated were known terrorists, and second, these techniques were not commonly used--they were used in specific cases where the people using them felt they were necessary for national security reasons.  Remember national security?  It used to be really important.  Now it is being used as a cover to go after political free speech.  Because it was important we have not been attacked in this country since September 11th.  I fear that streak will be ending in the not too distant future.  I hope I am wrong.

Anyway, according to Dick Cheney's interview on Fox:

"Cheney said he's asked that the documents be declassified because he has remained silent on the confidential information, but he knows how successful the interrogation process was and wants the rest of the country to understand." 

If the original documents were released because 'Americans have a right to know', then it follows that the results should also be released so American can see how the intense questioning effected them.  If we are going to be open, we need to be open--not tell half the story.

Wag Reflex, a website for animal lovers has some really good advice for those of us who love animals and have pets.  The headline of the article is:

Don't Own Pets That Can Eat You

Seriously, the article has some valid tips on pet ownership--things you need to consider when choosing and adopting a pet.  Even small pets can potentially harm family members by biting, and this needs to be a consideration when adopting a pet.  According to the article, realizing that a domestic pet can harm a person is part of responsible pet ownership.

Power Line has a post today about the Uighur Chinese Muslims currently held at Guantanamo Bay.  According to the article:

"After President Obama promised to close Gitmo, the White House ordered an inter-agency review of the status of all the detainees. Apparently, it believed that many of those held would be quickly determined releasable. If so, this belief was perhaps naive, considering that a large percentage of the detainees, presumably the comparatively "innocuous" ones, had already been released (some of whom promptly returned to their terrorist ways).

The inter-agency committee -- comprised of all the national security agencies -- was told to start with what the Obama administration believed to be the easiest case, that of the seventeen Chinese Muslims, known as Ughurs, who were captured at an al-Queda training camp."

Well, it didn't go the way President Obama hoped.  The committee determined that these seventeen people were members of the ETIM terrorist group, the "East Turkistan Islamic Movement.  Their presence at the al-Queda training camp was not accidental.

The White House legal office has asked the committee to restudy the facts and come up with a different answer.  The goal here is to relocate the terrorists to America since sending the terrorists back to China is not an option (I'm not sure if that is because the Chinese won't take them or because we know they would be mistreated there.  Good grief--they're terrorists.  Why are we worried about how they would be treated?)  Do we want to settle them here, and find them jobs to support their terrorism? 

According to The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, a conservative legal group has filed suit against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder over the DHS memo warning of the threat from "right wing extremists."  The group, the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, charges that the report targets certain people or groups for negative treatment based on their opinions on political issues.  

The suit was filed on behalf of radio talk show host Michael Savage and the anti-abortion group Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.  The fourteen-page suit can be read here.

The suit charges that the DHS report is an attempt to marginalize conservative opinions and opposition to the expansion of government that is taking place under President Obama.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.   

The City Journal has an article written by Peter Huber on the concept of cap and trade and carbon credits.  He points out that American does not control the world's carbon emissions, we only control our part, nor do we control world-wide energy use.  He compares today's carbon brokers to medieval priests selling indulgences.  The typical American needs to spend about $500 per year on carbon credits--the average family of four--about $2000.  The person handling the transaction for you will spend the money on such things as reducing methane emissions from hog farms in Brazil.  But what about the carbon emissions from families in poor countries around the world?  They can't afford to buy carbon credits. 

According to the article:

"If making carbon this personal seems rude, then think globally instead. During the presidential race, Barack Obama was heard to remark that he would bankrupt the coal industry. No one can doubt Washington's power to bankrupt almost anything--in the United States. But China is adding 100 gigawatts of coal-fired electrical capacity a year. That's another whole United States' worth of coal consumption added every three years, with no stopping point in sight. Much of the rest of the developing world is on a similar path."

The bottom line on this is that we cannot control the world's use of carbon.  It is also interesting to note that 80% of the world's population is not at all interested in limiting its carbon use.  If we choose to limit ours, we will cripple our economy for no real gain.

The article proposes a practical solution to the problem of carbon:

"If we're truly worried about carbon, we must instead approach it as if the emissions originated in an annual eruption of Mount Krakatoa. Don't try to persuade the volcano to sign a treaty promising to stop. Focus instead on what might be done to protect and promote the planet's carbon sinks--the systems that suck carbon back out of the air and bury it. Green plants currently pump 15 to 20 times as much carbon out of the atmosphere as humanity releases into it--that's the pump that put all that carbon underground in the first place, millions of years ago. At present, almost all of that plant-captured carbon is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by animal consumers. North America, however, is currently sinking almost two-thirds of its carbon emissions back into prairies and forests that were originally leveled in the 1800s but are now recovering. For the next 50 years or so, we should focus on promoting better land use and reforestation worldwide. Beyond that, weather and the oceans naturally sink about one-fifth of total fossil-fuel emissions. We should also investigate large-scale options for accelerating the process of ocean sequestration."

Now what we need are people willing to listen to alternative solutions to the 'carbon' problem!

Today's Washington Times ran an editorial today concerning the release of the CIA interrogation memo.  The White House is claiming that releasing these memos in no way effected national security.

The article points out:

"The definition of 'top secret' is information which, if revealed, would cause grave harm to U.S. security," former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said on "Fox News Sunday." "There's a difference of leaks, and rumors, and rumors of this and that, and going out there and defining in an absolutely clear way what the limits are."

We are still fighting the war that these memos involve.  Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, pointed out today on Fox that he felt no desire to be transparent to Al Qaeda.  The release of these memos is a political move carried out with no regard for the safety of our country or our military.  We want our soldiers and military people to fight the war on terror--not have to consult the ACLU or a lawyer before they make a move.  We saw what happens when politicians run a war with Vietnam, we do not need to make that same mistake again.

Today's New York Post has an opinion piece by Jonathan Williams about the proposed tax hikes in New York State.  He opens the article by saying:

"There's an old saying that high taxes don't redistribute income, they redistribute people. Unfortunately for the hard-working taxpayers of New York, this wisdom seems to be lost on Gov. Paterson and a majority of legislators in Albany."

The economic outlook for New York State is bleak--according to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) New York has the worst economic outlook of any state in the nation.  According to the article:

"The second edition of "Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer Economic Competitiveness Index" presents economic outlook rankings of the states, based on the relationship between policies and performance -- revealing which states are best positioned to make a recovery. The study examines how economic competitiveness drives income, population and job growth in the states and looks at the public policies that have enabled prosperity in some areas, while ruining business climates and causing economic malaise in others. Considering the competition in the latter category (California, Michigan, New Jersey, etc.), it's quite an accomplishment for New York to rank dead last."

The states with the best economic outlooks are Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Virginia.  These states have lower spending and lower taxes which allow businesses to prosper without the weight of extra taxes and regulation.

The article also mentions that radio personality Rush Limbaugh has publicly stated that he will no longer be doing business in New York due to the new 'millionaire's tax'.  Mr. Limbaugh physically moved his radio operation out of New York a number of years ago.  He is still required to pay New York State taxes for the days that he is physically in New York.  He has been auditied by the state for the past twelve years.  How many of us would put up with that sort of aggravation from a state we don't even live in? 

Again, laws (and taxes) have consequences.  Texas currently has the largest number of corporate headquarters of any state in the union.  Texas has no personal income tax.  That is not a coincidence.  When people are able to save considerable amounts of money by relocating their businesses, that's what they do.  The tax and spend problem is not only a national issue--it's also a state issue. 

Friday's Washington Post ran a column by Charles Krauthammer describing the four parts of the Obama 'sting.'

The first part he refers to as "The Whopper", or President Obama's statement that he had "identified $2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade."   Actually this is not a deduction in spending--it's just what will naturally occur as the war in Iraq winds down.

The second part he refers to as "The Puzzler", or President Obama's claim that his budget would reduce domestic discretionary spending as a share of GDP to the lowest level ever recorded.  This is a result of the out-of-control entitlements that take up more and more of the budget every year.  It has nothing to do with any reduction of spending.

The third part he refers to as "The Non Sequitur", or President Obama's statement that the drastic changes he is proposing in health-care, energy and education have some relationship to the financial crisis we are facing now.  The reforms he is proposing have nothing to do with the current financial crisis and are not needed or helpful for economic recovery.

The fourth part he refers to as "The Swindle", or President Obama's statement that he intends to cure the budget deficits by entitlement reform while at the same time he is allowing pork-barrel spending larger than we have ever seen, which will lead us to unsustainable debt.

The financial plans of this administration are dangerous to the long-term well being of the country.  The reforms in health care, energy, and education will not lead us out of this recession--they will lead us closer to government control over all aspects of our lives.

This is a picture from Al Asad Air Base in the Al Anbar province of Iraq.  I love the creativity of our soldiers!!

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has posted an article about NATO freeing 20 hostages from pirates in the Gulf of Yemen and capturing seven pirates in the process.  This happened today according to the source article at Yahoo News.  Sounds good, right?  Well, not so fast.  The article points out:

"The commandos briefly detained and questioned the seven gunmen, he told Reuters, but had no legal power to arrest them.

"NATO does not have a detainment policy. The warship must follow its national law," he said.

"They can only arrest them if the pirates are from the Netherlands."

NATO has no authority to arrest the pirates.  OK, where do the pirates get the authority to be pirates?  It seems to me that if there is no question that the men are pirates--see mother ship, hostages, etc.--anyone who happens to have them on the wrong end of a gun should be able to at least bring them to a place where they can be arrested.  This is totally insane.  Why is it not international law for anyone to capture pirates?  Where's a good bounty hunter when you need him? 

According to Breitbart.com, the Environmental Protection Agency is taking the first step toward regulating greenhouse gases in order to prevent climate change.  They have decided that greenhouse gases endanger pulbic health and welfare, thus making them subject to regulation under public health laws.  This is actually rather clever.  It will be cap and trade that will cost everyone tons of money, but since it's for 'public health and welfare', unless we have an informed public, it will be suicide for a pollitician to vote against it (assuming it actually gets voted on rather than just declared as law!).  He (or she) will be accused of endangering the public health! 

The plan is to limit carbon dioxide and five other gases.  According to the article:

"In announcing the proposed finding, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said it "confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations." She reiterated that the Obama administration prefers that climate change be address by Congress through broad, economy-wide limits on climate-changing pollution. But the EPA finding of endangerment prepares for possible regulatory action if Congress fails to act."

Wow.  If Congress won't vote it in, we'll can declare it a public health issue and enact it anyway.  One of the important things to notice here is where the EPA is getting the power to do this.  The article explains:

The EPA action was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling two years ago that said greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act and must be regulated if found to be a danger to human health or public welfare.

The Bush administration strongly opposed using the Clean Air Act to address climate change and stalled on producing the so-called "endangerment finding" demanded by the high court in its April 2007 ruling.

The court case, brought by Massachusetts, focused only on emissions from automobiles. But it is widely assumed that if the EPA must regulate emissions from cars and trucks, it will have no choice but to control identical pollution from power plants and industrial sources.

Congress is considering imposing an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions along with giving industry the ability to trade emission allowances to mitigate costs. Legislation could be considered by the House before the August congressional recess.

 
The ruling comes out of a court case--it does not come out of legislature.  This is the reason the selection of judges who do not take on more power than the Constitution gives them is so important.  This is more regulation than we want or need.  Please understand, I am not in favor of pollution--I am in favor of not crippling the American economy based on science that is not yet proven.  I would like cleaner air, but not at the cost of jobs and the financial well-being of our country.  Recently I posted an article on what 'green jobs' have meant to the Spanish economy.  For every 'green job' they have gained, they have lost two and a half other jobs.  I would hate to see that happen here.

Breitbart.tv has posted a film of John Zeigler (a journalist who went to USC to ask questions about Katie Couric getting the Walter Cronkite Journalism Award for her interview of Sarah Palin) getting handcuffed and threatened with arrest.  Evidently the award is given to a journalist who impacts the political process, and it was given to Katie Couric.  The interview of Sarah Palin was cut and pasted in a way to make Sarah Palin look as uninformed as possible, and it did have a negative impact on the McCain campaign.  (Notice that there was no journalism investigating Barack Obama's ties to ACORN (his contributors list was shared with them during the campaign).  ACORN is under investigation for election fraud in a number of states, but since President Obama has been elected, journalism does not seem too interested in following that story.)  I believe President Obama would have been elected anyway, but I really am concerned the Chicago politics has come to Washington.

Anyway, about the film.  It seems to me that if you are doing something above board, you really don't mind if anyone watches you or films you doing it.  My experience as a mother tells me that when things are too quiet or there seems to be a need for secrecy, something is going on.  It is chilling that this man, whatever his motives or past actions, was not allowed to simply film people attending the event or ask them questions.  This is the kind of censorship that liberals always felt George Bush was guilty of.  Now it seems as if they practice it without consequence.

Just think--a journalist intimidated and threated with arrest at a journalism awards event--WOW!. 

According to the Wall Street Journal Online the Federal Bureau Of Investigation launched an operation earlier this year called Operation Vigilant Eagle which focused on returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans as potential domestic terrorists.  According to the article:

"The aim of the FBI's effort with the Defense Department, which was rolled into the Vigilant Eagle program, is to "share information regarding Iraqi and Afghanistan war veterans whose involvement in white supremacy and/or militia sovereign citizen extremist groups poses a domestic terrorism threat," according to the Feb. 23 FBI memo."

There are not words to describe how offended I am by this.  One of my sons-in-law is an Afghanistan veteran (and also spent some time in Iraq).  I have met many of the people who currently serve with him or have served with him in the past.  I am immensely proud of him and of the military personnel I have met through him.  The men and women who currently serve in our military are people we should be extremely proud of.  Every member of every group there is cannot attain perfection, but these people come close. 

At a time when there are real terrorists plotting nasty things against us and other free nations, it is national suicide to play political games with our security.  I just hope we can get to 2010 without a major attack on the US so that we have a chance to vote these people out before it's too late.

The BBC is reporting that the French warship Nivose has captured 11 pirates off the coast of Kenya.  According to the article:

"It had detected a "mother ship", or command vessel, on Tuesday, and observed it overnight before launching an assault early on Wednesday, the ministry said."

In the past few days, four ships have been seized by the pirates and other ships have been attacked.  The pirates have sworn revenge on France and the United States because of the killing of pirates in recent rescue operations carried out by those two countries. 

According to the article:

"In recent months Britain, the US, and the European Union have signed memorandums of understanding with Nairobi that Kenya will act as a kind of international tribunal for pirate crimes.

Several Somali pirates turned over by the US and Germany are already undergoing legal action there but, so far, Paris prefers to try captured pirates in French courts."

Congratulations to the French for taking the lead in dealing with a truly international problem. 

Just a personal note before I begin this post.  As the wife of a Vietnam-era veteran, I remember how the veterans were treated after that war.  A friend of my husband and me who was a personnel manager for a company told us that his company would not hire veterans from that era because they 'just assumed that they were all screwed up'.  Needless to say, that made it very difficult to find a job if you had served your country (remember that the majority of people who served during that time were drafted--they did not volunteer).  I see the seeds of that happening again in the new Homeland Security Report, and I am concerned and disappointed by it.

The American Thinker and Hot Air both have articles discussing the report the Homeland Security Department issued in January regarding left-wing terror threats and how that compares with the recent report on right-wing terror threats.  The contrast is interesting.  Up front, I would like to say that there are stange people on both sides (and edges) of the political spectrum.  My experience has been, however, that generally conservatives tend to talk issues, liberals attack people and are not particularly open to debate.  Anyway, this is what the two reports on extremism said.  According to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

"While the DHS report focusing on the Right expansively and generally indicted groups opposing abortion, illegal immigration, and federalism, this report (the report focusing on the Left)instead focuses on actual and specific extremist groups - groups who have a long history of domestic terrorism and violence (page  9)."

The irony of the report of the left is that after looking at the history of violence (car dealerships burned up in California, home construction sites burned, research labs burned), they warn against cyber attacks by left wing terrorists.  Meanwhile, there are terrorists somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan who are splitting their sides laughing at this.  I just hope all they do is laugh..

I know there was some talk about the Department of Homeland Security's terrorism report released yesterday, and the report was not mentioned here.  I was waiting for someone who I could understand to publish a logical anaysis of the report.  Well, Fox News has an article by Judge Andrew Napolitano, their legal analyst, listing the six things he considers the most important in the report.  According to Judge Napolitano:

1.  The document lists no names, has few footnotes, and names few sources.

2.  The document was not supposed to be released to the public.  The document claims its purpose is to deter, prevent, or repond to terrorist attacks against the United States.

3.  The report sees the current economic situation as fertile breeding ground for extremist groups to attract returning veterans, people who support gun rights, people who fear an African-American President, or people who fear "Jewish financial elites".

4.  The document does not comply with many Supreme Court decisions regarding freedom of expression and free speech rights.  The document makes it clear that the government is watching both public and private behavior.

5.  The document is very concerned with certain opinions that support things such as state's rights.  The document is only concerned with opinions that do not support strong central government.

6.  This report represents a government that keeps tabs on everyone--not a government that allows freedom of expression and free debate.

Generally speaking, the document is aimed at the political right.  No mention is made of the ELF terrorists who burned down auto dealerships in California last year, or burned construction sites.  No mention is made of the anarchists who show up every time the G-12 or G-20 or G-whatever meets.  No mention is made of the internet hate speech against George Bush or the movie made about his assasination (during his Presidency).  The report itself is not a serious work of national defense--it is a political hack-job aimed at political opponents.  We need to vote very carefully in the Congressional elections next year to make sure this type of thinking does not get institutionalized into the government.  Our freedom of speech is in danger.  We are entering a period in our country where it is legal to burn the American flag, but not legal to protest abortion.  That is not a place I want to be.

The American Thinker posted an article today by Humberto Fontova regarding the relaxing of restrictions on Cuban-Americans to visit or send things to relatives still in Cuba.  Mr. Fontova points out in the article:

An FBI investigation in South Florida this summer, for instance, turned up a Medicare Fraud scandal totaling $142 million. The Benitez brothers, Carlos, Jose and Luis, who arrived in Miami in 1995 from Cuba, are accused of being responsible for $84 million of this swindle. "Thirty-three of the 36 fugitives whose names have been released by authorities are Cuban immigrants," reported the Miami Herald, "most of whom came to the United States during the past 15 years. Half of these (including the Benitez brothers) have fled back to Cuba to escape prosecution, using their Cuban passports.""

One of the things pointed out in the article was the fact that due to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans who arrive in this country and apply for political asylum are able to become citizens much more quickly than other Hispanic immigrants.  The article points out some of the abuses of this system and some of the abuses of the freedom to send money to Cuba that led to restrictions being put in place in 2004.  The article is worth reading just for these details. 

The Harvard Crimson published an article today by Eric W. Baum on the effects of sunspots on climate change.  According to Willie Soon, a researcher affiliated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Harvard College Observatory, solar radiation from sunspots has a major effect of earth's climate, and the recent decrease in sunspot activity is probably related to the cooler temperatures earth has experienced in recent years.

I don't claim to understand all of this, but I do know that to cripple our economic system in the name of unproven science is not a wise move.  Global climate science is still in its infant stages, and for us to think that we have the ability to change the weather is more than a little arrogant.  I think all of us have a responsibility to respect our environment, but I don't think we need to let our environment rule us!

The CBS TV outlet in Vermont is reporting on the Vermont legislature's move to make text messaging sexually explicit pictures of yourself not a crime if you are under eighteen and the person receiving the text is under eighteen.  The legislature will hear more testimony on the subject later this week.  Currently teenagers texting sexually explicit pictures among themselves can be charged under child pornography laws.  I am not going to comment on the law or the possibility of the law, but there are some aspects of this we need to look at.

What has happened to the concept of dating that a girl would even consider sending explicit pictures to her boyfriend or other male friend?  Have we totally lost the idea of valuing girls and women for something other than sex?  Whatever happened to the idea of spending time with a member of the opposite sex as a teenager and simply enjoying each other's company and enjoying common interests?  What have we done to the value of all people when the behavior of explicit texting is commonly happening among our teenagers?  The fact that the issue of 'sexting' is being legally addressed should be a wake-up call to us all.  Best wishes to anyone raising a teenager in this atmosphere!

Ari Fleisher wrote an op-ed piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal Online explaining why our system of government works better when everyone pays income taxes.  Under the current system, Ten per cent of the people in America make more than $ 92,400 a year.  They pay 72.4% of the nation's income taxes.

The article points out that: 

"As a result of the 2001 tax cuts enacted by a bipartisan Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, the share of taxes paid by the top 10% increased to 72.8% in 2005 from 67.8% in 2001, according to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)."...

"According to the CBO, those who made less than $44,300 in 2001 -- 60% of the country -- paid a paltry 3.3% of all income taxes. By 2005, almost all of them were excused from paying any income tax. They paid less than 1% of the income tax burden. Their share shrank even when taking into account the payroll tax. In 2001, the bottom 60% paid 16.3% of all taxes; by 2005 their share was down to 14.3%. All the while, this large group of voters made 25.8% of the nation's income."

Ari Fleischer is proposing an income tax system where everyone pays some income taxes.  If that were the case, everyone's taxes would go up and down according to increases or decreases in federal spending.  Everyone would have a stake in how much to government was spending.  We would not have the situation that we have now where everyone at all levels is trying to 'outsmart' the tax code either by loopholes or the underground economy.

The complete Internal Revenue Code is more than 24 megabytes in length, and contains more than 3.4 million words; printed 60 lines to the page, it would fill more than 7500 letter-size pages.   This needs to change.  Right now the tax code is the product of effective lobbying of Congress by 'special interest groups', we need Representatives and Senators who have the courage, integrity, and ability to change the way taxes are collected in America!

According to the Chicago Business, Illinois will receive more than 12 percent of the road and bridge projects approved so far by the U.S. Department of Transportation in the stimulus package.  According to the article:

"At a televised appearance Monday before about 50 DOT employees, President Barack Obama announced that 2,000 projects nationwide had been approved by the agency since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act became law Feb. 17.

"Just 41 days ago we announced funding for the first transportation project under ARRA and today we're approving the 2,000th project," Mr. Obama said. "I am proud to utter the two rarest phrases in the English language: Projects are being approved ahead of schedule, and they are coming in under budget.""

There are fifty states in the United States.  There are fifty states where people pay taxes to the federal government.  If money were allocated simply by how many states there were, each state would get 2 percent of the money.  In 2007, Illinois paid $135,458,089,000 to the federal government in taxes.  The state ranked fifth in the amount of money collected and paid to the government.  It just seems an amazing coincidence that the President's home state is receiving a lion's share of the stimulus money. 

Just as a side thought, how can a project not started yet be under budget?

Attend you local tea party--this is part of what the tea party movement is about.

One of the charges most often made against the George Bush Administration was that they were 'arrogant'.  To me, one of the definitions of arrogance is ignoring the advice of the people who may actually understand any given situation.  That is what I believe is happening with the Obama Administration's changes being made to our relationship with Cuba.

The Hill posted an article this afternoon about the changes President Obama is making in terms of travel to Cuba and money and goods that can be sent to Cuba.  The largest Cuban-American population in this country is located in Florida.  Two Congressmen from this area, Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), have both come out strongly against the changes being made.  The two Representatives have released a statement that "Unilateral concessions to the dictatorship embolden it to further isolate, imprison and brutalize pro-democracy activists, to continue to dictate which Cubans and Cuban-Americans are able to enter the island, and this unilateral concession provides the dictatorship with critical financial support,"   Lincoln Diaz-Balart was born in Cuba and fled the country with his family after Fidel Castro's revolution.

I have no opinion as to what is right in this situation.  It might be wise, however, to listen to the people with the closest ties to Cuba and what is happening there.

The New York Post has a good wrap-up of the events off the coast of Somalia during the past few days.  The article points out that the pirates had threatened to kill the captain of the Maersk Alabama and had AK-47's pointed at his back.  At that point, we had no choice but to take their threats seriously.

I am reminded of all the Peanuts cartoons where Charlie Brown is up at bat at the end of a baseball game.  His thought is that he can be the hero or the goat.  President Obama was in a similar (although much more serious) situation.  Had one of the pirates reflexively pulled the trigger on the gun he was holding, we might be in a very different situation.  I believe President Obama did the right thing by giving the USS Bainbridge the freedom to act quickly in the situation.  I am thrilled that the hijacking and kidnapping ended the way it did.

According to the New York Post article:

"Buccaneers operating out of lawless areas of Somalia increasingly have been chasing and seizing commercial ships operating under the flags of several nations, holding the crews and vessels hostage for millions of dollars. There currently are more than a dozen ships and 230 sailors -- none of them Americans -- being held hostage in the region."

The pirates' response to yesterday's events is to say that they will increase their level of aggression against French and American ships (the French recaptured a private yacht recently, killing two pirates and one hostage).  The pirates are not justified in practicing piracy, and they are not justified in threatening to kill people, or killing people.  The only answer to the problem of piracy is the one Thomas Jefferson employed during the early 1800's.  Send in the armed forces (in his case the US Marines) to wipe out their bases and eliminate any pirates that get in the way of that effort.  The world needs to unite and repeat that action.  If the world is not willing to do it, America needs to do it and require other countries impacted by the pirates to help finance our actions. 

Howie Carr has an article in today's Boston Herald about the state program in Massachusetts that gives taxpayers the choice of paying state income tax at the current rate or at the higher rate we had under Michael Dukakis.  It's getting close to April 15th, many people have filed their tax returns, and there are some statistics on how this choice is working out.

As of now, roughly 2.1 million state residents of Massachusetts have filed their taxes.  Of those 2.1 million, exactly 802 opted to pay at the higher, voluntary 5.85 percent rate.  That's about1/25th of one percent.  If, as Joe Biden, has said, "Paying higher taxes is patriotic", I guess we are not a very patriotic state.  The statistics show that the total amount of extra taxes paid by these 802 people were $ 77,845.  Based on this number, those people who paid extra taxes had an average taxable income last year of $20,000 per taxpayer.  The heck with the extra tax payments, I want to know how you live in Massachusetts on $20,000 a year and then have extra money to put into taxes.

I have a better idea--cut the spending!  Reduce the number of state workers--if private businesses are cutting employees, why isn't the state reflecting the trend?  Why did our State Representatives get raises this year when many of the people they supposedly represent did not?  Massachusetts does not lack money to run the state, it lacks wisdom in the spending of the money it has.  It's time we begin to think about electing people who have that wisdom.

The Los Angeles Times ran an article this morning that shows the need of the government to rethink some of the ways it tries to help people escape poverty and achieve financial success.  The article cited the federal government's Dollar Homes program as an example of good intentions gone bad.

The program began in 1998 with the intention of clearing the Department of Housing and Urban Development's books of foreclosures and providing affordable housing to lower income people.  The plan was that local governments would buy the homes for $1, fix them up and resell them at a discount to poor families, who would get a chance to put down roots in the community.  According to the article, that's not what happened:

"More than 2,300 homes have been sold by HUD for $1 each nationwide, with 326 in California. Nearly half of the homes in California were bought by companies or individuals who typically resold them at a much higher price. Only 15% were sold to nonprofit housing groups such as Habitat for Humanity, records show."

The article sites one specific example of the program's failure:

Those are words I am rather surprised to find myself saying, but all of us need to thank the President for his actions in the pirate hostage situation.  I am partial to Power Line Blog because I like the logical way they approach things, but needless to say, the story is all over the internet.  It is detailed well at Breitbart.com.  The bottom line seems to be that when the skipper of the USS Bainbridge saw an AK-47 pointed at the back of Captain Phillips, who was tied up, he decided to act.  The action he took (telling the snipers to fire was not without risk--when snipers shoot people in this type of situation, the gun they are holding can be discharged due to the reflex actions of the person shot--thank God this did not happen).  The US Navy snipers did their job and took out each of the three pirates remaining on their little boat with one shot each.  There are some really positive aspects of this operation in addition to the rescue of the captain.

Up until now, the pirates had not attacked American ships.  The Maersk Alabama was the first attempt at getting a ransom payment out of America.  It did not go well for the pirates.  During the same week, their hijacking of a French private yacht also did not go well.  The French special forces took the yacht back, killing two pirates and one hostage.  This week the pirates have lost six pirates--five killed and one taken prisoner by the United States.  Not a good week for their enterprise.  The ships passing through the area have lost one civilian.

There needs to be a global response to piracy.  Whether it comes from the UN or some alliance of the countries that use the targeted shipping lanes, action is necessary.  Until piracy becomes unprofitable, it will continue.

Happy Easter and Happy Passover!!!

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."  Albert Einstein

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  George Santayana

Power Line has posted an article which states that the FBI is preparing criminal charges against the Somali pirates.  Boy, I'll bet they're shaking in their boots.  The Justice Department has said that it would favorably consider prosecuting such apprehended pirates.  Wow, I'm impressed.

This is one of those times I feel like yelling, "Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here!"

We have two examples of history to choose from.  The first is the Thomas Jefferson model which went in with the Marines and wiped out piracy for hundreds or years.  The second is the Bill Clinton model of dealing with the first attack on the World Trade Center.  We put the blind sheik in jail, Osama Bin Laden split his sides laughing, and went on to plan the attacks of September 11th.

National security is not a joke or a game.  It has to be taken seriously.  Diplomacy is nice, but there will always be some people who respond only to force.  Chamberlain tried diplomacy with Hitler.  It looked good, but many people died because of his efforts.  I am looking for the Winston Churchill of our time.

According to the British newspaper the Telegraph, MI5 agents had been watching a group of terrorists who were planning major attacks on shoppers in England in the next few days before they moved to arrest them.  The attacks were planned for the Easter bank holiday, which is one of the busiest shopping days of the year in England.  Police are currently looking for the bomb factory where the explosives were to be assembled.  According to the article:

"All but one of the men arrested were Pakistani nationals who came to Britain on student visas. This suggested a possible new tactic by al-Qaeda, which had previously used British-based extremists who travelled to Pakistan for training."

Several of the people questioned in connection with this plot have been from the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Part of the timing of the planned plot was that the terrorists consider Easter as the most significant Christian holiday for an attack.

Terrorism is a very serious matter, and to treat it lightly is to welcome terrorist attacks.  President Obama has stopped referring to the "War on Terror" and is beginning to follow the Clinton Presidencys' model of treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter.  This is a serious mistake that will result in the deaths of many innocent Americans and innocent people in other countries.

Nick Adenhart, Los Angeles rookie pitcher, was killed on Thursday by a drunk driver.  This is a senseless tragedy and our sympathies go out to his family.  The accident and its aftermath are reported at NBC Los Angeles Sports.  The driver, Andrew Thomas Gallo, 22, responsible for the accident is charged with three counts of murder as well as drunken driving charges.

I have a few observations on this tragedy.  Mr. Gallo did not get up Thursday morning and say, "Today I am going to kill a Los Angeles pitcher."  What happened is the result of some very bad choices made one at a time as the day progressed.  Mr. Gallo made the choice not to drink responsibly, and as a result of this, three people are dead, and Mr. Gallo's life is ruined.  He will most likely go to jail, and he will have to live with this event and the guilt from it for the rest of his life.  What a waste!

Nick Adenhart had no idea when he got up Thursday morning that this would be his last day on earth.  The lesson here for all of us is that life is fleeting and we are not in control.  The only positive outcome for this senseless tragedy would be for all of us to make sure every day when we get up that we are at peace with God and those around us.  We may never get another chance to say "I love you" to the people we care about. 

Again, my sympathies and prayers go out the the family of Nick Adenhart and the families of the other two people killed.

American Thinker has a post today citing a BBC report that Thursday, French commandos raided a French sailboat, which pirates seized Saturday off the coast of Somalia.  According to the article:

"two pirates and a hostage were killed in the operation and three others taken prisoner.  This is the third time in recent memory French commandos have been used to free hostages held by pirates in the region."

Where are all the liberal American politicians that keep saying we should follow the example of the French?

The American Thinker article ends with this quote:

Just an update on the Tax DayTea Parties scheduled for next week.  I am planning to attend the one in Rhode Island, which will be held 3 pm to 6 pm on the City Side Steps of the State Capitol.  There are tea parties in Massachusetts in Boston, Lowell, Hyannis, Worcester, Pittsfield, and Springfield.  Click on the Massachusetts Tea Parties link to find out the hours and exact locations of the tea parties.  The basic message of the tea parties is very clear:

 repeal the pork, cut taxes and cut spending

Posters need to reflect that basic message.  This is not a Republican/Democrat thing--this is a survival of the middle class issue.  We are rapidly appoaching a point in our tax system where 50 per cent of the population does not pay taxes--they have no interest in controlling spending--their interest is in getting as much from the government as they can.  Unless we stop the slide toward people who produce being overtaxed to support the nonproducers, we will lose our producers.

I guess I would never make it as a negotiator (that is totally an understatement).  I am ready to blow the pirates (and any other pirate ships that come to their rescue) out of the water.  These people are not worthwhile members of society.  The are the modern-day equivalent of the Al Capone gang.  They have taken control of the waters off Somalia and are demanding protection money (ransom) for ships to pass there.  So far this has been a profitable undertaking, so why in the world should they stop doing it?  Now they have taken an American ship (from a country that used to have a backbone), and they are getting away with it.  The captain will probably be released and the pirates will probably collect their ransom.  I would love to be wrong about this, but I don't think I am. 

When this is resolved, nothing will change.  Some countries may reroute their ships to avoid the pirates, but the pirates will still take the ships that pass by and hold them for ransom.  It is an unbelievable shame that no one in the world is willing to stand up and say that pirates are the scum of the earth who attack innocent, unarmed people and deserve to die.  It is a shame that NATO, when asked last year to deal with the pirate problem, couldn't be bothered (or didn't have enough backbone to want to accept the job).  This is a truly awful time for America, we are being humiliated by a bunch of well-armed thugs and we are not willing to do anything about it.  It is also sad that much of the ransom collected will go toward the terrorists' war that is being fought against us.  It is totally in our best interest to deal with the pirates harshly and quickly.  I fear that we do not have the resolve to do that.

According to The Hill, Senator John Kerry has called for hearings on the mounting piracy problem.  Call me cynical if you will, but why wasn't this issue discussed before an American ship was taken.  It wasn't as if the taking of an American ship was not inevitable.  The piracy off Somalia has been going on for a number of years now.  It's funny that while George Bush was President, they never touched American shipping. 

According to the article:

"There have been more than 50 attacks in the area this year alone and the problem isn't going away," Kerry said. "I plan to hold hearings to further examine the growing threat of piracy and all the policy options that need to be on the table before the next fire drill becomes an international incident with big implications."

Note to Senator Kerry:  the piracy will stop when the risk outweighs the possible material gain.  As long as the ransoms are paid and no pirates are killed, there is no incentive for the pirates to stop.  The ransom income for Somalia from piracy is larger than the country's gross national product.  It is also a scary thought to wonder how much of the ransom money goes toward the funding of terrorism.  That alone should have been reason to put a stop to this long ago.

Obviously, some residents of Somalia have decided that the best paying employment for them is piracy.  That is probably true, the ranson income the pirates have been collecting is larger than the gross national product of Somalia.  It is also a fairly safe bet that a large part of the ransoms collected go toward funding terrorism around the world.  This is a situation that is going to have to be dealt with sooner or later.  I suggest sooner.

The New York has an editorial in its paper this morning stating its evaluation of the piracy problem.  The editorial points out that the Maersk Alabama was the sixth vessel to be seized off the Horn of Africa in just the past week.  The editorial also reminds us:

America is, and always has been, a maritime power.

Yes, the country is 3,000 miles wide -- but from a global-trade and national-security perspective, it is essentially an island. Unrestricted access to the high seas is, and always will be, fundamental to the nation's very existence.

Certainly it was no coincidence that the country's first foreign military expedition -- and the inspiration for the "shores of Tripoli" reference in the Marine Corps hymn -- was against the rogue North African Barbary states that conducted piracy against US shipping.

And the War of 1812 was fought essentially to contest British restrictions on free passage of the high seas.

No nation has seriously challenged US naval supremacy since the destruction of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1945.

This is President Obama's time to prove that he can lead America in the world.  There is an article in today's American Spectator reminding us of the history of three ocean hijackings against this country since the 1960's and how each sitting President handled each incident.  The differences and the different results achieved might be a good thing to take a look at right now.  If piracy is profitable and has little consequences, it will continue.  If it is dealt with and becomes risky and unprofitable it will decrease.  It is up to President Obama to decide which outcome he prefers.

According to Ed Morrissey at Hor Air, the black caucus has returned from Cuba with rave reviews of the Casto regime.  They argued that the embargo has not worked, which may be true, but some of the comments of those who went on the trip are somewhat amazing.

According to the article:

"It was almost like listening to an old friend," said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Il.), adding that he found Castro's home to be modest and Castro's wife to be particularly hospitable.

"In my household I told Castro he is known as the ultimate survivor," Rush said.

Anyone aware of the civil rights record of the Casto regime has to be amazed by that statement.  I suspect there are a number of Cubans in Florida who might have a problem with the above quote.

According to the Washington Times, President George W. Bush's campaign to fight aids has reduced the mortality rate of the disease by ten per cent in fifteen targeted countries.  According to a recent study, 1.1 million lives were saved by the campaign.

According to the article:

"The study by two Stanford University doctors showed the treatment part of PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which involves making drug treatment available to about 2 million people, has shown solid success while the prevention efforts under the program have not yet produced the same concrete results."

The program emphasized treatment more than prevention.  The study showed that the rate of infection in the fifteen targeted countries had not changed, but the survival rate had.  I'm not sure how this would apply to dealing with aids in America, because I believe in America it is easier to get the necessary treatment, but in Africa, making treatment available has made a significant difference. 

According to today's New York Post, the American crew of the hijacked American cargo ship has retaken control of the ship.  The information is preliminary, but it was reported that the crew had reported to the private company that owns the ship that they were safe and in control.  There are also reports that they have captured one of the pirates.

It is ironic that the ship was carrying emergency relief aid to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked.

According to the article:

"Somali pirates are trained fighters who frequently dress in military fatigues and use speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades. Far out to sea, their speedboats operate from larger mother ships."

I realize that this particular hijacking seems to have a happy ending, but I would hope that a serious military response will follow.  We cannot continue to have pirates threatening the world's shipping lanes.  There needs to be a unified strong response, and if it can't be unified, it should at least be strong.  They know the pirates work from mother ships.  Where are our airplanes?  It seems like serious action is in order.

According to Fox New. the judge in the Ted Stevens trial in Alaska has ordered a criminal investigation into the prosecution's handling of the case.  Meanwhile, the charges against the former Senator have been dismissed.  Admittedly, this case looks like it was politically timed and motivated, but I still wonder what went on. 

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Justice Department lawyers who repeatedly mishandled witnesses and withheld evidence from defense attorneys during the monthlong trial.  Senator Stevens narrowly lost to Democrat Mark Begich shortly after the verdict was reached in October.  According to the article:

"Sullivan appointed Washington attorney Henry Schuelke as a special prosecutor to investigate contempt and obstruction by the Justice Department team. He said the matter was too serious to be left to an internal investigation by the department, which he said has dragged its feet looking into the misconduct." 

Because this is a criminal case the prosecutors could face prison time and fines.  Wow.

On February 29, 2008, the Times Union ran a story about the launching of the USS New York, the "Never Forget" ship named in honor of September 11 victims.  The ship was built with 7.5 tons of steel that once held together the World Trade Center at lower Manhattan until the towers were destroyed by terrorists.  The ship is a 684-foot San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, which the Navy will also identify as LPD 21.  The USS New York, an amphibious warship, will be officially commissioned in New York City in 2009.

What a fitting way to use the steel from the towers.

According to yesterday's American Thinker, the period of public comment on conscience protection for health care providers will end on April 9.  According to the article:

"In December 2008 the Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation clarifying the protections offered by three civil rights laws for health care providers passed by Congress with bipartisan support. However, the Obama administration has stated its intention of overturning the conscience regulation and not enforcing the existing laws."

The website which explains how to make your opinion known is Freedom2Care.  The website explains exactly what the rules have been and how they are changing and how to voice your opinion to your representatives. 

Generally speaking, the law has been that any physician could refuse to perform any procedure that violated his conscience.  Evidently, there are modifications in process that will change this and force physicians to do procedures they do not believe are moral and ethical.  This becomes an issue if nationalized health care is passed--there have been a number of cases in the northwestern states of this country where a cancer patient was told that his cancer drugs were too expensive and doctor assisted suicide was recommended--doctors who believe that procedure is against the Hippocratic oath would be forced to assist in a patient's suicide.  National health care is rationed health care, and a physician's conscience is a necessary tool in providing medical care for the elderly and people who 'the system' decides do not have the appropriate 'quality of life'.  Please visit Freedom2care and voice your opinion.

According to today's American Thinker, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia has introduced two bills in the Senate which will control internet traffic.  The Canada Free Press is reporting:

"The White House will have new powers to access private online data, regulate the cyber security industry and even shut down Internet traffic under the provisions of Senate bills No. 773 and 778, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V.. It's called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009."

The article in the Canada Free Press has links to the working draft of the bill.  The bill is designed to control the technology of the internet and computer software.  I don't have enough of a technical background to understand what this means, but I really don't understand why we have to let the government control either the internet or the technology involved in it.

Friday afternoon, National Review Online wrote an article about the Supreme Court of the United States' decision that it has jurisdiction in Afghanistan.  According to the article:

"Thursday, the inevitable earthquake struck as a federal court in Washington took the imperial judiciary global. Though Rasul and Boumediene involved only the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Judge John D. Bates (a George W. Bush appointee) ruled that alien combatants detained by our military in Bagram, Afghanistan -- an active combat zone -- are entitled to petition the federal courts for their release.

Let's be clear about what this means. Judge Bates is saying that, under the Supreme Court's rulings, the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary extends everywhere in the world, without limitation, and it includes the power to micromanage wars as they are being fought."

At a time when terrorists are plotting attacks against Americans inside and outside of this country, this ruling is not constructive.  Our soldiers (at least 99 per cent of them) have acted honorably on the battlefield--taking prisoners, following the Geneva Convention.  This ruling makes it much more advantageous to shoot prisoners rather than capture them.  It is not healthy for us as a country or for our troops.  Even in a conventional war, this would be a bad ruling, in an asymmetrical war it borders on insanity.  Putting terrorists into our justice system rather than a military system is naive at best and dangerous to our safety as a nation at worst.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal Online ran an article about banks trying to return TARP money and the Obama Administration's reluctance to take back the money.  This is the most important story from the article:

"Here's a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics."

I have published two similar stories recently--the first is about Don Davis, who has resigned as head of a bank in St. Louis and will be starting his own bank to avoid the regulations that are being imposed with TARP money (this story was published March 30th under the heading "Another Entry In The Law Of Unintended Consequences").  The second story deals with the East Bridgewater Savings Bank--a small bank doing very well and not needing TARP money because they have good management.  They received a negative rating letter from the banking commission because they are not making enough subprime loans! (this story was published March 20th under the heading "Update On True Story With The Names Omitted").  It is amazing to watch the government overspend and mismanage our money as they try to take over private industries to manage them!

According to Politico.com, a number of people currently working at the White House have made a great deal of money from firms involved in the TARP bailout.  Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America Corp. and the now-defunct Lehman Brothers and others paid Lawrence Summers, one of President Obama's top financial advisors, more than $2.7 million in speaking fees.  According to the article:

"He pulled in another $5.2 million from D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund for which he served as managing director from October 2006 until joining the administration."

"Thomas E. Donilon, Obama's deputy national security adviser, was paid $3.9 million by the power law firm O'Melveny & Myers to represent clients including two firms that receieved federal bailout funds: Citigroup and Goldman Sachs."

One of the questions about the TARP has been the seemingly lack of intervention from the government in the banking industry and its related industries (other than the AIG bonus flap).  There really hasn't been a lot of flak about the large bonuses paid by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  It seems as if the people controlling the TARP money and making the rules are a little too involved with the banks they are dealing with!

The Mercury News ran a story last week on how the Endangered Species Act is negatively effecting California farmers and farm jobs in the state.  Because the Endangered Species Act protects the 3-inch-long delta smelt, there have been court-ordered reductions in the amount of water pumped to some farmers in the San Joaquin Valley.  California congressmen pleaded with their colleagues Tuesday to make an emergency exception to the federal Endangered Species Act.  Representative Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, said the unemployment rate in his district is nearly 20 percent and is nearing 50 percent in some communities.  The area that is being denied the water for farmland is the most productive areas for farming in the country.  To continue to cut off their water supply not only impacts the unemployment rate, it will eventually impact the food supply for this country.  At some point we need to begin to balance the wishes of the environmentalists and the needs of the people. 

This is not just a California story.  With the addition of the polar bear to the endangered species list, any activity that produces carbon could be monitored and impacted by the Endangered Species Act.

I was not one of the people who was willing to pick up my pitchfork and torch and march on AIG about their employee bonuses.  It was, however, interesting to watch the way the story was played (and spun) in the media and egged on by ACORN (they rented the buses to bring the picketers to the executives' homes in Connecticut).  But now we have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonuses, and no one seems concerned. 

According to ABC News, the employees at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving  more than $210 million in bonuses through next year to give workers the incentive to stay in their jobs at the government-controlled companies.  That's what was going on at AIG.  Why is this different?  I need someone smarter than I to answer that question.

Bakersfield.com has the following comments on the US Government guaranteed warranty on your new GM or Chrysler product:

"Just call him Mr. Goodwrench.

That's what President Obama is telling American car owners and buyers, making them an offer they can't refuse: If General Motors or Chrysler won't honor their warranties, he will.

But Uncle Sam won't stand by warranties held by current vehicle owners or safety recalls, which can occur years after the warranty expires. That would leave uncovered about 10 million to 15 million GM and Chrysler vehicles bought in the past couple years, said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety."

For further information on your warranty, see the video at YouTube.  It reminds us what government service is like! 

I don't know if anyone from Georgia reads this blog.  If you do, thank you.  If you know anyone from Georgia, please draw their attention to this article.

Congress does not do a very good job of representing me right now.  I don't know if you feel the same way.  Sometimes I wonder what it would take to bring us back to simplicity in government--what does this program really do, what does it really cost?  Well, it seems that in some parts of the country, the people have succeeded in electing representatives that do actually ask those questions (and some very good other questions).

I received in my mail a letter from Steve Forbes asking for a campaign donation for Paul Broun, MD, Representative from Georgia.  In the letter Dr. Broun lists his criteria for voting in favor of any legislation.  He has a four-way test he uses:

1.  Is it constitutional and a proper function of government?

2.  Is it morally correct?

3.  Is it something we really need?

4.  Is it something we can afford?

Wow.  We need to ask all of our representatives to think about these things before they vote.  Congratulations on the State of Georgia for electing this man, may you elect him many more times.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal Online ran an editorial about what has happened in Congress to two of President Obama's signature policies.  'Card Check' (the end of secret ballots in union elections) has not gained enough support to block a filibuster, and it looks like Cap and Trade (massive increases in energy costs for all of us, done in the name of global warming) may go the same route.

Twenty-six Democrats joined all forty-one Republicans in a vote that will require any new taxes on carbon-based energy to have sixty votes.  Many of the Democrat senators who voted to require the sixty-vote requirement are from states who rely heavily on coal to provide electricity.  They are smart enough to see that their constituents would not appreciate a drastic increase in the cost of electricity and might take out their anger at the ballot box.  There may be enough sanity (or self-preservation instinct) in Congress to prevent some of the more drastic ideas of President Obama from being passed.

The article points out:

"The most important remaining fight this year is over health care. Democrats seem intent on trying to plow that monumental change through with only 50 votes, even as they negotiate to bring along some Republicans. We hope these Republicans understand that a new health-care "public option" -- a form of Medicare for all Americans -- guarantees that the 17% of GDP represented by the health-care industry will be entirely government-run within a few years. This is precisely Mr. Obama's long-term goal, though he doesn't want to say it publicly."

The decisions made now by our representatives will effect not only our lives, but the lives of our children and grandchildren.  We need to oppose those things which will negatively impact future generations.  I strongly suggest getting involved with the April 15th tax day tea party in your area.  See taxdayteaparty.com for further information.

National Review ran a article yesterday by Jonah Goldberg commenting about getting his tax return ready for April 15th.  He points out a few things that might cause us to realize that we need to rethink this tax thing.  Notice the distance between tax day and election day.  If both happened at the same time, would we have smaller government?  If we abolished withholding (which was established during World War II as a 'temporary' thing to pay for the war), would people begin to realize how much they are paying in taxes? 

One suggestion mentioned in the article:

"Not only should we get rid of payroll taxes, let's get rid of tax brackets (or, in a brief nod to reality, reduce the number of them). The top half of earners already pay something like 96 percent of all income taxes. The top 5 percent pay 54 percent."

We need to also remember that 40 to 50 percent of Americans pay no income tax at all--therefore they have no stake in whether or not government spending and taxes increase.  This also needs to change.

The article ends with this statement, which I think says it all:

"Yes, I want to keep more of my money -- because it's mine. But there are people who don't see it that way. The problem with those people isn't simply that they're wrong. It's that they are in charge."

Today's Washington Post has an article by Charles Krauthammer stating what he believes is President Obama's ultimate agenda.  According to Mr. Krauthammer, President Obama has four basic goals--he wants to change the relationship between our government and us so that the government will shrink the income gap (and any anxiety gap) between the rich and poor,   He also wants to nationalize health care and change our education system so that everyone gets a free education through college.  His final goal is to fund all of this with a carbon tax (by passing cap and trade).

President Obama is not particularly interested in the United States Constitution and what it says.  There is nothing in the Constitution that guarantees health care, controls wages, or taxes carbon, but this does not seem to be a problem for the Obama Administration.  We need a President who will take all restraints off the free market and let people live according to the results of their own labor (or lack of it).  We cannot expect the government to handle all of our challenges from cradle to grave, although they seem to be trying to.  The private sector has always done a better job of taking care of everyone without letting everyone take advantage.  The government needs to get out of the peoples' way and let the economy thrive.

According toTaxdayteaparty.com, so far there are five tea parties scheduled in Massachusetts on April 15th.  They will be in Boston, Worcester, Lowell, Pittsfield, and Springfield.  Follow the link above for further information. 

Just a reminder to anyone planning to attend the tea parties.  This is not a Republican/Democrat issue--it's a tax issue.  Both parties have overspent and grown government more than it needed to grow.  This is a time for everyday people to say that they are overtaxed and need tax relief--not more spending.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal Online ran an editorial by Michael Boskin, a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, explaining how President Obama's budget will impact American families.  It is a rather complex article, complete with charts, but I will attempt to highlight it here.

President Obama's characterization of the budge is misleading.  According to the editorial:

"He claims to reduce the deficit by half, to shave $2 trillion off the debt (the cumulative deficit over his 10-year budget horizon), and not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. While in a Clintonian sense correct (depends on what the definition of "is" is), it is far more accurate to describe Mr. Obama's budget as almost tripling the deficit. It adds $6.5 trillion to the national debt, and leaves future U.S. taxpayers (many of whom will make far less than $250,000) with the tab. And all this before dealing with the looming Medicare and Social Security cost explosion."

The impact of the debt being incurred by the government will not be felt until President Obama leaves office (isn't that convenient?), but theoretically, the cost will be $34,000 per family in tax increases.  Mr. Boskin describes the level of peacetime debt as three times above what he considers the safety limit.  I hope this budget will be changed in the coming years by voting in a new congress that will do away with the unnecessary expansion of the federal government. 

Investor's Business Daily ran an editorial yesterday about Defense Secretary Robert Gates' interview on Fox News recently.  When asked if America would shoot down a North Korean missle, Mr. Gates stated, "I think if we had an aberrant missile, one that was headed for Hawaii, that looked like it was headed for Hawaii or something like that, we might consider it, but I don't think we have any plans to do anything like that at this point." 

Might consider it?  Before of after it landed in Hawaii?  This doesn't sound like a man who is concerned with defending his country.  This is not a good message to send to the people who are currently plotting nasty things against us.  Well, if I feel like it, I may react.  I don't think so.

The article further quotes Mr. Gates:

Regarding Iran, he took what amounts to a "don't worry" demeanor, expressing confidence that "they don't have the capability at this point to enrich" uranium to the level needed to construct an atomic bomb.

"We do not believe they are . . . enriching beyond a low level at Natanz," where Iran's uranium enrichment facility is located, "and the IAEA is in there," Gates added, in reference to the United Nations' often incompetent atomic watchdog agency, "so we will know if they try to do that."

Have we put Alfred E. Newman in charge of defense?  "What, me worry?"

Breitbart.com has a comment on President Obama's broken promise on no tax increases on people who make less than $250,000 a year.  President Obama, who stopped smoking but has admitted he slips now and then, signed a law raising the tobacco tax nearly 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes, to $1.01. Other tobacco products saw similarly steep increases.  Somehow I suspect that many of the people who smoke make less than $250,000 a year; and their taxes just went up!

Meanwhile--the graph below shows how much money the government spends on tobacco subsidies.  I copied the graph from the Farm Subsidy Database from the Environmental Working Group website.  I don't have any later figures than 2003, so I don't know if the government has changed its policy.  I do find it interesting that they are raising taxes on a product that they are subsidizing--why not just end the subsidies and save the money?

Tobacco Subsidies by year, U.S. Total

Year Tobacco Subsidies 1995 $0 1996 $0 1997 $0 1998 $0 1999 $0 2000 $345,123,312 2001 $129,247,286 2002 $4,990,960 2003 $51,121,183 2004 $5,281 2005 $0 2006 $0 Total $530,488,022

NASA has released information on solar activity during the year 2008.  Just for the record, nothing we as people do on earth effects solar activity.  The bottom line on this is that the sun is emitting less heat than it has for a while.

We reached our peak of sun heat emissions in 2001 and have been going down ever since.  The article pointed out that 2008 was one of the quietest years for sun activity (sunspots, etc.) since we have measured.  According to the article:

"There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008."

As I said in the heading for the article, I am not a scientist, but it seems to me that if we are going to study climate change, it might be wise to start with solar activity.

This arrived in my email today.  I have no idea who wrote it--it just arrived.  Enjoy!

A woman in a hot air balloon realizes she is lost. She lowers her altitude and spots a man fishing in a boat below. She shouts to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consults his portable GPS and replies, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

She rolls her eyes and says, "You must be a Republican!"

"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"

 "Well," answers the balloonist, "everything you tell me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you're not much help to me."

The man smiles and responds, "You must be a Democrat." 

"I am," replies the balloonist. "How did you know?" 

"Well," says the man, "You don't know where you are, or where you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and now you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met. But, somehow now....... it's my fault."

According to the New York Post, Mayor Bloomberg has a goal of creating a green taxi fleet.  The idea is commendable -- but limiting the solution to hybrids and diesels is wrong for New York according to Ron Sherman, president of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, which represents about a quarter of the taxicabs in New York City. 

Mr. Sherman points out the the size of the hybrids puts the partition between the driver and the passenger much closer to the passenger's face, creating a safety issue.  The hybrids are also not designed for the 24/7 use that a taxicab gets in New York City.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade has offered an alternative proposal for the New York City taxis that includes, but is not limited to, hybrids.  The Ford Transit Connect is one cab he suggests as an alternative to hybrids.  It is larger than the hybrids, fuel efficient and safe.  Hopefully, his suggestions will be listened to.  Being sensitive to pollution is good, but we need to look at the total picture before we take actions that may have unintended consequences.

As Congress of railing against bonuses paid in private industry, the Wall Street Journal Online is reporting on bonuses paid to Congressional staff members. 

According to the article:

"Capitol Hill bonuses in 2008 were among the highest in years, according to LegiStorm, an organization that tracks payroll data. The average House aide earned 17% more in the fourth quarter of the year, when the bonuses were paid, than in previous quarters, according to the data. That was the highest jump in the eight years LegiStorm has compiled payroll information."...

"Payments ranged from a few hundred dollars to $14,000. Lawmakers, at their own discretion, gave the money to chiefs of staff, assistants, computer technicians, and more than 100 aides who earned salaries of more than $100,000 a year."

It's nice to know that in this time of economic hardship for the country, congress and its aides are doing well.  Just for the record, I would like to remind people that in addition to the raise congress took this year, they voted themselves an increase in petty cash of $93,000 each.  These people are not doing a very good job of managing taxpayer money, why in the world should they be managing corporations?

National Public Radio is reporting that the Justice Department on Wednesday asked a federal judge to drop all charges against former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.  Since his conviction in last fall, charges of prosecutorial misconduct have delayed his sentencing and prompted defense motions for a new trial.  U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan set an April 7 hearing on the motion to dismiss the case.

According to the article:

"With more ugly hearings expected, Holder is said to have decided late Tuesday to pull the plug. His decision is said to be based on Stevens' age -- he's 85 -- and the fact that Stevens is no longer in the Senate. Perhaps most important, Justice Department officials say Holder wants to send a message to prosecutors throughout the department that actions he regards as misconduct will not be tolerated."

There is no need to follow through on the case, the Democrats got what they wanted--the seat in the Senate.  I am not accusing Ted Stevens of being the world's most ethical Senator, but this whole thing does not pass the smell test.  The trial was planned to run during the campaign season and the conviction came just a few days before the election.  There are stories about evidence being withheld from the defense and other irregularities.  There does seem to be some doubt about the fairness of the whole trial process.  I am concerned that there are elements within our political system who do not care about laws--they want to win at any cost.  I hope the people of Alaska pay attention to this when they elect the officials in charge of their justice system; it seems as if this was a total 'set up'.