July 2009 Archives

According to Boston.com the U. S. House of Representatives has just approved adding $2 billion more to the "Cash For Clunkers" program.  According to the article:

"The bill was approved on a vote of 316-109. House members acted within hours of learning from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that the program was running out of money."

The House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the additional funding would come from previously approved stimulus money.  Did we give these people a blank check?

I printed this article for one reason--do you want these people running your healthcare?  Has a government program ever come in under budget and saved money?

Today's Washington Examiner posted a story about the ongoing investigation of the firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin.  According to the article:

"According to a senior Republican aide, Sessions' interest was piqued by a statement made in a late March television interview by Rep. Doris Matsui, the Democratic congresswoman who represents Sacramento. Asked whether Johnson's problems could prevent the city from receiving stimulus funds, Matsui said that, at Johnson's request, she had "been in conversation with officials at the White House and OMB [Office of Management and Budget] and others to ensure that we don't lose any money at all."

Within days of Matsui's statement, a settlement was reached. Johnson was unsuspended, and in a particularly unusual move, acting U.S. Attorney Brown issued a press release hailing the arrival of stimulus funds. "The lifting of the suspension against all parties, including Mayor Johnson, removes any cloud whether the City of Sacramento will be prevented form receiving much-needed federal stimulus funds," Brown wrote."

Senator Sessions has asked the committee chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for an investegation into this matter.  The fact that the firing relates to a person who donated a lot of money to the Obama Presidential Campaign and the fact that the incident was so quickly cleared up so that stimulus money could be released are worthy of investigation.

According to Reuters yesterday, Senator Richard Lugar has written a letter to Secreatry of State Hillary Clinton asking her to explain this adminitration's policy toward the ongoing political crisis in Honduras.  The article reminds us:

"The United States has refused to recognize. the Honduran government led by Roberto Micheletti, which took over the Central American nation after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted by the Honduran military on June 28."

We need to remember that the reason Manuel Zelaya was ousted was that he tried to go around the country's constitution and seek another term as president of the country.  The courts and the legislature asked the military to remove him from office.  I wonder why we, as a democracy, are refusing to recognize the government of the country that is attempting to uphold its constitution.

According to the article:

"Washington has cut $16.5 million in aid to Honduras and this week revoked diplomatic visas for four members of Micheletti's administration to pressure it to reverse the coup.

"Micheletti on Wednesday night released a statement calling for new efforts to resolve the country's political crisis.

"But Zelaya's representative in Washington, Eduardo Enrique Reina, told Reuters he thought Micheletti was simply trying to gain time with the statement, noting that Micheletti's aides in Honduras are still vowing not to let Zelaya return.

""We will ask the U.S. government to step up the pressure on Micheletti," Zelaya's ambassador told Reuters."

Currently we are on the wrong side of this conflict.  Hopefully, as the state department tries to explain its position, the policy will change.

Yesterday's Townhall.com ran a column by Anne Flaherty on Barney Frank's threat to revive legislation that would let backruptcy judges rewrite mortgages (to prevent foreclosures) if banks did not voluntarily prevent more foreclosures.  If the banks were not under pressure from Congress and the Federal Government to issue sub-prime mortgages, the number of foreclosures would be considerably less--shouldn't Congress take some responsibility for the number of foreclosures?

Rewriting mortgages in backruptcy court goes against basic contract law.  Theoretically, when you sign your mortgage contract (be it fifteen, twenty, or thirty years), you and the bank assume that agreement will be valid for that entire time frame.  Under contract law, it should be.  Barney Frank is one of the people responsible for the mortgage crisis--there is no way we should even consider giving him input on finding a solution!

The Washington Examiner today posted an editorial by Mark Tapscott about the AARP's support for President Obama's healthcare reform.  Logically, there is no reason for the AARP to support these healthcare reforms--they would have a very negative impact on healthcare for the elderly.  Under a national healthcare program, healthcare has to be rationed because of availability and to keep costs down. 

When the government controls how much doctors make and begins to tell them what to specialize in and where to practice, the educational system begins to produce less doctors.  It won't take too many years before that produces shortages in the healthcare available.  When giving medical care to a person is based on a formula calculating how long they are expected to live and whether it is worth it to spend the money, we are headed down a road where we are playing God.  We have forgotten that people are not valuable because of what they are able to do--they are valuable because of who they are.  As a friend of mine likes to say, "We are human beings, not human doings!"

So why is the AARP supporting Obama Healthcare?  Because the AARP consistently supports policies that result in bigger government and more government control.  That is the position their leadership has historically chosen.  They opposed the partial privatization of Social Security which would have strenghtened the program and provided the possibility of younger Americans actually collecting something from Social Security after paying into it all their lives.

According to the article:

"And Obama and AARP promise seniors high-quality care, but the Obamacare reality will be long lines and waiting lists for critical treatment and appointments with specialists here, just like in Canada, Great Britain and every other nation with government-run health care.

"Finally, Obamacare will give seniors counseling to help them "consider their options" when their health deteriorates beyond a certain point. That's another way of saying Obamacare bureaucrats pull the plug, regardless of the family's wishes, so get ready.

"In short, Obamacare means health care rationing for old folks, the sick and the terminally ill. There will be hell to pay for AARP with its members when this ugly reality becomes crystal clear, as it most certainly will."

There are reasons to avoid joining the AARP (in spite of the discounts on travel, etc.).  There are also reasons to cancel your membership!

We have recently been reminded that the War On Terror continues and has gotten closer to home with the arrest of American citizens who chose to join terrorist groups.  But have we forgotten the lessons learned in the years before we realized there was a war?

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal posted an editorial by Debra Burlingame, a former attorney and a director of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation.  Debra is the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ms. Burlingame relates the saga of Richard Reid, currently an inmate in a prison in Colorado:

"On June 17, at the Administrative Maximum (ADX) penitentiary in Florence, Colo., one of those albatrosses, inmate number 24079-038, began his day with a whole new range of possibilities. Eight days earlier, the U.S. Attorney's office in Denver filed notice in federal court that the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) which applied to that prisoner--Richard C. Reid, a.k.a. the "Shoe Bomber"--were being allowed to expire. SAMs are security directives, renewable yearly, issued by the attorney general when "there is a substantial risk that a prisoner's communications, correspondence or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury" to others."

Please follow the link to the article.  It relates how Ahmed Ajaj who had been put in prison in 1992 for passport fraud assisted in planning the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.  He made phone calls to Ramzi Yousef, speaking in code so that he would not alert monitors as to what was being discussed. 

Ms. Burlingame ends her article with this thought:

"Meanwhile, in order to appease political constituencies both here and abroad, the Obama administration is moving full steam ahead, operating on the false premise that giving more civil liberties to religious fanatics bent on destroying Western civilization will make a difference in the Muslim world. In a letter sent to his father as he began his hunger strike, Reid provided a preview of how he will exercise his newly enlarged free speech rights, calling Mr. Obama a "hypocrite" who is "no better than George Bush." His lawsuit remains active while the Department of Justice works out a settlement that satisfies the man who declared, "I am at war with America."" 

There is one thing I would like to mention before I proceed with this story.  Evidently, it is police policy when called to a house on a possible break-in to ask the homeowner or whoever they find in the house to come outside with them.  Historically they have found that if there is a hostage situation they are not aware of, that is the most efficient way to begin to deal with it.

There are two stories in the Boston Herald today about the political fallout of the Professor Gates arrest.  The first Boston Herald article deals with the fact that the arrest tapes and 911 call tapes have been released.  The second Boston Herald article deals with the fact that the 911 call tape shows that race was never an issue--the caller had no idea what race the men she saw breaking into the house were--she was simply concerned because there had been a number of break-ins in the neighborhood recently. 

I have listened to the arrest tape.  You can google it on the internet.  It really is not conclusive other than to show that Officer Crowley was very calm, but very concerned about the lack of cooperation on the part of Professor Gates.  Professor Gates was not acting as the resident of the house might be expected to act under the circumstance, and I suspect that Officer Crowley was suspicious that something was amiss.  The tapes show Officer Crowley following police procedures very calmly and making sure he had back-up.

It is my opinion that Professor Gates needs to admit he was being an idiot and apologize to Officer Crowley.  Anything other than his apology does nothing but encourage racism in this counrty--not help end it!

Israel has historically been one of our strongest allies in the Middle East.  They are a functioning democracy and despite what you may have heard, have a very good record on human rights and freedom for their citizens--both Jewish and Arab.  Arabs who live in Israel have more freedom and more access to economic success than in most other Arabic countries.  Israel has a middle class--it is not simply a very rich ruling class and a very poor ruled class.  That said, I am very concerned about America's support of Israel.

Yesterday Power Line posted an article about America's 'new' relationship with Israel.  According to the article:

"The prevailing view now seems to be that if there is going to be any "progress" on the settlement issue, it will come only after Arab states commit to "gestures" of normalization of their relations with Israel. The U.S. has made no progress on settlements, this theory holds, because Mitchell has been unable to induce Arab states to make such gestures (e.g., Israeli overfly rights, the exchange of economic interest sections, and various cultural and educational exchanges)."

How can we expect Arab nations that refuse to acknowledge Israel's existence as a state to interact in a positive way with Israel?

I feel that President Obama's Middle East policy is going to make the world less safe.  It is obvious that the President to trying to make friends with Iran with the idea of asking the Iranians to help us in Afghanistan.  That is an amazing concept when you consider that our military leaders in Iraq are telling the President (and anyone else who will listen) that Iran is trying very hard to undermine our success in Iraq.  Why in the world would they be willing to help us in Afghanistan?  Because the President is unwilling to take action against Iran's nuclear program, he is creating a situation where Israel will be forced to take action.  Rather than put together a group of nations threatened by Iran going nuclear (Europe, Middle East state that are not Shiite, and Israel), America is not taking action.  If Iran goes nuclear, Israel may not survive.  They are not interested (obviously) in a wait-and-see attitude.  By not strongly encouraging group action, President Obama is backing Israel into a corner where they will be force to act unilaterally.  They will be condemned for thier actions (even as many countries in the world breathe a sigh of relief).  It is shame that this president does not understand the importance of protecting and supporting Israel. 

"Never Again" is not simply a slogan--it is a reaction to one of the worst genocides in human history.  All of us need to remember that.

According to The Hill at noon today, an agreement has been reached in the House of Representatives that will postpone a vote on healthcare legislation until after the August recess.  According to the article:

"In exchange for putting off a floor vote until after Labor Day, the Energy and Commerce Committee may be allowed to continue its markup of the healthcare bill this week even if an agreement has not been reached between committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and seven Energy and Commerce Blue Dogs over the content of the bill."

Frankly, I'm not sure exactly what this means, but it does have a few obvious effects.  By putting the vote off until September there is the possibility that some of Congress may actually read it (what a concept!).  The other advantage to those of us opposed to the healthcare bills currently proposed is that Congess may hear from the people they supposedly represent during their recess.  When they realize the strong public opposition to this bill, they may be less inclined to vote for it.

The current 1100 page healthcare bill is a nightmare for most Americans.  You cannot give more care to more people and spend less money.  The government has never successfully streamlined anything--look at what they have done with AmTrak and the Post Office.  The President has clearly stated that a large percentage of medical expense occurs in the last year of a persons life and the new plan intends to reduce those expenses.  Think about this for a minute.  What effect is this cut in spending going to have on the care of senior citizens and people with severe illnesses.  Saving money at the expense of care is never a good idea.  Please study the bill carefully (see Thomas.gov), and let your voice be heard.

Sunday's Washington Examiner posted an editorial about how Japan handled its last recession and what the results of those decisions were.  In 1991 Japan's stock marking and real estate markets collapsed.   The decisions made by the Japanese government at that time made the recovery from that collapse much more complicated and resulted in a ten-year recovery period instead of a quick recovery.  Unfortunately, we are making almost identical mistakes in the way we are dealing with our current financial crisis. 

The mistakes listed in the article are:

• A stimulus package that added to the national debt but did not stimulate the economy.
• Bad loans--our subprime mortgage brokers had great intentions--allow lower income people to own homes--but if those people can't afford their mortgages, the loans lose their value.
• Bailouts of companies that would continually need government money to stay afloat, costing taxpayers money and thus taking money out of healthy companies.
• Increased government control of the economy, which limits the ability of the economy to respond quickly and adapt to market forces.
• Raising taxes (if Cap and Trade is passed, it will be impose an annual energy tax of approximately $ 2000 per person).
• Monetary policy--in slashing interest rates drastically after 911, the Federal Reserve prevented a recession at that point, but they caused a devaluation of the dollar that contributed to a drastic rise in gasoline prices and caused other problems.
• Lack of transparency--there are still serious questions about how TARP and stimulus money was spent.

To quote George Santayana, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  We need to learn from Japan's mistakes.

The American Thinker has a post up today about Cap and Trade legislation and global warming.  The article points out:

"What (other than extremely credulous) could you call a member of Congress who believes that by lowering the standard of living of 5% of the world's population (that includes you, me, and everyone else living in America) that the Congress -- by passing a law -- can reduce the temperature of the earth or lower sea levels?  Simple common sense, not conflicted science is required to know better.

 

"Only superstitious, credulous, and pompous politicians would even consider voting for such a bill ... sight unseen!  You would have to first be irrational and have unfounded fears of something that doesn't exist; you would then have to be prone to believe in the highly improbable -- and then vain enough to believe you can change the climate system of the earth, even while most of the rest of the world is fully enjoying the benefits of carbon use."

 

"Conversely, a true worldwide effort to regulate and reduce particulate, sulfur and other pollutants on a cost benefit basis in developing countries would provide a real and significant improvement to the world's environment, without empty sacrifices of American lives and liberties.  The choice between the two possibilities should not be difficult, even for the U.S. Congress. It incorporates, after all, their oath of office to protect Americans from enemies foreign and domestic, and to defend the constitution."

 

Today's Washington Post has an opinion piece by Martin Feldstein on President Obama's healthcare plan.  Martin Feldstein is a professor of economics at Harvard University and president emeritus of the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research.  He was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984.

First of all, I would like to comment that if you look at the current plans in Congress, they are not healthcare plans, they are health insurance plans.  The government really doesn't belong in the insurance business.

Professor Feldstein points out that 85 percent of Americans have health insurance and that the current plans would be bad news for them.  They will be faced with higher costs and less healthcare.  According to the article:

"President Obama's primary goal is to extend formal health insurance to those low-income individuals who are currently uninsured despite the nearly $300-billion-a-year Medicaid program. Doing so the Obama way would cost more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. There surely must be better and less costly ways to improve the health and health care of that low-income group."

One of the goals of the healthcare proposals is to cut spending--Congress plans to do this by cutting the amount of healthcare that Americans receive.  Nowhere in the current proposals is the idea of tort reform mentioned.  Meanwhile, in some parts of the country, doctors pay as much as $200,000 a year in malpractice insurance.  This plays a significant role in the consumer cost of healthcare.

The article also reminds us:

"To support their claim that costs can be radically reduced without adverse effects, the health planners point to the fact that about half of all hospital costs are for patients in the last year of life. I don't find that persuasive. Do doctors really know which of their very ill patients will benefit from expensive care and which will die regardless of the care they receive? In a world of uncertainty, many of us will want to hope that care will help."

Until tort reform is addressed and Congress agrees to become part of the healthcare plan they enact, I don't want the government changing my healthcare! 

Investor's Business Daily posted an article today about alternative energy and what we need to do to make progress in the area of 'green energy'.   Wind power in Spain has not been to solution that it was hoped to be.  Spain installed windmills to provide 10 percent of its energy, but because wind tends to be intermittent and unreliable, the windmills provide only about 1 percent to 3 percent of the country's energy.  Instead of boosting the economy, the move to wind energy has cost jobs and created rising unemployment.  Britain has seen similar results in its attempt to 'go green.' 

According to the article:

"On this side of the pond, legislators are promoting "green" energy and jobs, via new mandates, standards, tax breaks and subsidies. However, the U.S. would need 180,000 1.5-megawatt wind turbines by 2020, just to generate the 600 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity needed to comply with the Waxman-Markey global warming bill, retired energy and nuclear engineering professor James Rust calculates.

"Erecting these forests of concrete and steel would require millions of acres of scenic, habitat and agricultural lands, and 126 million tons of concrete, steel, fiberglass and "rare earth" minerals for the turbines (700 tons per turbine); prodigious quantities of concrete, steel, copper and land for new transmission lines; and still more land, fuel and raw materials for backup gas-fired generators."

I'm sure that most of us would like to see cleaner air and a more pristine planet, but I think we need to proceed with caution as we explore the idea of alternative energy.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal posted an article about the struggle for power in the New York State legislature and about the fact that New York State is experiencing extreme financial difficulties. 

According to the article:

"New York has been committing slow-motion economic suicide for decades. Population growth has been anemic, state and local taxes are 50% higher than the national average, and spending and debt are out of control, as are public-employee pension and health benefits. Yet the political class offers little more than soothing bromides to an angry public."

Part of the problem is the idea that you can continually tax the wealthiest Americans and use that money to finance an increasing number of government programs.  Eventually people begin to vote with their feet and the amount of tax revenue begins to fall.

The article has six suggestions as to how New York can turn its economy around:

1.  Cut spending.  Freeze wages of public employees.

2.  Cap property taxes.

3.  Fund transportation in the state consistently.  Infrastructure repairs and upkeep need to be funded on a regular basis.

4.  Cut costs by consolidating in areas where it is possible.

5.  Revise the tax system to make it more user-friendly and less complicated.

6.  Make the legislature a part-time job with legislators forced to work in the private sector and live under the laws they pass.

These steps may begin to ease the exodus of wealthy business owners from New York that is caused by ever-increasing taxes. 

I'm a little late on this story, but since it is worth reading, I am posting it anyway.  On June 25th of this year, Lt. Brian Bradshaw was killed in Afghanistan.  That was the same day Michael Jackson died.  We know which one we heard about.

Brian Bradshaw's family recieved a letter from the airplane crew that flew him part of his journey home.  The Washington Post printed that letter.  It is a beautiful tribute to a brave man.  Please follow the link and read the letter.  Here is an excerpt from that letter:

"For one brief moment, the war stopped to honor Lt. Brian Bradshaw. This is the case for all of the fallen in Afghanistan. It is our way of recognizing the sacrifice and loss of our brothers and sisters in arms. Though there may not have been any media coverage, Brian's death did not go unnoticed. You are not alone with your grief. We mourn Brian's loss and celebrate his life with you. Brian is a true hero, and he will not be forgotten by those who served with him."

For whatever reason, the news media is not willing to recognize the heroes in the war on terrorism.  I'm not even sure they are still calling it the war on terrorism.  At any rate, we are involved in a war, and the heroes of that war need to be recognized.

On July 15 of this year, Bloomberg.com ran a story stating that Libya was on the verge of making a nuclear weapon when they gave up their nuclear program.  Remember, Libya had been attacked under the Reagan administration for its terrorist activities.  I am sure that when they saw what happened to Iraq because of suspected nuclear activity, they did not want to be next on the list.

Anyway, Little Green Footballs has a video and transcript of Gaddafi's statement saying that Libya was ready to assembly a nuclear weapon when they gave up their program.  One of the highlights:

"The world had changed, alliances had changed, the world map had changed - against whom would we use the nuclear bomb? We searched and couldn't find an enemy worthy of us using the nuclear bomb on. In addition, we thought: How will we protect this nuclear bomb? How will we dismantle it and hide each part separately? How will we assemble it when necessary? If there is a target - how will we protect the transportation of the bomb to the target? We found that the expenses and problems would endanger Libya more than [the bomb] would protect its security. Therefore, we decided to voluntarily shut down our nuclear program."

Does anyone believe this would have happened without the invasion of Iraq?

I guess humility is not a quality found in professors at Harvard University.   According to Breitbart.com, Professor Gates is ready to 'move on' from his arrest and use the experience as a 'teaching moment'.  I think I want to hear the audio tapes of the incident before I am ready to move on or have a teachable moment.  There is no mention in the article of the Professor being willing to apologize for his own behavior.

What about teaching people to respect a police officer when he asks you for your identification?  What about understanding that the police officer was responding to a call from a neighbor that a robbery might be in progress?  What about understanding that this police officer keeps law and order in your society?  Professor Gates wants to teach us all a lesson on racial profiling, what about police profiling?  Why did he automatically assume that the policeman was racially biased?  Why not assume that the policeman was doing his job? 

I will admit that I have drawn my own conclusions about this incident based on the way the people involved handled the press afterward.  I will, however, save my strongest statements for when (and if) the audio tapes of the arrest come out.  Technically, according to the Freedom of Information Act, those tapes have to be released to the public, but it seems that there are some obstacles to their being released.  It will be interesting to see if the public's right to know can overcome the 'powers that be' in Cambridge.

Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August 2008. George Bush signed it.  On the surface, it was a good idea, but when you look at the law of unintended consequences, it has been a disaster.

The law was passed in response to the Chinese toys (manufactured for American toy companys) that came into this country in 2007 that had unacceptable amounts of lead and other dangerous chemicals or that had small parts that could pose a risk to children.  According to Change.org:

"...the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in children's products, mandates third party testing and certification, and requires manufacturers of all goods for children under the age of 12, to permanently label each item with a date and batch number.

"...Small businesses however, will likely be driven out of business by the costs of mandatory testing, to the tune of as much as $4,000 or more per item. And the few larger manufacturers who still employ workers in the United States face increased costs to comply with the CPSIA, even though American-made toys had nothing to do with the toy safety problems of 2007."

One of the problems of this law is that it also includes used items.  Anyone selling or giving used children's clothing will be subject to this law.  According to the article:

"It will be illegal to sell or give these items away to charities, and the government will require their destruction or permanent disposal, resulting in millions of tons of unnecessary waste, and placing an enormous strain on our landfills."

Obviously Congress overreacted and needs to change the law.  Further information on the law and some of its unintended consequences can be found at Learning Resources.  This is a Congressional mistake we need to fix.

Charles Krauthammer wrote on article for yesterday's Washington Post about the current healthcare legislation.  He sums up the problem beautifully:

"What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality. As both candidate and president, the master rhetorician could conjure a world in which he bestows upon you health-care nirvana: more coverage, less cost.

"But you can't fake it in legislation. Once you commit your fantasies to words and numbers, the Congressional Budget Office comes along and declares that the emperor has no clothes."

The idea of something for nothing is very attractive; the problem is that it doesn't work.  Despite the President's claim that the bill will be revenue neutral because medical care costs will be drastically reduced, you only have to look at the history of Medicare and other government healthcare programs to know that is highly unlikely.  If you can't reach revenue neutrality be cutting costs, you have to reach it with tax increases.

Charles Krauthammer has worked in the medical profession as a doctor and understands what is involved in this legislation.  He comments:

"This is not about politics? Then why is it, to take but the most egregious example, that in this grand health-care debate we hear not a word about one of the worst sources of waste in American medicine: the insane cost and arbitrary rewards of our malpractice system?

"When a neurosurgeon pays $200,000 a year for malpractice insurance before he even turns on the light in his office or hires his first nurse, who do you think pays? Patients, in higher doctor fees to cover the insurance.

"And with jackpot justice that awards one claimant zillions while others get nothing -- and one-third of everything goes to the lawyers -- where do you think that money comes from? The insurance companies, which then pass it on to you in higher premiums."

You cannot seriously reduce medical costs in this country without tort reform.  President Obama knows this, but the amount of money lawyers contribute to Democrat politics make any changes in that area highly unlikely. 

The current healthcare legislation is struggling, but that doesn't mean it is going to go away.  There is an attitude in this country today that health insurance that covers routine doctor's visits for everything is a right.  I agree that healthcare is a right (nowhere in the United States is that right in question), but health insurance that makes healthcare 'free' to everyone is not a right.  I don't have a problem with helping people afford the care they need, I just don't want to see healthcare become an out-of-control welfare system. 

There was a time in this country when people were denied medical care because of their race.  That was wrong, but that time is over.  I have a friend who grew up during that time in the rural south and as a senior citizen she is struggling with many physical issues because she was denied routine healthcare as a child.  I don't want to see things like that happen.  Actually, under Obama's healthcare plan I don't think she would be allowed to access the quality care she is getting now--they would declare her too old and too expensive to treat.

I am not optimistic about how this debate will turn out.  I hope when the Congress goes on recess in early August, they listen to the people they are supposed to represent.  The reason the President wants a vote before August recess is that if Congress has already voted, the complaints they hear will not matter (until the ballot box next year).  I'm not sure how reliable the  blue-dog Democrats are--they helped elect Nancy Pelosi as speaker.  If this miserable piece of legislation gets through, it will be very hard to undo and it will be very bad for the country economically.  We need to watch how people vote and who proposes what to add to the legislation.  Then we need to remember these things next November.

According to Fox News President Obama has stated that 'victory' is not necessarily the goal in Afghanistan.  As the mother of a Marine who has spent some time there and will be spending some time there in the future, I am furious at that statement. 

The President told ABC News:

"We are confident that if we are assisting the Afghan people and improving their security situation, stabilizing their government, providing help on economic development ... those things will continue to contract the ability of Al Qaeda to operate. And that is absolutely critical,"

If we do not win in Afghanistan (and by winning I mean help stabilize their government and do enought damage to Al Qaeda so that they cannot command operations from there), then we will have wasted the treasure of American lives for nothing.  Just for the record, the first step in winning in Afghanistan would be to eradicate the poppy crop and teach the people to grow something else.  A lot of Al Qaeda's money comes from the drug trade.  This is a worldwide problem and ending the poppy business in Afghanistan would help people all over the world.

We are all tired of the war and wish it would end, but now is not the time to begin to make excuses that will lead to withdrawal before the country can survive.

Despite its reputation, New Jersey is a beautiful state.  It deserves better leadership than it has.  Today's New York Post has a summary of the arrests yesterday involving a major scandal in the state of New Jersey.  According to the article:

"Separate federal probes targeting rogue rabbis in Brooklyn and corrupt public officials in New Jersey led to the arrests yesterday of 44 people, including three mayors and five religious leaders."

The scandal included stealing money from banks in a check-writing scam, money laundering, and skimming the top off of charitable contribution.   At one point, the sale of a kidney was involved.  The arrests yesterday were the result of three years of work by federal authorities.  Hopefully, the fallout from these arrests will be a move toward cleaner politics in the Garden State.

According to today's New York Post:

"A multiracial group of police officers stood with the white officer who arrested a black Harvard scholar and asked President Barack Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick apologize for comments union leaders called insulting."

Thank you, Cambridge.  The actual police report of the incident is posted at The Smoking Gun.  The report shows that Professor Gates clearly lost his temper and was creating a disturbance.  It is nice to see the Cambridge Police Force standing behind Sargent James Crowley in this instance. 

Anyone who owns a home appreciates the police checking on their house if there is a report of a break-in; I really think Professor Gates overreacted and needs to apologize to the Sargent.

This is the link to the chart the Republicans tried to send out in a mailer and were blocked by the Democrats from doing so (see details below).  House Democrat Health Plan.  I tried to insert the smaller version here, but was unsuccessful. 

This chart gives you an idea of how complicated the new healthcare plan will be.  It also tells you how President Obama plans to cut unemployment--the only job area that is currently growing is government jobs!

Roll Call reported today that:

"Democrats are preventing Republican House Members from sending their constituents a mailing that is critical of the majority's health care reform plan, blocking the mailing by alleging that it is inaccurate."

This is a major infringement on congressmen communicating with the people they represent.  I resent the fact that the Democrat party is trying to jam down government healthcare before anyone actually has a chance to examine the bill.  If government healthcare is so important, we need to take the time to do it carefully.  I also resent the fact that President Obama is blaming healthcare costs for the increasing budget deficit--look at the spending bills passed since he has become President.  I also resent the fact that tort reform is not included in the present healthcare proposals when the rising cost of malpractice insurance is a major reason that hospitals and doctors have been forced to raise their fees. 

The sources for this article are the  Washington Times and the Cybercast News Service.

Just a note before I officially get on with the article.  President Obama is stating that the reason the economic recovery is slow is that he inherited a trillion dollar deficit.  Let's just remember that the budgets that gave us that deficit were passed by a Democrat congress that took office in January 2007 (and voted on by then Senator Barack Obama).  Since Barack Obama took office he has also significantly increased deficit spending.  What he inherited he helped create and he has made worse since he took office.

President Obama has named insurance companies and doctors as the reasons the cost of healthcare has risen in this country.  Somehow he fails to mention the runaway lawsuits that have put a lot of money in lawyers' pockets and only some in the pockets of patients.  He is not willing to consider tort reform so that doctors do not have to practice 'defensive medicine', which is one of the reasons for the high cost of healthcare.

It was reported that just before the press conference, negotiations on the healthcare bill were having some problems.  According to the Washington Post:

"Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, dropped out of the group of six bipartisan negotiators in the Senate Finance Committee, saying it had become clear to him that he could not support the emerging compromise blueprint.

Mr. Hatch said committee Chairman Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, has "not been given the flexibility necessary to construct a realistic health care reform bill that can achieve true bipartisan support.""

According to the Cybercast New Service, when asked if he would participate in the government plan, President Obama avoided the question:

But when asked if Obama, "as a symbolic gesture," would agree to abide by the public option he's advocating for others, Obama didn't give a direct answer:
 
"You know, I would be happy to abide by the same benefit package. I will just be honest with you. I'm the president of the United States, so I've got a doctor following me every minute, which is why I say this is not about me," Obama answered. "I've got the best health care in the world. I'm trying to make sure that everybody has good health care, and they don't right now."

I will gladly sign on to the congressional healthcare plan just as soon as Congress gives up their current healthcare plan and signs on to the plan they pass!

There was an incident in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this week that almost brought Al Sharpton to town.  He still may show up.  A Harvard Professor, Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr., was returning home from a trip only to discover his key did not work in the lock on his door.  Mr. Gates and his driver attempted to strong arm to door to get inside Mr. Gates' house.  A neighbor, seeing the activity and not recognizing Mr. Gates as the resident of the house, called the police.  The police showed up and checked id.  Evidently at this point Mr. Gates became verbally abusive to the policeman for not recognizing who he was.  That resulted in charges against Mr. Gates.  The police have since dropped the charges in an attempt to insert sanity into the situation.  Frankly, I think most of us would appreciate the police investigating a call saying that someone was breaking into our home.

According to an article in today's Boston Herald:

"As it turns out, there won't be any need for Rev. Al to exploit the incident on Ware Street, because Skip Gates has decided he's going to create a full-length documentary for PBS based on his arrest.

"The idea never crossed my mind," Gates told The Washington Post yesterday, "but it has now."

I expect the documentary will soon be prefaced by Skip's 10,000-word treatise in The New Yorker.

Exploitation can assume many forms - including Skip Gate's sudden decision to train his historian/journalist eye on the subject of racial profiling. Obviously, there's no need to ask why he wasn't moved to make such a documentary before yesterday."

I'm really sorry this is the caliber of the instructors at one of America's most prestigious universities.

Today's Washington Times is reporting on a remark by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicating that the United States may actually accept Iran as a nuclear nation. 

According to the article:

"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday the United States could extend a "defense umbrella" over its allies in the Persian Gulf if Iran does not abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons."

Frankly, I think this has more to do with the fact that President Obama is not willing to stand up to Iran (he wants Iran to help us in Afghanistan) than wanting to protect any of our allies in the Middle East or Europe.  I can't help remembering the fact that a missle shield was promised to Poland then abondoned as soon as the Russians objected.  We currently have a President who will not stand up to evil, should any country trust him as an ally?

The article futher states:

"It was not clear Wednesday whether the idea has been discussed at the White House since Mr. Obama took office in January. In spite of Mrs. Clinton's insistence that her comments were not meant as an acceptance of a nuclear Iran, Israeli officials were concerned enough to react immediately.

"I was not thrilled to hear the American statement . . . that they will protect their allies with a nuclear umbrella, as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear Iran," Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor told Israel's Army Radio."

I think all of us need to pay attention to this statement.  It may represent a serious change in America's Middle East policy.  

Yesterday's Washington Times posted an article quoting the Mayo Clinic's evaluation of the  healthcare reform currently proposed in the House of Representatives.

According to the article:

"Minnesota's not-for-profit Mayo Clinic, which Mr. Obama has repeatedly hailed as offering top quality care at affordable costs, blasted the House Democrats' version of the health care plan as lawmakers continue to grapple with several bills from each chamber and multiple committees.

The Mayo Clinic said there are some positive elements of the bill, but overall "the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for patients."

"In fact, it will do the opposite," clinic officials said, because the proposals aren't [R]patient-focused or results-oriented. "The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.""

Some of the problems with the bill include how to fund it, and the fact that in order to make it work, healthcare would need to be rationed.  There is also some question as to whether the government controls of what doctors could charge patients might result in fewer people studying to become doctors.

Generally speaking, the healthcare reform bill as currently stated is a bad bill that will result in less care for the elderly of America and higher taxes for all of us.  It needs to be scrapped and rewritten.

According to Power Line yesterday, President Obama has decided not to release the annual mid-summer budget update (traditionally released in mid-July) until mid-August. 

According to the article:

"Already, as AP observes, "the public and members of Congress are becoming increasingly anxious over Obama's economic policies." A Washington Post-ABC News survey released today shows approval of Obama's handling of health-care reform slipping below 50 percent for the first time. The poll also found slippage in support for Obama's handling of economic issues across-the-board."

Aside from the fact that the information is being delayed in the hopes of getting Congress to pass some very expensive legislation before anyone realizes how bad our financial situation is, this is not fair to the American people.  We have a right to know what affect President Obama's policies have had on the economy in the six months he has been in office.

This reminds me of the child who brings home a bad report card on Friday and waits until Monday morning to show it to his parents.  The delay doesn't change the facts, he's just hoping for a shorter, less intense reaction.

Watts Up With That has posted an article from Planet Gore concerning new regulations concerning toilet paper.  According to the article:

"Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer has proposed legislation calling on a federal agency to define toilet paper.

Really. It says it right in the bill, the "Water Resources Protection Act" (I know, I know -- you were expecting it to be called the Protecting Infrastructure and Sewer Systems Act):

''SEC. 4172. DEFINITIONS AND SPECIAL RULE.

'(b) WATER DISPOSAL PRODUCT. -- For purposes of this subchapter --

(4) TOILET TISSUE. -- The term 'toilet tissue' means toilet tissue, as determined under regulations prescribed by the Secretary."

No, it's not as silly as it sounds. It's sillier.

The rulemaking to define what rises to the level of a bottom-wipe is in the name of a good cause: to tax the stuff. The current band of feds don't think you've paid enough tax -- this has been established ad nauseum -- and now want a dedicated revenue, er, stream, to pay to replace corroded pipes and overburdened sewer sytems nationwide."

I have nothing to add to this!  If you want to read more, please follow the link!

On July 17th the New York Post published an article by Betsy McCaughey on the healthcare plan currently being promoted by President Obama.  Betsy McCaughey is the founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former lieutenant governor of New York.  She hosts a webside called Defend Your Healthcare.

According to her research:

"Two main bills are being rushed through Congress with the goal of combining them into a finished product by August. Under either, a new government bureaucracy will select health plans that it considers in your best interest, and you will have to enroll in one of these "qualified plans." If you now get your plan through work, your employer has a five-year "grace period" to switch you into a qualified plan. If you buy your own insurance, you'll have less time."

This does not sound like an improvement in healthcare.  The dangers to senior citizens in this bill are many--rationed care will lead to care denied to the elderly.  The bill also has a provision to could be used to encourage senior citizens to refuse treatment:

"One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and "the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration."

This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care. Do we really want government involved in such deeply personal issues?"

Please visit Defend Your Healthcare to learn more and stay informed.  This bill is not something that will improve our healthcare.  Until the President and Congress agree to give up their healthcare and sign on to the bill they pass, we should not accept their healthcare proposals!! 

Today's Wall Street Journal has posted an article on the Democrat's seeming abandonment of the idea of 'card check' legislation.  Card check would have eliminated the secret ballot in voting to unionize a company; it would also have set up a government arbitration situation within a few months of a union vote.  This law would have been very unfriendly to business and would have been a 'job killer.'

Senators Tom Harkin (Iowa), Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Mr. Specter and others are now considering a new bill which would still give unions the whip hand in negotiations with management.  Some of the proposals include making the time between signing cards and actually taking a vote to unionize much shorter, giving workers less time to consider the consequences (much the way this administration is pushing bills through Congress without giving Congressmen a chance to read them).  There is also a demand by Big Labor to bar companies from requiring their workers to hear management's side during a union campaign.

The article further states:

"Democrats also aren't giving up on binding arbitration, which would let a federal arbitrator impose a contract if management and a newly established union at a work site aren't able to agree within 90 days. The provision would encourage unions to make maximum demands and play for time, knowing that an arbitrator could force management's hand. Binding arbitration also denies employees a vote on a contract."

The average American is now beginning to see the role the unions have played in the demise of certain companies and industries.  Union membership has been declining since 1954 when it peaked at 28%.  It is now at about 11 %.  This is according to the Becker-Posner Blog.

This is a very pro-union administration, and I believe that we will see some growth in union membership during President Obama's term, but I do not believe that unions will ever regain 28% of the workforce.

Today's Washington Examiner posted an article by William Kristol on a letter from Ted Kennedy published in NEWSWEEK on the subject of healthcare.  Kennedy and his co-author, Bob Shrum discuss the idea of a government-supervised healthcare that will save us all money.  The article states:

"We also need to move from a system that rewards doctors for the sheer volume of tests and treatments they prescribe to one that rewards quality and positive outcomes. For example, in Medicare today, 18 percent of patients discharged from a hospital are readmitted within 30 days--at a cost of more than $15 billion in 2005. Most of these readmissions are unnecessary, but we don't reward hospitals and doctors for preventing them. By changing that, we'll save billions of dollars while improving the quality of care for patients."

This is an interesting concept.  Readmission of patients in hospitals is a problem for Senator Kennedy--ok, let's think about that for a minute.  Many medicare patients are elderly.  They may have recurring problems toward the end of their lives that will put them in the hospital frequently.  We do not have the knowledge to solve all end-of-life medical problems.  This is another example of the government saying it can (and will) do something to cut medical spending when it has no control over the events that are causing the spending (unless you begin to deny admission to the hospital to these people).

This is one of many questions and problems with the idea of government-run healthcare.

Today's New York Post has an article by Representative Peter Hoekstra (R- Mich.), the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, addressing what has happened to the bi-partisan approach to national security.

To review a bit of history, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed that she was not informed of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' used on captured terrorists.  When presented with the evidence from the CIA that she was briefed, she said that they had not made it clear that the techniques had been used.  She later said that the CIA routinely mislead Congress.  The ruckus that has followed is an attempt to restore her credibility.

According to the New York Post, this is where the situation stands:

"Democrats are claiming they were lied to by the CIA about a program and gleefully charge that then-Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the agency to not brief this program to Congress.

CIA Director Panetta refused to back the allegation that Cheney gave such an order. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden flatly denied that he'd ever been instructed not to brief Congress. Now Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has also distanced himself from these over-the-top allegations by House Democrats."

This is really not a good place for the Democrats to be.  The attacks on the Intelligence Community have not been good for our national security.  When intelligence is at the mercy of party politics, nothing positive gets done to help our country protect or defend itself against attack.  The leaks of classified information have made the job of the CIA more difficult, and I can understand why the CIA might be hesitant to brief Congress on every program it considers but does not carry out.

This is a story from Hot Air that I could have read fifteen times without understanding, but I am married to a computer geek who explained what happened.  Now I know enough to be upset.

Evidently Amazon,com has an online 'store' called Kindle where you can buy books and download them to your computer to read.  Considering the electronic savvy level of the generation under 30, that is a great idea.  Well, every program has its challenges.  Two books, oddly enough "Animal Farm" and "1984," were added to the Kindle store by companies that did not have the right to sell them.  When Amazon.com heard about this from the people who did hold the rights to the books, they removed the books from the Kindle store and from customer's devices and issued refunds to the customers.

The article points out:

"Amazon's published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a "permanent copy of the applicable digital content.""

It seems to me that I don't want Amazon.com taking things out of my personal computer for any reason.  I don't want them to have access to my computer.  The article concludes:

"If the holder of the Orwell copyright wants justice, by all means let him sue Amazon and the unlicensed publisher of the digital books for damages. That's the surest way to get Bezos and company to more closely police the copyright status of books being sold in their Kindle store. Why they're not already doing that is frankly unfathomable to me, but doubly unfathomable is them reaching into your virtual bookshelf to forcibly repurchase a book you've already bought. Exit question: Is this a dealbreaker for would-be Kindle purchasers?"

It's ironic that the books involved were "1984" and "Animal Farm."  We seem to be heading toward the worlds those books depict!

As if the spending by this Congress has not been ridiculous enough, Friday, the House of Representatives discussed H.R. 1018, the Restore our American Mustangs Act (ROAM). ROAM is a $700 million bill that would fund the The federal Bureau of Land Management as it aims for a manageable population of 27,000 wild mustangs.  Right now there are 36,000 wild mustangs, and the population doubles every four or five years.

Mark Steyn at National Review Online has posted an article entitled "The Gelded Age" which explains how ROAM will spend its $700 million.  Please follow the link and read the full article, it is hilarious, and nothing I can say as a summary will do it justice.

One of Mark Steyn's comments:

"The bill also calls for a biennial horse census (presumably run by ACORN) and mandates that government bureaucrats perform home inspections before Americans can adopt wild horses or burros. Presumably this will require a Federal Burro of Investigation or some such."

There is also a breakdown of the bill (and a really good music video) at Power LIne yesterday. 

This is the current state of fiscal responsibility in our representatives.  We need new representatives! 

Susan Estrich is the Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Southern California Law Center. She serves on the Board of Editorial Contributors for USA Today, as a presidential appointee on U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and as a mayoral appointee on the City of Los Angeles Ethics Committee.  She was also national campaign manager for Dukakis for President in 1988.  Her Democrat Party credentials are impeccable.  Today she has an article at Creators.com about the stimulus program and the healthcare reform proposal.

She comments that although the number of people employed in Washington, D. C., has increased, it is decreasing in California where she lives.  She states:

"The idea that somehow you're going to tax the "rich" enough to pay for quality health care for every American who doesn't have it, can't afford it or stands to lose it, not to mention for all of the undocumented aliens who receive it for free now and presumably will continue to in Obama health land, is almost laughable. It's one of those things candidates say in campaigns, ignoring the fact that it doesn't add up. But in a bill that might pass? Add a 5 percent surtax on every small business in the country that makes $250,000 or more? This is going to create jobs? What am I missing?"

She is absolutely right!  Thank you, Susan Estrich, for your honesty and clarity in evaluating the direction the current healthcare reform program would take us. 

As most of you know, I live in Massachusetts.  After a recent trip to California to help move my military kids from Camp Lejeune to Camp Pendleton, I developed 'weather envy'.  San Diego is an unbelievably beautiful place with an awesome climate.  It didn't make my return home any easier when the weather in Massachusetts didn't seem to understand the concept of warm and sunny.  (About 78 with no humidity and lots of sunshine would be really good!)

Well, today I read in Power Line that Minnesota isn't having summer either.  According to the article, 1816 was the "year without a summer," and this year is following the same pattern.  The article lists the possible causes of the 1916 lack of summer:

"The year 1816 is still known to scientists and historians as "eighteen hundred and froze to death" or the "year without a summer." It was the locus of a period of natural ecological destruction not soon to be forgotten. During that year, the Northern Hemisphere was slammed with the effects of at least two abnormal but natural phenomena. These events were mysterious at the time, and even today they are not well understood.

First, 1816 marked the midpoint of one of the Sun's extended periods of low magnetic activity, called the Dalton Minimum. This particular minimum lasted from about 1795 to the 1820s. It resembled the earlier Maunder Minimum (about 1645-1715) that was responsible for at least 70 years of abnormally cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere. The Maunder Minimum interval is sandwiched within an even better known cool period known as the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about the 14th through 19th centuries.

But the event that most severely shaped 1816's cold phenomena was the cata-strophic eruption the previous year of Tambora on the island of Sumbawa, in modern-day Indonesia. The ash clouds and sulfur aerosols spewed by this volcano were widespread, chilling the climate of the Northern Hemisphere by blocking sunlight with gases and particles."

It seems to me that we need to admit that we do not totally understand climate cycles.  We also need to realize that although clean air is a really good idea, we do not need to cripple the worldwide economy to bring about results we are unsure of to solve a problem that may not exist.  Sometmes the idea that we as people can control everything gets in the way of clear thinking.

Walter Cronkite was a powerful figure in American media during the 1960's amd 1970's.  Like all well-known people, he was loved by many people and disliked by many people.  Now that he is dead, most of the obituaries will focus on the good things.

John Podhoretz at Commentary Magazine has an analysis of the inpact Walter Cronkite had on the Viet Nam war.  Walter Cronkite essentially caused us to lose the war (by turning American public opinion against our troops and the war) after we had achieved a major victory.  To understand how this happened, we need to remember the impact of the three major network newscasts before the age of cable and internet. 

According to the article:

"Cronkite was a key figure in many ways, but foremost among them, perhaps, was the fact that he cleared the way for the mainstream media and the Establishment to join what Lionel Trilling called "the adversary culture." Cronkite, the gravelly voice of accepted American wisdom, whose comportment suggested he kept his money in bonds and would never even have considered exceeding the speed limit, devastated President Lyndon Johnson in the wake of the 1968 Tet Offensive by declaring that the United States "was mired in stalemate" in Vietnam--when Johnson knew that Tet had been a military triumph."

Walter Cronkite was the forerunner of the elite media we have today--he was not objective and does not serve the country well.  Because of the foundation he laid in the 'mainstream media', an alternative media has grown up in the form of talk radio, cable television, and the internet.  Regardless of how you feel about talk radio, they only way to get a balanced newscast is to listen to both the network news and talk radio.

In reading some of the blogs and comments from other blog readers, I was surprised at how intense the reaction to Walter Cronkite's death was.  As a member of the generation that fought in Viet Nam and the wife of a Viet Nam era veteran, I can understand the intensity, I was just surprised that it was still there.  Unfortunately the template he put in place for network news lives on, but at least today we have an antidote.  It's time to forgive and move on.

Yahoo News has posted a picture and article about the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile crashing into a private home in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, about 35 miles south of Milwaukee.  The wienermobile crashed into the deck and garage of the private residence.  There were no injuries--no one was at home at the time of the crash.  

This screams for a really good punch line.  If anyone has one, please email it to rightwinggranny@live.com or put it in the comments.

Today's Wall Street Journal posted an editorial on what the currently proposed healthcare reform will do to the federal budget and the tax rates of average Americans.  According to the article:

"Mr. Obama's February budget provided the outline, but the House bill now fills in the details. To wit, tax increases that would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe. Yet even those increases aren't nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private insurance and lead to a government-run system."

Please read the entire article for the entire picture of what is in store for America if this bill is passed.  It will give us a basic tax rate similar to the countries in Europe which are considered socialist countries.

We haven't heard a lot of reporting in America lately about the swine flu, but the number of cases in Britain is growing rapidly.  According to the BBC News yesterday:

"More than 73 people per 100,000 reported flu-like illness from 6-12 July, the Royal College of GPs said."

The figures from the Royal College of GPs showed that the number of cases increased 46% from the week before.  The swine flu vaccine is expected to arrive in the United Kingdom at the end of August.  There will be a priority list to determine who is eligible to recieve the vaccine.

There have been seventeen swine fle-related deaths in the United Kingdom.

Sounds like a pretty obvious question--until you realize that Congress opted out of Social Security, then started taking money from the program while increasing the amount of money ordinary Americans pay into the system.  They are about to do something similar with healthcare. 

Representative John Fleming of Louisiana is drafting legislation to force Congress to live under the laws they pass.  His website, fleming.house.gov, posts the following:

"Under the current draft of the Democrat healthcare legislation, members of Congress are curiously exempt from the government-run health care option, keeping their existing health plans and services on Capitol Hill. If Members of Congress believe so strongly that government-run health care is the best solution for hard working American families, I think it only fitting that Americans see them lead the way. Public servants should always be accountable and responsible for what they are advocating, and I challenge the American people to demand this from their representatives.

Together we will work to ensure that any plan that is good enough is for American families is good enough for every member of Congress.

View Resolution

If you would like to download a letter of support for House Resolution 615 to send to your representative click here."

This is a wonderful idea.  Please follow the links above to support it.

According to today's New York Post, if the healthcare bill is financed by the surtax on high income people, some residents of New York City could wind up paying up to 60 percent of their income in taxes!   According to the article:

"The top rate in New York City, home to many of the state's wealthiest people, would be 58.68 percent, the Washington-based Tax Foundation said in a report yesterday."

Under the proposed new surtaxes supported by House Democrats and championed by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), New York would become the third-most-hostile place for top earners to live.  To say that this will drive people out of New York City and New York State in obvious.  (See rightwinggranny.com article "The Unintended Consequences Of Tax Increases" from May 20 of this year).  My question is "Where will they go?"

According to the article:

"The legislation is especially onerous for business owners, in part because it penalizes employers with a payroll bigger than $400,000 some 8 percent of wages if they don't offer health care.

But the cost of the buy-in to the program may be so prohibitive that it will dissuade owners from growing their businesses -- a scary prospect in the midst of a recession."

The impact of this tax program on small businesses would be profound.  Please read the entire article to see the extent of the problem.  The surtax program suggested by Representative Rangel would cripple economic growth in New York City and probably in New York State.  I wonder if the representative has considered the consequences of his actions.  

Yesterday's Investor's Business Daily has discovered the smoking gun in the current healthcare proposal.  I am not good at interpretting bureaucratic gobbledy gook, so here is the quote from the article:

"...The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised -- with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers."

One of the 'advantages' of making an awful piece of legislature 1,018 pages long is that most of the lawmakers won't read it very carefully (if at all).  Based on the promises currently being made and the contradictions between fact and promise, I wonder how many Congressmen have actually read the bill.

Universal healthcare is a great idea in theory that has never worked in practice.  We need to learn from the mistakes other countries have made.  Please call your Congressmen and let him or her know that you do not support the end of American medicine as we know it. 

One of the blogs at National Review, Planet Gore on National Review, has a very short post today dealing with the fact that Toyota is closing down its California auto plant, the so-called NUMMI facility outside San Francisco.  OK, so what's the big deal?  Well, let's look at the reasons why:

Neither NUMMI's labor costs nor business conditions are competitive.  The article explains why:

"NUMMI is Toyota's only unionized plant in the U.S. -- and that California's energy and regulatory costs (envied by the Obama administration as a national model, natch) make it prohibitively expensive to make cars -- even in Toyota's largest U.S. market."

"..The difference is, while Toyota sheds NUMMI to eliminate its only UAW plant, GM is emerging from a Democrat-arranged bankruptcy more beholden to Big Labor than ever (the union now owns 17 percent of the company."

The regulation atmosphere in California is one of many reasons the state is going bankrupt.  (I have just returned from southern California and, were it not for the fiscal insanity of the state, would actually love to live there.)  Toyota will continue to be profitable in the worldwide auto market--they understand how to run a business in tough economic times.  The new government-owned GM has fired the executive core of the company.  Had they actually wanted to make the company competitive without government subsidies, they would have taken steps to decrease union influence--not increase it.  It kind of makes you wonder what the actual end game is.

National Review posted an article today about the healthcare plans moving through Congress and their relationship to illegal immigration.  According to the article:

"Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) told the Dallas Morning News in May, "We're not going to cover undocumented aliens, undocumented workers. That's too politically explosive.""

What about because it is basically unfair to burden legal, working Americans with the healthcare expenses of people who are breaking the law by being here illegally?

The article also points out:

"Approximately 15-22 percent of the 46 million residents of the United States without health coverage are illegal aliens. That's about 9 or 10 million people. More generally, a third of the foreign-born are uninsured, Census data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies show. That means something like 12.6 million people, or more than a fourth of the total uninsured, are immigrants, both legal and illegal. Since 1989, immigration is responsible for 71 percent of the rise in those without health insurance.  The fact is, the problem of the uninsured would be a more manageable one if the U.S. were not admitting millions of uninsured immigrants."

I would be willing to help people here legally get good medical care at reasonable prices, if someone is here illegally, they are breaking the law and should be sent home.  If they have nowhere to go, I'm sure the government can work that out on an individual basis.

We need sane legal immigration policies, but we don't need to finance the medical care of people who do not respect our laws at the expense of the people who do.

The latest release of the coming universal health plan calls for a tax surcharge on anyone making more than $1 million a year.  This legislation, according to Bloomberg.com, would also place additional taxes on households with more than $350,000 a year in income and calls for further increases if the measure doesn't hit a target for cost savings.

First, let's take a look at who makes $1 million a year.  Many small business owners have their businesses set up so that when they file income tax, the business income is treated as personal income.  Then things are adjusted, and they pay their taxes.  These are the people who are going to be affected by this tax.  These are the people who will not be able to hire new people or expand their businesses because of the extra tax expense.

According to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce:

"The intention of this plan is to tax high-income households, but the real victims would be America's small business owners," the Washington-based group's president, Thomas Donohue, said in a statement. "Since when does our great free-market country punish success?"

Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, picked up on the theme, saying the plan would be paid for by "small business men and women we are counting on to start hiring workers again."

The legislation would raise taxes on larger corporations as well. Among other things, it would make it easier for the Internal Revenue Service to prosecute tax shelters, and deny certain cross-border deductions that some companies are able to claim through tax treaties.

This is a sure-fire way to kill the chances of any solid economic recovery from the current recession. 

I have no idea who wrote this.  If I find out, I will credit them.  But I love it!!!

The Haircut

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he asked
about his bill and the barber replies, "I cannot accept money from you.  I'm
doing community service this week.

"The florist was pleased and left the shop. When the barber goes to open
his shop the next morning there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen roses
waiting for him at his door.

Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the
barber again replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community
service this week." The cop is happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning when the barber goes to open up there is a 'thank you'
card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Later that day, a college professor comes in for a haircut, and when he
tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, "I cannot accept money from
you. I'm doing community service this week."  The professor is very happy
and leaves the shop. The next morning when the barber opens his shop, there
is a 'thank you' card and a dozen different books, such as "How to Improve
Your Business" and "Becoming More Successful.

"Then, a Congressman comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his
bill the barber again replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing
community service this week." The Congressman is very happy and leaves the
shop. The next morning when the barber goes to open up, there are a dozen
Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.

And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the
citizens of our country and the members of our Congress

Yesterday Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted some figures on how the stimulus money is being spent in the state of New Hampshire.  New Hampshire received $416 million dollars in stimulus money.  With it, they created 50 jobs--34 of them full time jobs. 

According to the article:

"The Office of Legislative Budget Assistant reported last week that $413.6 million made its way to the state under a list of programs that involve education, highways, environmental, health and human services, energy and law enforcement. ...

So far, a total of 50 jobs have been created by the funding, 34 of them full time. The OES will be headed by a director whom Gov. John Lynch has not yet appointed. All five OES jobs are described as full-time temporary positions that will go out of existence in September 2011, the end of the federal fiscal year."

I guess my question is simple--if this money had been given to small business in the form of tax cuts, how would the outcome have differed?  The stimulus money is not a permanent thing--when the money runs out, the jobs go away.  Would it not have been better to put the money in the hands of small business--they hire people and the people they hire spend money.  Also, it doesn't cost small business $8.32 million per job!  Please follow the link in the first paragraph of this post and read the entire article.  The amount of waste in this program is frightening.

Why in the world would we want to let people with this kind of fiscal incompetence run a national healthcare program?

The main link for this article is a Power Line post from yesterday, but the Power Line post links to a Michael Ledeen article at Pajamas Media entitled "I'll Give You Dozens of Terrorists, You Give Me One Journalist, OK?".  According to both articles, this is the story we are not being told:

"In early May, the deal was arranged: more than thirty Iranian "VIP" detainees would be released (first to the Iraqis, then to the Iranians), and then, in the fullness of time, several hundred (repeat, several hundred) others of less importance. Within days, Iraqi leader Maliki flew to Iran to work out the details. Saberi was quickly released, and the triumphal return to Iran for the Five was scheduled for shortly after the Iranian elections."

If this is in fact true, it is diplomacy at the expense of the lives of American soldiers.  Not only are we trading terrorists for journalists, we are realeasing from prison the people who are responsible for making and smuggling into Iraq the particular type of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that has been most effective in killing American soldiers.

Please read the article at Pajamas Media--Mr. Ledeen goes into detail as to exactly what was involved in the decision to make the hostage-prisoner trade.  We need to learn from the Israelis--they don't negotiate with terrorists.

Today's Wall Street Journal has posted an article about the CIA plan to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives which was ended by Director Leon Panetta when he took charge of the agency..  According to the article:

"According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn't become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it."

I'm a little confused by all this ruckus.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is citing the plan as an example of the fact that the CIA kept information from Congress.  Let's consider two facts, one, the plan never actually reached a point where it was going to be implemented, and two, Congress has had some leakage problems in national security areas.  The first fact makes the briefing of Congress unneccessary, and the second fact makes briefing Congress a risk to national security.  This is another example of the House Speaker trying to blame the CIA for the fact that she approved of waterboarding.

I seem to remember that one of the charges by the Democrats against George W. Bush was that he hadn't yet caught Osama Bin Laden.  This is a November 16, 2008, quote from Barack Obama from MSNBC:

"In his first television interview since his historic election, Obama said he has spent the days since the election on short- and long-term issues, from doing "whatever it takes" to stabilize the economy, restore consumer confidence and create jobs, to getting sound health care and energy policies through Congress. The president-elect also said that as soon as he takes office he will work with his security team and the military to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq, shore up Afghanistan and "stamp out al-Qaida once and for all.""

So why was the program to 'stamp our al-Qaida once and for all' shut down, and why is Congress screaming that they were not informed of a program that was never implemented?  This is another example of politics being more important than national security.  If you beleive that the program needed to be stopped, that is fine, but then why does Congress need to know about everything the CIA decides not to do?  If you believe the program would have been valid in ending terrorism, why was it stopped?  You can't have it both ways. 

Climate Depot posted an article on Friday quoting Al Gore speaking on July 7, 2009, in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by UK Times.  The article states:

"Gore touted the Congressional climate bill, claiming it "will dramatically increase the prospects for success" in combating what he sees as the "crisis" of man-made global warming.

"But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements." (Editor's Note: Gore makes the "global governance" comment at the 1min. 10 sec. mark in this UK Times video.)"

 

Global governance?  What exactly does that mean?  I personally like American governance. 

President Obama (along with Congress) agreed at the recent G8 to keep the earth's temperature from rising more than 2 degrees centigrade.  Wow, what power!!  When did we attain the ability to control the earth's temperature--we can't even predict the weather for next weeks baseball games.

The article also states:

The environmental group Friends of the Earth advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations during the 2007 UN climate conference.

"A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources," said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth.

So fixing climate problems is just a matter of taking money from Americans and giving to the poorer countries of the world.  I hope someone in Congress has the brains to see this scheme for what it is and stop the Cap and Trade Bill.

Today's New York Post has an article about a change in State Department policy that reverses a longstanding policy requiring foreign governments to pay taxes on some diplomatic residences.  Needless to say, New York City is being hit hard by this change--it will cost the city roughly $260 million in back taxes in addition to any future revenue.  (What about all the unpaid parking tickets?)   As the junior senator from New York State, Hillary supported the right of the city to collect taxes from foreign governments, as Secretary of State, she has changed the policy.

The article points out:

Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, said the rules change comes because other countries do not apply similar taxes on US properties overseas, which include Army bases, FBI offices and State Department housing.

"Those countries have come to us and said, 'Wait a minute. Why is New York taxing us when we don't tax you?' " he said.

"This has become a diplomatic irritant. They've held up activity at those locations, not given us building permits."

Kennedy acknowledged that New York has more diplomatic housing than any other city in the nation.

But he insisted, "New York gets a lot of benefits from having these here."

We don't pay taxes on our military bases and diplomatic property overseas.  What is the actual value of those properties?  Are the military bases a boon to the economies and defense of the countries in which they are located?  What are the property taxes of the countries in question?  Do they have property taxes?

New York City has some of the most expensive real estate in the world (with high taxes).   If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am not a big supporter of the UN.  You also know that UN diplomats park illegally in New York City on a regular basis, tie up traffic, and don't pay their traffic tickets.  Now we are exempting them from taxes?  If someone owns property in New York City (other than churches--which by law are property tax exempt), he should pay taxes on it.  If you don't want to pay the taxes--rent!!!

 Larry Kudlow, the host of CNBC's Kudlow & Company, has posted an article at Townhall.com  about the impact of the Obama Administration's economic policies.

Mr. Kudlow points out that the increases in taxes, spending, and regulation are causing the United States to become less competitive in the world market.  China has been moving in the direction of free-market capitalism as we have been moving away from it. 

Mr Kudlow points out:

"Heavy government controls at home, along with an income-leveling social policy couched in economic-recovery terms, is no way to run a railroad. At the simple stroke of a computer key, world investment flows to its most hospitable destination. That includes a reliable currency. But in President Bush's last year and President Obama's first, the U.S. has become a less-hospitable destination for global capital. That should worry everybody."

The article traces the growth of China as a world economic power.  They have increased the number of companies in the Fortune 500 list of top companies in the world, while American companies are disappearing from the list.  China has no capital gains tax, and it has a low corporate tax.  President Obama will probably increase both those taxes for Americans.

Mr. Kudlow concludes:

"Year-to-date, Dow Jones stocks are off 8 percent, while China stocks are up 71 percent. The world index is up 4 percent. Emerging markets are up 25 percent. They're all beating us. None of this is good.

We're going the wrong way. That's why stock markets are not voting for the United States anymore."

We need to look at the things that grow an ecomony and the things that slow down the growth and reevaluate the direction that we are heading. 

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has posted an article on the Ninth Circuit Court's decision to force pharmacies to stock and to sell the 'morning after' pill.  Regardless of how you feel about this particular medicine, think about the government intrusion here.  If abortion is against your religious belief and you are a pharmacist, you will be forced to sell something that is against your religion.  Where is your religious freedom?  If you are the business owner, the government is telling you what products you must sell.

According to the article, the legal case, brought by family-owned Ralph's Thriftway and two pharmacists employed elsewhere, has developed as follows

"Ralph's owners, Stormans Inc., and pharmacists Rhonda Mesler and Margo Thelen sought protection under the 1st Amendment right to free exercise of religion and won a temporary injunction from the U.S. District Court in Seattle pending trial on the constitutionality of the regulations. That order prevented state officials from penalizing pharmacists who refused to dispense Plan B as long as they referred consumers to a nearby pharmacy where it was available.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the injunction, saying the district court was wrong in issuing it based on an erroneous finding that the rules violated the free exercise of religion clause of the U.S. Constitution."

The Ninth Circuit is the most overturned appellate court in this country.  Hopefully, they will be overturned on this ruling.  Freedom of religion is part of the foundations of our government.  When you begin to remove the foundation of something, it collapses.

The Weekly Standard has posted an article entitled "On Top of a Volcano" by Reuel Marc Gerecht, a WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor, and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.  The article talks about the sudden disappearances of those people who were involved in the recent demonstrations against the election fraud in Iran. 

The article talks about the history of Iran and the fact that the current mullahs have avoided the mistakes the shah made when he was overthrown.  The mullahs controlled a number of different security forces, some possibly of foreign origin, and ordered them to shoot to kill the protestors.  Their reaction to the protests was to tighten their control--they did not leave room for a revolution.  The family of the beautiful young lady who was shot early in the demonstrations was denied a proper funeral service and the government promptly moved them out of the apartment building where they had been living.

The article believes that we are seeing the beginning of Iran's struggle for democracy, but makes no estimate of when that struggle will end.  The article concludes:

The president would be well served to read again The 9/11 Commission Report about Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah's contact with al Qaeda (see pp. 240-241). This outreach probably started under President Clinton. September 11 and George W. Bush's bellicosity made Khamenei pull back from Sunni jihadists. It's a very good bet that the supreme leader, Ahmadinejad, and Rafsanjani, who has always been a fan of outreach to Sunni militants, are already hunting for foreign partners who hate the United States as much as they do. (There is a reason beyond uranium exports why Tehran loves Hugo Chávez.) Once they are backed by nuclear weapons, it's hard to see what the leaders of the Islamic republic would fear from an American president who avoids the word jihad when describing 9/11 for fear of offending Muslim sensitivities.

President Bush was right to include Iran in what he referred to as "The Axis of Evil".  Iran has not changed.  It's a shame the current US President is not willing to build on the wisdom of his predecessor, but instead is repeating the mistakes of the Jimmy Carter administration. 

There are two articles posted this morning on Barack Obama's stimulus plan and its success (or lack thereof).  One is at Bloomberg.com and the other is at the Washington Times.  President Obama stated in his Saturday radio address that the economic stimulus is working as planned.  I'm afraid I don't see this as a valid statement.

According to Bloomberg:

"Obama spoke after stocks fell for a fourth week on concern that an economic recovery will be delayed. A government report last week showed that employers cut 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983."

According to the Washington Post:

In the Republican radio response, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, said Americans are right to question Mr. Obama's spending bill.

"Remember the promises? They promised you if you paid for their stimulus, jobs would be created immediately. In fact, they said that unemployment would stay under eight percent. Yet just months later, they are telling us to brace for unemployment to climb over ten percent," he said.

He said Republicans' plan is to cut taxes to boost the economy.

But Mr. Obama said Republicans opposed him from the start, and haven't offered a real plan.

He also took aim at those in his own party who say the first bill has fallen short and are calling for another round of spending, telling them spending will pick up later this year.

The evidence shows that the stimulus package did not really change anything (other than the national debt).  The Washington Post article points out that a large percentage of the stimulus money went to areas with low unemployment that supported President Obama during the presidential campaign rather than the areas hardest hit by the recession.  It's about time we held this Administration and Congress responsible for the out of control spending. 

Investor's Business Daily posted an analysis piece yesterday on the roots of the current financial situation.  A Congressional Report on the financial crisis has been released by Representative Darrell Issa of California, ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  The report details the government's role in politicizing housing.  The article gives a short, pointed summary, here are some of the highlights:

• With an implicit subsidy to American homeowners in the form of reduced mortgage rates, Fannie Mae and its sister government sponsored enterprise, Freddie Mac, squeezed out their competition and cornered the secondary mortgage market. They took advantage of a $2.25 billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury.

• Congress, by statute, allowed them to operate with much lower capital requirements than private-sector competitors. They "used their congressionally-granted advantages to leverage themselves in excess of 70-to-1."

• Encouraged by an inaccurate 1992 Boston Federal Reserve Bank study charging racial discrimination in mortgage lending, the two GSEs were strongly pressured to "lower their underwriting standards, particularly on the size of down payments and the credit quality of borrowers."

• In 1992, Congress directed HUD to establish multiple quotas requiring mortgage quotes for low-income families.

• In 1995, the Clinton administration issued a National Homeownership Strategy, loosening Fannie and Freddie's lending standards and insisting that lenders "work collaboratively to reduce homebuyer downpayment requirements."

• In 2006, Freddie paid the largest fine in Federal Election Commission history for improperly using corporate resources to hold 85 fundraisers for congressmen, raising a total of $1.7 million.

These are only some of the highlights.  Please read the entire article to see how we got here.  We need to take a look at which Congressmen backed these laws and make sure those Congressmen never get elected again!

My two sources for this article are Power Line and National Review.  Both have posts today about the release of five Iranian 'diplomats' in Iraq.  These are not diplomats--they are Quds Force commanders from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who were coordinating terrorist attacks in Iraq that have killed hundreds -- yes, hundreds -- of American soldiers and Marines.  Releasing them puts American soldiers at risk and also is a threat to the stability of the government of Iraq.  I guess President Obama is hoping no one will notice.

The National Review article is written by Andrew McCarthy and lists five things we need to know about the 'diplomats' released:

1.  First, of the 4,322 Americans killed in combat in Iraq since 2003, 10 percent of them (i.e., more than 400) have been murdered by a single type of weapon alone, a weapon that is supplied by Iran for the singular purpose of murdering Americans.  These weapons were designed by the IRGC.

2.  President Bush and our armed forces steadfastly refused demands by Iran and Iraq's Maliki government for the release of the Irbil Five because Iran was continuing to coordinate terrorist operations against American forces in Iraq (and to aid Taliban operations against American forces in Afghanistan).  Now that these men are released, they can continue where they left off.

3.  Obama's decision to release the five terror-masters comes while the Iranian regime (a) is still conducting operations against Americans in Iraq, even as we are in the process of withdrawing, and (b) is clearly working to replicate its Lebanon model in Iraq: establishing a Shiite terror network, loyal to Iran, as added pressure on the pliant Maliki to understand who is boss once the Americans leave.   This is not what America or Iraq wants or needs.

4.  President Obama's release of the Quds terrorists is a natural continuation of his administration's stunningly irresponsible policy of bartering terrorist prisoners for hostages.  The National Review article has the details on this charge.

5.  When it comes to Iran, it has become increasingly apparent that President Obama wants the mullahs to win. What you need to know is that Barack Obama is a wolf in "pragmatist" clothing: Beneath the easy smile and above-it-all manner -- the "neutral" doing his best to weigh competing claims -- is a radical leftist wedded to a Manichean vision that depicts American imperialism as the primary evil in the world.

It really is time to take a hard look at the policies of this President.  He has just endangered American troops in order to smooth relations with a tyrannical dictatorship.  What is really sad is that the America press has not called him on it.  Is anyone minding the store? 
 

Joe Biden has been known in Washington circles for years as a man with an uncanny ability to put his foot firmly in his mouth.  Sometimes he just really has a way with words.

Today's Los Angeles Times has a short article about the number of private meetings Vice President Biden has held recently.  The article points out:

"And we've wondered aloud how this Democratic VP's private meetings with unnamed people on unnamed subjects differs from the private meetings with unnamed people that his evil predecessor had that got so many Democratic senators and representatives worried about nefarious secrets."

The article states that the Vice President's office is describing many of his meetings as not 'private that are closed press', but simply as 'closed press'.  It's good to know that the Vice President is not having any more private meetings.  It is also encouraging to know that the Vice President's staff is as language-challenged as some of the rest of us! 

Today's Wall Street Journal has the ongoing saga of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the CIA.  You may remember when the issue of waterboarding originally came up, Senator Pelosi denied knowing that it had been used.  She later changed her story to say that she had been informed, but only that it was being considered.  She then accused the CIA of lying when they stated that she had been briefed.  Well, the saga continues.

The latest dustup has to do with a letter written by Silvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, claiming that the CIA misled Congress about its activities after September 11, 2001.  Of course the letter was leaked to the press.  One of the instances that Mr. Reyes cited in his letter was a program that was discussed by the CIA but never carried out.  Mr. Reyes stated in his letter that Congress was not informed of the program (why would they be if the program was never implemented?).

The article states:

"House Democrats have set out to hobble the CIA and further handcuff the executive branch. Republicans, naturally, were frozen out. At Speaker Pelosi's insistence, gone would be the right of the President to limit disclosure of sensitive information to the so-called Gang of Eight -- the House Speaker and Minority Leader, Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairmen and ranking Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. This authority would pass to Congress. The bill would also expand disclosure requirements for all sorts of intelligence activities."

The Democrat party has made it clear that party politics is more important to them than national security.  Why in the world would we give them more of an opportunity to selectively leak information that is damaging to the national security of our country?

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had an op-ed piece by Karl Rove listing the statistics on the success (or failure) of the stimulus package and how those numbers should give us pause in supporting the President's healthcare proposals.

The numbers that were given to the American people to encourage them to support the stimulus plan stated that without it, unemployment would rise to 8.5 per cent.  Current unemployment is now 9.5 per cent.  We were told that the stimulus had to be passed and the money spent immediately to avoid financial catastrophe.  Well, of the $279 billion allocated to federal agencies, only $56 billion has been paid out.  What was the rush?

The article points out:

"On Sunday, Mr. Biden, backpedaling from his drop-kick comments, said that "no one anticipated, no one expected that the recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of the money."

This fits a pattern. The administration consistently pledges unrealistic results that it later distances itself from. It has gotten away with it because the media haven't asked many pointed questions. That may not last as the debate shifts to health care.

The Obama administration wants a government takeover of health care. To get it, it is promising to wring massive savings out of the health-care industry. And it has already started to make cost-savings promises."

The economic policies of this administration have not been helpful to the economy.  The cap and trade (known jokingly as cap and tax) bill which will be voted on in the Senate and the healthcare bill that is currently being drafted will totally destroy any hopes of future prosperity we might have had.  Other countries are lowering taxes to stimulate economic growth to end their part of the recession, on the other hand we are enacting policies that will extend the recession in America and possibly lead us to a depression here.

Just a note.  I am currently in California.  I am in a beautiful neighborhood of houses that a few years ago sold for about $600,000.  There is one for sale around the corner now for $280,000.  It is a great bargain, but because of the financial problems in the state, it has not sold.  If you examine the fiscal and environmental policies of California over the past fifteen years, you see that they have gotten themselves into this mess through overregulation, overspending and overtaxing their residents.  I don't want to see the federal government go down the same road.  The place I am staying has a beautiful climate and million dollar views, but the uncertainties of the California economy make selling a house here very difficult.

Charles Krauthammer posted an article at the National Review about the arms-reduction agreement Barack Obama recently signed in Moscow.  The President hailed it as the end of the 'drift' in relations between America and Russia.

We need to remember the political situation in Russia.  Vladimir Putin openly acknowledges that he was formerly a member of the KGB.  I have no idea whether the organization still exists, but I would not doubt that the mindset is still there.  Putin has stated that he would like to restore the former glory of the Soviet Union, I have no reason to doubt this---nor should President Obama.

The article states:

"The pursuit of such an offensive weapons treaty could nonetheless be detrimental to us. Why? Because Obama's hunger for a diplomatic success, such as it is, allowed the Russians to exact a price: linkage between offensive and defensive nuclear weapons.

This is important for Russia because of the huge American technological advantage in defensive weaponry. We can reliably shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile. They cannot. And since defensive weaponry will be the decisive strategic factor of the 21st century, Russia has striven mightily for a quarter-century to halt its development. Gorbachev tried to swindle Reagan out of the Strategic Defense Initiative at Reykjavik in 1986. Reagan refused. As did his successors -- Bush I, Clinton, Bush II".

Meanwhile, Poland and the the Czech Republic, who joined NATO with the hopes of being under the protective umbrella of the United States, have had their missle defense shield put in limbo because President Obama wanted to be friends with Russia.  He has again thrown friends under the bus to appease enemies.  The article states:

"Then comes the "pause" (as Russia's president appreciatively noted) in the planned establishment of a missile shield in Eastern Europe. And now the "Joint Understanding" commits us to a new treaty that includes "a provision on the interrelationship of strategic offensive and strategic defensive arms." Obama further said that the East European missile shield "will be the subject of extensive negotiations" between the United States and Russia."

This treaty does not make the world a safer place for anyone--it gives permission to Russia to return to the old aggressive ways of the Soviet Union.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about Anita MonCrief, a former employee of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN).  Ms. Moncrief testified last year in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as part of a lawsuit brought against ACORN regarding their voter registration practices in Pennsylvania.

She states in the article:

"I've always been an outsider in my party because I ask a lot of questions and I didn't like some of the answers I've been getting," she said. "The problem I have with Democrats is that they promise you the world but then they don't deliver. I identify now with conservative ideas because the answer is not social welfare. The answer instead comes from being less dependent on the government and keeping families together."

She has now left the Democrat Party and is declaring herself an independent.  Please follow the link and read the article--this is an interesting lady with some good insight as to what is necessary to improve our country.

I drove through Maricopa County, Arizona, a few days ago and noticed a few things.  The roads had no litter, and people were driving at exactly the speed limit.  That is not always the case in a lot of the country.

National Review Online posted an article today by Hans A. von Spakovsky about the ongoing harrassment of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio by the Justice Department.  Sheriff Arpaio is a no-nonsense kind of guy that gets the job done (and done well).  The civil libertarians hate him because he puts criminals to work cleaning up highways and generally makes jail someplace that criminals don't want to be.  I'm not sure if he changes their criminal ways, but I suspect that many of them decide to go elsewhere to do mischief in the future.

According to the article at National Review:

"The Department's Civil Rights Division is investigating how Arpaio, the Maricopa County sheriff, treats illegal immigrants when he arrests them. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is auditing his participation in a federal program -- commonly referred to by its statutory citation, "287(g)" -- that allows local police departments to enforce federal immigration laws. Arpaio, whose office is the largest participant in the DHS program, has been accused of improperly launching "crime sweeps in areas around Phoenix with high concentrations of Hispanics" as well as "separating" illegal immigrants from other inmates that he has arrested."

In February, Representatives John Conyers, Zoe Lofgren, Jerrold Nadler, and Bobby Scott (all Democrats) demanded that the Department of Justice investigate Sheriff Arpaio for "discriminatory" police practices toward illegal aliens (they had no evidence of any problem, and previous investigations had found no evidence of misconduct).

The article at National Review is too long to actually summarize here, but I strongly suggest you follow the above link and read it.  Sheriff Arpaio is doing his job very well, and unfortunately will not get a fair hearing.  His enforcement of immigration laws is contrary to the policies of this administration, and we have seen that this administration does not treat those who disagree with them in either deed or idea kindly.  It is a shame that he is being attacked--he is doing a good job, and the results of his efforts are obvious as you drive through Maricopa County.

Yesterday Power Line posted an article that puts all the fuss about Michael Jackson and his funeral into perspective.  The article is entitled "Honor The Jackson Five."  Now before you make the obvious assumption, let me tell you what the article is actually about, and let me ask you to please link to it and read it.

The people at "Move America Forward" (a site I have not linked to because it's a little extreme for my taste, but be my guest if you want to check it out) sent out an email listing the first five American servicemen and women to die in Iraq whose last name is Jackson. You can read the email at the Power Line link in the first line of this article.

These five men and women will not be honored with televised funerals or large crowds gathering to remember them, but the cause they served will make waves in the Middle East for generations to come.  Please take a moment today to pray for their families.  They are the real heroes.  And, as I have said many times before--if you see a serviceman today, thank him!  

Just a note.  Blogging has been a little bit sporadic this past few days because I have been helping my Marine son-in-law, my daughter, their two young daughters, and two senior citizen cats relocate from Jacksonville, NC, to San Diego, CA.  It was a four day drive from where I joined them (Memphis, TN), and they are in their new house expecting furniture to arrive tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to sleeping on a real mattress again!!!

I mention this because it reminds me of the sacrifices the entire family of a military person makes in support of that person.  I was on the base today and saw hundreds of dedicated Marines of all ages who have made countless sacrifices to serve their country.  They live in whatever state the government sends them to, and their families follow without hesitation.  The are paid considerably less than their civilian counterparts, but serve without complaint.  If you are like me, you go through your day not even thinking about the sacrifices made everyday by our military to keep us safe and our country strong.

If you see a soldier, a marine, or any other military man today, don't forget to thank him!!!

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has posted a wonderful quote today by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).  Representative Hoyer stated that the healthcare reform bill now before Congress would get very few votes if lawmakers had to read it before they voted on it.  This answer was given in response to a question by a CNN reporter.  There is currently a petition being circulated requiring members of Congress to read any bill before voting on it.  This petition was posted at  Right Wing Granny on June 29.  It is a simple petition, requiring only that members of Congress read the healthcare bill before voting on it.

Ed Morrissey points out:

"This goes beyond the inanity of Hoyer in this particular application.  We elect Representatives from each district and Senators from each state to make the laws which govern us.  We didn't elect their staffs to do that work for the empty suits who go to Washington.  The culture in the Beltway has evolved to the point where our elected officials have more or less become accessories to the permanent aide class within DC."

Isn't reading legislation before voting on it part of the job of Congressmen?  What are these people doing during the time they are expected to be working?  Isn't it time we elected people who will read bills before they vote on them?

Power Line posted an article today about the G8 summit meeting in Rome and the struggle to come to an agreement on global regulations to combat climate change.  The problem in reaching an agreement seems to be that China and India are unwilling to accept any restrictions on their carbon output.  The article points out:

"The implications for Waxman-Markey, a version of which will soon be taken up by the Senate, are huge. If India and China--the world's biggest emitter of CO2--decline to limit their carbon emissions, it is impossible to claim that Waxman-Markey will have any discernible impact on the Earth's climate, even if you buy the anthropogenic global warming hoax hook, line and sinker. The only impact the bill could have would be to hobble America's economy and pave the way for China and India to replace the U.S. as the economic superpowers of the 21st century.

The great advantage India and China have over the U.S. is that their elites have not gone suicidal. Those nations have no intention of sacrificing their economic well-being on the global warming altar. Undoubtedly the leading scientists in both countries have advised their governments that AGW is pseudo-science fueled by power-hungry politicians and charlatans like Al Gore, who has gotten rich by pretending to believe that burning gasoline will destroy the Earth, while relaxing aboard a gasoline-burning houseboat a third the size of a football field.

At this point, anyone who votes for tax-and-trade can no longer pretend that the bill has anything to do with climate. Rather, it is a vote that no manufacturing jobs should be created in the U.S., and that in the future, all such employment will belong to Chinese and Indian workers."

The question of man's impact on climate change is not settled science.  Changes in climate occurred long before the industrial age.  To cripple the American economy for the sake of a questionable idea does not make sense.  I believe that any Congressman who continues to push for this legislation will pay a heavy price at the ballot box.

Investor's Business Daily posted an article today about the environmental footprint of electric cars.  The article quotes Mark Gaffigan, who authored a GAO report on the impact of electric cars on the environment:

"If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."

Electric cars use electricity--in America a large part of our electricity comes from coal, so we are trading one carbon fuel source for another--we are still using carbon based fuel.  The article also points out that there are many unanswered questions about what the environmental hazards would be after a collision between an electric car and an eighteen-wheeler.

There are other questions regarding the sources of and disposal of the lithium involved in the batteries of electric cars.  Bolivia, a country ruled by a leader who is not really a friend of America is the major source of lithium.  The other question is how much impact the manufacture of lithium batteries has on the environment.

The electric car may be a great idea for the future, but we are not yet ready to make a full transition to the new technology.  Hopefully, we will further investigate the unintended consequences of switching to electric cars before we fully commit to the change.

Yesterday Power Line posted an article on the impact of massive federal spending.  The article refers to a 2003 paper written by  Thomas Laubach, an economist in the Federal Reserve's Division of Research and Statistics, titled "New Evidence on the Interest Rate Effects of Budget Deficits and Debt."   In the paper, Mr. Laubach states:

"This study has shown that statistically significant and economically plausible estimates of the effects of government deficits and debt on interest rates can be obtained by focusing on long-horizon forecasts of future deficits or debt, and future interest rates. The projections of deficits and debt published by the CBO and the OMB are arguably among the best publicly available forecasts for these variables. The effects of these projections manifest themselves at the longer end of the yield curve, as economic reasoning would predict. All else equal, the results of this study suggest that interest rates rise by about 25 basis points in response to a percentage point increase in the projected deficit-to-GDP ratio, and by about 4 basis points in response to a percentage point increase in the projected debt-to-GDP ratio."

If you are like me, your eyes just glazed over.  Please follow the Power Line link to get the full impact of what this means.  Basically, it means long term interest rates will double, making it more difficult for the government to finance its debt and more difficult for you and I to finance homes, etc.  We need to make some serious Congressional changes in 2010 if we are to head off the financial disaster that is now brewing in our country.   

Most of us have seen the cell phone video of the Black Panthers in Philadelphia intimidating voters.  If you haven't, here is the link, YouTube.  The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has voiced its outrage at the Justice Department's essentially dropping charges against the Black Panthers for voter intimidation.  There is an article in today's Washington Times that points out: 

"Lenore Ostrowsky, a commission spokesman (U.S. Commissions on Civil Rights), told us, "It is rare for a letter from the commission over the last four years to be sent out without any dissent." There's good reason for today's unanimity. One of the Black Panther defendants, Jerry Jackson, is an elected member of Philadelphia's 14th Ward Democratic Committee and was a credentialed poll watcher for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party when the intimidation occurred. We agree with the concern at the Civil Rights Commission. The Justice Department needs to explain why it is not pursuing charges against these thugs."

The Justice Department needs to do its job of protecting the rights of American citizens.  The fact that one of the people involved in this was an elected official makes it even more troubling.  I hope the case will be reviewed promptly. 

Power Line posted a short article yesterday quoting some comments by Ron Dermer, Director of Communications and Policy Planning in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  He made the following statement about Israeli settlements:

"On a personal level, I have a problem with the idea of a Jew not being able to live wherever he wants. A Jew can live in Paris and they can live in Muncie, but they can't live in Hebron, where Jews have been living for 3,500 years until the community was massacred 80 years ago? The whole concept that peace demands an area be cleansed of Jews is very problematic for me . . . . [I]t makes no sense. I actually think that when the Palestinians are prepared to live with Jews among them they are much more likely to be prepared to live with Jews alongside them."

I doubt we would be willing to make the type of concessions for peace that we are asking Israel to make.  They have given up land for the promise of peace for more than 15 years now (the Oslo Peace Accord was signed in 1993), and the only result has been that they have been attacked from the land they gave up.  Part of the Oslo agreement was the disarming of the terrorists in the land given up.  I'm still waiting for that. 

Reuters AtlertNet posted an article today on an a new study suggesting that we combat global warming by taxing the rich people in individual countries.  The article states:

"Since about half the planet's climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its people, it makes sense to follow these rich folks when setting national targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the authors wrote on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Let's think about this for a minute.  First of all, the dangers of carbon dioxide are not settled science.  Power Line posted an article on June 28, with the following opening paragraph:

"The Competitive Enterprise Institute has obtained an EPA study of the "endangerment" to human well-being ostensibly caused by carbon dioxide emissions, together with a set of EPA emails indicating that the study, which concludes that carbon dioxide is not a significant cause of climate change, was suppressed by the EPA for political reasons."

Second of all, do you really think that American politicians, many of whom travel extensively, creating huge carbon footprints, will pay the taxes levied on them for that footprint (or will they find a way to force the American taxpayer to pay)?  If you check the archives of this website, you will find that on July 3, I posted an article showing how much Congressional travel has increased over the past ten years.  Somehow I can't see any fines coming out of their own pockets.

Thirdly, let's look at the concept of taxing the rich because they use more resources.  Manufacturing creates a fairly large carbon footprint.  That footprint is part of creating things that the rest of us use.  Beef production creates a larger carbon footprint than farming in general.  Some environmentalists have suggested that we stop eating beef.  Why are we even considering giving these people that kind of control in our personal lives?  America in general has a much larger carbon footprint than Zambia, for example, but what does America contribute to the world in the process of creating that footprint?  How many life-saving drugs come from America?  How much food do we send to needy countries or disaster victims?

When you begin to move against entities with large carbon footprints (I'm not talking about pollution--I'm talking about the use of enegy), you begin to move against people who create things and produce products that we all use.  To tax them will not improve the environment--it will simply decrease the wealth of the entire planet!  Less goods will be produced and consumed, jobs will be lost, and there will be more poverty.  Universal poverty is not the answer to global warming.

Today's New York Post has an article about the specific problems the political deadlock in the New York State legislature has caused.  Part of the legislation that has been stalled because of the deadlock is the budget package for New York City which includes a half point sales tax increase that was supposed to go into effect on July 1.  Mayor Blumberg was counting on the revenue from that tax increase to balance the budget.  Each month's delay will cost New York City $ 60 million.  In an attempt to maintain a balance budget, the Mayor has enacted a hiring freeze and is closely examining all contracts related to spending in the city.

The situation in the New York State Senate has been going on since early June.  It's time the Senators came to some sort of compromise.  What kind of example does it set for the rest of us when our political representatives can't get along? 

Today's Wall Street Journal has an editorial on the ongoing situation in Honduras.  The article summarizes the events of the past few days and tells the story of how Hugo Chavez became a dictator in Venezuela.

The story of the 2004 election and its sanctioning by the U. S and OAS is told in the editorial:

"There was never any explanation for the blind endorsement, but behind the scenes there were claims that Mr. Chávez threatened to call his militia to the streets and spill blood. The oil fields were to be burned. To this day, the opposition contends that the U.S. and Mr. Gaviria made a cold calculation that caving in to Mr. Chávez would avoid violence.

Predictably, Washington's endorsement of the flawed electoral process was a green light. Mr. Chávez grew more aggressive, emboldened by his "legitimate" status. He set about using his oil money to destabilize the Bolivian and Ecuadorean democracies and to help Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Argentina's Cristina Kirchner get elected. Soviet-backed Fidel Castro was able to intimidate his neighbors in the 1960s and '70s, and Mr. Chávez has done the same thing in the new millennium. This has given him vast power at the OAS."

We (the US, the OAS, and the UN) are in danger of creating the same situation in Honduras that was created in Venezuela.  So far the people of Honduras, the government, and the army have backed the country's constitution.  We have not.

Ms. O'Grady says in her commentary that she has received numerous emails from people in Honduras asking for prayers for their country.  They want their constitution to stand.  She points out:

"Hondurans have good cause for calling on divine intervention: Reason has gone AWOL in places like Turtle Bay and Foggy Bottom. Ruling the debate on Mr. Zelaya's behavior is Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, who is now the reigning international authority on "democracy."

Mr. Chávez is demanding that Mr. Zelaya be reinstated and is even threatening to overthrow the new Honduran president, Roberto Micheletti. He's leading the charge from the Organization of American States (OAS). The United Nations and the Obama administration are falling in line.

Is this insane? You bet. We have fallen through the looking glass..."

Freedom can be messy, and there is always a cost to standing up to tyrants, but it is definitely something we need to do. 

Hot Air has posted an article by Ed Morrissey on a change President Obama is looking at in the way treaties are approved by the Senate. 

Regarding the approval of treaties by the Senate, the U. S. Constitution states:

"He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make
Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur...'

According to the article:

"With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate's constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a "provisional basis" until the Senate ratifies the treaty."

The article points out that the Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  If they won't pass the treaty, maybe it doesn't deserve to be passed.  It is the job of the Senate to enforce the Constitution.  If this Senate won't enforce it, then we need to elect a Senate that will.

Today's Power Line Blog has an article about what Israel will do to slow down or stop Iran's nuclear program.  The article references a London Times article that says that Saudi Arabia will ignore Israeli jets flying over Saudi Arabia in order to attack nuclear sites in Iran.  The Saudis evidently feel that the destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities is in the interest of both countries.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...Joe Biden appeared on ABC's This Week and danced around the idea of whether the United States would allow Israeli aircraft to fly over our troops in Iraq on their way to Iran to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.  I'm not sure what his answer really was, you can read the transcript at Power Line.

The bottom line here is simple.  Are we willing to let Iran develop nuclear weapons?  If so, what will be the fate of Israel, our long-time ally in the Middle East?  Part of this problem goes back to our own lack of oil independence.  Because Congress has consistently blocked the use of our own oil resources, we have continued to be totally dependent upon people who dislike us intensely for our oil.  Until we are willing to use our own resources, our foreign policy and national security will suffer.

Bloomberg.com is reporting today that Suresh Tendulkar, an economic advisor to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is advising the Indian government to diversify its $264.6 billion foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars. 

China and Russia have been asking for a reevaluation of the use of the US dollar as the global currency reserve for a while. 

The article points out:

"There should be a system to maintain the stability of the major reserve currencies," Former Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan said in a speech in Beijing yesterday, highlighting China's concerns about a global financial system dominated by the dollar.

Fiscal and current-account deficits must be supervised as "your currency is likely to become my problem," said Zeng, who is now the head of a research center under the government's top economic planning agency. The People's Bank of China said June 26 that the International Monetary Fund should manage more of members' reserves."

There are a lot of reasons for Russia and China to want to remove the dollar as the global currency; some of those reasons make sense economically and some of them have to do with power struggles.  Russia and China see a move away from the dollar as something that would weaken America.  They see a weaker America as having less influence in the world, allowing them to have more influence.

The role America has played in the current worldwide financial crisis provides an excuse for Russia and China to attempt to remove the dollar as a global currency.  Because of the reckless spending of the current United States government, there are some serious questions about how stable the US dollar will be in the near future.  You cannot print money and create debt at the rate Washington is currently doing both and not cause inflation.  Inflation means that the American dollar decreases in buying power and may be considered unstable.  Common sense says you do not want to holding a lot of unstable currency that is rapidly losing its value.

I don't know if Russia and China will succeed in removing the dollar as the global currency, but I do know that it is something they have wanted to do for a long time.  Let's hope enough sanity arises in Washington to stop the runaway spending and stabilize the dollar.

As you enjoy the fireworks tonight, thank God for giving us leaders with the vision and wisdom to craft the outline for our freedom.  Also, remember to thank our military for the job they have done in the past and the job they are doing today.

I am on facebook (and play Mafia Wars) and this showed up on my wall yesterday:

One of My Mafia family has a request from a MARINE to all on facebook!!!!! at 12:00 - 12:01 CST July 4th could we all get together and not post any thing on here and pray for 1 min for our troops still fighting????

I think that is a great idea.

Happy Birthday, America!!!

Louisiana's Channel Nine TV is reporting that Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has found sharks in inland waters of the Atchafalaya Basin Swamp.  According to the article:

"(Mike Walker with Wildlife and Fisheries) has pictures of bull sharks that were caught among the inland waters in Louisiana. He says sharks have likely been around these parts for decades. However, they're noticing them more because they now take huge samples of species in different waterways in Louisiana and that's turning up sharks. It's no surprise for long time Atchafalaya swamp tour guide Curtis Allemond. "Oh, I used to catch 'em up on the river when the river's low, yeah (laughs)," he said when asked if he had ever seen any sharks in the swamp."

Finding sharks in fresh water is not a new thing.  The book Twelve Days of Terror: A Definitive Investigation of the 1916 New Jersey Shark Attacks by Richard G. Fernicola looks at a series of shark attacks in New Jersey in 1916 (sometimes seen as the basis for the book and movie JAWS) and tries to determine what species of shark was responsible.  Some of these attacks occurred in brackish water.  The author felt that bull sharks were responsible for these attacks.

Mr. Walker notes that the bull shark is a very aggressive shark and is responsible for the majority of shark attacks on people.  He joins the alligator and the snake as a reason to stay out of the swamp!!

Breitbart.com has a post up on the resignation of Sarah Palin.  Although I am sorry to see her resign as Governor of Alaska, I am sure the decision was thoughtfully made.  Governor Palin stated that she wanted to make a "positive change outside government."   Her approval ratings fell somewhat during the Presidential campaign because of the attacks on her from the press.  Those attacks have not really let up, but from what I understand, her approval ratings are still very high.

Governor Palin has done a good job as governor, and I hope that she will remain a strong voice in the Republican Party.  He unabashed conservatism is what is needed to counteract the massive spending and regulation coming out of Washington right now.  I don't know if she is ready to run for President--I don't know if the country will accept her as a Presidential candidate--but I do know that she has some good ideas on how to run government efficiently and within a budget--and we need those ideas right now!

As most of us downsize our recreational and vacation plans due to the recession, Congress has no such limits.  According to a Wall Street Journal article today, Congress is off seeing the world at taxpayer expense.

This is not a Republican or Democrat issue--both parties are guilty.

According to the article:

"Often, lawmakers combine trips to war zones with visits to more tranquil spots. In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals."

That was taxpayer money.  I hope she had a nice trip.  I myself am hoping for a long weekend in New Hampshire.

The article further reports:

"Documents obtained by the Journal show that the cost of flying a small group of lawmakers to the Middle East is about $150,000. Larger trips on the Air Force's version of the Boeing 757 cost about $12,000 an hour. Two federal agencies pay for most of the travel -- the Defense Department and the State Department."

Can anyone say 'budget cuts'? 

Yesterday The Christian Science Monitor posted an article by Octavio Sánchez, a lawyer and former presidential adviser (2002-05) and minister of culture (2005-06) of the Republic of Honduras, concerning the recent events in Honduras.  Mr. Sanchez points out:

"Under our Constitution, what happened in Honduras this past Sunday? Soldiers arrested and sent out of the country a Honduran citizen who, the day before, through his own actions had stripped himself of the presidency.

These are the facts: On June 26, President Zelaya issued a decree ordering all government employees to take part in the "Public Opinion Poll to convene a National Constitutional Assembly." In doing so, Zelaya triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office."

Evidently the Constitution of Honduras takes term limits very seriously.  As soon as President Zelaya began moving toward President-for-life status, he was forcibly removed--that was according to the Constitution of Honduras.  This provision was placed in the Constitution to prevent the problem that Latin America has traditionally had with elected officials becoming dictators.  It seems to be working in Honduras.

Our President and State Department are on the wrong side of this issue.  The are siding with Hugo Chavez, the Castro bothers, and Daniel Ortega.  I hope they will reevaluate the situation.  We need to support the rule of law in all countries!!

The Washington Examiner posted an article today by Byron York on the ongoing saga of the firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin.  Inspectors General are supposed to be non-political and cannot be fired without cause or without a thirty-day notice to Congress.  Currently, Congress is asking to see White House documents related to this firing, and President Obama is claiming executive privilege for those documents.

"For its part, the White House is hinting broadly that it might invoke executive privilege to keep documents from Congress.  "Your questions seek information about the White House's internal decision-making process," Craig wrote to Sen. Charles Grassley on June 30.  "These questions implicate core executive branch confidentiality interests."  At another point, Craig pledged to cooperate "to the fullest extent possible consistent with constitutional and statutory obligations."

"The message, apparently, is for GOP investigators to back off.  But that hasn't happened. In his letter to the White House, (Representative Darrell) Issa is still trying to get information. "The White House's willingness to provide the facts" about the Walpin firing, wrote Issa, "will go a long way to demonstrate the president is committed to running the most transparent White House in history.""

Most of the press seems to be ignoring this story, but the law has been broken--the rules for firing an Inspector General have not been followed.  The message being sent to all Inspectors General is "be careful what you investigate or what you find".  This is not the way a democracy is supposed to operate.

The sources on this article are two Washington Times articles and an article from the Wall Street Journal, the first Washington Times article explains that people who lose their jobs because of the bill will get three years on unemployment and other benefits from the federal government (Washington Times).  The second explains how the Cap and Trade bill is a political tool that will hurt the economy (Washington Times).  The Wall Street Journal article (Wall Street Journal) explains the effect of the bill on corporations.

According to the Washington Times:

"Adversely affected employees in oil, coal and other fossil-fuel sector jobs would qualify for a weekly check worth 70 percent of their current salary for up to three years. In addition, they would get $1,500 for job-search assistance and $1,500 for moving expenses from the bill's "climate change worker adjustment assistance" program, which is expected to cost $4.2 billion from 2011 to 2019."

Some of the experts believe that the bill will not create serious job losses for at least five years--this could be interesting--how will the Democrats spin that one?

Unfortunately the tax and tax movement is an international phenomenon--remember the meeting earlier this year when a group of countries with high corporate taxes threatened to punish countries with lower corporate taxes so that they could collect more tax revenue?

"The tendency for political leaders - even those fairly elected - to look out more for their own personal interests rather than the greater good is not confined to America. The Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose 30 members are the major industrialized democratic countries, was formed half a century ago to promote policies to increase economic growth and free trade.

"Unfortunately, political leaders in high-tax states (notably France and Germany) have captured part of the OECD and are using it as an instrument - by creating "black" and "gray" lists - to squash tax competition from low-tax-rate countries and financial freedom and privacy (which are important for global economic growth)."

The Washington Post concludes:

"The world would be richer and more just if the low-tax-rate countries that protect taxpayer rights and privacy could penalize the states that engage in high levels of tax oppression, rather than vice versa, which is now the case."

The Wall Street Journal points out:

"Even if the law works as intended, over the next decade or two real U.S. greenhouse emissions might be reduced by 2% compared to business as usual. However, consumers would still face higher prices for electric power, transportation and most goods and services as this inefficient and indirect tax flowed down the energy chain."

If this bill passes the Senate, the cost of staying warm this winter will multiply.  I believe this puts us on the road to having a monitor on your thermostat so that the government can control the temperature inside your house.  California flirted with that idea last year, but withdrew it due to public opposition.

Please email your Senator and ask him not to support this bill. 

It's not hard to find a poster child for any cause, there is enough pain and suffering in everyday life to cover all bases.  But sometimes there is a difference between telling someone's story and using someone to manipulate people.  National politics has crossed that line (probably many times, but I am talking about yesterday!).

Power Line covered the story:

"President Barack Obama wanted to put a human face on his plans to overhaul health care, and a Virginia supporter did just that Wednesday. Fighting back tears, Debby Smith, 53, told Obama of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job.

The president hugged her--she's a volunteer for his political operation--and called her "exhibit A" in an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans. ...

Smith, of Appalachia, Va., is a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama's political operation within the Democratic National Committee. She obtained her ticket through the White House."

Breitbart.com has further details on the healthcare proposals and what is being said. 

Just ask yourself one question--"if you get your health insurance from your employer and it becomes cheaper for your employer to pay a fine for not providing health insurance than to provide you with health insurance, what is he going to do?"  Because the government health insurance would be so big, it would be able to obtain services at prices very close to or lower than their actual price.  Private insurance companies would be charged more to make up the difference; therefore, the cost of private insurance would go up.  Eventually, private health insurance would be crowded out of the marketplace.  This is not a good idea.

Power Line posted a fantastic article yesterday entitled "Quick, Spend The Money Before The Taxpayers Find Out!".  The title pretty much tells it all, but I will post a few details just so that I feel that I have accomplished something.

The article links back to a Byron York article in the Washington Examiner also posted yesterday.  Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank has a wonderful plan to spend the money from TARP that was supposed to be returned to the taxpayers:

"When President Obama announced on June 9 that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government.  "It is worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these [TARP recipients], the government has actually turned a profit," the president said.  Indeed, TARP supporters have long held out the hope that the program might be profitable.

"But now Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers.  Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats."

I am not opposed to charity, but I am opposed to the redistribution of wealth, which is exactly what is going on here.  There are, however, a few sane people in our government:

"Frank's proposal comes at a time when Republicans, and some Democrats, are expressing concern about the continued use of TARP money.  Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch recently complained that TARP funds are "now being used as a go-to solution to address all of our nation's economic ills."  Hatch and Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln recently introduced a bill that would require that TARP money goes back to the Treasury for debt reduction."

At a time when budget experts are saying that the current level of federal spending in unsustainable, it would be nice to see the TARP money go back to the Treasury as promised--don't let Congress steal any more from the American people!!!

The three souces for this post are the Canada Free Press, Reuters, and Fox News (Associated Press). 

The Canada Free Press article posted on Tuesday, June 30, points out the connection between ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and Venezuelan President-for-life Hugo Chavez.  The reporting of the ousting of President Zelaya in this country has failed to mention the strength of this connection and the fact that Chavez has seriously interfered in the internal politics of Honduras. 

The Canada Free Press reports:

"Defending his position as the new Honduran president, Micheletti stated that 12 "advisors" had arrived in his country from Venezuela and the regime in neighboring Nicaragua, now dominated by the overtly Marxist Daniel Ortega. A fact yet to be reported by the AP."

Reuters reports:

"The interim government says it took a legal course in ousting Zelaya -- the Supreme Court said it instructed the army to remove him and Congress voted in the acting president until elections to be held in November."

The Associated Press reports:

"The new government was on a long-shot diplomatic offensive, ordering home Honduras' pro-Zelaya ambassadors to the U.S., the United Nations and the OAS.

"The U.N. ambassador, Jorge Arturo Reyna, refused, saying he took orders only from Zelaya. But Honduras' ambassador to Washington returned home and said he was recognizing Micheletti's government. "This is not a coup d'etat, but rather a process in which a judicial order has been carried out," envoy Roberto Flores Bermudez said.

The ambassador to the OAS could not be located for comment."

Obviously, there is a difference of opinion here.

The Canada Free Press sums it up:

"How long Micheletti can withstand the assaults from the neo-communist elites remains uncertain, but a brave stand has been taken against Marxist tyranny, and the American people should have accurate knowledge about it."

In keeping with my image as 'right wing granny', I watch Fox News.  I was very disappointed last night when watching Special Report to see the events in Honduras reported as a coup.  This is not a coup--this is a country trying to save its democracy. 

CNN is reporting that yesterday the Israeli navy took control of a boat that had crossed into Gazan waters yesterday--doesn't seem like much--but on that boat was former US Representative Cynthia McKinney.  The boat was stopped because it violated an Israeli blockade of Gaza. 

The blockade is designed to keep weapons shipments out of the Gaza strip--it is not intended to stop humanitarian aid.  The article points out:

"Any organization or country that wishes to transfer humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip can legally do so via the established crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip with prior coordination," IDF said.

We need to remember that until the Palestinians recognize the right of Israel to exist, we are going to have problems with weapons smuggling into Gaza.  I believe Israel has the right to protect itself.

According to Google.com, the North Korean ship, Kang Nam, has turned around and is headed back to North Korea.  Since the US Navy never actually stopped the ship--they just followed it--we have no idea what is on board or where they had originally intended to go.

The article also reports:

"The sailing of the vessel -- and efforts to track it -- set up the first test of a new U.N. Security Council resolution that authorizes member states to inspect North Korean vessels. The sanctions are punishment for an underground nuclear test the North carried out in May in defiance of past resolutions.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the Obama administration imposed financial sanctions on a company in Iran that is accused of involvement in North Korea's missile proliferation network.

In the latest move to keep pressure on Pyongyang and its nuclear ambitions, the Treasury Department moved against Hong Kong Electronics, a company located in Kish Island, Iran. The action means that any bank accounts or other financial assets found in the United States belonging to the company must be frozen. Americans also are prohibited from doing business with the firm."

North Korea does not have the reputation for being the most sanely ruled country on the planet.  The article did report that the ship was moving very slowly, as if trying to save fuel.  I wonder if the ship had put off actually heading for its destination while being followed and then ran low on fuel.  I also wonder if the 'fireworks' North Korea was planning to send in our direction are still on.  As much as I feel that internationally President Obama is a weak President, I do think the North Koreans might have considered the consequences of their actions.  I also wonder if the financial move against North Korea changed the situation--North Korea is desperate for money and has been known to sell its weapons to raise money.  Financial consequences might be more devastating to them than stopping the ship.

There is one more thing to consider in this--North Korea works in concert with Iran (and thus Syria).  In the past, North Korea has been used by Iran to divert the eyes of the world from what Iran is doing.  This might be a really good time to keep our eyes open in the Middle East.

The election for Senator from Minnesota is finally over--Al Franken has been declared the winner.  Power Line Blog has a very good review of the events leading to this conclusion.  One of the Power Line bloggers is a lawyer who lives in Minnesota and has followed the events closely.

The verdict from Power Line is that the counting of the absentee ballots was not evenly done, but Al Franken did not steal the election.  Evidently, part of what happens in Minnesota at every election is uneven counting of absentee ballots.

This victory theoretically gives the Democrat party a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  Since historically the Democrat party has been better at voting in unison than the Republican party, this may be interesting.  Keep in mind that because of some procedural moves made in the last month or so, a healthcare reform bill will only need 50 votes to pass in the Senate--not 60.

Hopefully Mr. Franken can rise to the level of conduct becoming a Senator--although I am not really sure exactly what that is right now!   Anyway, congratulations, Minnesota, you have a new Senator.