October 2010 Archives

Did you every wonder why 44 percent of the people serving in the United States Congress are millionaires?  Offhand, that seems a little higher than the average among the general population.  I suppose you could make the arguement that you have to be a millionaire to be elected, but how about the arguement that you can make decisions that benefit you financially?  Well, let's take a look at one California Senator.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reported yesterday on the activities of Barbara Boxer concerning a casino deal in California.  The story was originally up at The Hill, but has been taken down.  The story begins with Barbara Boxer pushing a bill reinstating a tribe designated as "defunct" by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) 40 years earlier.  In the legislation she passed to reinstate the tribe she included an amendment to remove a prohibition on gaming on any land the tribe owned.  Shortly after the tribe had been reinstated, they decided to open a casino. 

According to the article:

"The tribe turned its fortunes over to two firms to make its dreams of wealth come true -- Platinum Advisers, a political consulting/lobbying firm, and Kenwood Investments 2. Amazingly, and I'm certain quite coincidentally, Barbara Boxer's son, Doug, was a partner in each firm."

The article explains that Senator Boxer exempted the casino project from the environmental regulations that have so cripped the California economy.  This is the same Senator that opposes offshore drilling and has refused to turn the water back on in the Central Valley of California.  Meanwhile, she waives the environmental considerations on this casino and her son (according to The Hill) pockets $8 million for his role in the project.  Do you suppose he gave mom a nice Mother's Day present?

Vice President Biden has always had a way with words, but he also has a way with history.  According to the Washington Examiner on Thursday the Vice President recently stated in a speech that, "Every single great idea that has marked the 21st centery, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive.  In the middle of the Civil War, you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States....No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years."

Wow.  Cato Institute's Tad DeHaven commented on the statement.  Mr. DeHaven pointed out that the railroads in the eastern United States were built almost entirely without government subsidies and succeeded because they were a superior form of transportation at that time.  The government subsidies built the transcontinental railways because there was no market for that railroad line at the time.  The article also mentions that the subsidies also inspired Credit Mobilier, one of the worst government corruption scandals in American history.  The article at the Washington Examiner goes into the details of that scandal.

Somehow I can't picture Eli Whitney, Henry Ford or Thomas Edison waiting for a government check to pay for their research.  Somehow we have lost the idea that the individual can create and invent independently from the government.  I think we need to get that idea back.

Vice President Biden's statement is an example of the thinking that has invaded the political left in recent years--the only way anything valuable happens is if the government sponsors or subsidizes it in some way.  That sort of thinking is almost certainly guaranteed to send the country into backruptcy. 

If you believe that individuals are capable of solving the problems that our country faces (rather than government), I strongly suggest that you vote Republican on November 2.  The Republicans are not the best answer, but right now they are the only answer.  They can be held accountable for what they do and voted out in two years if they do not stop the runaway government spending.  At least they believe in individual problem solving--not government funding for everything.

To quote Ronald Reagan on January 20, 1981, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Bill Clinton had asked Florida Democratic Representative Kendrick Meek to drop out of his U.S. Senate race and support Governor Charlie Crist's independent candidacy in hopes of thwarting a victory by Republican Marco Rubio.

The Hill reported yesterday that former President Clinton stated, "I didn't ask Kendrick to leave the race, nor did Kendrick say that he would. I told him that how he proceeds was his decision to make and that I would support him regardless."

I am really not sure who is telling the truth here, but I have a few observations on the kerfuffle.  First, some basic facts.

According to The Hill:

"A number of news organizations reported Thursday evening that Clinton asked and Meek agreed to drop out due to trailing poll numbers. According to the reports, Meek was supposed to endorse Gov. Charlie Crist (I) in order to stop conservative Republican Marco Rubio from winning the seat."

The Wall Street Journal reports:

"Crist campaign spokesman Danny Kanner called the report "accurate." He said Mr. Crist was focused on "uniting common-sense Democrats, independents, and Republicans behind his campaign because he is the one candidate who can defeat" Mr. Rubio.""

One of the strategies the Democrats have used in this election cycle is to run third-party candidates in order to split the votes of those opposing Democrat incumbents or candidates.  I don't know if Charlie Crist's decision to run as in independent was made with or without Democrat input, but as a former Republican, he was expected to take votes away from Marco Rubio.  However, even at the beginning of the campaign there were a few problems with that idea.  When he began running as an independent, Charlie Crist reversed a lot of his previous positions on issues.  His reversals put him more in line with Kenrick Meek than with Marco Rubio.  He was not taking votes away from Rubio, he was taking them away from Meek.  Eventually it occurred to the Democrat leadership that this was a problem--thus the Clinton vist and conversation (whatever the conversation actually was).

The problem with Marco Rubio (for the Democrats) is that he is a likeable, dynamic, Hispanic candidate with a bright future in the Republican party.  If the Democrats can stop that future now, they can save themselves a lot of heartaches later on.  That is the reason why one Senate race in Florida is getting so much attention. 

Yesterday I was privileged to listen to a discussion between a political candidate and a reporter regarding the financial meltdown we have all been experiencing for the past two years.  The newspaper that the reporter was associated with has endorsed the opponent of the person to whom the reporter was speaking, so I should not have been surprised either by what was said or what happened next.

The candidate was someone who had firsthand knowledge of exactly what went into the financial meltdown.  He was discussing the pressure put on banks to make loans to people who would not be able to pay them back and the chain reaction those loans caused in the financial sector (and the housing sector) of our economy.  The reporter kept on saying, "Well. what about Wall Street?"  The candidate explained that Wall Street was involved after the loans were made, but that the root of the problem had much more to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than with Wall Street.  The candidate then pointed out that he did not support the Financial Reform Bill because it did not address the problem of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Although this was an 'on-the-record' discussion, I felt as if I were listening to a teacher instruct a student.  The discussion was much more informative than political.

There are stories all over the internet of ACORN showing up at stockholders meetings of major banks in America and threatening them with lawsuits, boycotts, and other things if they did not make loans to people who could not pay them back.  There is also a video at YouTube entitled, "Burning Down The House" which shows the congressional testimony that blocked the reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the George Bush Administration.  The fact that anyone believes that Wall Street is responsible for our economic problems and that the Financial Reform Bill will have any impact on our problems is a result of media spin.  Until we as voters and reporters learn to listen 'past the spin', our decisions will not be based on the facts as they are--they will be based on what the media and politicians tell us in order to advance their political agendas.

I am not surprised that the information given to the reporter was either new to him or that he had not considered it seriously before.  I am also not surprised that the reporter's newspaper printed nothing about the meeting or the discussion between the reporter and the candidate.  I don't know if the reporter actually learned anything or not.  I do know that if the reporter understood what was said to him and did not report it to his readers, he did a disservice to both the candidate and the voters.

BigGovernment.com posted an article about Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK)'s report titled, "Federal Programs to Die for: American Tax Dollars Send Six Feet Under" which shows that stopping checks to the dead is a means to save one billion of your tax dollars. 

According to the article:

"Delaware Republican candidate for Senate Christine O'Donnell was stopped from citing "waste, fraud and abuse" as a means to lower the estimated $13.6 trillion national debt during a debate aired on CNN.  According to a Daily News transcript published on October 14, 2010:

"Arguably the toughest moment for O'Donnell came when she was asked to outline what programs she would cut to slash government spending and reduce the national deficit, two major themes of the Tea Party platform.  Before she responded, Blitzer told her she could not simply say cut waste, fraud and abuse because "everybody says that.""

The way Christine O'Donnell has been treated by the media is a disgrace anyway, but that is for another story. 

The article details specific instances of government waste cited by Senator Coburn:

• The Social Security Administration sent $18 million in Stimulus funds to dead people;
• The Department of Health and Human Services doled out checks of $3.9 million in assistance to pay heating and cooling costs out of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to dead people. See GAO Report of June 2010;
• The Department of Agriculture cranked out checks for $1.1 billion to deceased farmers. See GAO Report of July 24, 2007;
• The Farm Services Agency (FSA) provided 171,801 deceased farmers subsidies;
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development cut checks for $15.2 million in housing subsidies to the dead.  See HUD IG's Report of November 10, 2009;
• Medicaid payments of over $700,000 in prescriptions for 1,800 dead patients and prescriptions for drugs written by 1,200 deceased doctors;
• Medicare payments of $92 million in medical supplies prescribed by dead doctors and $8.2 million for medical supplies prescribed for non-living patients; and,
• Congress has also mismanaged the HIV/AIDs funding distribution method that slows care to those in the most need.

It's time for a change in Washington, D. C.  We do have some good Senators--Tom Coburn is one of them--but those Senators and Representatives who are part of the problem rather than part of the solution need to be voted out of office.  If your Congressman does not support spending cuts and tax cuts, vote him out of office!

On Tuesday the Los Angeles Times reported that on election day Denver voters will decide whether or not to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission.

Jeff Peckman, one of the major supporters of Initiative 300, has gathered enough signatures to get the initiative on the ballot. 

The initiatives mission statement:

It's a BIG universe but we need to share it with others who are not from Earth.
Our grand mission is dedicated to ensuring the health, safety and welfare of human beings in relation to interactions with extraterrestrial beings, and to creating peaceful, harmonious, and mutually beneficial relationships between all beings in the universe.

The article states that the initiative would create a seven-person expert panel that would be charged with:

-- Dealing with credible citizen reports of UFOs or contacts with extraterrestrial intelligent beings.

-- Responsibly listening to, or documenting reports of, encounters or abductions regardless of the highly unusual and credible evidence.

-- Referring such reports to private or public individuals or organizations that have dealt with such matters responsibly.

-- Helping citizens that know of no place to turn for help on potentially traumatic experiences.

I have no comment.

Roll Call posted an article on Tuesday that stated that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have put together a plan to help fill top staff positions of the newly elected Republican outsiders.  It is not encouraging to me that John Boehner is leading this effort; it is encouraging to me that Eric Cantor is also leading the effort.

Many times I have heard people say, "It doesn't matter who you vote for, both political parties are actually the same.  One is not better than the other."  I totally understand that statement, and I totally understand the basis for it.  In many cases it is more true than false.  However, the reason many of the newly elected Republican congressmen are being sent to Washington is to change the status quo.  

Most newly elected Republicans will be born out of the enthusiasm of the Tea Party.  They are not interested in becoming part of the Washington establishment.  A large majority of the American people are not interested in seeing any new members of Congress become part of the Washington establishment.  There is a need for any new congressmen to hit the ground running--there is much to be done and undone.  However, many of the people elected in this election cycle are being sent to Washington to undo what has previously been standard operating procedure--not to enshire the garbage that has gone on.

Hopefully the establishment Republicans will remember that they are there to represent the people--not to build their own legacies.

ABC News has posted a story stating that the Democrat National Committee DNC) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information on potential Obama challengers in 2012. 

According to the article:

"The request for information on Gingrich stretches back to 1979, when he was a freshman member of the House. The DNC is asking for information related to Palin's service on the Wasilla, Alaska, City Council in the early 1990s, while the Pawlenty request includes his service on the Planning Commission in Eagan, Minn., in 1988 and 1989."

There is nothing wrong with the DNC filing this request for information.  That is not what I am complaining about.  My question is simple--shouldn't the DNC be spending the time on coming up with ideas to solve America's problems rather than looking for ways to tear down its opponents? 

Every now and then I come across an article on the internet that takes my breath away.  There was an article posted at Hillbuzz.com yesterday that fits that description.  It is an open letter from Kevin DuJan to Rush Limbaugh describing some of the events surrounding the Democrat's nomination of Barack Obama as their candidate in 2008. 

Among other things, the article details some of the events the press somehow missed:

"If you have not seen it already, Rush, you need to watch Gigi Gaston's documentary "We Will Not Be Silenced 2008″.  I'm featured in a segment on the voter fraud that was committed in the Iowa Caucus back in January of 2008.  While I was always aware Democrats use unions and other means to cheat in elections, I never knew the Democrat Party was capable of the large-scale, aggressive, unapologetic fraud it committed on Obama's behalf all through 2008.  In Iowa, I watched Obama's ACORN and SEIU goons push and shove old people, bully them, and intimidate them when they wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton.  I saw scores of Illinois license plates fill the parking lots outside caucus locations, with Chicagoland Obama supporters illegally entering the Caucus sites to vote for Obama and game Iowa for him.  Having planned ahead, Obama supporters actually RAN those caucus sites, and held the doors open for all these fraudulent voters to walk right in, without being asked for IDs, where they then took control of the caucuses and bullied the Iowa residents into supporting Obama -- lest they be called RAAACISTS! out in the open in front of their friends and neighbors in those open-air caucuses."

I am not sure who is at the bottom of the kind of tactics President Obama used to get elected.  I can tell you from experience that those same tactics are active during the Congressional campaigns this year.  I have seen them at work on the Democrat side.  At a parade in the Third District in Massachusetts a number of Marty Lamb supporters spotted a car with Illinois license plates taking "Marty Lamb for Congress" signs from people's yards.  As some of us went back to our cars after the parade, the driver of that car had his trunk open, revealing a number of "Marty Lamb for Congress" signs he had collected.  What was he doing in Massachusetts in the first place? 

Obviously, Hillbuzz.org is a site put together by Hillary Clinton supporters who were unhappy with the way the Democrat primaries turned out.  I had not realized that they were still so angry.  The thing to watch here is when Hillary will make her run for the Presidency.  If President Obama's approval ratings are below 40 percent by the end of 2011, I suspect Hillary Clinton will challenge Barack Obama for the Democrat presidential nomination again in 2012.  I also suspect that she will not be the only challenger.  Hillary and Evan Bayh would represent a challenge from the right, and people such as Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich would represent a challenge from the left.

The open letter to Rush Limbaugh is a long letter, but I strongly suggest reading it.  The anger is genuine, and it outlines the plans Hillary Clinton's supporters have for the next two years.  This may be very interesting to watch.

On October 15th, Fox News posted an article about the changes coming to Flexible Healthcare Spending Accounts (FSA) in the new healthcare reform bill.  Currently FSAs have no limit on the amount of tax-free dollars put into them and can be used for pretty much any over-the-counter drug or medical procedure.  The new rules place a limit on the pre-tax contributions to $2,500, starting Jan. 1, 2013.   That sounds like a lot, but if you have children who need braces or you are contemplating laser eye surgery, this will impact you. 

According to the Detroit News on October 18:

"...In the past, employees could use their flex accounts to pay for both prescription and non-prescription drugs and medical supplies.  Starting January 1, they can no longer use them to pay for drugs and medicines without a doctor's prescription.

"Drugs and medicines are defined as anything you inject or apply topically to treat a specific medical condition.  They include allergy and cold medications, pain relievers, laxatives, acne treatments and many other drugs.  An exception is made for insulin and diabetes supplies, which can be reimbursed without a doctor's prescription.

"However, after this year you will still be able to use your flex account to pay for medical devices and supplies without a prescription.  These items include bandages, reading glasses, condoms, othotics, blood pressure monitors and contact lens solutions.  (For a list, see www.wageworks.com/otcfact.)  The list of elibible items you can buy with an FSA debit card at a drugstor will shrink from about 42,000 items to about 30,000 items, Dietel (Jody Dietel, Chief Compliance Officer for WageWorks) says."

What this means in simple terms is that if you need hayfever medicine and want your insurance to cover it, you have to schedule an appointment with your doctor to get a prescription.  This will end up increasing medical costs--not lowering them.  I really think the only reason this provision is included in the healthcare bill is that the Democrats want to eliminate any law that allows American taxpayers to keep their money.

In Nevada, there seems to be a new way to take all the confusion out of voting.  The Washington Examiner reported yesterday that a number of people voting in Clark County, Nevada walked into the voting machine to vote and found that Harry Reid's name was already checked off.  I guess that takes the guess work out of voting!  Seventy-five percent of Nevada's residents live in Clark County. 

According to the article:

"Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.

"Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience.  She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.

""Something's not right," Ferrara said.  "One person that's a fluke.  Two, that's strange.  But several within a five minute period of time--that's wrong.""

The article at the Washington Examiner points out that the voting machines are maintained by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  The article lists the amount of money the SEIU has donated to Democrats this election cycle.  There is no direct evidence that the SEIU had anything to do with the problem, but the situation is just not good.

Just a note about some of the Democrat tactics in this election.  Cheating is one tactic, denying the military vote by delaying absentee ballots is another, and in Massachusetts we have seen the tactic of running third party candidates to split the Republican vote.

I will end this article with my usual statement--if you want to clean up the mess that is Washington D. C., vote Republican and then hold the Republicans' feet to the fire.  I suspect the Republicans (having learned their lessons since 1994) will be much more responsive to the public than they have been previously.

I just attended the final debate between the candidates for the Third Congressional District seat in Massachusetts.  The debate was hosted by the Northborough Tea Party.  The moderator for the debate was Hand Stolz, host of the radio program "Wake up, Worcester."   As is the case with all Tea Party events, the debate began with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.  That was in contrast to the League of Women voters debate which did not even have a flag displayed.

I have never been involved in politics before, and there are a lot of things I don't really understand.  The previous debates I have attended have had sign holders outside, but there has always been a friendly relationship between the different supporters.  This debate was a little different.  First of all, the supporters of Congressman McGovern blocked off the parking lot so that supporters of other candidates were forced to find parking across the street.  Next, during the time when people were getting seated in preparation for the debate, the McGovern sign holders took up positions outside the windows behind where the candidates were seated, creating a distraction for anyone in the audience.  They stayed there until the police asked them to leave.  I have not seen that behavior in any of the other debates I have attended, so I really have no idea what it was all about.

All three candidates took part in the debate--Pat Barron, Marty Lamb, and Jim McGovern.  The moderator managed the format and the debate very well, so each candidate was able to state clearly his positions on various issues.  The positions were those that have been mentioned in previous articles on this site (rightwinggranny.com). 

Generally speaking, Congressman McGovern stated his support for the United States continuing its role in the United Nations, Pat Barron felt that we needed to reevaluate our relationship with the United Nations and Marty Lamb felt that the United Nations was no longer the organization it was intended to be and that we should end our membership in it.  Congressman McGovern declared, "I am a liberal democrat," and made no apologies for that.  He defended his vote on Obamacare and said that it would create jobs.  When told by candidate Lamb that the penalty on small businesses who could not afford to provide healthcare for their employees would keep small businesses from hiring, Congressman McGovern stated that he felt that those small businesses would be eligible for government subsidies.  In a nutshell, Congressman McGovern's answer to almost every problem was more government money and more government involvement.

The choice is clear for the voters in Massachusetts Third Congressional District.  If you want continued growth of government and government spending, re-elect Jim McGovern.  If you want smaller government and fiscal responsibility, elect Marty Lamb.  If you want to re-elect Jim McGovern without voting for him, vote for Pat Barron.

Thomas Sowell posted an article at Townhall.com today about golden oldies and brass oldies.  I like his description of both--golden oldies are the classic songs from years past, brass oldies are political fallacies that have been around for a long time.  In the article is relates the history of one of the most common "brass oldies."

Mr. Sowell states:

"One of these brass oldies is a phrase that has been a perennial favorite of the left, "tax cuts for the rich." How long ago was this refuted? More than 80 years ago, the "tax cuts for the rich" argument was refuted, both in theory and in practice, by Andrew Mellon, who was Secretary of the Treasury in the 1920s."

Mr. Sowell explains that the reason tax cuts generate revenue is that tax policy influences behavior.  He cites one example:

"...taxpayers change their behavior according to what the tax rates are. When one of the Rockefellers died, Mellon discovered that his estate included $44 million in tax-exempt bonds, compared to $7 million in Standard Oil securities, even though Standard Oil was the source of the Rockefeller fortune."

Generally speaking, ''the rich" understand more about how money works than the rest of us (or else we would be rich, too).  They also have the cash available to move into areas that will be taxed less. 

The article further states:

"In short, huge amounts of money were not being invested in productive capacity, such as factories or power plants, but was instead being made available for local political boondoggles, because this money was put into tax-exempt state and local bonds.

"When tax rates are reduced, investors have incentives to take their money out of tax shelters and put it into the private economy, creating higher returns for themselves and more production in the economy. Andrew Mellon understood this then, even though many in politics and the media seem not to understand it now."

The article concludes:

"The rich actually paid more total taxes, and a higher percentage of all taxes, after the Bush tax rate cuts, because their incomes were rising with the rising economy.

"Do the people who keep repeating the catch phrase, "tax cuts for the rich" not know this? Or are they depending on your not knowing it?"

Thomas Sowell contributes more to my economic education in a few paragraphs than a whole semester of economics did in school!  Thank you, sir, for your insight.

The Debka File reported that the Saudis Monday, Oct. 25, urged Lebanon's pro-Western Prime Minister Saad Hariri to step down without delay and make way for an administration dominated by pro-Syrian ministers and Hizballah. 

According to the article:

"King Abdullah, according to debkafile's Middle East and Beirut sources, sees no other way of saving Lebanon from tipping over into civil strife over Hizballah's demand to disband the international tribunal probing the 2005 murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri."

This resignation will lay the groundwork for charges by Hizballah that Israel was behind the murder. 

This is an example of the Lebanese desire for self-preservation.  They will allow Iran and Hizballah to essentially take over their country in exchange for avoiding a civil war.  As America begins to withdraw from the area (President Obama can't get out fast enough!), there will be no one (other than the Lebanese) to defend their democracy.  Because Iran is rapidly acquiring nuclear capability, I am sure the Lebanese feel that this is their only safe choice.  This is unfortunate, but underscores the problem with Iran becoming a nuclear nation.  Iran is a nation led by a bully that has plans to dominate the Middle East and eventually help set up a world-wide caliphate.  We didn't see it coming when Hitler planned to conquer the world, and we are avoiding seeing it when Iran makes the same plans.

Investors.com posted an editorial yesterday about what the documents leaked by Wikileaks showed regarding Iran's actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Iran is a country that will eventually have to be dealt with.  Hopefully that will happen before Iran is a nuclear power.

The Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that New Jersey Democrat Frank Pallone, chairman of the House Health Subcommittee, is calling on the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers to tell their players not to use smokeless tobacco on the field or in the dugout during the World Series.  First of all, how do we know if they are chewing tobacco or bubble gum?  Will bubble gum be the next thing to be frowned on (too much sugar?)?

I don't smoke.  I have never smoked.  I don't chew tobacco.  I have never done that either.  However, I am concerned about people's personal choices being infringed upon.  If tobacco is that bad, stop subsidizing the tobacco farmers, stop taxing tobacco products, and ban the sale of tobacco.  If the government is not willing to stop the subsidies and give up the tax revenue tobacco generates, they should stop griping about its use and stop trying to make smokers huddle in doorways in 10 degree weather like some sort of social outcasts. 

I appreciate the fact that in Massachusetts I can have dinner without having to smell cigarette smoke.  I have developed an allergy to cigarette smoke in recent years, and even walking through the cloud of doorway smoke in many places is enough to set off coughing spells.  However, there are two sides to every story.  People should not be forced to huddle in doorways like abandoned animals in order to smoke.  We need to either ban tobacco or create places where smokers can smoke without discomfort or inconvenience.

Yesterday CNSNews reported that Facebook is working with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GSLEN) to prevent and remove what it considers anti-gay comments from it's social website.  That's a good thing.

As an old person on facebook (that's where my children post pictures of whatever they are doing) and a former Mafia Wars addict, I applaud this move.  However, Facebook still has other groups that it needs to take a look at-- "I Hate The Pope" , "I Hate People Who Hate Homosexual People", "I Hate Conservatives", "I Hate It When I Wake Up In The Morning and Conservatives Still Exist",  "I Hate Democrats" and "I Hate Straight People Who Hate Gays".

I would like to suggest that any group that starts with the words "I Hate" followed by an organization or a group of people be removed.  I am willing to see groups like "I Hate Mondays" or "I Hate Traffic Jams" remain, but I am not sure it is constructive to have groups hating any certain group of people. 

I think Facebook is a good thing, although occasionally it is a victim of TMI (too much information).  We live in a world that moves very quickly, and sometimes it is hard to stay in touch with everyone you care about.  On Facebook you can leave an occasional comment for someone just to let them know you are thinking about them.  I like that.

Yesterday Rick Moran at the American Thinker reported that the feds have put off the report on the Giannoulias family's Broadway Bank in Illinois until after the election.  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is supposed to issue a report six months after they take over a bank. 

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reported Saturday:

"The release of the report before the election could have been another political headache for Giannoulias in the close contest with Republican Mark Kirk. Giannoulias has been on the defensive over his role in loans Broadway Bank made to convicted felons while he was a senior loan officer, as well as other troubled lending that contributed to the bank's collapse early this year.

"The inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. typically issues a "material loss" report, which details issues in a bank's failure, about six months after the institution is taken over by the regulators. Broadway, which the FDIC accused of "unsafe banking practices," was closed on April 23, at a cost to the FDIC of $394.3 million.

"When it issued an interim report in August, the inspector general's office said the final report would be issued on or before its Nov. 14 due date. On Friday, agency lawyer John Davidovich said the report is not expected within the next two weeks."

I wonder when the report would have been released had the bank belonged to the Mark Kirk's family. 

Yesterday the Boston Globe posted its Election 2010 endorsements.  It is not surprising that they recommended to voters "Despite some promising challengers for Congress, voters should stay the course."  As someone who lives in the Third Congressional District which hasn't gotten as much publicity as the Fourth and Tenth District (Sean Bielet running against Barney Frank and Jeff Perry running against William Keating), I was interested to read:

"The choice is entirely a positive one for voters in the Worcester area, home to the gifted and productive Representative James McGovern, a staunch liberal in a relatively moderate district. For those who don't share McGovern's views, Republican nominee Marty Lamb, a real estate lawyer, is a good option. Of all the citizen-politicians who emerged after the economic collapse, Lamb shows the most potential: He supports a slate of targeted tax breaks intended to help small businesses, and favors extending the Bush tax cuts for all. But he maintains that, if elected, he won't vote in lockstep with his party's leaders. He manages to be both a forceful critic and a voice of reason.

"Lamb smartly acknowledges that McGovern is a "good constituent-service congressman.'' Indeed, McGovern's record of service to the district is unusually noteworthy: Worcester, in particular, is finally taking steps to break out of a disastrous 1970s renewal plan, thanks partly to McGovern's exertions. As the second-ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee to 81-year-old Louise Slaughter, McGovern, at 50, is on the verge of achieving the kind of power wielded by his mentor, Joe Moakley. Every House bill is vetted by the Rules Committee, giving its chairman enormous clout. There is no doubt that McGovern would use that power to help revitalize Central Massachusetts.

"Conservatives and others looking for a complete change can feel good about supporting Lamb, but there is no good reason to abandon McGovern now. He can and will do more for the district.

"At this moment, McGovern's clout is less than that of Barney Frank..."

What the Globe fails to mention is that McGovern will also raise your taxes and support more power grabs by the federal government.  If you love healthcare reform, the impact it will have on senior citizens and the increases it will bring to your health insurance premiums, McGovern is your candidate.  McGovern has been in Congress since January 1997, isn't it time for a change?

I am not sure whether this event will be an American "let them eat cake" moment, but this is not smart politics.  The Economic Times reported Saturday on the plans for the President and Mrs. Obama's upcoming trip to India:

"To ensure fool-proof security, the President's team has booked the entire the Taj Mahal Hotel, including 570 rooms, all banquets and restaurants. Since his security contingent and staff will comprise a huge number, 125 rooms at Taj President have also been booked, apart from 80 to 90 rooms each in Grand Hyatt and The Oberoi hotels. The NCPA, where the President is expected to meet representatives from the business community, has also been entirely booked.
The officer said, "Obama's contingent is huge. There are two jumbo jets coming along with Air Force One, which will be flanked by security jets. There will be 30 to 40 secret service agents, who will arrive before him. The President's convoy has 45 cars, including the Lincoln Continental in which the President travels.""

He's visiting the country--not taking it over.  The President and his wife will be in India for a two-day visit.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...  The Wall Street Journal reported today that the deficit panel is considering taking away many of the tax breaks average Americans enjoy--the deduction on mortgage interest, child tax credits, and the ability of employees to pay their portion of their health-insurance tab with pretax dollars.  The panel is also looking at spending cuts in defense and freezing domestic discretionary spending.

Does it strike anyone else as a little odd that as the President is complaining about the deficit and the taxpayers are threatened with significant tax increases, the taxpayers are paying for a very expensive two-day trip?  If the Bush tax cuts are not extended, everyone's taxes will go up--extending the tax cuts does not cut anyone's taxes--it simply allows the tax rates to stay where they are now.  It just seems to me that in a time of economic challenges for most Americans, the President is doing a lot of partying in the White House and spending lavishly on foreign travel.  Aside from the fact that the partying and travel may be having an impact on the budget (probably a small impact, but an impact), it just seems a little insensitive to be doing this as most Americans are tightening their belts and dealing with economic stress.

National Review Online posted an article yesterday by Andrew McCarthy with the subtitle, "If they cannot defund NPR, you can bet they will not reverse Obamacare."  I never thought of it that way, but he is right.  If the Republicans take the House of Representatives (according to the Constitution, all spending bills are initiated by the House, not the Senate) in November, what they do with the public funding of NPR will be their first test of whether or not they have developed a backbone.

He points out that in addition to having a serious debt problem at the current time, the country has ample sources of information of every political stripe.  There really is not a need for the government to fund NPR--let NPR compete in the marketplace like every other news source.

The firing of Juan Williams and the snarky statement afterward confirmed for many people that 'fair and balanced' was not a part of the NPR plan.  Even if it were, there are enough sources of news and information available so that the government does not have to support NPR.

Let's see if the Republicans can muster to courage to defund NPR.  Then maybe they can go on to bigger and better things!

That's not an original thought--I wish it were.  Those are the words of P. J. O'Rourke in the November 1st issue of the Weekly Standard.  Mr. O'Rourke has written a new book, "Don't Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards."

His comments about the Democrat party are very interesting (not to mention funny).  Please follow the link to the article--there is no way I can do this man justice in a summary! 

Mr. O'Rourke opens with this:

"Perhaps you're having a tiny last minute qualm about voting Republican. Take heart. And take the House and the Senate. Yes, there are a few flakes of dander in the fair tresses of the GOP's crowning glory--an isolated isolationist or two, a hint of gold buggery, and Christine O'Donnell announcing that she's not a witch. (I ask you, has Hillary Clinton ever cleared this up?) Fret not over Republican peccadilloes such as the Tea Party finding the single, solitary person in Nevada who couldn't poll ten to one against Harry Reid. Better to have a few cockeyed mutts running the dog pound than Michael Vick."

As I have said before, I have no idea what will happen on November 2nd.  What I do know that all of us--every eligible voter of every political stripe--need to get out and vote for the candidate we support.  Hopefully, in the final days of the campaign, we as voters will be able to sort out the important things from the October surprises and elect the people who will best represent us.

Holly Pitt Young at Townhall.com posted an article about the availability of cancer treatment drugs under the government run healthcare program in Britain. 

According to the article:

"British cancer patients are routinely denied access to critical life-extending drugs because of their costs.

"The Telegraph noted two year ago, that the British health care system's decision to deny patients four kidney cancer drugs on the NHS was denounced by doctors as 'poor' and 'unsuitable'. They said it was a "tragedy" that Britain's leading role in cancer research was not being translated into treatment for all patients, who were often left struggling to pay for the drugs themselves. The decision has led patients to mortgage their house in order to obtain the drugs and treatment they need to survive."

Unfortunately, the denial of drugs to cancer patients in Britain is commonplace.  That kind of medical decision made by the government is coming to America.  The Food and Drug Administration has created a new standard that would allow patients who could afford the late-stage cancer drug Avastin and other drugs like it to use these drugs, while those who cannot afford the drugs would be denied their use.

The article reports:

"They are considering "de-labeling" the drug for breast cancer patients - essentially allowing Medicare and private insurance to deny coverage of the drug under their policies.

"The FDA has moved a final decision about the fate of Avastin and breast cancer patients until after the elections. Not a great sign."

I have no idea how to make a decision to provide or not to provide drugs to terminal cancer patients that will extend their lives.  However, doctors take an oath where they pledge to 'do no harm', and doctors have the knowledge to make this type of decision.  Let's let the doctors make the decisions about what drugs to use--not the government.

On Friday the Washington Post posted a detailed article showing the timeline and events surrounding the dismissal by the Justice Department of the 2008 New Black Panthers voter intimidation case.  You can watch the video of the actual incident at BigGovernment.com.

I don't know how many people did not vote in Philadelphia because they were intimidated by the New Black Panthers in paramilitary uniforms carrying billy clubs.  I do know that as your basic little old lady,  I would have been intimidated by their presence.   I understand that in the past, voting rights for all races have not been equally enforced, but that is no excuse for refusing to enforce them equally now.  It is good to see the Washington Post finally cover this story. 

The article at the Washington Post details the progress of the case through the Justice Department and states:

"In the months after the case ended, tensions persisted. A new supervisor, Julie Fernandes, arrived to oversee the voting section, and Coates testified that she told attorneys at a September 2009 lunch that the Obama administration was interested in filing cases - under a key voting rights section - only on behalf of minorities."

This is no way to run a government.  Civil rights laws apply to all people in America--whether they are part of a minority or part of a majority.  Hopefully the Justice Department will remember that in the future.

One of the ironies of the NPR's firing of Juan Williams has been how fast the conservative media rose to his defense.  That might have been partially because he was fired for something he said on a 'conservative' show, but more than likely it was because he presents himself as such a total gentleman.  I am a regular viewer of Fox News Sunday and Special Report on Fox News and have watched Juan defend his views on the panels often.  I generally disagree with almost everything he says, but I love to hear Juan and Brit Hume discuss an issue.  There is an amazing amount of knowledge and logic between the two of them.  Anyway, it was refreshing to see one of my favorite left-leaning columnists come to Juan's defense. 

In yesterday's Washington Examiner, Susan Estrich posted a column about the firing of Juan Williams.  I also need to mention here that Susan is another 'liberal' commentator who is not afraid to appear in 'conservative' media. 

In the beginning of the article, she quotes Jesse Jackson stating his feelings about hearing footsteps and basing his level of fear of being robbed on the race of the person following him.  She compares that to the statement Juan Williams made about seeing people in Muslim garb on an airplane.  The thing that she points out is that firing Juan Williams is not going to change the fact that the people who attacked us on September 11th were Muslims or that the people making threats against America almost every day are generally Muslims.

Ms. Estrich points out in her article that she and Juan Williams have been regular contributors to Fox News for more than a decade.  She describes herself and Juan as part of the "balance" in "fair and balanced." 

At the end of the article she concludes:

"Others are free to disagree, on both Fox News and NPR.  But to fire an analyst for expressing an honest opinion violates the very principles of free expression and the First Amendment on which NPR so often prides itself."

The kind of rational discussion of issues that Juan Williams and Susan Estrich engage in on a regular basis is a healthy thing for our country.  Although I believe that there are some principles that should not be compromised, I also believe there are a lot of issues where alll viewpoints need to be discussed rationally.  Rational discussions can sometimes be hard to find (on both sides).  I thank Juan Williams and Susan Estrich for being part of many of the rational discussions that do occur.

The headline of this article sounds like a total impossibility--just as forced healthcare insurance did only a year ago.  However, there is something brewing for the 'lame duck' session of Congress (assuming the Republicans increase their numbers in Congress, which I think they will) that all Americans need to be aware of.

The information on this possible legislation is hard to find, but I have found enough different sources on it to be convinced we will see some aspect of it.  First we have to have the crisis, then we need the big government solution.

The crisis is simple.  Unions do not have enough money to pay their pensions and taxpayers are running out of money to give to the government to fund those pensions.  Whatever shall we do? 

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that:

"The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending."

Meanwhile, on October 8, Human Events reported:

"Democrats in the Senate on Thursday held a recess hearing covering a taxpayer bailout of union pensions and a plan to seize private 401(k) plans to more "fairly" distribute taxpayer-funded pensions to everyone."

This is part of the testimony of Rose Eisenbrey, Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on October 7 of this year:

"EPI has published and advocated what we feel would be an excellent national supplemental retirement plan, the Guaranteed Retirement Account, which was authored by Prof. Teresa Ghilarducci, Director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research. In a nutshell, the GRA would mandate employer and employee contributions to a federally administered cash balance plan. The combined 5% of payroll contributions would be invested by a Thrift Savings Plan-like entity in the bond and stock markets, with a guaranteed minimum return of 3% beyond inflation. A $600 tax credit would cover the entire 2.5% contribution for workers earning $24,000 or less, and greatly reduce the effective contribution rate for other lower-paid workers. We calculate that at the end of a normal working life, the average worker would accumulate, along with Social Security, enough to assure a 70%replacement rate of pre-retirement income."

Doesn't this sound a lot like Social Security (which is now in serious financial trouble)?  Don't we learn from our mistakes?

How much of the $87.5 of union money that is funding Democrats could have been used to fund their pensions?  Right now the bailout of union pension funds is scheduled for the lame-duck session of Congress after the election.  If the Republicans do not make significant gains in the Congressional elections next month, we could see more of the same after January.

I am not opposed to taking care of people in their retirement.  Not everyone is able to have a substantial 401k plan.  However, the government has handled Social Security so badly (Congress opted out of Social Security in the 1960's and has been spending the money on other things ever since!), why in the world should we let them take more of our money and do it again?  Both parties have robbed Social Security, but only one party is after our 401k money!

Please remember this when you vote in November.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article yesterday about the coming cost of Obamacare.  The article reports:

"In passing ObamaCare, Democrats argued that it would provide a net relief to the budget deficit in its balance of new taxes and fees, drastic cuts to Medicare Advantage, and the subsidies it would provide to Americans making $88,000 a year or less.  A new study commissioned by Families USA, a group that supports ObamaCare, shows that the Democrats and the CBO badly miscalculated the level of subsidies provided.  In the first year (2014), 28 million Americans would have eligibility for more than $110 billion, outstripping the Congressional/CBO estimate by almost 600%."

Just the fact that someone making $88,000 a year would receive a subsidy is mind blowing to me!   The article goes on to explain that the $88,000 income limit applies to a family of four.  This is a glaring illustration of the universal truth that 'one size never fits all.'  There are some states in America where a family of four making $88,000 is living very well.  There are other states in America where that income for four people would barely put food on the table.  Healthcare (and most other things) need to be left up to the states.  The federal government cannot pass programs that accurately meet the needs of every person in every state.

Mr. Morrissey concludes:

"The deficit projection given by Democrats was apparently based on 75% failure rates to get people into the system; their advocates are busy touting the massive amounts of subsidies in the program that will tip ObamaCare into a deficit exploder in Year 2.  Either way this goes, it's a massive failure."

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted a story yesterday about some rather odd things going on in Jerusalem.  

According to the article:

"...the Muslim Waqf (a religious endowment in Islamic law that oversees land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes) has asked a court to force the city of Jerusalem to stop removing false graves from an ancient Muslim cemetery near the center of the city."  

Yes, that did say false graves.

According to an Israel National News report yesterday:

"Following Arutz7's report, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel Lands Authority began removing the tombs. It was speculated that the false graves were part of a plan to have the Muslim Waqf submit a demand for the additional land to be placed under Muslim ownership.

"Later it was reported that the same phenomenon was occurring in the area of the Eastern Wall in Jerusalem (adjacent to the Western Wall), with the Arabs simply ignoring a law that deems the area a national park."

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, yet a building moratorium in part of Jerusalem was made to be part of the peace process.  Meanwhile, the Arabs are building bogus graves inside the Israeli capital in order to increase their land.

Not really.  Yesterday Jeff Jacoby posted an article at the Boston Globe about recent statements made by Congressman Barney Frank about his role in the mortgage lending crisis.  

The article reports:

"Frank faces a spirited challenge from Republican Sean Bielat, a 35-year-old businessman and Marine Corps reservist. Bielat has turned Frank's longtime support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the "government sponsored entities'' that aggressively enabled the subprime mortgage lending at the heart of the financial meltdown, into the major issue of the race. During a debate last week, Bielat charged: "By pushing for homeownership, even among those who couldn't afford the homes, Barney Frank put this country on a perilous footing.''"

The YouTube video "Burning Down The House" is a video tour of Congressional statements regarding lending, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and regulation of the mortgage market.  It shows the roots and growth of the problem with statements by the Congressmen involved.  I strongly recommend watching it.

The Democrat talking point about the mortgage crisis is that it was caused by "Wall Street Greed."  Wall Street greed may have played a small part in it, but logically, the problem began when banks were forced to lend money to people who could not afford their mortgages.  Had gas prices remained stable (domestic drilling allowed?), many homeowners could probably have squeaked by, but when gasoline prices neared $4 at the end of 2008, family budgets could no longer deal with the increase. 

Mr. Jacoby reports:

"As far back as 1991, the Globe reported that Frank lobbied Fannie Mae to ease its rules restricting mortgages on two- and three-family homes, even though the default rate on those mortgages was far higher than the rate for single-family dwellings. Was that being a "consistent critic'' of low-income home ownership? How about when he gave a speech in 2005 praising the "advocacy groups that work with us so that we can make homeownership available to people who might not on their own in a market situation be able to afford it''?"

There is nothing wrong with encouraging people to become homeowners.  It is admirable to want to help people acquire assets.  However, to encourage people who cannot afford houses to borrow the money to buy them is irresponsible. 

It's time for a changing of the guard in Congress.  I am hoping that the election of Sean Bielat will be part of that change.

The Hill reported yesterday that "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday evening that that she has "every anticipation" she'll remain in that position come next year."

This announcement comes as many Democrats running for re-election are stating that they will not support her if she runs for speaker again. 

ABC News reported Tuesday:

""From what we're hearing, she's probably not going to run for speaker again," Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-NC, told ABC affiliate WWAY in North Carolina. "And if she does, I'm confident she's going to have opposition, and I look forward to supporting that opposition. We want to have a more moderate type of alternative for leadership, and I'm confident we're gonna have that alternative. You know, when she had opposition before, I voted for her opposition, not for her. And we're expecting her to have opposition this time.""

It says something about Ms. Pelosi that Democrats running for office are running against her rather than supporting her.  When I read this story, I wondered if it was simply a desperate attempt by the Congressman to get votes by distancing himself from Ms. Pelosi.  I still wonder.

This is going to be a very interesting election. 

Yesterday, Big Journalism reported that National Public Radio (NPR) had terminated its contract with Juan Williams.  Juan Williams is a new analyst who frequently appears on Fox News Shows such as Special Report and Fox News Sunday.  He recently made an appearance on the Bill O'Reilly Show and commented on the worldwide threat of Islamic terrorism.

According to the article:

"NPR said in its statement that the remarks "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.""

The conversation on the O'Reilly show was as follows:

"... On the show, the host, Bill O'Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a "Muslim dilemma." Mr. O'Reilly said, "The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet."

"Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O'Reilly.

"He continued: "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

"Mr. Williams also made reference to the Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty this month to trying to plant a car bomb in Times Square. "He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts," Mr. Williams said."

If an American newsman can be fired from a taxpayer-funded radio and television station for speaking honestly about Islamic terrorism, is it any wonder that moderate Muslims are afraid to speak out?  I probably disagree with at least ninety percent of everything Juan Williams has ever said on Special Report, but I respect him as a thinking man who is honest about what he thinks.  It is totally ridiculous that NPR fired him for being honest about something they refuse to see.

Haaretz.com is reporting that Google Earth satellite photos from March 22 show extensive construction at several military bases throughout Syria, including at one of the country's three largest missile bases, located 25 kilometers northeast of Damascus, near the city of Adra. 

According to the article:

"The photos show five 11-meter-long missiles (the length of both the Scud B and the Scud C ) at the Adra base. Three are on trucks in a parking lot. Two others are in a training area where 20 to 25 people can be made out along with about 20 vehicles. One of the two missiles appears to be mounted on a mobile launcher; another is on the ground."

Thank God they didn't have Google Earth up and running during the first Gulf War! 

Needless to say, this does not help the prospects for peace in the Middle East.  After the Oslo accord was signed in September 1993, terrorism against Israel by Palestinians increased greatly.  More Israelis were killed by Palestinian terrorists in the five years after the agreement was signed in 1993 than in the fifteen preceding years.  It sounds as if the terrorists are getting ready for a repeat performance.

It is amazing to me that this information could be obtained by anyone with a computer.  This is not the result of the efforts of some great 'super spy'; it is the result of the internet age.  It will be interesting to see if any of this story appears in American newspapers or, if it does, how the American press handles it.

Yesterday the Daily Caller posted a story about a woman in Dallas County, Texas, who had been denied the right to vote on Monday.  The woman was wearing a button that showed the Gadsden flag (the rattlesnake under the words "Don't Tread on Me")--the flag that is unofficially associated with the Tea Party. 

The article reported:

"Katrina Pierson, who sits on the steering committee of the Dallas Tea Party and is also involved with the Garland Tea Party, told The Daily Caller that "around 11 o'clock yesterday," a Garland Tea Party member, reported that she was told by an election official that she could not vote unless she removed her button.  A second election official, Pierson said, did not recognize the button and did not understand why the other official was not permitting the woman to vote.

"According to Pierson, the woman refused to remove her button, saying it was a violation of her first amendment rights, and called the sheriff's office.  The sheriff passed the matter on to the Dallas County Election Department, which failed to act."

I have very mixed emotions about this.  I oppose electioneering at the polls--I suspect most Americans do, but I am not quite sure that this qualifies as electioneering.  The Gadsden flag is not the official symbol of the Tea Party--the Tea Party does not have an official symbol.  If I walked into a polling place with a Tea Bag clipped to my lapel, would I be allowed to vote if I refused to remove it?  What about a Confederate flag on my lapel?  What about an American flag on my lapel?  What about a small picture of Barack Obama, President Bush, Sarah Palin, etc.?  The clue to me is that the second official had no idea what the significance of the flag was. 

Personally, I would have removed the button, voted, left and put the button back on, but I am not sure that that is the right answer.  One of the problems we have right now is that as Americans we are not standing up for our Constitutional rights.  Since the flag is not an official emblem and thus not part of electioneering, I think the woman was probably right to claim her right to wear the button at the polls.

Armstrong Williams has posted an article at Townhall.com detailing the hidden costs of Obamacare that are already impacting Americans. 

The article reports:

"Contrary to the president's assurance, unfortunately, the health care reform legislation is already causing a substantial increase in medical insurance premiums. We are also finding expensive provisions in this act that we did not know were there, including a hidden 3.8 percent sales tax on the sale of certain residential real estate and a burdensome Internal Revenue Service filing requirement on small business."

I don't think anyone who supported the passage of the bill was aware of the real estate taxes included--we don't think of real estate taxes as part of healthcare reform.  Mr. Williams reports that based on anecdotal evidence from business owners, insurance brokers and the media, insurance premiums on policies renewed for 2010 and 2011 are increasing 20 percent to 40 percent.  There are very obvious reasons for the increases.  Insurance companies need to make a profit in order to stay in business.  According to Carpe Diem, the website of Professor Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan, the current profit margin for health insurance companies is 3.3%.  This profit margin ranks 86th on the "Profit Margin by Industries Chart."  That does not represent excessive profit.  The cost of doing business for health insurance companies will be greatly increased by Obamacare--it costs more to insure children up to age 26, it costs more to provide free or low cost preventive care, it costs more to insure people with pre-existing conditions, it costs more to end the limits on lifetime medical insurance claims.  If you want a policy that includes these things, you are going to pay more for it.  If you want a policy that covers you in case of illness or emergency, it would be much cheaper.  Unfortunately, under Obamacare you are not allowed to purchase such a policy.  One size fits all.  Only it doesn't. 

About that real estate tax, Mr. Williams points out:

"If middle-class Americans think they will escape this (real estate) tax, think again. At some point in the near future, inflation from the Federal Reserve printing money to finance the president's huge budget deficits will drive up the nominal price of housing. Even modest three-bedroom homes will sell for big nominal dollars. At that point the middle class will be ensnared with the tax. Look at history. The income tax was originally sold to the American people as only taxing the top 2 percent!

"Pelosi may have unintentionally taught Congress and the American people a lesson. Read a bill and understand the impact of the bill before you pass it. It is unlikely that the Democrat-controlled Congress wanted to pass a medical reform bill that kills jobs and impedes the country from recovering from the Great Recession. Unfortunately, in its haste to control 20 percent of the economy represented by health care, it has passed a "Jobs Reduction Act.""

If you would like to see this monstrosity of a bill repealed before it can do any permanent damage, vote for Republicans this November.  Even if some Republicans have not sworn to repeal the bill, if we elect enough Republicans who have sworn to repeal the bill, we can defund it and get rid of it.

Harry S. Truman once said, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."   That should be the slogan for the Tea Party.  Michael Barone posted an article at the Washington Examiner yesterday detailing the rise of some of the Tea Party candidates.  He lists a few of these candidates, such as Sherron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Ilario Pantano, and Chip Cravaack.  Some of these candidates are running as Tea Party choices and some of them are simply Tea-Party-type candidates.  It is interesting to note that many of them have been characterized by the media (and the old-guard Republicans) as extremists.  Yet, where there have been debates, these candidates have expressed ideas that a majority of Americans agree with.  The problem with the Tea Party candidates is that the usual political operatives who work to make political campaigns successful cannot claim any credit for the success of the Tea Party candidates.  Therefore, you could say that any successful Tea Party candidate is a serious threat to the status quo on many levels--not only in a legislative sense, but in a campaign structure sense also.  There are a lot of people who may have a hard time finding jobs running political campaigns if the Tea Party candidates are successful.

I have been to a few Tea Party events over the past year or so.  They were family-oriented events with a strong message--lower taxes, smaller government, less government intrusion on business. If the Tea Party is successful in putting a number of Tea-Party-type candidates in office next month, I, as a voter, expect to see some changes in the Republican leadership in Congress.  I am not sure whether this will involve a personnel change or not, but I expect business as usual for the past ten years to change.  I want earmarks to end, I want spending cut, I want ideas for helping trim down the size of government to be taken seriously and implemented.  I want our taxes to remain the same (if the Bush tax cuts have not been extended by the time the new Congress is sworn in, I want them extended the day the new Congress is sworn in).  I want to see Republicans with backbones!

We need to understand that as of right now we have a sword of Damocles over our head in the form of tax increases that will be voted on and tax increases that will happen automatically.  In a previous article (rightwinggranny.com) posted on October 3, I listed what will happen to everyone's taxes on January 1st if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire.  Extending the Bush tax cuts does not cut anyone's taxes, it simply allows the taxes to remain where they are today.  If nothing is done to extend the Bush tax cuts, every American will receive a tax increase, and among other things, the marriage penalty will be back and the deduction per child will decrease.  Those two changes alone will raise the taxes for a large percentage of American families.  Those increases will happen automatically if the Bush tax cuts are not extended.  The deficit commission established by President Obama is not scheduled to report its results until December--a month after the election.  Already there are rumors that the commission will propose a VAT (Value Added Tax).  While that may not happen, it is a pretty safe bet (based on the make-up of the commission) that tax increases will be proposed and spending cuts kept at a minimum.

The Tea Party candidates are doing well because they represent a threat to the status quo.  It is time that the status quo was not only threatened but ended.  That is what I will vote for!

In the interest of full disclosure, I have been part of Marty Lamb's campaign for Congress since March.  I have never been involved in a political campaign before, and it has been an interesting experience.  I volunteered for Marty's campaign after hearing him interviewed on the Jay Severin show.  I liked what I heard.  I later realized that before I retired, I had done business with his company and had a positive experience with them.  That confirmed that I was in the right place.

One of the things that I have appreciated in Marty's campaign is the creative ways he gets his message across.  The 'sick of Congress' barf bags and the blue pig labeled 'no pork' that is traveling around the district are two examples of that.  Well, Marty has again come up with a unique (and I think better) way to get his message out.  In a press conference yesterday in Attleboro, the Marty Lamb campaign released the following statement:

Today, Marty Lamb, the Republican nominee for Congress in MassachusettsThird District, announced that he will begin airing a 30 minute interview discussing the important issues confronting our nation, state and communities. Voters need more substance than a thirty second sound bite. In order to give voters a clear picture of who I am and how I will fight for them in Washington, I will be airing a 30 minute interview. This is serious season," said Lamb. "I want voters to know that I have a plan for reviving the economy, reforming the Congress and making health care more affordable."

Voters can tune into Charter TV3 (check your cable schedule) or watch the video on Comcast on Demand anytime by going to channel 888 and selecting my government, then my politics, then US House, and finally Marty Lamb MA 3.  The video is also available on YouTube.  For more information about Marty Lamb, you can visit his website at MartyforCongress.com.

One of the things I have appreciated about Marty Lamb as a candidate is that he is not afraid to say where he stands on issues.  This interview video is an example of that.  We need more candidates who will tell us in advance exactly what they plan to do.

I read recently that the Political Action Committee (PAC) associated with the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) had endorsed Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.  I thought that was rather odd.  I even went as far as to suggest to my husband that he not join or support the organization.  Well, I guess I wasn't the only person who had a problem with the endorsement.

Yesterdau's Wall Street Journal reported that as of last Friday, VFW Commander-in-Chief Richard Eubank has removed all eleven board directors of the group's PAC.  Many veterans had complained that the people the board had endorsed this year were anti-military, and the board directors had refused to rescind this year's congressional endorsements.

The article also reported:

"In a memo Thursday, Mr. Eubank said he would also move to dissolve the PAC altogether at the group's annual convention next August, saying that "the recent endorsement decisions have, in fact, harmed the VFW's reputation and future ability to fulfill our mission.""

I can't help but remember Harry Reid's statement in 2007 when the surge was being debated in Congress.  Aside from the impact it must have had on the military, the statement in essence calls our national leaders liars.  That is not the sort of man the VFW should be endorsing.  Here is the quote via MSNBC News on April 20, 2007.

"I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," said Reid, D-Nev.

That statement from a sitting congressman is a disgrace.  The statement alone shows a total lack of respect for the soldiers serving in Iraq.  There is no way the VFW should endorse Senator Reid.

The Houston Chronicle reported yesterday that many of the court cases in Houston involving illegal immigrants are being dismissed.

The article reports:

"In the month after Homeland Security officials started a review of Houston's immigration court docket, immigration judges dismissed more than 200 cases, an increase of more than 700 percent from the prior month, new data shows."

The dismissals mean that the officials are no longer trying to deport illegals through the court system, but the dismissals do not give the illegal immigrants legal status either.  Therefore, the illegal aliens remain here, but technically they are not allowed to work.  It sends a very mixed message to the illegal alien community--we aren't going to deport you, but we won't let you legally work.  This is not a workable system.

The Wall Street Journal today told a different story.  They reported that:

"In the past two weeks, Texas became the first border state to fully deploy the Department of Homeland Security program, which is scheduled to be rolled out to all U.S. counties by 2013. The program automatically routes prisoners' fingerprints to the department, which tries to determine whether they are allowed to be in the U.S."

"Known as Secure Communities, the program is designed to intercept and remove illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes such as homicide, rape and kidnapping, immigration officials say."

The argument against the program is that it also targets illegals with no criminal record.  At the risk of stating the obvious, isn't being illegal illegal?  Isn't entering the country illegally breaking the law?   I guess I am missing something here.

Finally, CNSNews reports:

"The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned Arizona law enforcement officials in May that Mexican drug cartels were deploying assassins to kill bandits highjacking their drug loads in the Vekol Valley, 70 miles inside Arizona. Then the federal government set up signs in the region to warn American citizens away from this area of U.S. sovereign territory."  

Thanks for the help, guys.  I think maybe the federal government should just start supporting Arizona's border enforcement in any way they can.  This is ridiculous.  This is American land 70 miles away from the border.  Would you put up with the government turning part of your state over to violent criminals?  We need to secure the border to protect innocent Americans.  That is not racist, it is just fact. 

Today's above-the-fold story in my local paper (the Attleboro Sun Chronicle) is entitled, "Selling the sales tax cut."  Included in the article is the story of Robert Gaudette, owner of Bridal and Gift, a bridal shop on Route 1 in South Attleboro.  Mr. Guadette points out that because the sales tax in Massachusetts is 6.25 percent, many brides-to-be come into his store, pick out their gowns, then go to Rhode Island to buy them (clothing is exempt from the sales tax in Rhode Island).  The savings on a $15,000 dress is $937.00.  This is an example of how taxes directly impact businesses.  Not only is Mr. Gaudette losing business, the state loses the revenue from the sales tax because he has lost the sale (due to tax policy).  Since Mr. Gaudette is losing sales to Rhode Island, he may not be able to hire another person for his business,--the volume of business does not warrant it.  If you want to see businesses in Massachusetts grow, support the rollback of the Massachusetts sales tax.  This may force layoffs in the public sector, but those job losses will be more than made up for by gains in the private sector.  The question we need to ask ourselves is, "Do we want a smaller state government and a larger private sector or a smaller private sector and a larger state government?"

The Laffer Curve (see Heritage.org) is a graph that shows that when taxes are cut, economic activity increases, and revenues go up.  Ryan Dwyer at the Washington Times posted an article in February of this year showing how the Bush tax cuts increased government revenue--they did not cause the deficit--increased spending caused the deficit. 

Mr. Dwyer points out in his article:

"By 2003, Mr. Bush grasped this lesson. In that year, he cut the dividend and capital gains rates to 15 percent each, and the economy responded. In two years, stocks rose 20 percent. In three years, $15 trillion of new wealth was created. The U.S. economy added 8 million new jobs from mid-2003 to early 2007, and the median household increased its wealth by $20,000 in real terms."

He also explains:

"But the real jolt for tax-cutting opponents was that the 03 Bush tax cuts also generated a massive increase in federal tax receipts. From 2004 to 2007, federal tax revenues increased by $785 billion, the largest four-year increase in American history. According to the Treasury Department, individual and corporate income tax receipts were up 40 percent in the three years following the Bush tax cuts. And (bonus) the rich paid an even higher percentage of the total tax burden than they had at any time in at least the previous 40 years. This was news to the New York Times, whose astonished editorial board could only describe the gains as a "surprise windfall.""

Another thing to keep in mind is the Democrat talking point that we cannot afford to extend the Bush tax cuts.  We can't "give tax cuts to the rich."  Something needs to be explained (and shouted) here--we are not giving tax cuts to anyone--WE ARE SIMPLY NOT INCREASING ANYONE'S TAXES--IF WE EXTEND THE BUSH TAX CUTS WE ARE SIMPLY KEEPING TAX RATES WHERE THEY ARE--WE ARE NOT CUTTING ANYONE'S TAXES!!!!!

One of the reason the economy is not growing is that businesses are reluctant to hire in a climate of uncertainty.  Because Congress has not yet passed a budget for next year, has not indicated whether it will extend the current tax rates, and really has not given businesses any idea of how their costs will change because of Obamacare, businesses are reluctant to spend the money to hire and train new employees.  If you want to see the economy grow, leave the tax rates where they are, repeal Obamacare, and get the government out of the private sector.

Yes, you read that headline right.  Scott Johnson at Power Line reported yesterday on a lawsuit that is pending in a federal court in Minnesota.  The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenging the fact that Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) K-8 public charter school in suburban St. Paul operates on public funds. 

The article reports:

"Discussing the lawsuit, ACLU Minnesota executive director Chuck Samuelson observed: "The issue with TiZA, frankly, was the incredible commingling of church and state. It's a theocratic school. It is as plain as the substantial nose on my face." As a result of Samuelson's statement of the ACLU Minnesota's position in the lawsuit, TiZA alleged that Samuelson and the ACLU had defamed it, asserting several counterclaims against the ACLU Minnesota for amounts in excess of $100,000 (i.e., an unlimited amount)."

The article reports on the results of the defamation suit:

"As to the merits of TiZA's defamation and defamation-related claims, Judge Frank held that "the allegedly defamatory statements all reflect Plaintiff's belief [that TiZA is illegally operating as a religious school] and TiZA has alleged no facts that would demonstrate that Plaintiff entertains any doubts as to the truth of its statements." TiZA therefore had "wholly failed" to allege facts making out the actual malice constitutionally required to support a claim of defamation by a public official or, Judge Frank held, a public school.

"In asserting its defamation and defamation-related counterclaims against Samuelson and the ACLU Minnesota, TiZA was taking a leaf from the old Islamist playbook written by CAIR. The irony in this case is that TiZA pretends to be a nonsectarian institution; it is this pretense that goes to the heart of the pending lawsuit."

It was also noted in the article that TIZA has attempted to prevent witnesses from testifying or otherwise disclosing information relevant to the issues in the lawsuit.

The article concludes:

"(Katherine) Kersten quotes the Dorsey firm's assessment of the evidence uncovered in the case so far in a letter filed with the court on a discovery-related issue: "The ACLU believes Mr. Zaman's testimony relating to control of virtually every significant event at TiZA, MAS-MN, MET and MET's subsidiaries, coupled with his efforts to hide such control, constitute powerful evidence against TiZA's denials that it is a Muslim school and that it funnels state and federal money to other Muslim organizations." Now Islamic organizational allies of TiZA, incidentally, are seeking to have the law firm representing the ACLU Minnesota removed from the lawsuit.

"Kersten concludes: "Every time we read about this lawsuit, we have to pinch ourselves and say: We're talking about a public, taxpayer-funded school." The pending lawsuit is important, and not just for the result to which it might give rise when it is concluded. Along the way it is producing revelations that deserve attention regardless of the result."

I very rarely agree with the ACLU, but in this case they are right.  If Islam is to be accepted in America as a religion, it needs to abide by the same rules that other religions in America have to follow.  In my own mind, I wonder if Islam wants to be accepted as a religion equal to others in this country or if they are seeking special privileges.

Scott Johnson posted an article at Power Line yesterday that provides some food for thought on the unintended consequences of Obamacare. 

The article quotes Robert Goldberg, the vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest:

"Private-sector innovators from around the world contributed their expertise to the rescue effort in Chile, and the result was nothing short of miraculous. Yet when it comes to rescuing our health care system, President Obama and his allies are hellbent on limiting -- if not eliminating -- the role of private-sector innovation. America's leaders should take note of Chile's example -- and reverse their cynical, government-heavy course."

The rescue of the miners was amazing, but I hadn't really stopped to think about all the different pieces that went into it. 

The article points out:

"Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger observed: "If those miners had been trapped a half-mile down like this 25 years ago anywhere on earth, they would be dead. What happened over the past 25 years that meant the difference between life and death for those men?""

He then examines what happened to make the rescue possible. 

The article quotes Matt Ridley's book The Rational Optimist:

"Ultimately, societies thrive when innovation occurs without much interference and where governments are not seeking to centralize and manage the exchange of ideas and resources according to some master plan. The $20 million spent to rescue the miners will generate greater wealth and longer life for thousands and millions of people in the years ahead. The rescue is a model of how people around the planet can solve problems and improve life if left to their own devices."

The bottom line here is very simple.  Making a profit is a powerful incentive.  If a person can find a way to do something more efficiently and make money at it, he will pursue it.  If there is not a financial incentive, he may find other things to take up his time.

The article concludes:

"Isaiah Berlin wrote: "Disregard for the preferences and interests of individuals today in order to pursue some distant social goal that their rules have claimed is their duty to promote has been a common cause of misery for people throughout the ages."

"The rescue of the Chilean miners was the product of leadership encouraging collective intelligence and innovation on a global scale. In America, an elite is using government to consolidate its ability to impose its grand vision about health care on the nation. Who will rescue us from this fate?"

We have a chance in November to change direction.  Hopefully we will.  President Obama keeps saying that "D" puts the car in drive.  It is not wise to put the car in drive when you are heading over a cliff--at that point "R" for reverse makes more sense.

There were a number of articles about Obamacare on the Internet this week.  Rather than do a separate article here for each one, I will try to highlight some of them so that you can decide which one you want to read.  I apologize in advance for what may be a rather long article!

Politico reported this week that U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson allowed two major aspects of the lawsuit against Obamacare to proceed:  the states' challenge to the requirement that all Americans must buy health insurance and the required expansion of the Medicaid program.

Judge Vinson criticized the Democrats for making an "Alice in Wonderland" argument to defend the law.  If you remember, during the debates regarding the law, President Obama said that forcing the public to buy health insurance was not a tax--it was simply a mandate.  The Justice Department is defending the law saying that it is a tax and Congress has the right to levy taxes. 

The case will go to trial on December 16.  The lawsuit, brought by 20 state attorneys general and governors, is expected to end up before the U. S. Supreme Court.

Reuters also posted an article on the Florida decision.  The Reuters article states:

""This decision is a recognition that Congress has never gone this far and that the constitutional arguments have real merit," Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch said.

"The challenge being heard by Vinson is one of many against the healthcare law. There is a hearing in Virginia Monday on the merits of a separate suit against the healthcare overhaul."

It will be interesting to watch the progress of this case.

Meanwhile, your tax dollars are at work.  Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reports that the Department of Health and Human Services has launched a $3 million television ad campaign to discuss the benefits of Obamacare.

According to Hot Air:

"The Department of Health and Human Services insists that the ads are not political and that the spending is in line with what the agency has done in the past to advise seniors about the open enrollment period for Medicare Advantage and prescription drug coverage plans, which begins Nov. 15. But the ads discuss benefits specific to the Democrats' health care reform law, such as the closing of the prescription drug "doughnut hole," the 50 percent discount on drugs purchased in the coverage gap and the new coverage for an annual wellness visit, Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services spokesman Tony Salters said."

The fact that these ads are running before the election rather than just before the open enrollment period has fueled the idea that the ads are political.  Your tax money is at work!

Connecticut.com reports that the state has given Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield the go ahead to raise premiums by as much as 47 percent for some members, and says health care reform is the reason why. This is an amazing statement when you consider Kathleen Sebelius stated that she would not allow insurance companies to blame any rate increases on the new law.  According to an article I did in September at rightwinggranny.com:

(In a letter  to the insurance lobby,) "she warned that bad actors may be excluded from new health insurance markets that will open in 2014 under the law. They'd lose out on a big pool of customers, as many as 30 million people nationwide."

I wonder what she is going to do to a state that tells the truth!

We won't know until November 3rd which party will control Congress, but it is interesting to follow some of the incumbents who voted for unpopular legislation struggle to maintain their seats.  Congressman Jim Oberstar, a Democrat from Minnesota's 8th Congressional District is running for re-election (as is all of the House of Representatives). 

On Thursday, the Washington Examiner reported:

"First an internal GOP poll showed Republican Chip Cravaack, a former Navy and Northwest Airlines pilot, trailing Oberstar by just three points--42% to 45%.  Then came a couple of surprising anecdotes:  the AP reported a local union nearly endorsed Cravaack, and there was such interest in the campaign that the debate--schedules at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday--had to be moved to a larger venue."

Just when you thought things could not get worse for Congressman Oberstar, it was reported that between June 22 and September 30, the Congressman received only one campaign donation from his district.  Congressman Oberstar collected $233,102 in contributions during that period--from political action committees, Native American tribes or individual donors in other districts and states. 

His story is not unique.  One of the results of an 'internet society' is that the money in elections is now national as well as local.  I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but it has definitely changed how campaign money is raised.  In the past, a candidate who received only one donation from his district might have a hard time getting his message out.  Today, when significant money can be donated from outside the district, that is not a problem.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article yesterday about some behind-the-scenes maneuvering at the United Nations.  Canada's support of Israel has cost Canada a seat on the United Nations Security Council. 

According to the article:

"Canada lost out to Portugal after Portugal's natural ally, Brazil, lobbied Islamic countries with warnings that Canada's vote on Israel-related issues would be no different than that of the United States. Portugal, the argument went, would be more "balanced.""

"...As for Portugal, Israeli diplomats view it as among those EU nations that all too often goes with the anti-Israel flow. In addition to the Arab and Muslim states, Portugal had the backing fo Cuba and Venezuela."

The United States has not been a reliable vote for Israel in the United Nations Security Council for most of the past two years.  Gradually, Israel's enemies are increasing their influence in the United Nations.  South Africa, another nation that generally votes against Israel, has also joined the Security Council.

This is very interesting in view of the fact that the United Nations may establish a Palestinian State in the very near future without any positive progress in the peace talks (see article written earlier today at rightwinggranny).

I have said it before--the best thing to do with the United Nations is kick them out of New York and resign our membership.  What began as an idealistic quest for freedom and peace has turned into an organization that has been responsible for atrocities done by its own peacekeepers.  The United Nations is supported largely by United States taxpayer money.  It's time the American taxpayers stopped supporting this organization.

Congressmen (and women) who currently hold office have (until recently) had an advantage over their opponents.  They had name recognition, could get free publicity by attending ribbon cuttings, community events, and other things to increase their positive exposure to the public.  They also had the advantage, generally if they leaned toward the political left, of having the media on their side.  Some of that has changed with this election, some has not.

My local paper, The Sun Chronicle placed an article entitled, "Taking aim at Mass. pols."  The article deals with the fact that a Political Action Committee (PAC) is giving $200,000 of their money to Sean Beilat and Marty Lamb.  Of course, that is not the way the article frames it. 

The article states:

"A conservative Nevada group is targeting U.S. Reps. James McGovern and Barney Frank for defeat, pledging to pour $200,000 into an ad campaign against them in the waning days of the general election.

"Western Representation PAC intends to spend $500,000 on a handful of races nationwide this election cycle, and said McGovern and Frank are on their hit list for 40 percent of it."

The article somehow neglects to mention some of the facts regarding Congressman McGovern's campaign contributions.  Open Secrets reports that Congressman McGovern has received $420,625 in PAC contributions (they do not list where they are from).  There is a footnote under the numbers: (NOTE: All the numbers on this page are for the 2009 - 2010 House election cycle and based on Federal Election Commission data available electronically on Friday, October 15, 2010).

The article in the Sun Chronicle makes it sound like a horrible thing that the Western Representation PAC is supporting Marty Lamb and Sean Bielat.  I am grateful for their help in both campaigns.  Barney Frank was a major factor in the collapse of the housing market.  James McGovern was a major factor in the snarky way that the healthcare reform bill was passed. 

Congress will be a better place if both of these men are voted out of office.

Let me make one thing clear--I am not opposed to the idea of a Palestinian state.  I will strongly support a Palestinian state as soon as the leaders of the future Palestinian state strongly support an Israeli state.  I see no indication that a future Palestinian state would be willing to play nicely with its neighbor Israel.  In 2008, Israel built a playground that includes a tunnel for a quick escape from Kassam rocket barrages in Sderot because of the danger to children playing there.  Until Gaza elects a government that is not firing rockets at defenseless children, I am not interested in making them a state.

However, there is a move afoot that ignores the behavior of those in charge of Gaza.  According to Breitbart.com (on October 10), France will not rule out the option of the UN Security Council creating a Palestinian state. 

According to the article:

"(French Foreign Minister Bernard) Kouchner told the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam that France preferred a two-state solution to be negotiated with Israel, but said appealing to the Security Council to resolve the conflict remained a possibility.

"We want to be able to soon welcome the state of Palestine to the United Nations.  This is the hope and the desire of the international community, and the sooner that can happen the better," he said."

The Organization of Islamic Countries is a 57-nation organization of Muslim states that has a permanent delegation to the United Nations,  I have no doubt that they would attempt to push Palestinian statehood through the United Nations if they thought they had the votes.  However, as all this develops, I am reminded of a quote from Walid Shoebat (a former terrorist).  He stated, "Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?"   There was never a move for a Palestinian state until after the 1967 war in the Middle East.  I strongly suspect that if the Arabs had been able to hold the land they lost, there would never have been a cry for a Palestinian state.  However, this would not have stopped them from future attempts to take more land from Israel.

I see two rational options for the formation of a Palestinian state.  The first is for the people who would govern such a state to agree to accept the existence of Israel in its present form and agree to live at peace with Israel.  (Right after pigs fly)  The second is for one or all of the Arab countries in the Middle East to set aside some of their land for the Palestinians.  (Also right after pigs fly).

It is ironic that the country in the Middle East where Palestinians have the most opportunity and are treated the most fairly is Israel.  If the Palestinian people were really smart, they would simply declare their land an extension of Israel and choose to live under the Israeli government.  That way they would have a chance at jobs, financial stability, and have a hope of some sort of infrastructure being built to sustain their community.  That will also happen right after pigs fly. 

This year has been the year of the creative campaign.  The influence and emergence of the Tea Party Express and the Tea Party Patriots has injected energy and creativity into this campaign season.  In Massachusetts we have the 'are you sick of Congress?' barf bags and the blue pig (representing government pork) that travels with Congressional candidate Marty Lamb, and in Colorado we have a wonderful ad by Ken Buck, who is running for Senator there.

Power Line has posted a video of this ad.  The best statement in the ad:

"They heard us, and yet they ignored us," Buck says. "And folks, on November 2 they will ignore us no more."

Get out and vote on November 2 and make that a true statement!

This is not an idle question.  WLS AM in Chicago is reporting that Cris Cray, Director of Legislation at the Illinois State Board of Elections, says not all of Illinois' 110 jurisdictions were compliant with the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE).  The act requires that ballots be sent to military forces serving overseas forty-five days before the election in order for the soldiers to have enough time to return their ballots and have them count.

Getting ballots to our military seems to be problem this year.  The article reports:

"Several New York counties including the five boroughs of New York City were found to be in violation of the deadline after the state was permitted by the Defense Department to move its deadline to Oct. 1 because the state's primary day was four days before the deadline.

"The Justice Department settled a case with New Mexico Tuesday where six counties failed to mail ballots by the deadline.

"Overseas ballots could be a deciding factor in Illinois' mid-term elections where recent polls show a tight U.S. Senate race between Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. Republican Bill Brady has an edge over Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn for governor."

This is another reason to vote everyone currently in office out of office.  I realize that there are some good men in Congress, but those good men need to learn how to stand up and be heard.  All military votes should be counted.  If they come in late because they were mailed late, too bad--they should still be counted.

I'm not going to say a lot about the rescue of the Chilean miners other that it was the answer to a lot of prayers and it was wonderful.  My two favorite articles on the rescue came from Hot Air yesterday and the Washington Post yesterday.  The article at Hot Air talked about the shift supervisor, Luis Urzua, who quietly assumed leadership early in the situtation and bears much of the credit for the fact that all of the men survived.  The Washington Post article deals with the role that the faith of the men played in their survival.

The Washington Post reports:

"The Seventh-day Adventists sent mini-bibles down to the crew, highlighting Psalm 40: "I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit ... and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.""

As I listened to the news over the past two days, I was reminded of two other events when the world came together to pray for the safe return of people in danger.  The first was the flight of Apollo thirteen and the second was the rescue of Jessica McClure, an eighteen-month old child who fell into a well in Texas in 1987.  These are incidents that remind us that we are not in control.  I am grateful that God heard the prayers of those of us who were praying for the miners.

This story is based on an article posted at Human Events dealing with MTV's claim that since President Obama's telecast on MTV is not political, there is no need for the station to provide opposing opinions.  The article was followed by another article at Human Events about the audience and the questions being prepared for the show.

The first article states:

"The so-called "A Conversation with President Obama" will be live and commercial-free on six Viacom networks at 4 p.m. on Thursday. The networks will not give equal time to a Republican before the election, according to a spokeswoman.

"MTV denies that the Obama hour of TV is political, despite the timing, weeks before the midterm elections."

The second article explains:

"The good news: President Obama is going to take questions from audience members at a live town hall event on Thursday, October 14. The bad news: You have absolutely no chance of being in the audience, and even if you did, your questions would be pre-screened and written for you.

"...The call for audience members spread online quickly last week. MTV was seeking "males & females, 18+" with "diverse interests and political views" to sit in the audience and possibly ask President Obama a question. Two of my colleagues were completely honest on their applications and listed themselves as "conservatives." Unsurprisingly, they didn't make the cut."

I don't know if this is standard politics or not.  I do know that I am bothered by it.  As I have gotten involved in local politics and have attended local political debates, I have learned that it is not unusual for the candidates to have their supporters ask suggested questions.  That really isn't news--it's just practical politics, but to totally control who will be in the audience and to give them scripted questions to ask does seem to be a bit extreme.

This is a quote from Jim McGovern at the debate when speaking of the fact that corporations can now donate to campaigns (as unions have been doing for years):

"We have a lousy Supreme Court decision that has opened the floodgates, and so we have to deal within the realm of constitutionality. And a lot of the campaign finance bills that we have passed have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I think the Constitution is  wrong. I don't think that money is the same thing as human beings. I don't think money equals free speech. I don't think corporations should have the same equality as a regular voter in this district."

That says it all for me.  At least corporations have stockholders that hold them accountable for the money they spend.  Who holds the unions accountable?  Every year when he takes office, Jim McGovern swears to defend the U. S. Constitution.  Why is he swearing to defend something he thinks is wrong?  My source for this quote is a website called The Other McCain. 

Tonight I attended the Candidates' Forum for representative in Congress - 3rd District, Massachusetts, put on by The League of Women's Voters of Shrewsbury and Worcester.  All three candidates took part in the forum -- Pat Barron, the Independent candidate, Marty Lamb, the Republican Candidate, and Jim McGovern, the Democrat candidate.

There were about two hundred people at the event.  The Moderator for the event was Stefani Traina of the League of Women Voters of Andover - North Andover.  First of all, there was no American flag at this event.  Second of all, when one of the candidates brought up the voting record of Congressman McGovern, the moderator stopped him, calling that a personal attack.  When the audience responded loudly, a discussion of the candidate's voting record was permitted. 

This was not really a debate.  The candidates were not allowed direct exchanges and there were many things said that I personally knew were not true, but there was no provision in the format the challenge the statements made.

The one thing that became obvious at the forum was that there is a clear choice in this race.  Congressman McGovern made no apologies for his record.  He claimed that he has brought many jobs into the district, despite the fact that the U. S. Chamber of Congress gives him a 35 per cent rating.  It was also mentioned that one of the businesses in the district that received government grants also made large contributors to Jim McGovern's campaign.  Congressman McGovern made no apology for healthcare reform or the method in which it was passed.  He also claimed to be a protector of the well being of senior citizens.  This is an amazing statement since the healthcare bill he voted for in the dead of night includes $455 billion reduction in Medicare spending from 2010 to 2019 and has just resulted in 22,000 senior citizens in Massachusetts and two other New England states losing their Medicare Advantage plans.

Marty Lamb stated that he felt that the healthcare reform bill needed to be defunded, repealed,and replaced.  He stated that there were some good ideas in the plan, but that other good ideas needed to be included.  He commented that the hiring of 16,000 additional IRS agents as part of Obamacare was not one of the good parts of the plan.

Pat Barron generally stated that Washington is broken, both political parties are broken, and the only answer is to elect independent candidates who are not part of the 'system.'

When the subject of term limits came up, Congressman McGovern said that he trusted the voters to implement term limits by way of elections.  In other words, when the people of Massachusetts vote him out, that will be the end of his term.  Marty Lamb expressed the idea that the Founding Fathers embraced the idea of the 'citizen legislature' that would serve in Congress for a few turns then return to the private sector.  Mr. Lamb stated that he was not interested in making a career out of politics.

Another difference was on the subject of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."  Congressman McGovern's stand was that it should be repealed, and he supported the court decision to repeal it.  Marty Lamb stated that he would not comment on the issue until the Pentagon released its evaluation.  He felt that Congress (and the Courts) should listen to the opinions of the currently serving military leaders when dealing with the issue.

The choice is rather clear.  Congressman McGovern votes with Nancy Pelosi.  He follows the party line and has a very liberal voting record.  If you support higher taxes and more government regulation, he is your man.  If Marty Lamb is elected, he has pledged to look for ways to cut government spending and government bureaucracy.  His positions on illegal immigration, spending and other issues can be found at his website, MartyforCongress.com.  One of things that impresses me about Marty Lamb as a candidate is his willingness to take stands on issues and make specific recommendations. 

As I said--when you go to the polls in November, you have a clear choice.

In July of 2010 the cost of a barrel of oil was about $73 per barrel.  Today the cost is approximately $83 dollars a barrel.  President Obama said yesterday that he was lifting the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  This story is based on information in the Daily Caller today and a story posted yesterday in the Washington Times yesterday.

The drilling moratorium was supposed to be lifted in November, but it was announced yesterday that it would be lifted early.  However, as usual, things are not always what they seem to be. 

The Washington Times reported:

"Mrs. Landrieu (Senator - Louisiana Democrat) said the announcement does not go far enough for her to release her legislative hold on Jacob Lew, President Obama's nominee to be the new White House budget director. Likewise, Gulf State Republicans warned the new rules could create a bureaucratic bottleneck by being too onerous for drilling operators to comply with, saying it could be several months before their new applications are approved.

""It's clear that President Obama is going to preside over a continuing de facto moratorium for months or years, with new drilling held back to a fraction of previous levels," Louisiana's other senator, David Vitter, said."

These are the people who understand what the moratorium has done to the Louisiana economy and the impact of the new rules.  You will notice that they represent both political parties.  They need to be listened to.

The Daily Caller concludes:

"The irony of the moratorium's premature, but much needed end, is that it may compund negative reaction to the president by placing the drilling ban's impact front and center on the national state.  Additionally, critics are deeply concerned that new safety regulations being pushed by the administraiton in the wake of the ban's conclusion may result in many more months of a "de facto moratorium."

"The case against the government for continually thrusting its untrained hand into private industry is reaching its peak, and as the Tea Party has been emphasizing for nearly two years now, the midterms will most certainly be a referendum on the scope of government."

Again, Louisiana has a better idea of how to deal with offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico than Washington.  One other note--the cost of a barrel of oil has risen approximately $10 a barrel since July.  Meanwhile, it will take a while to get our domestic drilling back on line.  The $10 a barrel increase is going to impact senior citizens who were just told that there is no inflation and that they will not be receiving a Social Security payment increase for the second straight year in a row. 

Please consider these things when you vote next month.

Today Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line about the peace negotiations going on between Israel and the Palestinians.  Mr. Mirengoff cites a recent exchange between administration spokesman P.J. Crowley and members of the press as reported by Rick Richman:

QUESTION: P.J., do you recognize Israel as a Jewish state and will you try to convince the Palestinians to recognize it?

MR. CROWLEY: We will continue our discussions with the parties. I would expect, following up on the Arab League meetings of late last week that George Mitchell will go to the region at some point. I'm not announcing anything, but I -- it would be logical for us to follow up directly with the parties, see where they are. . . .

QUESTION: And do you recognize Israel as a Jewish state?

MR. CROWLEY: We recognize the aspiration of the people of Israel. It has -- it's a democracy. In that democracy, there's a guarantee of freedom and liberties to all of its citizens. But as the Secretary has said, we understand that -- the special character of the state of Israel.

QUESTION: Is that a yes or no?

QUESTION: P.J., it's -- do you want to answer his question or -

QUESTION: Did you say yes or no to that question from Michel?

MR. CROWLEY: Hmm?

QUESTION: Michel's question was a yes or no sort of question. I was wondering whether that was a yes or no.

MR. CROWLEY: We recognize that Israel is a - as it says itself, is a Jewish state, yes.

As to the other part of the original question -- whether the administration will attempt to persuade the PA to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the exchange continued as follows:

QUESTION: ... Does the U.S. want the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state?

MR. CROWLEY: Look, I will be happy to go back over and offer some -- I'm trying -- I'm not making any news here. We have recognized the special nature of the Israeli state. It is a state for the Jewish people. It is a state for other citizens of other faiths as well. But this is the aspiration of the -- what Prime Minister Netanyahu said yesterday is, in essence, the -- a core demand of the Israeli Government, which we support, is a recognition that Israel is a part of the region, acceptance by the region of the existence of the state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and that is what they want to see through this negotiation. We understand this aspiration and the prime minister was talking yesterday about the fact that just as they aspire to a state for the Jewish people in the Middle East, they understand the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own.

This is political gobbledygook.  How in the world can we be honest brokers of a peace process if its like pulling teeth for us to even recognize the statehood of one of the participants?   The peace talks broke down because Israel agreed to continue its moratorium on settlements if the Palestinian Authority (PA) would recognize Israel as a Jewish state.  The PA denounced the idea as 'racist.'  I think that tells us all we need to know about why the peace process failed.

It's time for a new Congress.  Let's elect one in November.

Yesterday there was a parade and celebration of Southboro Massachusetts Heritage Day.  During the festivities I had a chance to meet two of the outstanding candidates running for office in Massachusetts--one running for a state office, one running on a more local level.

Jim McKenna is running for Massachusetts Attorney General against incumbent Martha Coakley.  Jim McKenna was a write-in candidate in the Republican primary on September 14th, where he received more than 25,000 votes.  That number is historic in write-in campaigns.  Jim McKenna has 10 years experience as a prosecutor.  He prosecuted public corruption and organized crime in Boston for three years while serving as an Assistant District Attorney in the Organized Crime Division of the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.

Jim also served for six years as an Assistant District Attorney in the Worcester County District Attorney's office, which work included two years as supervisor of the Grand Jury Unit. He began his work as a prosecutor by serving in the Civil Division of the Franklin County [Ohio] Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

In addition, for the last 17 years, Jim has taught courses on law and ethics as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the part-time MBA program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Department of Management. Last year, BusinessWeek ranked that program 9th nationally. This year, BusinessWeek ranked that program 1st - with UCLA, UC (Berkeley), Nebraska and Michigan rounding out the top five. 

For the last 5 years, Jim has served on the Board of Trustees of Quinsigamond Community College.

His platform includes restoring trust in government by prosecuting wrongdoing, enforcing illegal immigration laws, and bringing honesty and integrity to the office of State Attorney General.  He definitely has my vote. 

Lew Evangelidis is running for Sheriff in Worcester County.  Lew Evangelidis graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a degree in Economics.  He later graduated from Temple University School of Law.  He has worked as an Assistant State Prosecutor in Miani-Dade County in Florida.  Later Lew returned to Massachusetts where he was an Assistant District Attorney in Suffolk County.  He then returned to the private sector.

Lew Evangelidis is committed to reducing the number of repeat offenders to save taxpayers' money.  He will create programs to develop crime, drug, and cyber bullying prevention programs for public schools.  His goals are simple--keeping people safe, ending patronage, saving taxpayers' money and being a community partner and educator.  Lew Evangelidis is not part of the Worcester County political machine and will bring a breath of fresh air to the office of Sheriff.  I don't get to vote for Lew Evangelidis--I don't live in his district, but he is an example of the kind of qualified, knowledgeable candidate running for office in Massachusetts this year.  If you live in Massachusetts and are tired of the 'old-boy network' running things, this is the year your vote could change things.

These are some pictures from Southborough Heritage Day yesterday.

Today's New York Daily News is reporting that state Board of Elections last week informed the Department of Defense that officials in New York City, Westchester, Putnam, Erie and Niagara Counties had failed to send out military ballots to soldiers serving overseas by the October 1st deadline.  The deadline was originally September 17th, but had been moved forward because of the September 14th primary election.

According to the article:

"Senator Charles Schumer said that sending ballots via regular mail can take up to 13 days, so he urged election officials to send them using overnight delivery to ensure that military votes are counted.

"Put these ballots on the next plane to Afghanistan," Schumer said. "There is absolutely no excuse for failing to get this done."

"The state board of elections did not immediately return a call. A spokeswoman for the city Board of Elections had no immediate comment."

According to the law, absentee votes are counted until 13 days after election day.  There really is no excuse for this.  Our soldiers are fighting for people overseas to have the right to vote.  They should not be denied that right due to the inefficiency of government workers here!

Today's New York Daily News reported that New York City police found several blocks of C-4 explosives Monday in an East Village cemetery.  No blasting caps were found, but six to eight blocks of the plastic explosives were found in a black plastic garbage bag just inside Marble Cemetery, on East Second Street, between First and Second Avenues.

The article reminds us that:

"Last year, four men were arrested in an alleged plot to bomb two synagogues in Riverdale and shoot down military planes at a Air National Guard Base in Newburgh.

"The suspects were busted in a sting operation after planting what they believed to be 37-pound C-4 bombs in cars outside the houses of worship."

As of now, what the explosives were doing in the cemetery is unclear.  However, this does serve to remind us that the war on terror is still very much part of our everyday lives and we all need to pay attention to what is happening around us.

The above statement is attributed to Josef Stalin.  It has applied to elections worldwide at various times.  Unfortunately, it has applied to American elections at various times in the past and may apply in November.

Last week, Big Government posted an article detailing the threats to the integrity of the mid-term election in November.  The article connects the various 'dots' that are already in place to undermine the concept of 'one man, one vote.' 

• First Dot: The SOS Project
• Second Dot: The SEIU's Shenanigans
• Third Dot: 11 Million Illegal Immigrants
• Fourth Dot: The Fake ID Industry & Meg Whitman
• Fifth Dot: Voter Registration
• Sixth Dot: Union GOTV Strategies
• Seventh Dot: Early Voting
• Connecting the Dots

The SOS Project is the Secretary of State Project (or SOS) founded by George Soros "to provide an easy-to-use, low-cost vehicle for online donations to reform-minded Secretary of State candidates and incumbents in key battleground states."

The article reminds us:

"In the last five years of its existence, the SOS Project has been successful in getting nine out of 11 "progressive" secretaries of state elected. This includes Minnesota's Mark Ritchie who oversaw the 2008-09 ballot recount* between Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman. [Here are the races Soros' SOS Project is active in for November.]

* In July 2010, an 18-month study by Minnesota Majority determined that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally.  Franken beat Coleman by 312 votes. Claims that Franken, Soros and Ritchie stole the election have been ignored."

The Second dot is the SEIU's shenanigans.  These are well documented and include false voter registrations, fake signatures on petitions, and other activities.

The Third dot is illegal immigraiton.  The article reports:

"It is widely known that Big Labor bosses (most notably the SEIU, but most others as well) are fighting to get "immigration reform" legislation passed so that 1) they can unionize many of these workers and 2) they can turn them into "progressive voters.""

The Fourth dot is listed as the fake ID industry and Meg Whitman.  The timing of the charges against Meg Whitman were brought out at this time for the sole purpose of taking votes from Ms. Whitman in the California election.

The Fifth dot is voter registration.  Unfortunately almost anyone can register to vote.  The Department of Justice as yet has not been willing to enforce the portion of the motor-voter law that requires states to purge their voting roles periodically of people who are no long eligible to vote in the states in which they are registered either because they have died or are in prison.

The Sixth dot is Union GOTV stategies.  The article reports:

"At a news conference in Los Angeles' historic Placita Olvera last week, Eliseo Medina, International Executive Vice President of SEIU and David Sanchez, President of the California Teachers Association announced that they will embark on the 9- city "Por Nuestras Familias - Todos a Votar!" bus tour beginning August 14, with the goal of reinvigorating Latino voter participation and empowering those who do not regularly cast their ballot on election day. The campaign will provide non-registered Latino voters the tools they need to vote and generate motivation among all Latino constituents through a permanent absentee application drive."

The Seventh dot is early voting.  The article explains how this works:

"A couple of days ago, we received an anonymous tip from someone who had visited an SEIU office in Arizona and discovered that the union had allegedly registered more than 20,000 voters and was planning 'early voting rallies.'

"In fact, according to the SEIU-backed group One Arizona's FaceBook page, their first "early voting rally" is on October 7th, the first day early voting begins.

"Then, on October 16th, the group has planned a big 'early voting rally' called ¡AYER MARCHAMOS - AHORA VOTAMOS! (or YESTERDAY WE MARCHED - TODAY WE VOTE!)

"The group's object in holding this rally is apparently to have pro-immigration reform Latinos bring their ballots to mark them 'together.'

"The tactic itself is an old union tactic when mail-in ballots are conducted during union organizing campaigns and the purpose is very simple: To get the voters to vote the right way by doing it together.  In this case, however, there appears to be more than meets the eye, especially if some of the attendees are in the U.S. unlawfully, but are still encouraged to vote."

There is a video of this process in action if you follow the link to the Big Government article. 

In 2004, Hugh Hewitt wrote a book entitled, If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat.  We need to be aware of that concept as we go into this election in November.  Obviously I am supporting Republican candidates, but more importantly I would like to see an honest election.

On Wednesday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about the trial of a Tanzanian man accused in a plot to bomb two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.  A federal judge barred prosecutors from using a key witness because the witness's identity was discovered through questionable interrogation techniques used in secret CIA custody.  At a hearing last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz said Mr. Abebe was a "giant" witness for the government and directly linked Mr. Ghailani to the explosives used in the attack.  The move by the federal judge will delay the trial for a week. 

This is only one of thes problem in conducting trials of terrorists in civilian courts.  There are also serious national security concerns about showing evidence to terrorists and having them share it with their lawyers (who might then choose to share it with terrorist organizations). 

The article points out:

"The danger here isn't just to the case, either.  The DoJ will now go to an appeals court in order to carve out exceptions to Miranda and interrogation limits, which won't just apply to AQ terrorists captured outside of the country.  Those exceptions will apply to everyone in the federal system.  The entire point of this vanity trial in federal court is for Obama to claim that (a) Bush was wrong when he pushed for military commissions (even though Obama plans to use them in other cases) and (b) that American civil courts can handle any kind of case from any jurisdiction, using the same laws that apply to US citizens.  If they go to the appellate court and argue for special treatment of Ghailani and others in his circumstance, it's an explicit admission that those laws don't work in these situations, and that the court was the wrong venue from the beginning."

We are at war with people who murder innocent civilians in the name of Islam.  When we capture one of these people, we need to realize that he is a terrorist and try him in a military tribunal, where secrets can be kept and justice can be served.  We need to remember how we handled spies and saboteurs during World War II and follow our own example.

The previous article dealt with the resignation of Harold Lewis from the American Physical Society due to the Society's support of the false science involved in global warming.  Not everyone has the intellectual honesty to admit that man-made global warming is not proven science.

Reuters reported yesterday that the European Union has reached a deal with the airlines that will allow the EU to charge the airlines an emissions fee. 

According to the article:

"The EU agreed in 2008 that airlines should be included in its emissions trading scheme (ETS), which forces industry to pay for permits for each tonne of carbon dioxide they emit into the atmosphere.

"The ETS is the EU's main tool for combating climate change and it wants to see the system adopted worldwide. Aviation is responsible for some 2 percent of the world's carbon emissions.

"Some U.S. airlines had challenged the EU's right to include their flights into and out of Europe within the ETS.

Does anyone believe that putting a tax (that's what this is) on airllines is going to combat global warming?  Is is time to get out my business card that allows people to pay me $5 for not taking a shower on one day?  Man-made global warming is not science.  It is a scheme to transfer money from successful businesses into the hands of a few powerful people who have set up carbon transfer companies.  If you want to see how this works, look at the stockholders of the American carbon exchange companies and see how many Congressmen you find who are supporting 'cap and trade' legislation (that will make them richer!).  All this charge is going to do is make airplane tickets more expensive for the consumer.  It will have very little impact on anything else!

I apologize for the length of this article, but all of it is important.  The story comes from yesterday,s U. K. Telegraph.  I am quoting the article directly.  There is nothing I can add to the story.

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.

Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence--it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d'être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.) I don't believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer "explanatory" screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind--simply to bring the subject into the open.<

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members' interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people's motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don't think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I'm not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article entitled, A national call to action:  One citizen, one vote.  What a great idea! 

According to an article out this week in a left leaning news source:

""Minnesota Majority, the North Star Tea Party Patriots and Minnesota Voters Alliance plan to spy on your voting this Election Day....

"Are volunteers going to approach voters in line outside schools and fire stations and scare them into showing their papers?

"DFL Party Chairman Brian Melendez smells a rat: Election Integrity Watch is trying to dissuade minorities and seniors from voting. 'There's a possibility that they will keep people from turning out to the polls,' he told MPR.""

It is amazing to see the left accuse conservatives of voter intimidation.  Aside from the obvious example of the New Black Panters in Philadelphia, I was informed of a similar incident in one of our western states.  It was handled well.  There is a difference culture in the west than in the east.  The person the intimidation was directed at informed her intimidators that she was voting with her two friends--Smith and Wesson.  That ended the intimidation.

This is the call to action in the article:

"Inspired by the first ever Beverly Hills Tea Party, the situation is that as Americans we need boots on the ground across the nation at the polls, not only to vote but ready with cameras and video recorders. This is a national call for citizen journalists!! If you are a volunteer working the polls and you see something happen please document and record. Resolute Media Group, Emerging Corruption and other New Media outlets will use social media (i.e. Face-book and twitter) integration to get the stories out that the liberal media will not cover accurately if at all. Text "Patriot" to 90210."

The article points out:

"When America was founded, ordinary citizens used the media to spread ideas and even those who lacked funding were able to find ways of disseminating information. As citizen journalist our role is not to interact or intimidate, but to observe and report. The left should look at this as protecting the rights of everyone and they are welcome to participate."

Please follow the link above to the original article to find out more.  We need an honest election!

I am not a lawyer, so there is a lot of what I am about to write that I totally do not understand.  However, I will try to understand it and get it across.

Yesterday the The Daily Caller posted an article stating that the Obamacare mandate is unconstitutional.  The timing of this article is interesting as in Michican on Thursday Judge George Caram Steeh in Detroit said the mandate to get insurance by 2014 and the financial penalty for skipping coverage are legal. He said Congress was trying to lower the overall cost of insurance by requiring participation.

David Kopel at The Daily Caller has a different perspective.  He states that:

"The Obama administration's stategy has been to try to delay the legal cases as long as possible.  In order to bring a case in federal court, a plaintiff must have "standing"--a personal, concrete legal interest, as opposed to a generalized grievance.  The Obama Administration asserted that no individual could have standing to challenge the mandate until 2014."

Judges in Virginia and Florida have already rejected the Obama argument on standing, as did the judge in Detroit. 

The article states that the matter of whether Obamacare is constitutional is headed for the Supreme Court.  The article then concludes:

"The Supreme Court might choose to invent an "economic decisions" doctrine, and thereby stretch the Constitution beyond its breaking point.  Or the Court might decide to keep the Constitution as it exists, with congressional powers over interstate commerce that are very broad, but not unlimited.  The Thomas More case makes it clear that the Obamacare mandate to buy something you don't want is constitutional only if the Supreme Court chooses to change the Constitution."

As I said earlier, I don't totally understand the legal issues of Obamacare.  I do know that the Massachusetts healthcare reform program that Obamacare was supposedly modeled after has been a disaster for consumers, health insurance providers, and medical care providers.  It would nice to see Obamacare stopped before it can do the kind of damage that Massachusetts healthcare reform has done.

John Hinderaker at Power Line reported yesterday on the resignation of Marine General Jim Jones as President Obama's National Security Adviser and his replacement by political operative Tom Donilon.  This is not a good choice.  General Jones was respected by the military and was a Marine who took his job as National Security Adviser seriously.  Tom Donilon's experience is that of a political operative.  Nothing qualifies him for the job he has been appointed to.

Power LIne quotes Andy McCarthy on the appointment:

"Andy McCarthy, meanwhile, skewers the New York Times' characterization of Donilon as a "non-ideological pragmatist." Of course, to the Times, Paul Krugman is a non-ideological pragmatist. Andy notes that Donilon's boss, General Jones, like Gates, has reservations about him:

"Jones echoed criticisms that Donilon lacked critical national security experience and existed in a lawyer's bunker, his power stemming from his status as a Democratic fixer who has the president's ear -- an ear Donilon routinely fills with "snap judgments" and "absolute declarations" about places he's never been to, foreign officials he's never met, and a military with which he has no credibility."

The article describes Mr. Donilon as a totally political animal.  Please follow the link above to the article to read further details of Mr. Donilon's work experience.  This is not the person we want in charge of our national security--he will do his best to keep the Democrat Party secure and nothing to keep the nation secure.

The Democrats face some serious challenges in the mid-term elections next month.  The economy has not responded in the way that they had hoped, and the Tea Party has energized a mushy Republican party.  What are they supposed to do?  Well, when in doubt, confuse the issue.

This story is based on two stories--an Associated Press story in the Long Island Press on October 8th and a story by Scott Johnson posted at Power Line on October 9th.  Both stories deal with a supposed Tea Party candidate running in New Jersey's Third Congressional District. 

According to the article at Power LIne:

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. South Jersey's Courier-Post newspaper now reports that the Adler campaign recruited a fake third-party candidate (Peter DeStefano) to draw votes from Jon Runyan, the Republican candidate opposing Adler."  

"...Roh's work is deserving of something like a Pulitzer Prize, but I doubt that it will get anything like the publicity it deserves. Roh helpfully quotes one Democratic operative providing the explanation for what has transpired: "The goal was to take 5 percent of Runyan's vote." The AP covers the story here."

The Long Island Press reports:

"The operatives told the Courier-Post the plan was shared with members of the South Jersey Young Democrats, and some in that group gathered signatures for DeStefano - while others didn't because they thought the plan was unethical.

"Republicans started raising suspicions about DeStefano months ago when they found many of the signatures on his nominating petitions were from Democrats, including a former Adler campaign staffer."

There are other instances of this throughout the country.  There are some real questions about a third-party Senate candidate in Nevada and also some questions about a third-party candidate running for Governor of Massachusetts.  The idea is to split the Republican vote and allow the Democrats to win.  It's probably not illegal to run as a third party candidate in order to split the vote, but it is another reason for voters to pay strict attention in this election season and vote carefully.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal reported that the Social Security Administration sent about 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each to dead and incarcerated people.  The good news is that about 41,000 of the payments were returned. 

The article reports:

"The downside:  The SSA says that the stimulus package didn't include a provision allowing it to try to retrieve funds  that were mistakenly sent out, so it can't try to retrieve the rest of the money. Money transferred electronically may be sitting untouched in bank accounts of dead people.

"The combined total of the mistaken payments is $22.3 million.  About $12 million hasn't been returned."

Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma summed up the situation rather well when he said, "This report highlights the broader problems with the Recovery Act itself.  At a time like now, when nearly $350 billion in waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government annually has been reported and our national debt closing in on $13.5 trillion, these findings represent the epitome of congressional stupidity and a total disregard for accountability."

The American government is a very large organization that does not have to make a profit.  There is no incentive to deal with waste, duplication of responsibility, or overspending.  These are not the people that we want to put in charge of our healthcare, which currently works--not perfectly--but reasonably well.  The government is not equipped to provide quality healthcare (or health insurance) to the entire population of America.  To ask them to do that with their proven record of inefficiency is foolish at best.  Vote Republican in November--that is a vote for defund, repeal and replace the healthcare bill!

Boston.com posted an article today about the latest intrigue in the Massachusetts gubernatorial election.  In case you haven't been following the story, Paul Loscocco was the running mate of independent candidate Tim Cahill.  On October 2, 2010, Mr. Loscocco resigned from that campaign and endorsed Republican candidate Charles Baker.  Mr. Loscocco left the Republican party a year ago to run with Tim Cahill.  At the time of the resignation from the Cahill ticket, no specific reason was given for the decision.

Today, Mr. Loscocco released a statement stating that "Cahill, a former Democrat, admitted that one of his top political advisers, Neil Morrison, was coordinating with the top strategist for Democratic Governor Deval Patrick's reelection campaign, Doug Rubin, about ad strategy against Baker." 

According to the article:

"Loscocco said Cahill had committed to him that "we would at all times be in the race solely to win and that the campaign would never become party to any efforts to re-elect Governor Patrick. Unfortunately, in my opinion he did not live up to those commitments and is not now running a campaign fit for the highest office in the Commonwealth."" 

The Cahill campaign has had problems since the spring of this year.  There have been charges and counter charges since then.  On Thursday, Tim Cahill filed a lawsuit "accusing his former strategists and aides of conspiring to sabotage his candidacy by orchestrating Loscocco's defection and giving information to Baker's team and the RGA (Republican Governors Association)."

I can honestly say I have no idea of what is going on here.  I would like to point out that Tim Cahill has been the Massachusetts State Treasurer since 2003.  He was a Democrat until he left the party in 2009 to run for governor as an independent.  Was he a candidate put there by the Democrat party to take votes away from a Republican?  Will his candidacy take votes away from Charles Baker?  At the rate his campaign is falling apart, will he take votes away from anyone?

Stay tuned and get out the popcorn!

On Wednesday, Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article about recent charges by the Democrats that the United States Chamber of Commerce was using foreign money to fund Republican election campaigns.  Apart from the obvious hypocrisy of the charge (some us remember Al Gore at the Buddhist temple, Charlie Trie, and Johnny Chung), there is absolutely no evidence to back up the accusation. 

Paul Mirengoff notes:

"Journolist, or its functional equivalent, must be alive, well, and working overtime somewhere in cyberspace. At least that's my explanation for how accusations of impropriety and illegality against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spread in about a day's time, from the lefty Think Progress blog, to Huffington Post left-winger Sam Stein, to MSNBC, and then to editorial pages of the New York Times and, via funnyman Al Franken, to the U.S. Senate."

Mr. Mirengoff makes three good points about the allegations:

• First, there is no evidence to support the charges.  The United States Chamber of Commerce has stated that it has a process in place to make sure foreign money is not spent on American elections.
• Second, "there is a serious tension between the claim of Think Progress and other leftists that the Chamber's alleged conduct violates the law and the standard leftist talking point that the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United opened the floodgates to foreign spending in U.S. elections. In reality, as Think Progress' allegations of illegality against the Chamber acknowledge, foreign spending in U.S. elections remains illegal."
• Think Progess is saying that even if the Chamber of Commerce is not putting foreign money into American campaigns, foreign money has the effect of freeing up other money for campaign use.

This is an amazing statement from any Democrat operative.  The AFL-CIO has a robust foreign program.  The SEIU has a Canadian division. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has members not just in Canada but also in Panama and several Caribbean nations.  All of these unions collect dues.  Don't their dues free up money for American election campaigns?

This is another example of an attempt to sidetrack voters.  It's not good enough to qualify as an October surprise.  Mostly it just qualifies as a waste of everyone's time and energy!

I attended a press conference this afternoon by Marty Lamb, candidate for the U. S. House of Representatives from the Third Congressional District of Massachusetts.  Mr. Lamb held the press conference to say that the cuts to Medicare included in the healthcare reform bill passed by the Obama Administration are unacceptable.

This is the press release from the press conference:

Today, Marty Lamb, Republican candidate for Congress in Massachusetts Third District, criticized Congressman James McGovern for saying Obamacare "is paid for."

During an interview on April 1, 2010, with "On the Record, "Congressman McGovern claimed Obamacare is "paid for" and it is going to "reduce the deficit."

"The incumbent is just plain wrong.  His statement is just more proof that he will say or do anything to push his partisan agenda," said Lamb.  "I don't think Medicare cuts for seniors are the way to pay this new government mandate."

After the bill was passed, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the new healthcare law could potentially add another $115 billion over 10 years to government healthcare spending, pushing the 10 year cost of the overhaul to about $1 trillion.

Factcheck.org stated the following:

"Obama has also said he has "identified two-thirds of those costs to be paid for by tax dollars that are already being spent right now." But "identified" is the operative word. These savings are estimates and whether around $650 billion (about two-thirds of the cost of health care over 10 years) can be saved remains to be seen. Most of the money would come from Medicare, but cuts in payments to insurers and practitioners aren't popular measures that move easily through Congress."

"Unfortunately, this bill robs Peter to pay Paul by cutting Medicare.  Adding another trillion in federal spending is not a sound decision for our country's fiscal well being," said Lamb.

Lamb fears that the new healthcare law will cost even more than $1 trillion.  "Here in Massachusetts we saw the predictions for costs grossly underestimated.  Worse yet, health insurance costs skyrocketed for the small business community.  We should not repeat these mistakes on a national basis," said Lamb.

The final version of the President's healthcare overhaul legislation contained $500 billion in cuts to Medicare.  These are some of the specifics:

• In a 3/20/10 Congressional Budget Office letter to Speaker Pelosi, the non-partisan office estimated that the reconciliation package would result in a $455 billion reduction in Medicare spending from 2010 to 2019.
• CNN.com's Political Ticker reported, "The reform plan includes cutting the costs of Medicare, the government-run health plan for seniors, by about $500 billion"
• The Washington Post reported, "it would cut an additional 60 billion from Medicare, bringing total cuts to the program to more than $500 billion over the next ten years.

Obamacare is not even in full effect yet, and already there are major problems.  USA Today is reporting today that 30 companies have received exemptions from the provisions of Obamacare.  The Department of Health and Human Services said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead to drop health insurance altogether.

According to the article:

""The big political issue here is the president promised no one would lose the coverage they've got," says Robert Laszewski, chief executive officer of consulting company Health Policy and Strategy Associates. "Here we are a month before the election, and these companies represent 1 million people who would lose the coverage they've got.""

The article closes with this comment:

"The biggest single waiver, for 351,000 people, was for the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, a New York union providing coverage for city teachers. The waivers are effective for a year and were granted to insurance plans and companies that showed that employee premiums would rise or that workers would lose coverage without them, Santillo says."

Keep in mind that all this is happening before Obamacare even takes full effect.  We need to elect a Congress that will first defund this disaster, then repeal and replace it with legislation that includes tort reform, tax breaks for individuals buying their own health insurance, and portability of insurance across state lines.  Remember that in order to stay in business and provide the quality of healthcare all Americans have come to expect, health insurance companies and medical providers need to be profitable.  We need to remember that profit is not a crime.  A vote for any Democrat running for Congress is a vote for Obamacare to continue its destructive ways.

Israel National News reported today that:

"Former United States President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that forcing Israel to surrender Judea and Samaria to the American-backed Palestinian Authority would take away much of the motivation for terrorism around the world."

Former President Clinton stated:

"It will take about half the impetus in the whole world -- not just the region, the whole world -- for terror away," he told an audience of Egyptian businessmen from the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. "It would have more impact by far than anything else that could be done."

Does he think for one minute that the terrorism of the Taliban is about Israel?  Was the Taliban thinking of Israel in 2001 when they destroyed the two massive ancient Buddhas in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan carved into sandstone cliffs?  Were terrorists thinking about Israel when they bombed the Spanish trains or the British subway system?

Terrorism is all that certain groups of Muslims practice.  It really doesn't need a cause--occasionally they will find an excuse to put forth.  Terrorists are a group of people with a thirst for violence and a desire to kill innocent people, they will find a convenient cause wherever they can.  The thing to remember about Muslim terrorists is that if they are somehow successful in destroying Israel, America will be their next target.  There are Imams who have expressed the agenda as, "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people."  America is not immune, and if we do not stand up for Israel and make sure she is allowed to keep the territories that make her a defensible nation, we will seriously regret our actions in the very near future.

On Monday, the Fresno Bee posted an article on California's Proposition 19, which says:

"Should California legalize marijuana beyond current medical use to permit all adults 21 and over to use and possess pot?"

This is an intesting proposition for many reasons.  First of all, does anyone remember that when California legalized marijuana for medical use, opponents said that legalizing marijuana for medical use was the beginning of a drive to generally legalize it?  Well, I guess they knew what they were talking about.

The move to legalize pot is supported by:

• Large unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), State Council and United Food & Commercial Workers Union, also Oaksterdam University marijuana trade school, and California NAACP

The move to legalize pot is opposed by:

• Law enforcement groups, such as the California Police Chiefs Association and the California Narcotics Officers Association, also political candidates and officeholders Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman, Dianne Feinstein, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and also The California Chamber of Commerce  

The supporters claim legalization will raise revenues and avoid budget cuts, that legalization will reduce crime, weaken drug cartels, and create a framework to prevent minors from accessing marijuana.  They also claim legalization will retain employers' existing rights to fire or discipline employees or address pot consumption that impairs job performance.

The opponents claim legalization will not reduce crime--that it will in fact result in more impaired drivers on the roads.  The bill contains anti-discrimination language that could prevent employers from enforcing rules against marijuana without clear evidence of impairment.  Legalization could also lead to private industries and public agencies losing federal funding for failing to meet "drug-free workplace" standards.

The article also lists the people contributing money for an against legalization.  It is an interesting read.

There is one other aspect of this proposition appearing on the California ballot at this time.  Democrats in Congress are behind in generic polls.  The key to the 2010 Congressional Elections will be voter turnout.  Senior citizens are beginning to realize that they have been screwed by Obamacare and are quite likely to vote Republican.  One way to counter that vote is to bring out the younger vote, which has trended Democrat in the past (and overwhelmingly supported President Obama).  One way to bring out the youth vote is to put legalization of marijuana on the ballot.  I haven't seen any polls, but my guess is that most of the population between the ages of 18 and 25 supports legalization.

Politics is a full-contact sport.  Placing legalization of marijuana on the ballot in California during this Congressional election is an example of that.  If placing this proposition on the ballot results in Democrat victories in Congress and the governorship, look for states with a lot of electoral college votes to have similar propositions on their ballots in 2012!

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reported yesterday that beginning in 2013, 3M will no longer cover retirees with its corporate health insurance plans. 

According to the article:

"Instead, the company will direct retirees to Medicare-backed insurance programs, and will provide reimbursement for that coverage. It'll also reimburse retirees who are too young for Medicare; the company didn't provide further details.

"The company made the changes known in a memo to employees Friday; news of the move was reported in The Wall Street Journal and confirmed Monday by 3M spokeswoman Jackie Berry."

The healthcare law was written with incentives for companies to keep retirees on their insurance plans until 2014, but evidently the incentives were not enough.  The law included a $5 billion fund for employers and unions to offset the cost of retiree health benefits. 

I suspect that this is only the beginning.  As more and more retirees lose their healthcare benefits, they will wind up going into Medicare and government programs.  Remember, the healthcare bill seriously cut Medicare funds, just as the baby boomers are retiring.  This will mean a loss of the quality healthcare that senior citizens have previously enjoyed.  The other thing to notice here is that this all takes place after the 2012 presidential election.  This is also by design.

If Americans are paying attention, they will elect a Congress that will repeal and replace Obamacare before it can do any serious damage.  Obamacare is not what we were told it was.  Please vote Republican.  A vote for a Democrat is a vote to deny healthcare to senior citizens.

One of the things that can end a political career very quickly is a sexual scandal--of any kind.  Republicans seem to have learned that lesson only too well.  There is an article in The Hill today stating that "The Ohio Republican (John Boehner) privately told a handful of male Republicans to avoid getting drunk and partying with female lobbyists at after-hour parties on Capitol Hill, according to a July report in the New York Post."

According to the article:

"Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) won't meet with women behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, fearing how staffers and aides could perceive it.

""It was Bill Graham's policy, and if it's good enough for Billy Graham, it's good enough for me," Wamp said."

This policy may seem a little awkward, but I am totally in favor of it.  There is nothing wrong with bringing two or three members of your staff along to any meeting with a member of the opposite sex.  To do otherwise is to invite gossip or worse.  It is a shame that we live in a world where either would be a problem, but the fact remains that we do live in that world.

Billy Graham stated at one point that he would not even walk into a supposedly empty hotel room without a member of his staff.  That protected him from any appearance of scandal or wrongdoing.  That policy served him well--there was never even a hint of scandal associated with his name. 

Congress might be more respected by the average American voter if its members chose to avoid even the appearance of misconduct.

Yesterday I posted an article about the panel on This Week with Christiane Amanpour discussing the fear of Muslims in America.  Yesterday, the Washington Times posted an article about the panel discussion.

The article points out:

"As Mr. Choudary indicated, Islamist "engagement" with the United States is a holy obligation. Last week, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the leading proponent of global Shariah law, held a conference on "Islam and Muslims in America" in cooperation with the American Islamic College in Chicago. OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu called on Muslims in the United States to become involved in all aspects of American life, including local and national politics. The Obama administration gave its imprimatur to the gathering by sending its own small portion, including special envoy to the OIC, Rashad Hussain, Dalia Mogahed who works with the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and Farah Pandith, the State Department's special representative to Muslim communities."

The article further relates the efforts of the OIC to have so-called "Islamophobia" recognized by the international community as a form of racism prosecutable under international law. 

The article further points out:

"Last year, the Obama administration co-sponsored with Egypt a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution against "racial and religious stereotyping," which offered cover to the Islamists in their drive to put any criticism of their religion off limits."

The question eventually will be: Are Americans willing to defend their rights to free speech?

There was something that occurred to me while watching the panel on This Week.  Mr. Choudary critized Daisy Khan because she was not appropriately dressed (in his opinion) as a Muslim woman.  Daisy Khan describes herself as a moderate Muslim who believes in making room for all believers.  Mr. Choudary denouced her as not being a practicing Muslim.  There is another aspect to this.  Mrs. Khan is working to put a mosque at Ground Zero.  In the Muslim tradition, mosques are built at the site of battles to signify victory.  Mr. Choudary speaks of a Sharia flag flying over the White House.  They both are heading in the same direction--it's just that one of them sounds a lot less threatening as she heads there!

Walter Williams is  a professor of economics at George Mason University.  He was the graduation speaker at the college graduation of one of my daughters.  He is also an occasional guest host on the Rush Limbaugh radio show.  He is a brilliant man with a thorough understanding of economics.

He posted an article at Creators.com citing how politicians take advantage of the economic ignorance of the American voter.  He mentions an area of the study of economics called "tax incidence."   This is the study of which people actually bear the burden of a tax when it is levied.  He cites the example of a tax levied on gasoline retailers--when it is increased some of the tax is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher gasoline prices. 

He explains in this article:

"What about the politician who tells us that he's not going to raise taxes on the middle class; instead, he's going to raise corporate income taxes as means to get rich corporations to pay their rightful share of government? If a tax is levied on a corporation, and if it is to survive, it will have one of three responses, or some combination thereof. One response is to raise the price of its product, so who bears the burden? Another response is to lower dividends; again, who bears the burden? Yet another response is to lay off workers. In each case, it is people, not some legal fiction called a corporation, who bear the burden of the tax."  

The way to increase the amount of money that comes into the United States Treasury is not to increase taxes--when taxes increase, economic activity slows down.  The way to increase the amount of money coming into the United States Treasury is to increase the productivity of the American people.  The more people who have jobs, the less people on unemployment, as the number of people working increases, the number of people paying taxes increases, as less people are unemployed, less unemployment is paid.  This helps balance the budget.

The high unemployment rate now is due to uncertainty on the part of businesses as to what their tax and healthcare expenses will be next year.  Businessmen are unwilling to hire anyone until they can begin to plan an operating budget for next year.

All we need to get this economy moving is to elect Congressmen who will get the government's hands out of small business--both in the form of excessive taxation and excessive regulation.  That is the change that needs to be made in order to restart the economy.

Yesterday the Los Angeles Times reported that as of Monday afternoon, the use of state-issued welfare debit cards at casinos across the country and on cruise ships will be cut off.  This decision was reached after the Los Angeles Times reported on the use of the cards to withdraw money in Las Vegas and on cruise ships around the world.  Over $69 million of welfare money was accessed in every state of the United States other than California, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam.  The Times collected the data on this from the California Department of Social Services.

According to the article:

"Department of Social Services Director John Wagner said the move is part of the Schwarzenegger administration's commitment to "rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in these programs" and "to ensure these resources are going to the people they are intended for."

"In June, the state cut off access to benefits in California casinos and strip clubs after The Times reported that the Electronic Benefits Transfer cards worked in those businesses too."

And we wonder why California is going broke!  I am not sure exactly what the solution to the problem of misuse of welfare money is, but I am reminded of how a friend of mine who is a Pastor dealt with street people asking him for money.  He would take them to a nearby eatery and buy them lunch.  He never gave money, he just made sure they had at least one good meal.  In principle, that is what we need to do.  I don't want to see anyone go hungry, but at some point we need to realize that there are people who live among us who do not handle money responsibly.  To simply give these people money with no strings attached is folly.  We are supporting alcohol, drug and gambling habits that are a drain on our society as a whole.  We need to find a way to help these people rather than to subsidize their self-destructive behavior.

"We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

          C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

This article is based on three articles--a Daily Caller article from yesterday, and two Ed Morrissey articles from Hot Air posted yesterday, HotAir, and Hot Air. 

The Daily Caller article dealt with the trash left behind by the crowd.  If you follow the link to their article, you will see one picture--there are other pictures of the mess all over the internet.  Just as a contrast, there was no litter left after the Glenn Beck rally.  My conclusion--the people who attended the Glenn Beck rally obviously had better manners and more concern for the earth than the crowd at the One Nation Working Together Rally.  If you are going to talk to me about carbon footprints and pollution, you best learn to pick up after yourself first.  The conservatives are always being accused of not caring about the environment, yet they cleaned up the area and left it in the condition they found it.  That in itself should be an object lesson for anyone who is willing to pay attention.

Ed Morrissey reported in the first article in Hot Air:

"Nick Gillespie and the Reason TV crew spent some time at the One Nation rally, talking to the organizers and the speakers, and provide some enlightening moments. For instance, ALF-CIO chief Richard Trumka says that the auto bailout was a great idea, but refused to answer a similar question about AIG. Julian Bond says he hasn't seen enough government yet.  Bond does say, however, that the US is a better place since 1968, while Dick Gregory claims it's actually gotten worse.  There seems to be a new reluctance to play the race card on the Left, but it doesn't take Nick long to get Ed Schultz to at least give him a peek at it.    Nick also stumps Mitch Kapor on how government can create jobs, which seems rather humorous since the proclaimed purpose of this rally was to highlight job creation rather than partisan politics."

In the second Hot Air article, Ed Morrissey comments on the elusive goal of unity:

"We have seen systems that created unity, of a sort, over the past century.  They did so by stamping out dissent.  The 10:10 Global video provides an instructional look into how a demand for unity and consensus would work.  Unity on policy can be achieved in small groups, but once one gets beyond a few dozen people where the like-minded can keep out those with heterodox views, one cannot demand unity and freedom at the same time. As F. A. Hayek repeatedly pointed out in his seminal Road to Serfdom about central planning, a popular demand for unity puts people in charge who are most likely to impose it, because it has to be imposed in order to exist.  At the very least, this means that groupthink rather than individual liberty prevails, and usually requires the suppression of dissent, the punishment of the heterodox, and the end of freedom in any meaningful sense."

Unity is not a goal--it is the occasional by-product of good public policy.

Obviously I'm a little biased on this subject (look at the name of the website)!   Hugh Hewitt posted an article at the Washington Examiner yesterday about the Senior Citizen voting bloc.  Senior citizens vote.  In 2004, 71 per cent of senior citizens were registered to vote and voted.  In 2004, 19 percent of the voters were 65 or older.  Senior citizens have life experience, they have gained some degree of wisdom (and some degree of cynicism) in their years.  You may be able to fool them once, but you will not be able to fool them twice, which brings me to the heart of the Hugh Hewitt article.

Last week Harvard Pilgrim Health Care notified 22,000 senior citizens that the company is dropping their Medicare Advantage Plan (remember the promise, "If you llike the health care you have now, you will be able to keep it under Obamacare").  That is only the beginning of the impact of Obamacare on senior citizens.

Last week Gloria Allred attempted to derail the California gubernatorial campaign of Meg Whitman by announcing that Meg Whitman had fired her housekeeper after the housekeeper  had revealed she had defrauded the family with fake documents and was in the country illegally.  What was Meg Whitman supposed to do?  Gloria Allred made the mistake of appearing on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, Mark Levin's radio show and Greta Van Susteren's television show.  All of these people are lawyers and quite experienced in getting at the truth of any matter.  Her attack on Meg Whitman was quickly overcome by facts.

Hugh Hewitt concludes:

"And still seniors see the Grim Reaper of Obamacare coming for them.  This cycle of charge and knockdown will repeat many times in the weeks ahead, but seniors won't lose sight of the key fact of election 2010: Democrats screwed them.

"No sideshow will trick seniors into voting approval for the party that has endangered their golden years."

One television pundit called the weeks leading up to an election "The Silly Season."  We are there.  Unfortunately, the Silly Season for the presidential election of 2012 will start on November 3, 2010.

Today's Wall Street Journal posted an article entitled, "The Lap Dog Coalition."  I checked it out just on the basis of the name! 

The Wall Street Journal reports:

"In the House of Representatives, the 54 members of the Blue Dog Coalition are the self-described fiscal conservatives in the Democratic caucus. Unfortunately, the description doesn't fit."

The Blue Dogs organized a coalition after the Republican takeover of the House in 1994.  The labeled themselves conservative, but loyal, democrats. 

The article reports:

"In their first Congress, the Blue Dogs mostly lived up to the hype (albeit in an economically conservative environment). In 1995, the average Blue Dog's score on the National Taxpayers Union's congressional score card--which measures how well members vote on matters of taxes, spending and debt--was 52%, while the average Democratic score was 28%."

Unfortunately, after the Democrats took the House back in 2006, things changed.  The article reports:

"Blue Dogs' average NTU scores since then (2007), during Nancy Pelosi's first three years as House speaker, were 10%, 15% and 18%--hardly distinguishable from the average Democratic scores of 6%, 11% and 8%."

In a sense, this is a tribute to Nancy Pelosi's ability to hold together the Democrat vote.  Had the Blue Dogs been willing to, they could have successfully opposed any spending and big government legislation put forth by the House of Representatives--they had the numbers. 

This is a lesson to remember in November.  Right now, at this point in American history, there is no such thing as a conservative Democrat.  As soon as any Democrat elected to the House of Representatives votes for Nancy Pelosi for speaker, they are voting for more spending and bigger government.  If you want to reverse the direction of Congress, your only option is to vote Republican in November.

This is the link to the Town Hall debate on This Week with Christiane Amanpour.  The debate includes Franklin Graham, Daisy Khan, who is the wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf who plans to build a mosque at Ground Zero, Robert Spencer, a British Imam by the name of Anjem Choudary and many other speakers for and against the threat of Islam.  It was a very interesting discussion.  There was an element of the discussion that tried very hard to downplay the threat of Islam to America.

At one point, Anjem Choudary, a British Imam, made the following statements within the discussion:

"Islam has a solution for all of the problems that mankind faces"

"The idea that you have moderate Muslims and radical Muslims is complete nonsense.  A  Muslim is the one who submits to the creator.  If he submits, he is practicing."

"If you are a Muslim you submit to the Sharia....I believe that one day the flag of Islam will fly over the White House."

We can ignore these statements or we can pay attention.  Imam Anjem Choudary represents a significant element of the leadership of Islam.  A relative of one of the victims of September 11 kept on saying that she did not understand the position of the people warning about the dangers of terrorism within the Muslin religion.

The dangerous part of this debate was the framing of the Ground Zero mosque issue as a freedom of religion or tolerance issue.  The radical element of Islam was painted as being insignificant and the call for tolerance was issued.  I believe this call for tolerance is similar to the peace agreement that was signed between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain. 

The problem with Islam is that it is not simply a religion--it is a political movement.  Countries that have Islamic governments do not allow freedom of religion and severely limit the freedom and movement of the women within their countries.  Compliance with Sharia law is enforced by the government.  The goal is to create a perfect peaceful society by preventing people from doing anything wrong.  Although that is a noble goal, it is not a realistic one.  Most societies attempt to create law and order.  The differences are in the ways that governments try to bring order.  Dictators bring order through force and creating fear among the population.  Democracies bring order through elected officials who make laws to bring order.  If we want to retain our democracy, we need to listen to the words of Imam Anjem Choudary.  He is serious.

The irony of this whole discussion was that Franklin Graham was called a hate-monger and islamaphobe for stating that Saudi Arabia does not allow freedom to practice Christianity or build Christian churches while the Imam who said that he believed that one day the flag of Sharia would fly over the White House was not criticized at all! 

On Friday, the Daily Caller posted an article by Representative Joe Pitts, who represents Pennsylvania's Sixteenth Congressional District, detailing how the failure of Congress to extend the Bush Tax Cuts will impact taxpayers. 

Representative Pitts points out that unless Congress acts to extend the Bush Tax Cuts, the nation will see a $3.8 trillion tax increase on January 1, 2011.  When Democrat leaders announced that the House of Representatives would adjourn without considering acting on taxes, every Republican and 39 Democrats voted against adjournment. 

In the article Representative Pitts named some of the tax increases coming to average Americans:

• The Child Tax Credit changes from $1,000 per child to $500 per child.
• The marriage penalty returns.  The standard deduction for married couples is currently twice the amount of the deduction for single people.  As of January 1, the standard deduction for married couples changes to $9,750.  It will be $5,800 for single taxpayers.
• The top rate of Capital Gains will go from 15 percent to 20 percent.  The tax rate on qualified dividends will change from 15 percent to 39.6 percent.  According to Representative Pitts, more than 26 million Americans will pay $1,240 more on investment income in 2011.  More than one-third of those Americans are Senior Citizens who depend on investment income to live.  One accounting firm reports that 65 percent of dividends were on tax returns of people making less than $100,000.  One third of dividends were on tax returns of people making less than $50,000 a year.

The expected tax increases will have a negative impact on the overall value of the stock market.  As much as the White House likes to demonize Wall Street, many young people in the work force are depending on Wall Street for their retirement income.  The abundance of 401k plans in the workplace is (among other things) a reflection of the lack of confidence in Social Security.  There are very few major companies who do not have 401k plans.

It was an act of cowardice to adjourn without dealing with the tax situation, but keep in mind that there is a deficit panel that is to report to Congress AFTER THE ELECTION.  At that point, I expect to see major tax increases in many areas.  The only way to stop those increases (and cut spending and growth of government) is to vote Republican in November.  The Democrat Congress has shown that they simply cannot be counted on to control spending or taxes.  They need to be sent home.  If the new Republican Congress cannot control spending or taxes, they also need to be sent home in 2012.  We need to elect people who will do their job!

We live in a representative republic.  The government is supposed to work for the people.  Most of the time that is true, but occasionally, there are problems.  When there is a problem, we have laws to protect the people who reveal it, and our government has an obligation to correct whatever problem has been uncovered.

Unfortunately, the system has not worked very well in the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case.  If you haven't seen the video, you can search for it on YouTube. 

This article is based on a Power Line article posted yesterday which included research by journalists at the Weekly Standard and at the National Review Online.  The article deals with the testimony of Christopher Coates, the former head of the Department of Justice voting rights section.  The question at hand is whether Christopher Coates had expressed his concern about the unequal enforcement of voting rights to Civil Rights head Thomas Perez.  Mr. Coates said that his concerns about unequal enforcement were related to Perez at a briefing on May 13, 2010.  However, Mr. Perez testified under oath that hostility toward race neutral enforcement of civil rights laws was news to him.  

Power LIne reports:

"In addition, sources now tell The Weekly Standard that after 11 pm on September 23, the night before Coates was to testify before the Commission, the same individual, Jody Hunt, sent Coates a letter advising him again not to testify. Only 6 hours earlier Rep. Frank Wolf had sent [attorney general] Eric Holder a letter warning him that Coates was protected under federal whistleblower laws. Jen Rubin contacted the Justice Department for comment. Spokesman Tracy Schmaler's only reply: "The letter speaks for itself." She did not respond to a follow up question as to whether DOJ would take disciplinary action against Coates. Coates could not be reached for comment."

The mainstream media has carried only limited (if any) coverage of this story.  That is a shame.  If we are going to keep our elected (and appointed) officials honest, we need to have an honest and well balanced media.  Right now we don't have that.

I don't mean to ruin anyone's Saturday, but the Boston Herald has posted a list of the Massachusetts state payroll as of March 2010.  I don't want to post details here, but if your blood pressure can handle it, you need to follow the link.  The posted salaries in many cases are quite reasonable, but the actual earnings appear to be out of control.  The state pensions are based on actual earnings, and those pensions are an unfunded liability.

Massachusetts is traditionally a one-party state.  The Democrat party has been in control of the state for a very long time.  It is time for a change.  The Republican candidates (and Tea Party candidates running as Republicans) this year are qualified and determined to clean up the political mess on Beacon Hill.  The Republican candidates who are running are experienced business people who are well qualified for the jobs they seek.  I am not suggesting that you blindly vote for anyone who is a Republican, but I am suggesting that you check out the qualifications of your local Republican candidates and see if you are willing to vote for change on Beacon Hill. 

Yesterday's Washington Times posted an article about a breakthrough in stem cell research.  The breakthrough occurred at Children's Hospital in Boston where a team of scientists led by Derrick J. Rossi published a paper Thursday showing that they can quickly and efficiently transform skin cells into cells with all the properties of embryonic stem cells.

I do not claim to be a scientist.  However, this seems to me to be a valid way to avoid creating and destroying embryonic stem cells in the name of research. 

The article states:

""I think this is a stunning development," said Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical and Dental Association. "People have been saying we have to use embryonic stem cells because we don't have an alternative. Well, now we have an alternative."

"The research comes at a critical juncture in the embryonic stem cell debate. A federal judge put a hold on such research in August after ruling that the Obama administration had likely violated the law by using federal funding for research that involved the destruction of human embryos."

I would like to mention at this point that the ban has never been on embryonic stem cell research--the ban has always been on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.  That is an important distinction--if embryonic stem cell research were all that successful, private funding would be readily available.  It will be interesting to see how the scientific community responds to this research. 

These two graphs are copied from Power Line Blog on September 30.  The conclusion is obvious.  As enrollment is remaining relatively stable, the cost of school employees is skyrocketing.  As the spending per student increases, test scores remain stagnant.  The United States Department of Education officially began operating in May of 1980.  Judging from the graphs below, it really does not look as if putting education in the hands of the federal government has been helpful.

On September 27, a website called Patdollard.com posted an article about President Obama's faith-based office.  The article is based on an article written by Jim Towey for the Wall Street Journal on September 26.  The reason that the link to the Wall Street Journal is not posted here is that it is a subscriber only article. 

The article states:

"... on Tuesday President Obama and his director of faith-based initiatives convened exactly such a meeting to try to control political damage from the unpopular health-care law. "Get out there and spread the word," Politico.com reported the president as saying on a conference call with leaders of faith-based and community groups. "I think all of you can be really important validators and trusted resources for friends and neighbors, to help explain what's now available to them.""

Using the faith based office to push a political agenda is not appropriate.  This is another example of our "Chicago President" who politicizes everything.  The reason healthcare is not popular is that it is bad law that is going to cost tons of money and create a nightmare of bureaucratic regulations (and rationing).

The article at Pat Dollard's website concludes:

"Mr. Obama is within his legal rights to engage our country's spiritual leaders in his effort to sell health-care reform. But he should not use the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships to do so.

"If he cannot restore its focus to promoting successful programs that serve our country's poor, then he should do the decent thing and close the faith-based initiatives office.

"Mr. Towey was director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives for President George W. Bush from 2002-2006."

Think before you vote in November.  We need people in Congress who are willing to stand up and stop this runaway train.

At about three o'clock eastern daylight savings time, Michael Yon posted the following on Facebook:

"There is more unembedded work to do and I am also prepping to go with U.S. forces in Urozgan. Have gotten many pings from British Army to go with Gurkhas. (Same Gurkhas I went to man-tracking school with in Brunei.) Have done some missions with Gurkhas in Afghanistan during a previous trip, but was not actually embedded with their unit. In light of the invitation, it's hard to turn down the British Army, especially so considering the goodwill Gurkhas have always shown me. In that light, 5 minutes ago I accepted their offer. Am going with Gurkhas."

As previously explained, Michael Yon is a former green beret who has embedded with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq since December 2004.  He is self-funded and writes very honestly about the things he sees.  He was unembedded from Afghanistan this year because of some friction with General McChrystal.  His relationship with General Petraeus is such that he is back there now.  I look forward to his reports regardless of where he is in the country or who his traveling companions are.  I consider him the best source on the war.  I will link to the next article on his website when it appears.