Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Bottom Line Here Is That We Don’t Know What Happened

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There are a lot of statements being made about the killing of a young man in Florida. The uproar is not over the killing of a young man, but the fact that the young man was black. The fact that the person who killed him is of mixed racial background (not white) is somehow being overlooked in the screaming.

Yesterday Fox News in Tampa Bay reported that there is a witness to the part of the events that seems to be so jumbled up. According to the testimony of this witness, what George Zimmerman has been saying (self-defense) is true. Meanwhile, the black community is being stirred up without anyone truly knowing what has happened. Why is this?

A young man has been shot. The details are sketchy. Let’s not be so quick to yell racism and hold the trial in the press. That is divisive and does not do anyone any good. What we need to do is pray for the family of the youth that was killed, and those who are in the area need to do anything they can to lessen the grief of the young man’s family. Stirring up trouble does not help anyone. Let’s come together and find out the truth.

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Now The Legal System Has Decided To Play God

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In February, CBS News posted a story about a couple in who received more than $ 21 million in damages because of the “wrongful birth” of their son. My heart goes out to this couple–they have two small children who have severe birth defects. The suit was filed against the doctor who declared that the second child would be normal–a misdiagnosis.

On March 11, the New York Daily News reported that an Oregon couple had been awarded $2.9 million for the “wrongful birth” of their Down’s Syndrome child.

The Daily News reports:

Ariel and Deborah Levy won their “wrongful birth” suit against Legacy Health System, arguing they chose to continue their pregnancy based on what doctors told them, according to ABC News, and would have terminated it if they had not been assured their baby did not have the genetic condition.

I don’t know what to think of this. I can’t imagine the struggles involved in raising a handicapped child, but I also can’t imagine the guilt of knowing you aborted a child because you didn’t think it was perfect. There is no easy answer to this, but I think suing doctors for millions of dollars is about as far from the right answer as you can get. Is “wrongful birth” significantly different from “wrongful life?”

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The Evolution Of A Story

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Yesterday The Blaze posted an example of how a story can be changed after it is posted on the Internet so it does not hurt the Obama Administration. The story in question was posted at CNN Money.

The original story stated:

“As Kermit knows, it’s not easy being green,” the story began. “There were only 3.1 million green jobs in the U.S. in 2010.”

Later, after the revisions, the story stated:

“Kermit has more company lately.

“There were 3.1 million green jobs in the U. S. in 2010, or about 2.4% of the nation’s employment.”

The information has not changed–the slant has.

The Blaze concludes:

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics just released its first tally of jobs associated with producing green goods and services,” the story says (take these numbers with a grain of salt; the administration uses an extraordinarily loose definition for the term “green job“).

“The utilities industry — which includes nuclear and hydroelectric power generation — has the highest share of green jobs, at nearly 12 percent, while the construction industry comes in second at 6.8 percent. Some 5.3 percent of federal government jobs are green,” it adds.

In fact, as reported yesterday on The Blaze, the federal government has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in agency-related “green” energy initiatives.

Which brings us back to the original point: for the amount of money that has been poured into “green” energy, 2.4 percent of the nation’s workforce hardly seems like a fair return on investment.

The whole thing makes me want to see a real definition of a ‘green job.’

 

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Where Did The Money Go?

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Yesterday Bloomberg.com posted an article showing where some of the money that disappeared from MF Global Holding Ltd. under the guidance of Jon Corzine might have gone. There is a memo showing Jon Corzine gave direct orders to transfer money from customer accounts to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The article reports:

Edith O’Brien, a treasurer for the firm, said in an e-mail quoted in the memo that the transfer was “Per JC’s direct instructions,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The e-mail, dated Oct. 28, was sent three days before the company collapsed, the memo says. The memo does not indicate whether that phrase was the full text of the e-mail or an excerpt.

Jon Corzine testified before Congress in December:

“I never gave any instruction to misuse customer funds, I never intended anyone at MF Global to misuse customer funds and I don’t believe that anything I said could reasonably have been interpreted as an instruction to misuse customer funds,”

Whoops! It sounds as if Mr. Corzine has some ‘splainin’ to do.

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Two Very Good Articles On ObamaCare On The Internet Today

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There are two very good articles on ObamaCare on the Internet today. The first was posted yesterday at Investors.com and the second is in today’s Wall Street Journal. The Supreme Court will begin arguing ObamaCare on Monday.

The Investors.com article points how ObamaCare will increase the cost of medical care and insurance for the people who are insured–not actually lower the cost for anyone.

The article reports:

…By 2019, roughly 16 million people out of the 50 million uninsured will be forced into coverage thanks to the individual mandate. Of those 16 million, some 6 million to 7 million will be covered for the first time by Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Medicaid, however, provides very low reimbursement rates to participating doctors and hospitals — only 58% of those normally paid by insurance companies. Medicaid often doesn’t pay enough to cover a provider’s costs.

Under the government’s logic, hospitals and doctors will be forced to raise prices for the insured to cover their costs, which will be passed along as higher premiums. The total cost shift under Medicaid is substantially greater than for the uninsured who fail to pay their bills.

Moreover, the increased cost-shifting phenomenon used by the government to justify the individual mandate will only grow worse as Medicaid enrollment expands due to the mandate.

ObamaCare will totally ruin any part of the medical insurance and patient care system that currently works.

The Wall Street Journal article is entitled, “Liberty and ObamaCare.” It deals with the constitutional question of the individual mandate. The article also gives some insight on how the Obama Administration will argue the case:

Consider a White House strategy memo that leaked this month, revealing that senior Administration officials are coordinating with liberal advocacy groups to pressure the Court. “Frame the Supreme Court oral arguments in terms of real people and real benefits that would be lost if the law were overturned,” the memo notes, rather than “the individual responsibility piece of the law and the legal precedence [sic].” Those nonpolitical details are merely what “lawyers will be talking about.”

Does anyone remember the old lawyers’ joke, “If the law is on your side, pound the law; if the evidence is on your side, pound the evidence; if neither is on your side, pound the table.” It sounds as if the Obama Administration plans to pound the table.

Talk radio host Hugh Hewitt (a law professor and practicing lawyer) has promised to highlight the arguments on his radio show (6 pm to 9 pm East Coast Time). I am looking forward to what he has to say.

 

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Remember The Bridge To Nowhere ?

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Now we have ‘the pipeline to nowhere.’ If this were not so pathetic, it would be hilarious. President Obama is touring the country (on our dime) touting his energy policies (as we approach $4 a gallon gasoline).

Power Line posted a fact-check on the President’s speech yesterday.

Power LIne reports:

The glaring hypocrisy of the president’s speech today is that he announced that his administration would fast-track approval of a pipeline project that the White House has no control over. And if the president has the ability to fast-track permits, why has he waited until today to use that executive authority? And why only for this project?

This administration’s record speaks for itself. For more than three years, President Obama has implemented a three part energy strategy: delay, deny, and deceive.

A story posted by Reuters yesterday points out:

“Despite numerous attempts by Republicans to compel the president to approve the Keystone permit, Americans are still left with a 1,179-mile (1,897-km) gap between the oil resources and this southern portion of the pipeline,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, referring to the full Keystone XL project.

A new Gallup poll conducted earlier in March showed 57 percent of Americans thought the U.S. government should approve the building of the entire Keystone XL pipeline. Among Democrats, 44 percent supported the pipeline, with 38 percent opposed.

Do we really look that dumb?

 

 

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Exactly What Are We Teaching Our Children ?

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Yesterday the Daily Caller posted a story about Fairfax County Virginia 8th Grade Students who were asked to do opposition research on the Republican presidential candidates and then find our where the information could be sent to help the Obama Campaign. No assignments were given to do opposition research on President Obama and send it to the Republicans (although I am told that was added in after the story hit the news).

The article reports:

The assignment was for students to research the backgrounds and positions of each of the GOP candidates for president and find “weaknesses” in them, the parent explained. From there, students were to prepare a strategy paper to exploit those weaknesses and then to send their suggestions to the Obama campaign.

Liberty teacher Michael Denman, who declined to comment, unveiled the assignment in mid-January when he broke the Civics Honor’s class into four groups, one for each Republican candidate. The students were then to collaborate as a group and research the backgrounds of their assigned candidate.

Denman assigned two kids to write a paper revealing the identified “weaknesses,” two to write the attack strategy paper and two others to locate an individual inside the Obama campaign to whom they could send the information.

Somehow, this doesn’t seem quite right. The thing to keep in mind here is that the only reason we know about this is that some parents cared enough about what their children were being taught to speak out. We, as parents, are responsible for the education of our children; and we, as citizens, are responsible for what happens in our representative republic. 

 

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This Issue Just Seems To Keep Going

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Diana West posted her syndicated column on her blog yesterday. The column begins with a warning:

Warning: This column contains news of evidence of possible forgery and fraud in the long-form birth certificate of the president of the United States and – bonus – his Selective Service registration card.

I figure the warning is necessary to prevent Americans, particularly Americans who work in news media and politics, from hurting themselves on any hard, sharp facts that might poke through my discussion of what is surely the biggest scandal to emerge around the seemingly dodgy docs Barack Obama is using to verify his identity.

I refer to the logic- and history-defying news and political blackout of the March 1 press conference called in Maricopa County, Ariz., by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse.

I watched the entire press conference. The information given is very compelling. I really do not know what to think. There is also a video circulating of Bill Ayer’s mother’s mailman stating that Mrs. Ayers introduced him to a foreign student (Barack Obama) that they were helping with his education.

Please follow the link to Diana West’s blog to read her entire article. There just seems to be an awful lot of aspects of the President’s history that don’t quite add up and a number of missing documents.

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It’s Been A Bad Week For Football

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Tim Tebow, a player on the Denver Broncos Amer...

Tim Tebow, a player on the Denver Broncos American football team. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I like football. I’m a Jets fan (except when they play the Patriots, at which time I am thoroughly conflicted). I like Mark Sanchez–he is young, but I think he has great potential if he stays healthy. I have children who are Saints fans. It’s been a bad week.

Football is a rough sport. There is no need to make it rougher by giving out bonuses to hurt opposing players. The punishment levied against the New Orleans Saints’ coaches was appropriate. If there are other coaches doing the same thing, they should also be chastised. If you can’t win honestly, you don’t deserve to win.

About Tim Tebow. The best article I have seen on the Jets trade was posted yesterday at National Review. The article is entitled, “Tebow to Gomorrah.” I think that is probably appropriate.

The article sums it up:

Tebow is a force for capital-g Good in a sport filled with too much bad. And he’s a proven winner who routinely plays at the edge–and beyond–of his athletic ability. The Jets are a sad-sack organization with a Big-Blue chip on their shoulders, run almost entirely on bluster and bad behavior. Their marriage is far likelier to dull the former than sharpen the latter.

Don’t get me wrong. As a pure football move, I don’t think it’s terrible. Tebow would have been a nice piece in any offense–a versatile player (some scouts still think he should be converted into a tight end) who can do a lot of things in the backfield. The cost (a fourth and a sixth-round draft pick for Tebow and a seventh-rounder) was a little high, considering the Jets are in need of young depth, but liveable.

My understanding of Rex Ryan is that he would rather have a football team that runs instead of passes. Are we going to see Tim Tebow become part of a running offense to round out Mark Sanchez’s passing offense? That would be nice. At any rate, for a gang of New Yorkers, the Jets haven’t been very offensive lately, and I would like to see that change.

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Congress? What Congress?

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Big Government posted an article yesterday about America’s military aid to Egypt. Congress has halted aid to Egypt until and “unless the State Department certifies that Egypt is making progress on basic freedoms and human rights.”  President Obama evidently has other ideas. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to announce that America will resume funding Egypt’s military despite Congressional restrictions.

The article reports:

Even Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), a man with whom I’ve never agreed on anything, sees the foolishness of this endeavor: “I believe [sending the aid] would be a mistake. The new [restrictions were] intended to put the United States squarely on the side of the Egyptian people who seek a civilian government that respects fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, and to clearly define the terms of our future relations with the Egyptian military.”

If Congress ever intends to be relevant, it needs to get its head out of the sand and confront President Obama on this power grab. Never-mind that Christians, Jews, and innocent civilians are being killed in Egypt on a regular basis by the government brought about by the ‘Arab Spring,’ this is simply unconstitutional.

Sending military aid to Egypt at this time will do nothing except destabilize the Middle East and make Israel more vulnerable to attack. I think Congress may have figured out that the new government of Egypt is not our friend, but evidently the President hasn’t.

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Why The Mainstream Media Is Losing Its Grip On America

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This story is a few days old, but I think it is important. Big Journalism at Breitbart.com reported recently on the lies told about Apple Computer on an episode of This American Life. The episode has since been retracted, as the charges he made against Apple have been proved false. Unfortunately, his lies were picked up by The New York Times, The Associated Press, MSNBC and HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” I am not sure if the truth has been picked up since the lies were exposed.

The article at Big Journalism reports:

Daisey painted a vivid and dramatic picture of horrific work conditions in slave-labor factories designed to exploit workers for the benefit of Apple and you: the selfish, greedy American who demands your iProducts at a reasonable price point.  The lies were exposed, ironically, by a reporter for another public-radio program, Rob Schmitz.  

At this point, the interesting part of the story is not Daisey’s lies, but who bought his lies and why.  

The media outlets were all too willing to publish and broadcast Daisey’s lies, because it fit perfectly into their narrative of evil American corporations (even one headed by liberal champion Steve Jobs) exploiting the downtrodden and vulnerable of the world (especially people of a non-caucasian race) for the benefit of Wall Street and Wal-Mart.  Daisey’s story had everything the American media is looking for.  So fact-checking was left on the back-burner.  

Compare that lazy attitude with the scrutiny and skepticism heaped on conservative news outlets when stories break about a liberal congressman’s Twitter activity or a liberal President’s law school hero.  There is a stunning double standard that is revealed by the Daisey story that can’t be overlooked.  If a report matches with the template, the dogmatic narrative instilled in year one in Journalism School, it receives the benefit of the doubt.  If a story challenges what “everyone knows to be true” from the Left’s perspective, it is held up to the highest level of scrutiny, if acknowledged at all.  

Apple Computers is an American company doing a fantastic job. Thank God they were able to get the truth out and the lies exposed. It is sad that the mainstream media was so easily fooled.

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How Much Do You Actually Gain From Soaking The Rich ?

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Fox News has a video posted showing President Obama stating in April of 2008 that, despite evidence it doesn’t increase revenue, he’d raise the capital gains tax on America’s richest Americans. Then-candidate Obama used one of his favorite words by saying it would be the “fair” thing to do! So it’s not really about revenue–it’s about redistributing wealth–taking money away from people who have earned it and giving it to people who have not earned it. How does that make our society better?

Then there was the ‘Buffett Rule’–the idea of taxing the rich just because we can. President Obama has repeatedly stated that putting a surtax on millionaires would balance the federal budget and restore “fairness” to the tax system.  Yesterday Hot Air ran the numbers on the Buffett Rule to see what the result would be of imposing higher taxes on millionaires.

The article reports:

A bill designed to enact President Barack Obama’s plan for a “Buffett rule” tax on people earning more than $1 million a year would rake in just $31 billion over the next 11 years, according to an estimate by Congress’ official tax analysts obtained by The Associated Press. That would be a drop in the bucket of the over $7 trillion in federal budget deficits projected during that period.

Just to put this in perspective, here are Obama’s budget-projection deficits for the next four years, from the CBO using Obama’s rose-colored glasses economic scenarios:

  • FY 2012 (current year) – $1.3 trillion
  • FY 2013 – $977 billion
  • FY 2014 – $702 billion
  • FY 2015 – $539 billion
  • FY 2016 – $529 billion

That $3 billion per year amounts to:

  • 0.23% of the FY2012 deficit
  • 0.31% of the FY2013 deficit
  • 0.43% of the FY2014 deficit
  • 0.56% of the FY2015 deficit
  • 0.57% of the FY2016 deficit

This is not about raising revenue. This is about punishing those of us who are successful. That is not the recipe for a thriving economy.

 

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The French Shooting Suspect Is Identified

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The person who shot four people outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, on Monday morning has been surrounded by French police and is expected to surrender shortly. Who is this man?

The Jerusalem Post reports:

French school shooting suspect Mohamed Merah was jailed for bombings in Afghanistan in 2007, but escaped months later in a mass prison break organized by Taliban insurgents, a top Afghan prison official said on Wednesday.

Mr. Merah is a French citizen of Algerian origin. He escaped from Sarposa Prison in June 2008 when the Taliban attacked the prison and freed 1,000 prisoners, including 400 Taliban insurgents.

At what point do we begin to honestly examine the institutionalized anti-Semitism that is inherent in Islam? Is Islam being used as an excuse to kill Jews and people from western countries, or is that idea an important part of Islam? I think we need to answer both of those questions. Somehow the idea that it’s ok to murder innocent people just because they practice a different religion has to be declared invalid by the civilized world. That should be the job of the United Nations, but I am not holding my breath.

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The End Of A Nightmare For An American Family

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Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a building lot near Priest Lake in 2005. They planned to build a house there. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had other ideas. As I reported in rightwinggranny on January 9, 2012, the lot is less than an acre and is just 500 feet from Priest Lake on its west side. It is separated from the lake by a house and a road and has no standing water or any hydrologic connection to Lake Priest or any other body of water. Nevertheless, the EPA declared their lot a wetland and threatened to fine them $30,000 every day that they did not return the lot to its original condition. Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled on the lawsuit that followed.

CNBC reported today:

In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court rejected EPA’s argument that allowing property owners quick access to courts to contest orders like the one issued to the Sacketts would compromise the agency’s ability to deal with water pollution.

“Compliance orders will remain an effective means of securing prompt voluntary compliance in those many cases where there is no substantial basis to question their validity,” Scalia said.

In this case, the couple objected to the determination that their small lot contained wetlands that are regulated by the Clean Water Act, and they complained there was no reasonable way to challenge the order without risking fines that can mount quickly.

The value of this case is that it gives Americans a way to fight the EPA when it interferes with private property rights. Since the EPA is one of the ways some people in our government plan to institute Agenda 21(see rightwinggranny) and begin to end the concept of private property in the United States, this is a very important decision.

These are two quotes from United Nations leaders regarding private property:

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class–involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing–are not sustainable.”  Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit

“Land, because of its unique nature and the crucial role it plays in human settlements, cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of the accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes.”  This is a quote from the 1976 UN Conference on Human Settlement, held in Vancouver, Canada. Under “Section D. Land,” of the Report of Habitat, which came out of the conference. It is from the preamble and speaks of the private ownership of land.

These quotes are from rightwinggranny on December 14, 2011. I am sure the Supreme Court will be called upon to rule on private property rights in the future. The President we elect in November will have a major role in deciding who sits on the Supreme Court. If you value American’s property rights, you will vote for a Republican in November. Otherwise, you may find yourself with a Supreme Court that does not support private property rights in America.

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Sometimes I Just Don’t Like Hearing The Facts

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I am ready to pull our troops out of Afghanistan. If the government doesn’t want us there, why should we stay? I suspect that right now most Americans would agree. But–there are inconvenient things called facts. Marc Thiessen points out a lot of very inconvenient consequences of leaving Afghanistan in a Washington Post article he posted yesterday.

Mr. Thiessen points out five problems with leaving Afghanistan:

1. We cannot conduct the drone war against Al Qaeda in Pakistan without bases in Afghanistan.

2. When American pressure on Al Qaeda in Pakistan is lessened, Al Qaeda can step up its efforts to destabilize Pakistan and gain control of the country’s nuclear weapons.

3. Afghanistan will again become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda.

4. Al Qaeda would claim a victory in Afghanistan and be encouraged to plan further terrorism attacks on America.

5. Iran would be made stronger by our withdrawal.

Please follow the link to the Washington Post to read the entire article. I still don’t like the idea of remaining in Afghanistan, but I don’t like the consequences of leaving either.

 

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Exploiting The Office Of The American Presidency

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Martha's Vineyard - Massachusetts

Martha's Vineyard - Massachusetts (Photo credit: Dougtone)

We hear a lot of attacks on the rich these days–they are accused of not paying their fair share of taxes, of being uncaring, and of just generally being bad people. It’s just awful that we have to live with them. However, I would like to point out a few things about the rich men who recently held the office of American President. When George Bush was President, he gave up golf while our soldiers were overseas fighting–he just felt that it was not appropriate for him to be on the golf course when soldiers were dying overseas. When George Bush went on vacation, he went to his ranch in Texas or his father’s house in Maine. What happens when we elect a President who grew up in the Middle Class? When President Clinton and President Obama were in office, the taxpayers paid for extravagant vacations on Martha’s Vineyard. During the Obama Presidency, taxpayers have financed expensive Hawaiian vacations, vacations in Spain for the first lady, ski vacations for the first lady, and now spring break in Mexico for Malia. Nevermind that Americans are still struggling financially and can’t afford vacations–off they go!

It does seem that the Obama Administration is becoming aware that this is a public relations problem.

Big Government reports:

An AFP story, linked at the Huffington Post and elsewhere, reported on Malia Obama’s visit to Mexico despite a Texas public safety warning, she’s reportedly accompanied by 12 friends and 25 Secret Service agents. The Huffington Post story link now directs to the main page and the AFP item is fast disappearing from view. 

The Yahoo News link now diverts to a completely different story, in contrast to the url: http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-daughter-spends-springbreak-mexico-145031176.html. The headline now reads: Senegal music star Youssou Ndour hits campaign trail.

The story was also reported in the International Business Times, but is no longer there. Aside from the cost of the trip, the fact that the warning was ignored is troubling. Malia is thirteen years old. I realize that 25 Secret Service agents provide serious security, but there is no insurance against being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a parent, I know that even if they were traveling in a tank with an armed platoon as an escort, I would not allow any of my daughters to ignore a travel advisory.

It’s a shame that the President and his family believe that travel advisories and economic restraint in choosing vacations simply don’t apply to them.

UPDATE:

A website called media bistro is reporting the following:

Politico reports several websites have scrubbed stories about the trip from their websites after being asked to do so. A White House spokesperson says:

From the beginning of the administration, the White House has asked news outlets not to report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest. We have reminded outlets of this request in order to protect the privacy and security of these girls.

This is ridiculous. The taxpayers are paying for the vacation and the secret service protection. There is a vital interest–the President is sending his daughter to a place with a travel advisory and possibly putting members of the secret service at unnecessary risk in the process. If the President’s daughter had chosen to go to Florida or any place but Mexico, the story would not have been news.

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The Truth About Oil And Gas Production In America

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Yesterday John HInderaker posted an article at Power LIne about President Obama’s claim that he has increased oil and gas production in America during his term as President.

This chart says it all:

The chart makes very clear that private lands have increased their production of oil and natural gas and public lands have not. Please follow the link above to the article. The article provides a time line of what the Obama Administration has done to limit oil and gas production on federal land.

The article concludes:

…A week ago I was talking with a Republican Congressman from Minnesota who described an encounter with President Obama, in which he tried to explain to Obama that FDA regulations are devastating the medical device industry, of which Minnesota is a major center. After the Congressman had explained the problem, Obama put his hand on his shoulder and said, “There isn’t really much I can do about that. The FDA is an independent agency, you know.”

The Congressman described this as an instance of Obama’s “cluelessness,” but I think he gave the president too much credit. Obama knew perfectly well what the consequences of staffing the federal alphabet-soup agencies with hard-line left-wingers would be. He tries, now, to distance himself from the terrible consequences of his own appointees’ actions, but he is fully responsible for them. The Obama administration has gone out of its way to make you poorer. Anyone who votes to re-elect the president deserves another four years of misery.

We need to pay attention–this matters.

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Letting People Go Hungry Rather Than Taking The Chance That They Might Eat Something Unhealthy

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The New York Post reported today that New York City Mayor Bloomberg is blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.

The article reports:

In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.

The new policy ends the custom of houses of worship in New York who routinely donate food to the homeless shelters.

The article reports:

 For over a decade, Glenn Richter and his wife, Lenore, have led a team of food-delivery volunteers from Ohab Zedek, the Upper West Side Orthodox congregation.

They’ve brought freshly cooked, nutrient-rich surplus foods from synagogue events to homeless facilities in the neighborhood. (Disclosure: I know the food is so tasty because I’ve eaten it — I’m an OZ member.) The practice of donating such surplus food to homeless shelters is common among houses of worship in the city.

DHS Commissioner Seth Diamond says the ban on food donations is consistent with Mayor Bloomberg’s emphasis on improving nutrition for all New Yorkers. A new interagency document controls what can be served at facilities — dictating serving sizes as well as salt, fat and calorie contents, plus fiber minimums and condiment recommendations.

I appreciate the Mayor’s wanting to make sure everyone gets healthy food to eat, but it seems as if the choice here is whether people in the shelters get healthy food or very little food. The government interference in this matter prevents the churches from providing the charity that is part of their mission. The government needs to step aside and let the churches help.

 

 

 

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Sorting Out The Numbers In The Contraception Battle

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CNS News posted an article today which showed that some of the numbers on contraception use being cited by President Obama and HHS Kathleen Secretary Sebelius are simply not true.

The article lists the statements made on various media outlets:

“Nearly 99 percent of all women have relied on contraception at some point in their lives–99 percent,” Obama claimed in explaining why he was moving forward with a regulation that requires all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives free of charge to all women who, in the terms of the regulation, have “reproductive capacity.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius twice made the same claim—without refutation–on national television programs. So, too, did Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter.

On Feb. 10, the same day Obama made the claim at the White House, Sebelius said on PBS’s “Newshour” that contraception was “a benefit used by 99 percent of women across this country at some point in their lives.”

Also on Feb. 10, Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Cutter, made the claim in two separate appearances that bracketed the day on CNN.

In the 8:00 a.m. hour, appearing with Soledad O’Brien, Cutter said: “This is birth control. This is the pill which women have been taking for generations. It is not controversial, 99 percent of all women have taken it, 98 percent of Catholic women have taken it. The debate on this is over.”

In the 9:00 p.m. hour, appearing with Piers Morgan, Cutter said: “This … is birth control, something that women have been taking, you know, for decades, and something that is accepted in this country–99 percent of the women take birth control. It’s a little unbelievable that we are debating it.”

On March 1, HHS Secretary Sebelius appeared on John King’s CNN program and once again claimed that “99 percent of women take contraception at some point during their health lives.”

Despite the constant repetition, the numbers are simply wrong.

These are the real numbers:

According to this National Center for Health Statistics, it turns out that 19.2 percent of American women age 15-44 are not using contraception and either have never had sexual intercourse are have not in the last 3 months. This included 60 percent of the women 15-19 years old, 20.4 percent of the women 20-24 years old, 10.6 percent of the women 25-29 year old, 8.7 percent of the women 30-34 years old, 7.4 percent of the women 35-39 years old, and 8.0 percent of the women 40-44 years old.

It’s time for all of us who vote to put on our critical thinking ears whenever we listen to claims of this administration about Obamacare and any of its related issues.

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The Question Here Is Why The Truth Is Coming Out Now

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Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller posted a story about a Washington Post story detailing what happened during the negotiations on the deficit last summer. As you probably remember, the media story was that the Republicans were intransigent and the Democrats couldn’t do anything about it. Well, it seems as if what we were told was not actually true.

The article at the Daily Caller summarizes the information in the Washington Post:

According to the Post,  the two sides (Obama and Boehner) were close to a deal. Then Obama foolishly trumpeted a “Gang of Six” proposal that had a much higher tax number, which had the effect of making the deal look small. ** He then demanded a 50% increase ($400 billion) in new revenues. When the talks then blew up, he tried to get his old deal back, but it was too late.

I believe the Republicans stated this at the time, but I seriously doubt anyone heard them above the roar of the media template.

Please follow the link to the Daily Caller to read the entire article. It is a great read. It makes very clear that President Obama’s inexperience as a negotiator was responsible for the difficulty in coming together. The article also reminds us that part of the Democrat plan was to raise the age of eligibility for Medicare. I think it’s time to remind the baby boomers of that before they vote in November.

 

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This Really Isn’t Very Surprising

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The Arab Spring is not looking too good right now. It seems as if some of the countries in the Middle East have swapped one form of tyranny for another. It doesn’t seem as if freedom is part of the picture of the governments being formed.

Bloomberg.com reported yesterday:

Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament voted to include 50 of its lawmakers in a 100-member panel tasked with writing a new constitution, with the remainder coming from other institutions.

So half of the people writing the constitution will be Islamists and the rest may or may not be.

The article reports:

The makeup of the committee has been the focus of wrangling over the degree of influence Islamist groups will have shaping the constitution. The Muslim Brotherhood’s party alliance makes up the largest bloc in the recently elected parliament, followed by a Salafi alliance. Salafis are followers of an austere interpretation of Islam.

When we look at this, we need to remember the historic roots of the Muslim Brotherhood. Both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis support Sharia Law as the law of the land. Individual freedom is not part of Sharia Law. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. It was formed in reaction to the secular society that was being set up in Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The mission of the Muslim Brotherhood is a worldwide caliphate. The takeover of Egypt will be one more step in that direction.

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Friday Night’s Document Dump

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Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article on the latest Friday night document dump by the White House.

The article reports:

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has subpoenaed 80,000 pages of documents concerning Fast and Furious. Holder has only provided about 7,000 pages. He has, however, given all 80,000 to his internal investigator — DOJ’s Office of Inspector General.

Attorney General Holder has no problem letting the foxes within the Department of Justice guard the chicken coop, he is just concerned that if the House Committee sees the documents, they might actually do something about what they contain.

Terry Frieden of CNN reported that of the hundreds (not thousands) of pages produced by the Justice Department, few of them are actually related to Fast and Furious. Most of the documents released deal with an incident in 2007, which the Democrats on the Committee are attempting to use to change the subject.

The article reports:

According to congressional Democrats on the House oversight committee, in the “Hernandez case” ATF agents, working with Mexican police, planned to track illegal weapons as they left the United States all the way to their final destination. But Mexican police reported they never saw the vehicle that ATF agents had followed to the border.
 
It is time for the Justice Department and the White House to come clean and release the whole mess to the House Committee. The American people are entitled to know what the truth is regarding Operation Fast and Furious. How many Americans and Mexicans have to be murdered before Operation Fast and Furious is investigated and those responsible dealt with?

 

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