Quote Of The Week

From a Brent Bozell column at NewsBusters on September 22:

“One satirist put this hyperbole in perspective. Fouad Ajami recounted a mock Twitter statement by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, presently butchering his Muslim subjects.“Wow, it’s good that I’ve been killing women and children. It’s good I’ve been shelling mosques,” said the fake tweet. “Imagine what would have happened had I made an anti-Muslim video. They would have really come after me.””

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President Obama’s War On Domestic Energy Production

On Thursday, Forbes Magazine posted an article about the energy policy of the Obama Administration. The article uses the term ‘mean green’ to describe the President’s policies.

The article reports:

You know who the “mean greens” are. They are those curmudgeonly misanthropes who begrudge and bewail humankind’s economic progress and the high standards of living attained in the modern era.

The article reminds us of one of President Obama’s statements on life in America:

“We can’t drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes, you know, 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that every other country is going to say OK … [when we] keep using 25 percent of the world’s energy.”

It’s interesting that the President who made that statement has no problem doing those things. It’s another case of “rules for thee, but not for me.”

Some of the facts included in the article:

Chu’s (Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy) most famous policy goal is encapsulated in his statement, “Somehow we have to figure out a way to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

In his first week as president, Obama rescinded a Bush executive order that permitted drilling on the continental shelf. A few weeks later, Salazar unilaterally canceled 77 oil and gas leases in Utah.

Team Obama continued the assault on domestic oil development, first by adding two million more acres to the 107 million acres of designated wilderness to block the extraction of fossil fuels from those tracts.

EPA regulations already have triggered the announced closures of 175 coal-fired generators over the next few years, plus the cancellation of plans to build new, cleaner plants. Having wounded the coal industry and curbed domestic oil exploration.

…natural gas emits significantly less carbon dioxide than coal and oil, … the mean greens have declared war against natural gas. Obama’s allies in the Sierra Club have headed the public relations campaign, launching a plan that they call “Beyond Natural Gas.”

The Sierra report announces, “We’re going to be preventing new gas plants from being built wherever we can.” More quietly, White House energy aide Heather Zichal followed up with an announcement this summer that Salazar’s Interior Department will unveil new rules regulating “fracking” sometime after the election.

Can America afford four more years of the Obama Administration? Note that the new rules regarding fracking will be announced sometime after the election.

 

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A Case Of Misplaced Priorities

The Obama Administration has become more concerned with its image in America’s liberal media that it is with doing its job.

The Hill reported today that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal got more complete briefings from Hillary Clinton on the attack that killed U.S. envoy Christopher Stephens in Libya than Senate Republicans received.

The article reports:

“I was very disappointed in the briefing yesterday, too. The bottom line is, we asked questions like, ‘How many people were at the Benghazi consulate?’ You pick up The New York Times and you get a blow-by-blow description of what supposedly went on,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Times published a timeline of the attacks chronicling militants gaining access to the U.S. compound after 9:35 pm on Sept. 11, American security forces attempting to retake it at 10:45 pm and American and Libyan forces regaining control of the main compound around 11:20 pm, before evacuating.

The article further states:

“We were told nothing. We were told absolutely nothing,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking Republican on the Armed Services Panel.

McCain said the details lawmakers sought were in The Times and The Journal.

“If that isn’t an incredible disrespect to the members of the United States Senate, I don’t know what is,” he said. “It’s an example of the disdain with which this body is held by the administration, including, I’m sorry to say, the secretary of state.”

“She didn’t talk about anything,” McCain said of Clinton in a subsequent interview.

Senators asked Clinton about the sequence of events during the Benghazi attack. She and other officials declined to provide any specifics, citing an ongoing investigation.

If Washington is broken, part of the reason may be the fact that in an important national security matter, the Obama Administration chose to brief the friendly media rather than Congress.

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The House Of Representatives Has Passed A New Stolen Valor Act

On September 14th Stars and Stripes reported that the U. S. House of Representatives passed a new Stolen Valor Act. The first Stolen Valor Act passed by Congress was struck down by the Supreme Court on freedom of speech issues. The House of Representatives voted 410-3 to pass the revised Stolen Valor Act.

The article reports:

The bill states that those who misrepresent their military service with the intent of receiving something of value would be subject to up to one year in prison. Following the lines of the court ruling, it exempts from punishment those who simply wear military medals or decorations that do not belong to them.

The Supreme Court, in its 6-3 decision overturning the 2006 Stolen Valor Act in June, ruled that while lying about receiving military awards might be contemptible, it was protected by the First Amendment. Several justices, however, also noted that it was established that the government could restrict speech if it involved false claims made to obtain money or other benefits.

I understand why the Supreme Court struck down the first law, but I don’t agree with their decision. I am glad to see the House has passed a new law dealing with false claims, but I still think that misrepresenting military honors or military service for any reason should be regarded as a serious crime. To allow anyone to claim military service or military honors they did not earn is to me simply a further disrespecting of those who have served valiantly in our armed forces. I hope this new bill becomes law, but it is not nearly as severe as it needs to be.

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Why Al Qaeda And the Muslim Brotherhood Are Winning

Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are cut of the same cloth. The documents uncovered in the Holy Land Foundation Trial (if you follow the link, the first half is in Arabic, the second half is the English translation) explained clearly that the Muslim Brotherhood was (and is) in the process of implementing a plan to bring America under Sharia Law and create a world-side caliphate. The plan of the Brotherhood is to do this by infiltrating the American government and influencing policy. Al Qaeda has the same goal–they just want to do it by violent means rather than peaceful means.

Breitbart.com reported yesterday that US Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley was condemned by the Joints Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and relieved of teaching duties at Joint Forces Staff College for teaching a course judged to be offensive to Islam.

The article reports:

Yet the craziest part of all this is that “the course content, the guest speakers, and the method of instruction” for the course was all approved by the the Joint Forces Staff College “years ago.” 

Former CIA agent Claire M. Lopez commented on the state of things: “All US military Combatant Commands, Services, the National Guard Bureau, and Joint Chiefs are under Dempsey’s Muslim Brotherhood-dictated order to ensure that henceforth, no US military course will ever again teach truth about Islam that the jihadist enemy finds offensive (or just too informative).”

This is how you lose a war.

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Some Other Aspects Of The Fast And Furious Investigation

I am sure I was not the only person disgusted by the whitewash of the Fast and Furious investigation by the Justice Department. Since they were investigating themselves, it was no surprise that the culprits named did not include either Eric Holder or his top staff. However, Heritage.org pointed out some facts about the investigation that I hadn’t considered.

Today’s Morning Bell at Heritage listed five ways the Justice Department report tarnishes the reputation of Eric Holder’s Justice Department.

The article lists the five ways:

1. The report singles out top Department of Justice officials for wrongdoing.

2. The report appears to contradict sworn testimony by Attorney General Eric Holder.

3. The report faults top Justice Department leadership with failing to adequately respond to the murder of an American border patrol agent.

4. The White House refused to disclose any internal communications to the inspector general.

5. The report fails to consider evidence that a top DOJ official knew the department misled Congress.

Please follow the link and read the entire article for the details on each charge. I suspect that sometime after President Obama leaves office (either in 2012 or 2016), the truth about Operation Fast and Furious will come out. Until then, the facts will continue to get muddied.

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Governmental Insanity

The Daily Beast posted a story today that illustrates what happens when bureaucracy divests itself of all common sense. The story takes place in the City of Philadelphia.

The Daily Beast reports:

Ori Feibush owned a business next to a vacant lot filled with broken glass and weeds.  The lot, unfortunately, was owned by the City of Philadelphia, which refused to do anything about it.  (In the city’s defense, Philadelphia has always been under tremendous budget strain).  So Ori Feibush took matters into his own hands.  He claims he paid more than $20,000 out of his own pocket to haul away more than 40 tons of debris, plant trees, and put in benches.  The neighbors are excited.  The city, naturally, is very angry and has demanded he put the garbage and the broken glass back where it was.

This is definitely a new level of governmental insanity. The article brings up a number of good points. Does the city want the original trash back or will any 40 tons of trash do? Does the broken glass have to go in the exact same place?

America used to be a place where everyone in the neighborhood would have pitched in to help salvage a neighborhood eyesore. The burden would have been shared, everyone would have been better off, and the city would have celebrated. What happened?

 

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Looking For The Underlying Cause Of The Embassy Attacks

CBN News posted a story today about one of the possible causes of the current riots (protests) in the Middle East. Admittedly, the attacks on they Libyan and Egyptian Embassies were probably related to the anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the call for the release of the blind sheik, but there is another aspect of the story.

Gary Lane at CBN reminds us:

At a recent gathering of his supporters in Beirut, Nasrallah (Hezbollah‘s Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah) called on the international community to adopt a law that would prohibit attacks against any “divine” religion.

Each year Muslim nations, often led by Pakistan, propose that the United Nations pass a defamation of religion law. The United States and other Western democracies have beaten back those efforts.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking before the United Nations, stated:

“We are living through a period of unease. We are also seeing incidents of intolerance and hatred that are then exploited by others. Voices of moderation and calm need to make themselves heard at this time,” Ban told the assembly Tuesday.

“We all need to speak up in favor of mutual respect and understanding of the values and beliefs of others. The United Nations must rise to the moment,” he said.

Read the fine print here–the law the Muslims want would prohibit attacks against any ‘divine’ religion. Who determines which religions are ‘divine’?

Hang on to the First Amendment–it is coming under attack from the U.N.

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The Foxes Have Reported That There Is No One In The Chicken Coop–Only Us Chickens

Fox News reported yesterday that the Justice Department‘s inspector general has released his report on Operation Fast and Furious. Now stop a minute and reread that sentence. The Justice Department’s inspector general has issued his report on the Justice Department’s actions in Operation Fast and Furious. The inspector general reports to Eric Holder–the head of the Justice Department.

The article at Fox News reports:

The report says Attorney General Eric Holder was not made aware of potential flaws in the program until February of last year. But the report cites 14 other department employees — including Criminal Division head Lanny Breuer — for potential wrongdoing, recommending the department consider disciplinary action against them. 

I suspect that some time after the November election we will find out what actually happened. Right now I refuse to dignify this report with any more words.

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More Under The Radar

The New York Post is reporting today that the Obama Administration is in negotiations with the new government of Egypt to release the blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman to Egypt as a gift to the new government of Egypt. The Obama Administration denies that this is the case, but the story can be found on at least two reliable internet sources that I am aware of. As I am sure you remember, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman was responsible for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

The New York Post reports:

His incarceration was the subject of Arabic-language message-board rants two days before protesters stormed the US Embassy in Cairo and later killed the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, according to a Department of Homeland Security report obtained by Fox News.

They wrote he should be released, “even if it requires burning the embassy down with everyone in it.”

King and other congressional Republicans sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying, “The release of Abdel-Rahman or any terrorist who plots to kill innocent Americans would be seen for what it is: a sign of weakness and a lack of resolve by the United States and its president.”

I will bet anyone a steak dinner that sometime after the election, when the Obama Administration thinks no one is looking, the Blind Sheik will be sent back to Egypt. It may be framed as a compassionate move, as the Sheik is elderly, but he will be sent back to Egypt.

Please consider this when you vote in November.

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Let’s Stop A Minute And Think About This

France 24 posted an article today stating that France will close 20 embassies across the Muslim world on Friday after French weekly Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed naked. Now wait a minute. I’m really not into naked pictures of Mohammed, but what is going on here? Did anyone notice that there were no riots after the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ” was released? That movie was certainly as obnoxious to Christians as naked cartoons of Mohammed would be to Muslims.There were some peaceful protests, as allowed by American law, but no one was killed.

At some point you have to ask, “Is the problem the film, pictures, cartoon, or whatever the current medium is, or is the problem with the protesters?” There is nothing wrong with gathering in a group carrying signs expressing your opinion–killing people, however, is another matter. I recently heard an interview where someone who had spent considerable time in Iran talked about students who were called and told to be at a specific place for a spontaneous protest. I don’t even have a problem with that (provided they are peaceful protests). I wonder if part of the reason that protests seem to get out of hand in Muslim countries is that the right of protest is not universally guaranteed–protests are organized by the government or groups opposing the government and seem to be designed to get out of hand.  A spontaneous protest in a Muslim country is generally not allowed.

Over the years, Muslim leaders have mastered the art of propaganda. They have painted Israel as an apartheid state when Arabs in Israel have more freedom in Israel than they do in Muslim countries. The protests we are seeing are a part of that propaganda war. The protests are designed to make the western countries open to a concept found in Sharia Law–disrespecting Mohammed is punishable by death. The theory is that as violent protests follow any perceived slight to Mohammed or the Koran, the west will be intimidated into curtailing free speech in western countries. This is the beginning of the path to Sharia Law.

As western countries, we need to learn to condemn the people who commit violence–regardless of the perceived cause. Bad behavior needs to have consequences. Otherwise we will continue to see more of it.

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Under The Radar In The Obama Administration

One of the aspects of the Obama Administration has been the increase in the power of the Environmental Protection Agency. That increase in power and regulations is having an impact on the coal industry.

CBN News reported today that Alpha Natural Resources announced it is shutting down eight mines in Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. This will result in the loss of 1,200 jobs.

The article reports:

“Since the Obama administration has been in, things have been tough on the coal economy,” one West Virginia coal miner said. “It just keeps going downhill, and without it West Virginia will be one state that won’t make it.”

In July 2012, Breitbart.com quoted a statement by President Obama about coal:

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.

It’s just that it will bankrupt them.

It seems that this is one promise the President has kept.

CBN News reports:

Miners owners argue they can’t afford to make the necessary changes in the amount of time they’re given. That has resulted in layoffs or mines simply shutting down.

If you are naive enough to believe that this does not affect you, think again. Between one-third and half of America’s electricity comes from coal. If too many coal mines shut down, the amount of electricity available to Americans will decrease. Coal plants need to be given the amount of time they need to convert to clean coal. The Obama Administration’s coal policy is hurting jobs and will eventually hurt consumers of electricity.

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Doesn’t Anyone Have Any Common Sense ?

Yesterday’s Providence Journal reported that a mother who is a single parent contacted the ACLU because her daughter was not able to attend a father-daughter dance the school was having. The Cranston School Department has now banned traditional “father-daughter” and “mother-son” activities, saying they violate state law.

The article reports:

Supt. Judith Lundsten said the move was triggered by a letter ifrom the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a single mom who had complained that her daughter had not been able to attend her father-daughter dance.

Lundsten said school attorneys found while federal Title IX legislation banning gender discrimination gives an exemption for “father-son” and “mother-daughter” events, Rhode Island law doesn’t.

This is the place where common sense would be useful. One of my daughters is a military wife. When her daughter’s school had a father-daughter dance at a time when my son-in-law was in Afghanistan, another father who was going with his daughter simply stepped in and added my granddaughter to his family for the night. I think rather than rain on everyone else’s parade, the answer would be to find a male friend willing to stand in for the night. Why did this single parent feel the need to spoil the fun for the other children and parents?

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The Mess In The Middle East Explained

Yesterday Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at PJMedia that beautifully sums up what is happening in the Middle East and the thought processes responsible for these events. The article lists five points that explain the situation. Please follow the link above to read the entire article, but I will attempt to summarize it here.

In debunking the myth that a video caused the current uprisings, Mr. Hanson states:

The opportunities for Muslims in the Middle East to be outraged at the West in general and the U.S. in particular are legion. You, Mr. Obama, the most powerful of all Americans, must remember that these totems are mere tools of an al-Qaeda, a Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic Jihad — or whatever the particular aggrieved party calls itself this week. They are no more than crude pretexts to direct fury among their ignorant and impoverished masses at opportune times against the United States, and thereby gain power.

In that regard, each time we castigate a Rushdie, a Danish cartoonist, a U.S. soldier, or a nut like Terry Jones, we simply play into the hands of the Islamists. The latter are thrilled when American grandees look weak, desperate, and only too eager to fall over themselves in undermining their own singular Constitution and distancing themselves from their own values. Far better it would be to say, one time — and only one time: “We cherish and protect freedom of expression and abhor censorship and violence; if that bothers you, it bothers you.” End of story.

In describing the sources of Islamic anger, Mr. Hanson points to the concept of scapegoating. Leaders of Islamic countries continually blame the west and the Israelis for their poverty. The fact that the leaders of these countries are getting rich while their people starve is an inconvenient fact that the leaders are hoping the people won’t notice.

Mr. Hanson points out that agreeing with Islamists that we are the cause (or source) for their problems or anger simply encourages them to double down on scapegoating us. He sums up President Obama’s policies:

The entire subtext of Obama’s outreach narratives (made explicitly in his al Arabiya interview) is that his own unique pedigree and worldview have exempted him from American pathologies and thus culpability for them. In the alternate brain chemistry of the Obamites, there is no contradiction between worldwide Islamist vows to kill our diplomats or burn embassies and Obama’s much-vaunted boasts of restoring American popularity abroad. The derangement goes like this: those who hate America are mistakenly still mad at the old Bush America and have not yet evolved to duly appreciate the new Obama America. In other words, the vestiges of right-wing extremism still confuses those abroad, who have not yet caught on that America is on their side.

We have seen how successful that idea is.

Mr. Hanson concludes:

With the implosion of the Middle East comes the end of the mythic foreign policy of Barack Obama. Just as Russia was not reset and our enemies did not become friends, so, too, the fantasy that Barack Obama’s name, race, and lineage, when coupled with leftist politics, would win over our Middle East never arrived. All that failed — failed not just for America, but for the Nobel laureate himself. In that regard, Obama’s entire four-year project has failed: $5 trillion of borrowed stimulus did not jump-start the economy; only more federal debt and bankruptcy followed “solar and wind and millions of green jobs,” as vast new finds of oil and gas on public lands were ignored, while gas hit $4 a gallon. The problem for supporters of Obamacare is not to implement, but how to junk, this boondoggle without loss of face. Government Motors and the Volt went nowhere, and appointees like Eric Holder, Kathleen Sebelius, Timothy Geithner, and Janet Napolitano proved embarrassments. Now we are left with the Federal Reserve desperately printing money before the election.

There was human frenzy in 2008 that entranced millions, and now we will be paying for the wages of that madness for quite some time.

Some things to remember when you vote in November.

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Watch The Media Play Trivial Pursuit Today

Just in case you hadn’t noticed, there is a crisis in the Arab world. American Embassies are being attacked and American soldiers are dying. Because that crisis seems to be related to American foreign policy (and President Obama), the press would rather look the other way. So where are they looking? They are going after a presidential candidate who told the truth.

The following quote from good reads applies to America today:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
Alexis de Tocqueville

The New York Times reported on a video clip of Governor Romney obtained by Mother Jones:

In one clip, Mr. Romney describes how his campaign would not try to appeal to “47 percent of the people” who will vote for Mr. Obama “no matter what.” They are, he says, “dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.”

He says those people “pay no income tax,” and “so our message of low taxes doesn’t connect.” Mr. Romney adds: “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

I am sorry the New York Times is so offended by this remark. I tend to agree with it. Everyone in America needs to pay income taxes. The free ride for those who pay no taxes and receive money from the government has to end. I think Mitt Romney told the truth. It is unfortunate that we have evidently reached the point in the presidential campaign where telling the truth is not a good idea.

As you listen to the news today, understand that the Romney story and the timing of the release of it is an October surprise designed to take attention away from the crisis in the Middle East. You have the choice of whether or not to be manipulated by the press.

 

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This Is Not Right–But It’s Not A Surprise

Today’s Daily Caller posted a story about Eric Holder‘s Justice Department collaborating with Media Matters to control press coverage on some of the scandals within the department. The information in the story was obtained through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests.

The article states:

Dozens of pages of emails between DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers show Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, working with Media Matters to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals. TheDC obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Two of the main cases discussed in the article are the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case in Philadelphia and Operation Fast and Furious. In both cases Media Matters was asked to attack the people investigating the scandals or the people attempting to inform the American public. The goal was to make sure the American people never learned the truth in either case.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is worth reading. This is the kind of story that explains why the mainstream media is dying and the alternative media is growing. It is obvious that there was very little truth in what was reported by the mainstream media.

 

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What Has Happened To America?

This is a picture of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula being led away from his house in California to be questioned by federal officials. Mr. Nakoula is said to be the person who created the anti-Islam film that is incorrectly being blamed for the current riots in the Middle East. This picture is from Power Line.

The picture is disturbing.

On Saturday, the Christian Science Monitor reported:

Just after midnight Saturday morning – his face and head covered – a man identified as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was taken from his home in Cerritos, Calif., by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies for what law enforcement officials described as a “voluntary interview.”

Do the police routinely come to anyone’s house in the middle of the night for a ‘voluntary interview’? To be fair, Mr. Nakoula was on probation for a crime involving the Internet and was not supposed to use the Internet. However, this does seem a bit like using an atomic bomb to swat a fly. We do have free speech in America, don’t we?

 

 

Another Reason To Repeal Obamacare

On Wednesday Fox News posted an article explaining the impact Obamacare will have on hospitals and hospital care for senior citizens. I will admit that as a senior citizen I have a vested interest in this battle, but someday everyone who is voting in November will be a senior citizen. Their well being may one day depend on their vote.

The article reports:

Under ObamaCare, hospitals, hospice care, dialysis centers, and nursing homes will be paid less to care for the same number of seniors than if the health law had not been  enacted. Payments to doctors will also be cut.

Scientific evidence published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a leading scientific journal, suggests that forcing hospitals to spend less on elderly patients will produce deadly results.

The article points out that slashing the amount of money hospitals are paid does not end fraud and waste–it simply forces hospitals to cut back on staff and equipment. This is not the quality medical system that Americans have come to expect.

The article concludes:

Medicare is the single largest source of revenue for hospitals. Richard Foster, Chief Actuary of Medicare and Medicaid Services, testified to Congress that the ObamaCare cuts will eventually force 40% of hospitals to operate at a loss, affecting the standard of care. Foster also cautioned that 15% of hospitals may stop accepting Medicare.

There are safer ways to control Medicare costs, including inching up the eligibility age, asking seniors to pay an affordable share of their bills, preventing hospital infections, and empowering patients to be cost-conscious consumers. Of course, politicians will try to claim that the easy answer — slashing payments to hospitals — won’t hurt patients,  but the evidence shows that’s untrue.

It’s time to repeal and replace.

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Adding Insult To Injury

On September 4th I posted a story about the Massachusetts taxpayers being required to pay for a sex change operation for Robert, now Michelle, Kosilek, who murdered his wife in 1990.

Today the Boston Herald reported that U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf has ruled that the taxpayers of Massachusetts should also reimburse Michelle Lynne Kosilek for years of legal bills.

The article concludes:

Kosilek has survived two suicide attempts and has threatened to castrate himself over his gender distress, according to Wolf, who ruled that sex-reassignment surgery was the only remedy for Kosilek’s “serious medical need.”

It was not immediately clear how far back Kosilek’s lawyers are eligible to recover costs and fees. He has been suing the DOC for surgery since 2000.

I am sorry that Michelle Kosilek is so emotionally messed up. I am sorry that he killed his wife in cold blood, but it seems as if things are getting a little out of hand here. A person in the private sector would have to pay for this surgery themselves, why in the world are the taxpayers paying for the surgery and the court costs?

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Training Exercise In The Middle East

The U. K. Telegraph posted a story yesterday stating:

Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.

Approximately 35 percent of the world’s oil that is transported by sea travels through the Strait of Hormuz (approximately 18 million barrels of oil every day). The theory is that if Iran is attacked, it will immediately move to close the Strait. America will be able to get some of its oil from Canada, but Europe will be very hard hit if the Straits are closed. Closing the Straits would have a devastating impact on the economy of the entire world.

The article reports:

In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise.

The article presents a rather detailed picture of the operation and what it is designed to prevent.

There are differing opinions as to when and if Israel will attack Iran. Obviously, Israel cannot afford to let Iran produce a working nuclear weapon–even if Iran chose not to use the weapon against Israel (a major question in the discussion), the possession of nuclear weapons by Iran would seriously change the balance of power in the Middle East. A Shiite nation, Iran, would have a bomb to use against the Sunni nations in the area (such as Saudi Arabia). Even though much of the Middle East unites against the west, the tribal and religious splits in the region are very important. Iran going nuclear could result in turmoil in the Middle East that has nothing to do with either the United States or Israel.

It is my personal opinion that if Israel feels that Mitt Romney is going to be elected, they will not attack Iran until after the Presidential election because they feel that he will aid them in their effort. If the Israeli government feels that President Obama is going to be re-elected, they probably will attack before the election.

No attack on another country is ever good, but Iran going nuclear is worse.

 

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What In The World Happened In Libya ?

There are numerous sources for this article–CNN today, Politico today, ABC News today and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. The stories are similar, but they way the facts are laid out is slightly different.

CNN reports:

According to one of the Libyan security guards who was stationed at one of the gates armed with only a radio, the assault began simultaneously from three directions.

Heavy machine guns and rocket -propelled grenades were used, according to the guard. He said masked men threatened to kill him at gunpoint for ‘protecting the infidels. He declined to appear on camera for fear of repercussions.

ABC News reports:

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi last week was not premeditated, directly contradicting top Libyan officials who say the attack was planned in advance.

“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo,” Rice told me this morning on “This Week.”

Just for the record, I am not convinced that three-pronged attacks begin spontaneously.

Hot Air reports:

About 50 arrests have been made in connection with the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi in which the American Ambassador and three other consulate employees were killed, and some of the suspects involved are from outside the country, Libya’s president told CBS News.

In an interview for “Face the Nation” Sunday, President Mohamed Magariaf also said that evidence “leaves us with no doubt” that the attack was pre-planned.

“It was planned, definitely, it was planned by foreigners, by people who entered the country a few months ago, and they were planning this criminal act since their arrival,” he told Bob Schieffer.

Politico reports:

Libya President Mohamed Yousef El-Magariaf said Sunday that 50 arrests have been made in connection with last week’s “preplanned” attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

“The way these perpetrators acted and moved — I think we, and they’re choosing the specific date for this so-called demonstration, I think we have no, this leaves us with no doubt that this was pre-planned, determined,” Magariaf said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Unfortunately, because we are in the ‘silly season’ which precedes an election, the American media is not telling us the full story. The British newspapers have posted many more details and stories behind what has happened. The thing to remember here is very simple, “It isn’t about a movie.” The movie on YouTube was not helpful in America’s relationship with Muslims, but how many Muslims do you believe have actually seen the movie? How many of the people attacking American embassies around the world have access to the Internet?

At some point in time we need to understand that Muslims who support the idea of a world-wide caliphate do not like America. Our freedom is a threat to their plans. They consider us as ‘the great Satan.’ That fact has not changed, despite the efforts of President Obama. It will not change. It is taught to Muslim children from birth. Until the teaching changes, the problem will not change. If you are truly interested in understanding how terrorists are trained, I recommend this video at CBN.com, which is an interview of a former terrorist telling the story of his upbringing, training, and eventual denunciation of terrorism.

It isn’t about a movie–it’s about the survival of western civilization.

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