Monthly Archives: August 2014

Is Bad Judgement Illegal?

Posted on by

CBN News posted a story today about the federal corruption charges against Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. This is a federal case brought by the federal Department of Justice because no laws in Virginia were broken.

The article reports:

The McDonnells have been charged with accepting more than $165,000 in gifts, vacations and personal loans from Jonnie Williams, a former business executive, in exchange for promoting his products.

***The major question is whether McDonnell actually broke the law. Jay Sekulow, chief counsel with the American Center for Law and Justice, offered his insight on the case on The 700 Club, August 12.

There is no law in Virginia barring political figures from accepting gifts. I think there should be some sort of a limit on gifts to politicians, but since that is not the law in Virginia, no law was broken. The federal charge is that there was quid pro quo for the gifts.

I can’t help but wonder if the Justice Department would have brought this case if they hadn’t seen McDonnell as an up-and-coming Republican. Although I think that the governor exercised poor judgement in accepting the gifts, and I think the law should be changed, the fact is that he did not break the law. I fear that this is another example of the Justice Department being used as a political tool under the Obama Administration.

Sometimes It Takes A Bit Of Showmanship To Make A Point

Posted on by

This video was posted on YouTube today:

The Daily Caller posted a related story.

The Daily Caller story concludes:

This summer has seen a whirlwind of terrorist activity on the southern border, with dire anecdotes pouring out of local news stations but ignored by the mainstream press. Security contractors found a Muslim prayer rug on the Arizona border, where 300 extremists affiliated with al-Qaida’s Somalia syndicate al-Shabab recently entered the United States unaccounted for. Terrorist watch-list suspects were also detained trying to get into the country through California. Country music legend Charlie Daniels revealed that, “I personally spoke with an Arizona law enforcement officer who had taken four what he called ‘Taliban’ out of the back of an 18 wheeler.”

Relevant on the contemporary merits, O’Keefe’s video also makes an important symbolic point thirteen confusing years after the attacks of 9/11. The terrorists we’re fighting today are more technologically savvy than their idol Osama bin Laden, the self-designed political figure who tried to fire history’s loudest shot. But their motives have not changed. And they have access to the United States.

How safe do you feel?

Outlawed Again

Posted on by

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the government of Egypt has dissolved the political party of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its assets liquidated. The name of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party was the Freedom and Justice Party. So much for truth in advertising.

The article reports:

The decision against the Freedom and Justice Party comes after a recommendation by the court’s advisory panel that noted the party’s leaders had already been accused, and in some cases convicted, of murder and inciting violence.

The recommendation added that the police investigation stated the party headquarters and offices were used to store weapons.

The Middle East news agency said the decision is final.

The court decision is part of a wider crackdown against the group and its members that landed thousands in jail, including a many sentenced to death on charges of inciting violence.

The government declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group late last year, accusing it of orchestrating a wave of violence to destabilize the country after the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member, in the wake of mass protests against him.

This is not the first encounter between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian government (and unfortunately it may not be the last).

The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al Banna. In 1923 when the Turkish empire was dissolved and the modern state of Turkey established, Mustapha Kemal, known as Ataturk, wanted to abolish the caliphate and set up secular rule. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in reaction to the secularization of Turkey.

Some of the bylaws of the Muslim Brotherhood:

…the need to work on establishing the Islamic State

…the sincere support for a global cooperation in accordance with the provisions of Islamic Sharia

The assassination of Anwar Sadat was carried out by a nationalistic group associated with the Muslim Brotherhood because Sadat had made a peace treaty with Israel.

The Muslim Brotherhood is active in America with a number of front groups. The Muslim Brotherhood plan for North America can be found in the exhibits in the Holy Land Foundation Trial that took place in Texas in 2007. There is also a list of unindicted co-conspirators that includes many groups now accepted as Muslim spokespeople by our government.

The danger posed by the Muslim Brotherhood is worldwide–America is not exempt from that danger. The difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda is method–not goal. The Muslim Brotherhood did not support the attack on September 11, 2001, because they felt it was too early to attempt to destroy America with violence–they felt they needed more time to destroy America politically. That is an ongoing process.

Following The Money

Posted on by

Jimmy Carter was not one of our better presidents. He was the architect of the 1979 Camp David accords, but has somehow lost his way since.

An article posted at Forbes Magazine last week reminds us:

Once upon a time, the architect of the 1979 Camp David accords had some credibility as an observer of the Middle East. Yet the depth of his anti-Israel prejudice was already on display eight-years ago when he insisted that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank “perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa.” His book on that subject was naturally called Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid.

Jimmy Carter has called for the recognition of Hamas’ “legitimacy as a political actor” because they represent a substantial portion of the Palestinian people. He made no suggestion that they lay down their weapons first. So what in the world is this about? Alan Dershowitz has the answer.

In a 2012 column in Israel and Stuff, Alan Dershowitz explains:

Recent disclosures of Carter’s extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?

And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source. Initially I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School, but then a student at the Divinity School — Rachael Lea Fish — showed me the facts They were staggering. I was amazed that in the 21st century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up – a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son – hosted speakers who called Jews “the enemies of all nations,” attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States’ own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a “fable.” (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.

Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard’s decision, since it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: “This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan.” Carter’s personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot.

Jimmy Carter has been making anti-Semitic statements for years. That is very unfortunate. He was admittedly a horrible president, but most people felt that he was an honorable man. It is sad to find out that he is not.

 

 

A Perspective From A Good Reporter Who Continues To Be A Good Reporter

Posted on by

Sharyl Attkisson was part of the Washington bureau for CBS News. She resigned earlier this year when after investigating the Fast and Furious scandal and the Benghazi scandal, she realized that the network was not interested in reporting the stories she was investigating. The major networks have a political agenda, and they do not deviate from that political agenda regardless of how important a scandal is.

The video below is found on YouTube. It is Sharyl Attkisson on ABC This Week explaining how Watergate would be handled today:

More information on Sharyl Attkisson’s reporting can be found on her website.

A Hospital, A Mosque, A University, and An UNRWA Ambulance

Posted on by

What do a hospital, a mosque, a university and an UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees) ambulance have in common? According to Breitbart.com, they were all part of the killing of IDF Officer LT Hadar Goldin, 23.

The article reports:

An unnamed Israeli military source spoke to Breitbart News about the story of how Hamas used an UNRWA ambulance, a mosque, and the Islamic University to carry out the attack that killed the three IDF soldiers.

The officer explained how, after the suicide bombing that killed Lt. Goldin, a second kidnapping team of Hamas terrorists grabbed parts of his body and ran back into the tunnel from which the terrorists emerged. The tunnel led back into a mosque. From the mosque, they escaped in a clearly marked UNRWA ambulance. The terrorists then made contact with high-ranking Hamas officials hiding in the Islamic University. 

As a result Abu Marzook, a senior member of Hamas, announced in Cairo that Hamas had kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israeli intelligence intercepted a conversation between the kidnappers and the Hamas officials at the Islamic University and thus got all the particulars regarding the hiding place of the kidnappers. Within minutes, the IAF attacked both the kidnappers’ location and the Islamic University.

So what can we learn from this? Hamas has no problem using hospitals, universities and mosques to hide its activities and its tunnel network. Hamas has no problem using a clearly-marked UNRWA ambulance as part of a battle plan. I think it is time we stopped giving money to the United Nations to fund UNRWA. They seem to have forgotten their mission (as has the United Nations–we should stop funding them also).

The war in Gaza began with the constant rocket attacks on Israel and the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli students. We need to keep that in mind as the Palestinian propaganda machine ramps up its charges of crimes against humanity against Israel. War is actually supposed to conducted according to rules. Hamas and its cousin ISIS have broken every rule of civilized warfare in their attacks on Israel and on non-Muslims in other countries. There needs to be some outrage by the World Court, the United Nations, and other organizations that are always blaming Israel for war crimes. These organizations need to either speak out against what ISIS and Hamas or doing or they need to disband as useless. There really is no other option.

How Wars End

Posted on by

Yesterday Frank Gaffney posted a short article at the Center for Security Policy website entitled, “How Wars Don’t End.” In his article he reminds us that President Obama once explained to America that unilateral withdrawals from conflicts is “how wars end in the 21st Century.”

Well. so much for that.

The article states:

Recent events in Iraq show that – in our time, as throughout history – unless both sides in a war agree to stop fighting, the conflict will continue. Such fighting generally comes at the expense of the interests or security of the party that calls it quits.

The mayhem in Iraq that has flowed from President Obama’s decision to “end the war” there unilaterally has reached the point where he felt compelled yesterday to authorize renewed U.S. airstrikes.

The trouble is that his delusional approach to ending wars is of a piece with his tendency to micromanage, limit and, thereby, make ineffectual the military operations he does approve.

I hope we don’t have to put actual boots on the ground again in Iraq, but it breaks my heart to see the gains we made with the surge thrown away. I truly believe that had we left forces there, there would have been enough pressure on Prime Minister Maliki to create a more inclusive government. Now we are faced with a radical caliphate in the Middle East that will grow to include some of the countries that in the past have supported us. Being an ally of America doesn’t mean much right now, and our abandonment of the Iraqis is an illustration of that. Hopefully air power will be enough to stop the slaughter of the innocent Christians that is currently taking place.

Why We Need More Home Schooling

Posted on by

Townhall.com posted an article today by Michelle Malkin about a new trend in education–teaching children social justice. One definition I found of social justice is, “promoting a just society by challenging injustice and valuing diversity.” Sounds pretty good, but somehow I don’t think that is what they mean. Many of our colleges teach social justice, but do they value diversity? How many conservative Christians do you find teaching on the average college campus? But I digress.

The article reports:

In Massachusetts, the John J. Duggan Middle School will open on August 25 with a new name and mission. It is now a “social justice magnet school.” As a hiring advertisement for teachers explained earlier this year, the emphasis will be on “helping students develop the necessary skills to analyze and synthesize information and to generate empathy by looking at multiple sides of important issues facing the world, be that hunger, water quality, racial barriers, child labor or imbalance of power.”

Concise writing, as you can see, is not on the social justice pedagogues’ agenda.

Oh, and forget about memorizing times tables or mastering the scientific method. The new principal says the school’s primary job is teaching “fairness.” Duggan Middle School’s junior lobbying factory is “serious about creating 21st century global citizens, and it begins with understanding who we are as members of each of those communities.”

At the risk of being called a mean, old grandmother, when are we going to explain to our children that life isn’t always fair? When are we going to tell them that everyone encounters some sort of barrier in their life and that the goal is to learn how to overcome those barriers, not wallow in them. Imbalance of power has been with us since the stone age, does teaching the children multiple sides of the issue (assuming there are multiple sides) contribute in any way to their education? Good grief!

How about teaching the children how to read, how to do math facts, and how to solve problems? They will figure out the social justice on their own.

Just for the record, my definition of social justice is allowing me to keep what I earn and allowing you to keep what you earn. If the numbers are uneven, one of us needs to learn how to be a more valuable employee or how to start his own business!

Bobby Jindal On Common Core

Posted on by

On Wednesday, the Daily Caller posted an article about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal‘s battle against Common Core. Governor Jindal is fighting Common Core on the grounds that it is a violation of federal law.

The article reports:

In a brief submitted Wednesday as part of a lawsuit against Louisiana’s Board for Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), Jindal’s attorneys claim that a consortium used to create multistate standardized tests aligned with Common Core was transformed into a cudgel to force states to obey federal edicts on education.

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that gives the federal government control over education–that was left to the state and local governments.

The article explains:

“Simply put, PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) is the implementation platform for a carefully orchestrated federal scheme to supervise, direct and control educational curriculum, programs of instruction and instructional materials in direct violation of federal law,” the report argues.

PARCC’s creation, as well as the creation of the Smarter Balanced consortium (which serves the same purpose but has different members), was enabled through grants by the federal government through the Race to the Top program. That federal involvement, Jindal’s team argues, irretrievably taints the organization as well as Common Core more broadly, even though the government was not directly involved with the standards’ creation. The Department of Education Organization Act (DOEA) and other federal laws, they say, explicitly bar the Department of Education from taking actions that increase federal control over education.

“Race to [the] Top…effectively coopted Common Core for the federal government, attempting to accomplish indirectly through economic coercion that which the federal government is prohibited from accomplishing directly,” the brief argues.

Common Core is unconstitutional and does not make a positive contribution to the education of our children. How long will it take state to figure that out? Many of them already have.

When Lawlessness Becomes A Pattern

Posted on by

Today’s Washington Examiner posted a story about the number of emails missing or destroyed in various agencies of the Obama Administration. Federal regulations require that emails of federal agencies be retained for certain periods of time. It is becoming very obvious that the federal agencies in the executive branch of the Obama Administration have chosen to ignore that regulation.

The article reports:

The latest example comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, which admitted Wednesday that hundreds of Obamacare emails subpoenaed in 2013 by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform were destroyed months ago.

Subpoena, what subpoena??!!

The article concludes:

And it’s not just emails. As Christopher Horner wrote earlier this week in the Washington Examiner, Environmental Protection Agency officials routinely destroy official text messages, contrary to law. And let’s not forget those fake EPA email names like “Richard Windsor.”

And there’s this: 47 inspectors-general told Congress in a letter this week that their investigations are often obstructed, delayed or otherwise impeded by top agency officials.

It became abundantly clear several years ago that the Obama administration was waging a campaign of massive resistance to legitimate congressional oversight.

That campaign — and a parallel one against aggressive journalism — has made an utter mockery of Obama’s opening-day promise of the “most transparent administration in history.”

So what is it these people are so desperate to cover up?

Richard Nixon and Rosemary Woods would be green with envy.

Leadership Comes From The Top

Posted on by

PLEASE SEE THE UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS STORY!

The following video is posted on YouTube:

The story behind the video is at infowars.com:

Seeking to file a complaint about the Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter, Steve Wronko visited the Helmetta Police Department to air his grievances about the shelter falling prey to nepotism and corruption as a result of Helmetta Mayor Nancy Martin appointing her son Brandon Metz to head up the facility.

“I’ve made objections about what’s going on at the shelter over there,” Wronko tells the police officer, adding, “My first and fourth amendment rights were violated, my civil rights were violated.”

“Obama just decimated the freakin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn. If he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to,” responds the cop, brazenly violating the oath he swore to uphold the Constitution.

Leadership, good or bad, comes from the top. President Obama is not directly responsible for the bad behavior of this policeman, but the negative attitude that President Obama and his Department of Justice have taken toward the Constitution does influence the behavior of those sworn to uphold the Constitution. This policeman should be fired for his actions, but he is simply a reflection of the current President and his administration. All of us should take note of this incident–our civil rights are at risk.

UPDATE:

On August 7, MyCentralJersey posted a follow up story to this which included what sounded like an apology.

The story explains:

But on Thursday, Recine, a registered Democrat who serves on the elected Board of Fire Commissioners of District 2 in Piscataway, said he was being “sarcastic.”

“It was just a stupid statement on my part. He got me riled and I said it,” he explained. “I don’t believe that at all. I’m the most patriotic person in the world. I believe in God, the flag, country, the Constitution.”

Recine said he was dispatched to the building because municipal workers were concerned when they saw Wronko taking pictures indoors.

Mr. Recine has resigned from the police force following the incident.

There Are Numbers And There Are Numbers

Posted on by

This graph is from an article in Tuesday’s New York Times. It has to do with the reporting of civilian casualties in Gaza.

aaaapalestinian1aaaapalestinain2

The New York Times reminds us that all civilian casualties reported in Gaza are not civilians:

But the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the Israeli group that analyzed the first Palestinian deaths, accused the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry of “concealment and deception” in order “to create an ostensibly factual infrastructure for a political, propaganda and legal campaign against Israel.”

The Times analysis, looking at 1,431 names, shows that the population most likely to be militants, men ages 20 to 29, is also the most overrepresented in the death toll: They are 9 percent of Gaza’s 1.7 million residents, but 34 percent of those killed whose ages were provided. At the same time, women and children under 15, the least likely to be legitimate targets, were the most underrepresented, making up 71 percent of the population and 33 percent of the known-age casualties.

We need to remember that Hamas soldiers do not always wear uniforms. Those infiltrating Israel through the tunnels wore IDF uniforms. As has been previously stated, Hamas routinely puts rocket launchers in heavily populated civilian areas. That is part of their strategy in the propaganda war. Now that the journalists are leaving Gaza, they are reporting rockets being fired from directly under their hotel rooms and in civilians areas. The world needs to understand the propaganda war being waged by Hamas and not fall prey to the misinformation that is being reported.

A website called Israellycool reports:

Tyler Hicks, the New York Times photographer, begins by telling us that Hamas fighters are hiding in civilian areas, embedded within the civilian population and firing rockets from residential neighborhoods:

I was stationed in Gaza, and covered the Palestinian side of the war where you saw most of the casualties.  One of the reasons for that is because the Hamas fighters are living among the civilian population. . . .  This is a situation where the fighters fire rockets from all over the Gaza Strip, from neighborhoods to cemeteries, from parking lots, from any number of places.

And no, the reason they do this is not because “Gaza is pretty small.”  Hicks next tells us that the fighters seek safety at the expense of the civilian population:

Hamas fighters are not able to expose themselves.  If they were to even step a foot on the street they would be spotted by an Israeli drone and immediately blown up.  We don’t see those fighters.  They are operating out of buildings and homes and at night.

Israel is fighting a terrorist neighbor. The world has a choice. They need to understand that this is a fight against terrorism and for democracy. They can choose to help Israel or they can ignore what is going on. The problem with ignoring what is going on is that the terrorists in Gaza are not a unique entity. They are linked (at least in philosophy) with Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS in Iraq and Syria, etc. We allow them to continue ruling Gaza at our own peril.

The Death Of Transparency

Posted on by

The information below is from the Inspectors General website:

Welcome to IGnet serving as a portal to the Federal Inspector General Community whose primary responsibilities, to the American public, are to detect and prevent fraud, waste, abuse, and violations of law and to promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the operations of the Federal Government.

The Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, establishes the responsibilities and duties of an IG. The IG Act has been amended to increase the number of agencies with statutory IGs. In 1988 came the establishment of IGs in smaller, independent agencies and there are now 72 statutory IGs.

IGnet also serves as the purveyor of information, to the American public, from The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). “The Inspector General Act of 1978 as amended by the IG Reform Act of 2008” created the CIGIE combining what were formerly known as the “PCIE” (President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency) and the “ECIE” (Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency). The CIGIE has 7 committees, Audit, Information Technology, Inspection and Evaluation, Investigations, Integrity, Legislation and Professional Development as well as several related organizations.

The job of the IG is to keep our government honest.

Yesterday Fox News reported the following:

Dozens of government watchdogs are sounding the alarm that the Obama administration is stonewalling them, in what is being described as an unprecedented challenge to the agencies they’re supposed to oversee. 

Forty-seven of the government’s 73 independent watchdogs known as inspectors general voiced their complaints in a letter to congressional leaders this week. They accused several major agencies — the Justice Department, the Peace Corps and the chemical safety board — of imposing “serious limitations on access to records.” 

The inspectors general are now appealing to Congress to help them do their jobs uncovering waste, fraud, and mismanagement. 

“Agency actions that limit, condition, or delay access thus have profoundly negative consequences for our work: they make us less effective, encourage other agencies to take similar actions in the future, and erode the morale of the dedicated professionals that make up our staffs,” they wrote. 

The letter to the chairmen and ranking members of relevant oversight committees in the House and Senate claimed agencies are withholding information by calling it “privileged.”

This stonewalling of the work of the IG’s is unprecedented. Unless Congress acts quickly, the actions of this administration will damage our representative republic irreparably.

In three months voters in America will go to the polls. You may love your Congressman, but if he is running interference for a corrupt administration, he needs to be voted out of office. Your freedom depends on it. Please vote carefully.

 

How Bureaucracies Begin

Posted on by

On Saturday, The Haymaker posted an article that clearly illustrates how bureaucracies are born. The article was about a recent Farm Bill passed in North Carolina. The agricultural interests in the State of North Carolina supported the bill. The bill itself was going to pass. So what happened? The legislature added the beginning of a bureaucracy to the bill, the bill passed, and a new bureaucracy is born.

The article reports:

“It was a requirement for landscapers to get licensed.  Yes, that’s right.  A licensing board, regulations, fees,  and licenses for people who cut grass for a living. Apparently, someone heard a landscaper expressing frustration about not being able to bid on state work because a license was required.  Instead of killing off all licensing requirements for landscaping, the requirements have been expanded to everybody.”

So what difference does it make? The small business that cuts your lawn now has to go through a licensing process. This costs the small business owner time and money. As a result of the extra cost, he has to charge you more to mow your lawn. As a result of that, you may buy a lawn mower and mow your own lawn. If enough people do that, the small landscape business owner will go out of business. Meanwhile, the  money paid to get the license will be used to set up a new bureaucracy. There will be more state workers to pay for and fund pensions for. There will be more office space and office equipment needed for the bureaucracy created. And like all bureaucracies in the past, every year the budget for this bureaucracy will increase.

This is how it begins. Even colonies of rabbits don’t grow as fast as bureaucracies.

 

It’s Generally Inconvenient When The Chickens Come Home To Roost

Posted on by

Guy Benson posted an article at Townhall.com today about what is happening to health insurance premiums in Florida due to ObamaCare.

The article reminds us of some of the promises made when ObamaCare was passed:

“We will lower your premiums by $2,500 per family, per year.”

“…save a typical family an average of $2,500 on their healthcare costs…”

“Everybody will have lower rates.”

Well, it just hasn’t worked out that way. There will be an average health insurance rate increase of 13.2 percent for Floridians who buy healthcare insurance on the individual market next year.

Those who supported ObamaCare also told us that ObamaCare would bend the ‘cost curve’ of overall health spending downward. That hasn’t happened either. The projected ten-year cost of ObamaCare has nearly doubled from its original estimated cost. It has followed the path of other government programs over the years–cost more, solve fewer problems.

To add to the mess, the Washington Examiner posted a story yesterday about a government healthcare program started in California as part of the economic stimulus package.

The Washington Examiner reported:

“We need to bundle payments so you aren’t paid for every single treatment you offer a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead paid well for how you treat the overall disease,” Obama told the crowd of physicians.

Obama was articulating what would become one of the key payment reforms in his health care law — a proposal aimed at giving incentives to providers to control costs by rewarding them for providing less expensive care.

But a study published in the journal Health Affairs looked at an ambitious three-year pilot program of bundled payments in California that was funded by a $2.9 million grant from Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package — and found that the program was such a massive failure, it could hardly get off the ground.

“In spite of a high level of enthusiasm and effort, the pilot did not succeed in its goal to implement bundled payment for orthopedic procedures across multiple payers and hospital-physician partners,” the study reads. “An evaluation of the pilot documented a number of barriers, such as administrative burden, state regulatory uncertainty, and disagreements about bundle definition and assumption of risk. Ultimately, few contracts were signed, which resulted in insufficient volume to test hypotheses about the impact of bundled payment on quality and costs.”

Can we please get the government out of our healthcare and let the people who actually know something about it run it?

 

An Announcement From A Friend

Posted on by

Marty Lamb has worked tirelessly to repeal the automatic gas tax increase voted in by the Massachusetts legislature last year. He sent out the following email today:

Today I am announcing that I am leaving the Yes on 1 Ballot Question to Repeal Automatic Gas Taxes.

 I still fully support the initiative!

 So why am I leaving????

 You won’t believe this!

 The Office of Campaign and Political Finance says that our ballot initiative cannot tell the public which legislators voted for or against linking the gas tax to inflation. I feel that this a gross infringement on our first amendment rights!

 We could fight them in court…

 But…

 Time is running out for this election cycle.

 So today I am announcing the TankTheGasTax.Net PAC which will educate voters how legislators voted on indexing the gas tax to inflation. We will tell voters if their Representative or Senator voted for Taxation Without Representation. We will tell you who is against indexing before they were for it. We will tell you which members voted to take more money out of your pocket while collecting taxpayer funded per diems.

 If you agree that the public has a right to know, then please click here to make a much needed donation to kick-off this PAC.

 Beacon Hill insiders want to keep us quiet. I am not going to let that happen.

 While I am very sad about leaving the ballot group which I help build, I am hoping that you will show your support for my decision by making a donation today.

 Your financial support will be immediately used to print handouts that will be distributed to voters regarding their votes to automatically tax us.

 Help me hold them accountable!

 Please let me hear from you today!

 Thank you,

Temporarily this automatic tax increase and government transparency on the tax increase is a Massachusetts issue. Don’t count on it remaining only in Massachusetts.

Why We Need Informed, Educated Voters

Posted on by

David Limbaugh posted an article today at Townhall.com about President Obama’s continuing claim that the Republicans want to impeach him. Speaker of the House John Boehner has clearly stated that he is not interested in impeaching President Obama, so what is this about? A large part of it is about fund raising for the Democrat party.

On July 28, the Washington Post reported the following:

The Democrats’ congressional campaign arm pulled in $2.1 million in online donations over the weekend — the best four-day haul of the current election cycle — largely propelled by fundraising pitches tied to speculation that House Republicans could pursue the impeachment of President Obama.

That’s part of the story. Another part of the story involves the blatant flaunting of unconstitutional actions in an attempt to goad the Republicans into impeachment. Why impeachment? Because it energizes the far left of the Democrat party base.

David Limbaugh concludes:

So he is not only ratcheting up his rhetoric to accuse Republicans of a plot to impeach him, though House Speaker John Boehner has clearly indicated that is not in the cards, but also trying to force their hand into actually impeaching him. To this end, he is planning on upping the ante by issuing a far-reaching unilateral order granting amnesty to millions.

That’s right. The leader of the Free World is trying to provoke Republicans into impeaching him or otherwise stirring a constitutional crisis.

This is stunningly unprecedented. But more and more people are wising up to his serial abuses of power and his partisan agitation.

I don’t have a great track record as a prognosticator of elections, but I am strongly sensing his party, as a direct result of his policies and lawlessness and its shameless refusal to rein him in, is going to get a titanic comeuppance in November.

America is either going to be a representative republic or a banana republic. Voters in November will make that choice.

 

Something Americans Should Consider

Posted on by

America currently has a problem with illegal immigration. We can debate who the illegal immigrants are and why they are here, but the fact is that there are a lot of them and they are illegal. So what should we do?

Before I go into the solution, I would like to say that I am strongly in favor of legal immigration–legal immigrants are an asset to America. Legal immigration also allows us to know who is coming into the country and whether or not they are likely to cause problems for us. Our legal immigration system needs to be fixed–it needs to be easier, cheaper, and faster, but that is another article.

World Net Daily posted a story yesterday about Australia, a country that until recently was also having a problem with illegal immigration.

The article reports:

In the past seven months, not one single illegal immigrant arrived on Australian shores. Not one single boat has docked on the Australian coastline.

Compare this to the preceding four year period: Over 50,000 illegal immigrants arrived on Australian shores. More than 800 boats. Upwards of 1,000 people drowned at sea. A budget blowout of more than $10.3 billion.

How did they turn that around? There is some history here. In late 2007, Australia elected a center-left government that dismantled the border security policy. In 2013, the Australians essentially revolted against the policies of that government and elected Prime Minister Tony Abbott who began to solve a number of problems the previous Prime Minister and his crew had caused. One of these problems was immigration. (Prime Minister Tony Abbott also ended the carbon tax in Australia.)

The article reports:

As he couldn’t stop the boats overnight, in those first few months, his government gave the illegal immigrants arriving to Australia two options: “You’ve arrived in Australia illegally. As a result, you will never get to stay here. You will never get to be an Australian. So, you have two options – we will take you to a processing center, and you will wait in detention for your asylum application to be processed. Or we will fly you home for free.”

In addition to this, the Abbott government got the Australian military to enforce its border protection, intercepting boats, turning them around, and even towing them back. And it applied pressure on Indonesia, by demanding it secure its own border.

Soon, the message got out, and the boats have stopped. It’s an ongoing issue that requires vigilance, but it has been achieved. Australia’s policy has been exceptionally effective in saving lives. It’s been done amid incessant howling from the left and the mainstream media.

The bottom line here is simple–in a democracy (actually representative republic in the case of America), the people have a choice. The people get the government they choose. We will see in November of this year and in November of 2016 what Americans choose. Hopefully, we will choose the way of Australia. It really isn’t fair to people who have paid money to wait in line to immigrate to America to allow them to become Americans after letting thousands of illegals in. Those who want to come here legally should be at the head of the line–not the end.

What We Are Teaching American High School Students

Posted on by

The College Board, under the leadership of David Coleman, architect of the Common Core, is introducing a new AP History course and exam this month called Advanced Placement U.S. History Curriculum Framework (APUSH). The course has no resemblance at all to the history those of us over the age of forty learned in school.

A post at American Principles in Action explains some of the problems with the course:

Here is a sampling of what our nation’s brightest high-school students can expect:

  • A relentlessly negative view of American history, which emphasizes every problem and failing of our ancestors while ignoring or minimizing their achievements.
  • Almost total silence about the Founding Fathers, including no mention of Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Adams, and almost none of the Declaration of Independence.
  • Omission of military history, battles, commanders, and heroes.
  • A biased and inaccurate view of many important facets of American history, including the motivations and actions of 17th-19th-century settlers, American involvement in World War II, and the conduct of and victory in the Cold War.

I have a copy of the course standards for the course. One of the more interesting goals in the course is “Competency Goal 10: The emergence of the United States in World Affairs (1865-1930) The learner will analyze cause and effects of the United States emergence as an imperial power and world influence.” Now think about that for a minute. The entire course paints the United States as an imperial power. I would like to note at this point that if we are an imperial power, we are not very good at it. We did invade France during World War II. We took enough land to bury our dead. We did invade North Korea in the 1950’s. We set up a border for South Korea and left them to run their country. We did invade Japan during World War II. We kept some land for military bases, and promised to protect them since they were prohibited from acquiring nuclear weapons to defend themselves. I love my country, but I have to say that as imperialists we have failed miserably. We didn’t even take the oil from Iraq!

There is nothing wrong with teaching our children to be patriotic. America is unique in the world, and in order to stay unique, we need educated leaders. This AP History course will create leaders who do not love their country and may not be willing to defend our way of life. This is another attempt by the political left to undermine the future of America by teaching future leaders inaccurate history. Like Common Core, this curriculum needs to be scrapped.

Strange Alliances Caused By Bad Behavior

Posted on by

I have posted a lot of articles about the bad behavior of Hamas. The American media has ignored a lot of that bad behavior, but countries in the Middle East have been taking notes.

CBN News is reporting today that the war between Israel and Hamas has caused some of the alliances in the Middle East to shift dramatically.

The article reports:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a new level of regional cooperation he said would surprise many. It would be a very important asset for the State of Israel, he said, and would open new possibilities when the campaign against Hamas ends.

It’s a move that may indicate a major shift in the Middle East.

“It’s probably the first time in its history it [Israel] finds itself in a kind of de facto member of one regional camp against another,” Middle East expert Jonathan Spyer told CBN News.

Spyer said this unprecedented alliance unites Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel to face their common enemy — Iran.

“So the sense in which this emergent alliance is an alliance of countries associated or allied with the U.S. but which are nevertheless deeply disappointed or dismayed at the direction that U.S. policy has taken on a number of Middle East files and perhaps most importantly on Iranian nuclear ambitions,” he said.

This alliance is probably the only positive result of President Obama’s Middle East policy–these nations realize that the United States is willing to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The Obama Administration is so short-sighted that they do not realize that those weapons will eventually be aimed at America. Meanwhile, the nations of the Middle East understand how those weapons will change the balance of power in the region. They also understand that Iran is run by the ayatollahs–not the president of Iran. The ayatollahs believe in a version of Islam that says that chaos will usher in the coming of the Islamic messiah. They have no problem creating chaos. Their neighbors, many of whom are prosperous at this time, have no desire for chaos.

This alliance is the result of both the war in Gaza and American foreign policy in the Middle East. Both are horrible, but the result is positive.

Meanwhile, in February of this year, Jews News reported that Sheikh Admed Aladoan of Amman, a member of Jordan’s well-known Adwan tribe, posted to Facebook this week that there is no such place as “Palestine,” and provided references from the Koran to back up his assertion.

The article states:

One of the Koranic verses provided states that Allah gave the Holy Land to the sons of Israel until the Day of Judgment (Surah Al-Ma’ida, verse 21), and the other (Surah Al-Shara’a, verse 59) says that the land was bequeathed to the Jews.

The sheikh turned to those who “distort the words of the Koran,” whom he labeled as liars, and questioned where they had even come up with the name “Palestine.” He insisted their claims to the Land of Israel were forfeit because “Allah is the protector of the Children of Israel.”

And if that wasn’t enough, the sheikh went on to turn the tables on the anti-Israel propaganda machine by accusing the Palestinians of killing children, the elderly and women, of using human shields, and of having not an ounce of mercy for even their own children.

Stay tuned.

 

This Might Be Part Of The Problem

Posted on by

This video is posted on YouTube:

Matthew 18:6 “But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.” New Living Translation    These children are being brainwashed and their innocence stolen from them. The UN stands silent.

There is a video on Facebook that I could not successfully embed called “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” that shows how Hamas is training children to kill and using them as human shields. It is time for the United Nations to say something or to hang their head in shame. A civilized world would declare this as child abuse and demand an end to it. It is time to disband the United Nations and kick it out of New York.

A Reality Check For Israel’s Left

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Caroline Glick posted an article in the Jerusalem Post about the war between Israel and Hamas. She relates the story of a phone call from President Obama to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday night during an Israeli security cabinet meeting.

The article reports:

But then the telephone rang. And Obama told Netanyahu that Israel must lose. He wants an unconditional “humanitarian” cease-fire that will lead to a permanent one.

And he wants it now.

And by the way, the eventual terms of that cease-fire must include opening Hamas-controlled Gaza’s borders with Egypt and Israel and ending Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza coast. That is, the cease-fire must allow Hamas to rebuild its arsenal of death and destruction quickly, with US political and financial support.

Until Obama made the call, there was lingering doubt among some Israelis regarding his intentions. Some thought that US Secretary of State John Kerry might have been acting of his own accord last Friday night when he tried to force Israel to accept Hamas’s cease-fire terms.

But then Obama made his phone call. And all doubts were dispelled.

The request from President Obama did not take into account what would happen if that cease-fire went into effect–Israel would again be defending itself against never ending rocket attacks on civilians and a rebuilding of tunnels that were destroyed. A cease-fire without the destruction of Hamas is an invitation to another war a few years down the road.

The article concludes:

Obama is as involved in the Middle East as all of his immediate predecessors were. He is personally leading US policy on every front. Kerry is not an independent actor.

The problem is that in every war, in every conflict and in every contest of wills that has occurred in the Middle East since Obama took office, he has sided with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, against America’s allies.

Under Obama, America has switched sides.

It will be amazing if we have any allies left by the end of the Obama Administration.

 

 

 

A Short History Lesson About Israel

Posted on by

Danny Ayalon narrates a short video posted on YouTube that explains much of the history of the problems between Israel and the Palestinians.

Here is the video:

Danny Ayalon served as Deputy Foreign Minister and a member of the Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu. He served as Israeli Ambassador to the United States from 2002 until 2006.