Thursday, February 25, 2010

Obama Readies a Fallback Health-Care Proposal

President Barack Obama will use a bipartisan summit Thursday to push for sweeping health-care legislation, but if that fails to generate enough support the White House has prepared the outlines of a more modest plan.

His leading alternate approach would provide health insurance to perhaps 15 million Americans, about half what the comprehensive bill would cover, according to two people familiar with the planning.

It would do that by requiring insurance companies to allow people up to 26 years old to stay on their parents' health plans, and by modestly expanding two federal-state health programs, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, one person said. The cost to the federal government would be about one-fourth the price tag for the broader effort, which the White House has said would cost about $950 billion over 10 years.

Officials cautioned that no final decisions had been made but said the smaller plan's outlines are in place in case the larger plan fails.

Such a move would disappoint many Democrats, including Mr. Obama. They have worked for more than a year to pass comprehensive legislation like the plan the president unveiled Monday, which would cover the bulk of the 46 million uninsured people in the U.S., set new rules for health insurers and try to control spiraling health-care costs.

UN weather meeting agrees to refine climate data

Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, right, talks to director of the

GENEVA – World weather agencies have agreed to collect more precise temperature data to improve climate change science, officials said Wednesday, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged environment ministers to reject efforts by skeptics to derail a global climate deal.

Britain's Met Office proposed that climate scientists around the world undertake the "grand challenge" of measuring land surface temperatures as often as several times a day, and allow independent scrutiny of the data — a move that would go some way toward answering demands by skeptics for access to the raw figures used to predict climate change.

"This effort will ensure that the datasets are completely robust and that all methods are transparent," the Met Office said. The agency added that "any such analysis does not undermine the existing independent datasets that all reflect a warming trend."

The proposal was approved in principle by some 150 delegates meeting under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization this week in Antalya, Turkey. It comes after e-mails stolen from a British university and several mistakes made in a 2007 report issued by the U.N.-affiliated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prompted public debate over the reliability of climate change predictions.

Skeptics claim scientists have secretly manipulated climate data and suppressed contrary views — allegations that have been denied by researchers and the climate change panel.

Exactly Who Taught Obama to Be an “Ardent Believer of the Free Market?”

While addressing a Business Roundtable in Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama claimed he was an “ardent believer in the free market.” It was a surprising admission by the president, considering the actions his administration has taken.

When I heard it, I wondered, “Where did he learn that?”

Perhaps he learned it from his father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. But Senior was an ardent believer in socialism. He even advised the pro-Western Kenyan government to stop trending towards capitalism and embrace socialism:

Writing in a 1965 scholarly paper, Obama’s late father slammed the administration of then-President Jomo Kenyatta for moving the Third World country away from socialism toward capitalism. He chafed at the idea of relying on private investors — who earn “dividends” on their venture capital — to develop the country’s fledgling economy.

“What is more important is to find means by which we can redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all,” said the senior Obama, a Harvard-educated economist. “This is the government’s obligation.”

Sound familiar? Here’s what Obama told Joe the Plumber:

“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

They are essentially the same statement. But remember, Junior is an “ardent believer in the free market.”

Yesterday we twice made the point that Greece was shooting itself in the foot, making it impossible to receive a bailout.

Let's revisit the points.

First, there was the violence in the streets as a result of threats of government austerity. The riots were (and are) a clear message to Greece's more stable EU peers that there's really no point in bailing the country out with the expectation of strong deficit reduction, because it just couldn't happen there politically.

We're talking about a country where 30% of the workers work for the government. That means there's just no realistic way to take a big hatchet to public spending without causing lots of pain to the people.

Then Greek leaders continued to damage themselves by flinging NAZI gold theft accusations at Germany, as if that were the root of the country's problems.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is comparing climate change skeptics to those who disregarded the Nazi threat to America in the 1930s, adding a strident rhetorical shot to the already volatile debate over climate change.

"It reminds me in some ways of the debate taking place in this country and around the world in the late 1930s," said Sanders, perhaps the most liberal member of the Senate, during a Senate hearing Tuesday. "During that period of Nazism and fascism's growth — a real danger to the United States and democratic countries around the world — there were people in this country and in the British parliament who said 'don't worry! Hitler's not real! It'll disappear!"

Sanders’ reference to the Nazi threat is sure to enrage Republicans who are already skeptical of the science behind climate change. But Sanders wasn't the only one throwing bombs at a hearing that was ostensibly about the EPA's fiscal 2011 budget. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who has called global warming a "hoax," is asking for an investigation into the science used in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the governing body on climate science.

Earlier in the hearing, Inhofe had chided Sanders: "I know the senator from Vermont wants so badly to believe that the science on climate change is settled but it's not."

The heated exchanges came as EPA administrator Lisa Jackson sparred with lawmakers over her agency's decision to regulate greenhouse gases, something that Senate Republicans — and some

Obama Prods States to Raise Academic Standards; Wants to Boost Federal Role in Education

Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama wants to rewrite federal education law by sending aid for poor students only to states that adopt new standards to prepare high school graduates for college or a career.

States that fail to raise the bar could lose their share of federal funding, though it's unlikely that would happen. Administration officials say they expect states will comply to remain eligible for the federal money.

Obama's proposal, announced Monday, would require a change in the nation's main elementary and secondary education law, which became known as the No Child Left Behind Act during the Bush administration. The law is up for renewal. Congress so far hasn't been able to generate a consensus to overhaul it, though key lawmakers said recently they were working on a bill.

Obama wants to expand the federal government's role in education, which traditionally is a state and local responsibility. His approach has been to use the federal purse as leverage to encourage states to adopt his ideas.

Nullification, Secession, and Guns Show Constitutional Meaning is Never Settled

Late last year, it appeared that Congress would enact healthcare reform legislation that would include an individual mandate requiring uninsured Americans to purchase health insurance. In response, some opponents of the legislation contended that it was unconstitutional. I wrote two columns on the topic for this site, one rejecting the libertarian objection to the proposed individual mandate, and another rejecting the federalism objection to it. Other scholars wrote similar analyses, many of which were cited by Senator Max Baucus in response to the doubters.

Even though healthcare-reform legislation appears to be stalled for now, the movement against the individual mandate continues, and the constitutional objection is still frequently raised. Judging by the email I have received, and by my perusal of claims being made on the air and online, the critics simply do not care that Supreme Court precedents going back nearly two centuries support the constitutionality of an individual mandate. They believe that it is unconstitutional anyway.

Critics say some things that would be laughed out of the Supreme Court. For instance, they make such claims as "The Constitution says nothing about health care or an individual mandate." That is true, but plainly unimportant to the constitutional analysis. The Constitution contains no express language authorizing the federal government to charter a bank, to organize an air force, or to protect the natural environment. Yet all of these functions, and many more, have been readily accommodated under the longstanding principle that the government has implied, as well as express, powers.

Why No Push For Gay Reparations

Leftwing activists love to make the case for gay rights by associating the struggles of today’s homosexuals with the long, heroic battle for racial justice in the Civil Rights movement. Most of these same politically correct advocates also look with favor on demands for reparations for slavery and Jim Crow, so their insistence on the black-gay comparison raises an uncomfortable question: why don’t they push for similar reparations for homosexuals?

An answer to that riddle not only exposes the ridiculous nature of equating African Americans with homosexuals as similarly suffering victim groups, but also reveals the dubious nature of any reparations drive for long-ago crimes.

The distinction between blacks and gays as two aggrieved components of the population has little to do with the discrimination against them, and everything to do with the irreducibly different nature of their group identity. Yes, both African Americans and homosexuals have suffered from violent intimidation, blatant discrimination, public ridicule, marginalization, and even brutal murder. But racial hatred has created historic burdens that plagued families for centuries, while bigotry against sexual minorities focuses on sexual expression in the here and now.

Central Falls High graduates gather in support of the teaching staff during Tuesday’s meeting in which all 93 teachers were fired.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — The full force of organized labor showed up in Central Falls Tuesday, with several hundred union members rallying in support of the city’s teachers and bringing plenty of harsh words for the education officials who were about to fire the entire teaching staff at Central Falls High School.

“This is immoral, illegal, unjust, irresponsible, disgraceful and disrespectful,” said George Nee, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, to shouts and cheers from a crowd of more than 500 at Jenks Park. “What is happening here tonight is the wrong thing … and we’re not going to put up with it.”

AFP/File

A combination of images shows an airport staff member demonstrating a full body scan at Manchester Airport in Manchester, England.

WASHINGTON — The first of 150 full-body scanners planned for U.S. airports will be installed in Boston next week, officials said Tuesday.

The plan is to install three machines at Logan International Airport, according to a homeland security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made. In the next two weeks, officials plan to install another machine at Chicago's O'Hare International.

The rest of the 150 machines that were purchased with $25 million from President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus plan are expected to be installed in airports by the end of June, another homeland security official, spokeswoman Amy Kudwa, said.

The use of the scanners in airports is key to the Obama administration's plans to improve airport security because of their ability to show objects hidden on the body. Body scanners have been available for years, but their deployment has been slowed by objections from privacy advocates.

After a Nigerian man allegedly attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner last Christmas, Obama called for purchasing hundreds more of the machines on top of 150 already announced last year. Other countries have also signed on to use the technology, including Nigeria and the Netherlands, where the final leg of the man's flight originated.

The passenger allegedly hid the explosives in his underwear, and the materials went undetected as he went through screening in Nigeria and Amsterdam.

Experts have said that the full-body screeners would not have picked up the suspect's hidden explosives.

Are non-smokers smarter than smokers?

Two men smoke on a university campus in Pingtung County, southern Taiwan, January 13, 2010. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cigarette smokers have lower IQs than non-smokers, and the more a person smokes, the lower their IQ, a study in over 20,000 Israeli military recruits suggests.

Health

Young men who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day or more had IQ scores 7.5 points lower than non-smokers, Dr. Mark Weiser of Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer and his colleagues found.

"Adolescents with poorer IQ scores might be targeted for programs designed to prevent smoking," they conclude in the journal Addiction.

While there is evidence for a link between smoking and lower IQ, many studies have relied on intelligence tests given in childhood, and have also included people with mental and behavioral problems, who are both more likely to smoke and more likely to have low IQs, Weiser and his team note in their report.

To better understand the smoking-IQ relationship, the researchers looked at 20,211 18-year-old men recruited into the Israeli military. The group did not include anyone with major mental health problems, because these individuals are disqualified from military service.

According to the investigators, 28 percent of the study participants smoked at least one cigarette a day, around 3 percent said they were ex-smokers, and 68 percent had never smoked.

President Obama’s Government-Run Health Plan Still Requires a Monthly Abortion Fee

President Obama’s “new” health care proposal would still levy a new “abortion premium” fee and use government funds to subsidize elective abortion. Just like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) 2,074-page health care “manager’s amendment,” that passed the Senate in December, and just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), the President’s “new” proposal levies an abortion premium and does not fix the problem of government funds being used to subsidize elective abortions.

Under the President’s proposal - released this morning at 10am and modeled after Senator Reid’s plan that passed the Senate, according to ABC News - there is no prohibition on abortion coverage in federally subsidized plans participating in the Exchange. Instead the proposal includes layers of accounting gimmicks that demand that plans participating in the Exchange or the new government-run plan that will be managed by the Office of Personnel Management must establish “allocation accounts” when elective abortion is a covered benefit (p. 2073-2074). Everyone enrolled in these plans must pay a monthly abortion premium (p. 2072, lines 18-21), and these funds will be used to pay for the elective abortion services. The Obama proposal directs insurance companies to assess the cost of elective abortion coverage (p. 2074-2075), and charge a minimum of $1 per enrollee per month (p. 2075, lines 8-10).

In short, the President’s proposal continues to defy the will of the American people and contradict longstanding federal policy by providing federal subsidies to private health plans that cover elective abortions. The proposal does include a “state opt-out” provision if a state passes a law to prohibit insurance coverage of abortion, but it’s a sham because it does nothing to prevent one state’s tax dollars from paying for elective abortions in other states.

Underemployed Report Spending 36% Less Than Employed

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup's daily measure of U.S. employment reveals that 19.9% of the U.S. workforce was underemployed during the month of January, translating to close to 30 million Americans who are working less than their desired capacity. Those who were underemployed reported spending 36% less than those who were employed, $48 per day versus $75 per day.

Average Daily Spending Among Employed and Underemployed, January 2010

These results are based on January interviews with more than 20,000 adults in the U.S. workforce, aged 18 and older. Gallup classifies respondents as "employed" if they are employed full time or are employed part time but do not want to work full time. Gallup classifies respondents as "underemployed" if they are employed part time but want to work full time or are unemployed.

"The underemployed are less likely than the employed to say they are able to make a major purchase, such as a car or home repair, if needed."

As unemployment rates remain high, reduced spending by millions of underemployed Americans has obvious implications for economic recovery. Spending is, however, just one of many ways underemployment costs the U.S. and hurts its workforce. Gallup's employment measure also reveals further disparities between the employed and the underemployed on vital indicators such as attitudes toward money, access to healthcare, demographics, and wellbeing.

Transport strikes lay bare Europe's malaise

PARIS – With economic recovery barely there and talk of austerity spreading, many European workers are pushing back.

French air traffic controllers walked off the job Tuesday just as Lufthansa pilots ended a strike and British Airways cabin crews voted to launch one of their own. Greek unions prepared to shut down much of their country Wednesday with wide-ranging strikes.

These workers — like those who blockaded the Athens stock market or demonstrators angry at proposed delayed retirements in Spain — fear for their hard-earned comforts as European governments and companies tighten belts to stay solvent.

The walkouts are the latest signs of a broader unease about jobs and benefits, and what the future holds for a continent struggling to stay competitive on a global scale.

'My heart, my choice,' Williams says, defending decision for U.S. heart surgery

An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a "minimally invasive" surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.

"This was my heart, my choice and my health," Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.

"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."

Harvard’s Rogoff Sees Sovereign Defaults, ‘Painful’ Austerity

By Aki Ito and Jason Clenfield

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Ballooning debt is likely to force several countries to default and the U.S. to cut spending, according to Harvard University Professor Kenneth Rogoff, who in 2008 predicted the failure of big American banks.

Following banking crises, “we usually see a bunch of sovereign defaults, say in a few years,” Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said at a forum in Tokyo yesterday. “I predict we will again.”

The U.S. is likely to tighten monetary policy before cutting government spending, sending “shockwaves” through financial markets, Rogoff said in an interview after the speech. Fiscal policy won’t be curbed until soaring bond yields trigger “very painful” tax increases and spending cuts, he said.

Climategate Meets the Law: Senator Inhofe to Ask for DOJ Investigation

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today asked the Obama administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation” — the actions of climate scientists revealed by the Climategate files, and the subsequent admissions by the editors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

Senator Inhofe also called for former Vice President Al Gore to be called back to the Senate to testify.

“In [Gore's] science fiction movie, every assertion has been rebutted,” Inhofe said. He believes Vice President Gore should defend himself and his movie before Congress.

Just prior to a hearing at 10:00 a.m. EST, Senator Inhofe released a minority staff report from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, of which he is ranking member. Senator Inhofe is asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether there has been research misconduct or criminal actions by the scientists involved, including Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

This report, obtained exclusively by Pajamas Media before today’s hearing, alleges:

[The] Minority Staff of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works believe the scientists involved may have violated fundamental ethical principles governing taxpayer-funded research and, in some cases, federal laws. In addition to these findings, we believe the emails and accompanying documents seriously compromise the IPCC -backed “consensus” and its central conclusion that anthropogenic emissions are inexorably leading to environmental catastrophes.

The American Genius Brain

I am Sarah Palin's brain.

I'm here, I'm healthy, and I'm doing very well, thank you. Contrary to what you're told by the elites of both right and left, I exist.

And unlike the brains of our beltway politicians and pundits, mainstream media and Hollywood grandees, my neurons are not stuck on "I" or kicking into hyperdrive at the thought of controlling every waking moment in the life of Joe the Plumber or Josie the Beautician.

No, I am an American brain, savvy and predisposed toward optimism, the kind of gray matter powering the doers of this country since our founding. Robin of Berkeley, the resident psychotherapist of American Thinker, says my "sunny disposition" allows me to "[glide] by like a majestic bird in flight."MORE

The Tea Party Boogieman.

Have you watched with amusement as various political commentators have tried to demonize the amorphous Tea Party movement by outing behind-the-scenes bogeymen allegedly pulling the strings of this latter day Great Awakening?

Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck. Dick Armey. Newt Gingrich. Grover Norquist. Jack Abramoff. Lyndon LaRouche. The John Birch Society. The list goes on.

None of it is sticking.

From time to time one professional politico or another may try to jump out in front of the parade. But everyone knows that the Tea Party has no leader, and with a little luck never will. That's because it's not a political party. In the best tradition of the American Revolution, it's an angry mob. Hence, the name.

The Saudis really need to get an infomercial out there — and the Nation magazine and other leftist sites that apologize for Islamic gender apartheid can feature it on their webpages. It would go something like this:

A Saudi sheikh dressed slickly in Saudi garb would be sitting confidently in a chair, looking into the camera with an excited smile. He would then begin asking, with earnestness and an encouraging tone:

Are you a pedophile? Do you like underage girls? Would you like to rape one of them — or several? And get away with it? Even have it legally sanctioned? Then Saudi Arabia is for you.

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century. READ MORE

Global Warming Hoax Exposed....Just not in thr U.S.

It’s been called the “biggest scientific scandal in history.” It has everything to earn Pulitzer consideration: lies and misconduct in high places, political implications, even massive financial transactions that may or may not be legitimate or even legal. It’s big news … as long as you read the Telegraph, the Guardian, the London Times, or even major Indian papers.

It’s no news at all if you read the U.S. mainstream media.

Internal Toyota documents derided the Obama administration and Democratic Congress as “activist” and “not industry friendly," a revelation that comes days before the giant automaker's top executives testify on Capitol Hill amid a giant recall.

According to a presentation obtained under subpoena by the House Oversight and Government Relations committee, Toyota referred to the “changing political environment” as one of its main challenges and anticipated a "more challenging regulatory" environment under the Obama administration's purview.

Is soda the new tobacco?

The idea of a special tax on soda, similar to those on tobacco, gasoline and alcoholic beverages, is attracting more interest. Advocates of a tax note that sugared beverages are the No. 1 source of calories in the American diet, representing 7 percent of the average person’s caloric intake, according to government surveys, and up to 10 percent for children and teenagers. These calories, they point out, are worse than useless — they’re empty, and contribute to a daily total that is already too high. More

MORE STORIES BELOW....

Bad cholesterol: It’s not what you think

It's time to rethink the halo-and-pitchfork view of our blood fat levels

From hypersexuality to sluggish cognitive tempo disorder: The excuses for being lazy in new psychiatrist's 'Bible'

Men would rather wed 'pleasant' girls than supermodels

911 dispatcher helps save his own son

Do clever people live longer?

Sexual harassment settlement for Brockton boy costs city $180K

Facing Budget Gap, Colorado City Shuts Off Lights

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

Audi Commercial...It's Not Satire if its TRUE!

Consider that the British parliament is already considering something called, “Domestic tradable quotas” or personal energy rationing. Here’s how it would work: every resident would receive a carbon credit card containing an identical allocation of carbon units. The number of points would be reduced each year in line with the government’s carbon reduction goals. Each time a resident used carbon based energy he/she would have to swipe his card and have a number of DTQ points deducted from their card. Heavy DTQ users would be able to purchase extra points from low DTQ users and no doubt those unable or unwilling to purchase extra points would be fined and jailed. Because almost every activity we engage in involves some sort of carbon production – writing this column on my computer for instance, washing dirty clothes, eating meat…breathing! --it isn’t difficult to imagine the political shenanigans that will accompany a policy prescription that is gaining traction among environmentalists. MORE

IPCC Corruption Included Ignoring Facts and Science

Phil Jones, disgraced and dismissed Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), granted BBC reporter Roger Harrabin an interview. Why Harrabin? His reporting has shown bias on all the IPCC and CRU activities. Leaked emails showed the CRU gang used friends in the BBC and that apparently continues. Prevarication, evasion, half-truths continue in Phil Jones’ answers. Despite this there are stunning admissions from Jones. “There is a tendency in the IPCC reports to leave out inconvenient findings, especially in the part(s) most likely to be read by policy makers.” It’s a deliberate strategy not just a tendency and not only in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). MORE

How Will You Survive the Collapse of Civilization?

With unsuspecting commuters sat in the rush hour traffic going into the city and a quiet whisper of “Allahu Akbar,” the truck driver pushed the button on the detonator. The explosive rigged to the sleeper exploded in with a sharp, deafening roar, tearing open the back of the trailer. Fire raging, the chlorine spilled onto the roadway, toxic gas filling the air.

Hundreds die or are wounded from the initial blast and chlorine exposure. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, will succumb in the days ahead as clean up, investigation and quarantine begin. Hospitals are filled to capacity, unable to care for the sick and dying. Supplies to the survivors are slow to arrive, as the bureaucracy struggles to find answers, excuses and blame. With no clear plan in place, a population in the world’s wealthiest nation is sick, dying and struggling to obtain life’s basic necessities.

With the scent of Massachusetts still in the air, the president reasserted his reform agenda and took the fight to the party of obstruction. In polite, nuanced but forceful terms, he chastised the Republican Party.

In powerful oratory, he challenged some of the main ideological talking points of right-wing extremism, reminded everyone that he inherited record deficits and an unprecedented economic mess, and defended the stimulus bill and other recovery measures, including, and unfortunately the unconditional bank bailouts.

One of the high points of the evening was when the president called out the right-wing (and maybe worse) dominated Supreme Court whose members were sitting directly in front of him for their recent decision saying it's OK for corporations to throw money into the election process. MORE

Kevin Jennings helps introduce bill in Congress to require normalization of homosexuality

Kevin Jennings, Barack Obama's "Safe Schools Czar" is coordinating with far-left members of Congress to extend the radical homosexual / transgender agenda into the nation's public schools by force of federal law, according to press reports.

On January 27, 66 congressmen introduced HB 4530 which requires that homosexuality and transgender behavior (including cross-dressing) be officially normalized in America's public schools. MORE

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Today's Guest: Malcolm Lael

Lying face down on the muddy jungle floor, with the taste of his own blood in his mouth, all Malcolm Leal could do was call upon the God of his great-grandmother.

Florencia Martinez Hernandez raised Malcolm as her own son in a small fishing village on the northern coast of Cuba. Teaching Malcolm wisdom gleaned from the worn pages of her century-old Bible, Florencia spoke of a temple "promised to all people" and that there were men on earth who "walked with God." Most importantly, she taught him to rely on "her" God for everything.

While on assignment for the Cuban Special Forces in the dense rain forests of Central America, Malcolm suffered the fatal blow of a sniper's bullet. As he felt his life slipping away amongst the surrounding shadows, Malcolm reflected on his life and the teachings of his great-grandmother. In what he thought were his last moments, he summoned the God of his grandmother in faith. Malcolm's prayer was heard.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Obama Wants to get His Hands on YOUR Retirement Funds

The government wants your pension funds because they believe that they can do a better job of investing and managing your retirement than you can. Now, if you believe that government is the answer, you may fine with this. It's not fine with me, and, I suspect, it's not all that fine with you.

Don't believe me? Here is how these agencies present their reasoning:

Accordingly, with the continuing trend away from traditional defined benefit plans to 401(k) defined contribution plans and hybrid plans ... employees are not only increasingly responsible for the adequacy of their savings at the time of retirement, but also for ensuring that their savings last throughout their retirement years ... In recognition of the foregoing, the Agencies are considering whether it would be appropriate for them to take future steps to facilitate access to, and use of, lifetime income or other arrangements designed to provide a stream of income after retirement.
READ THE ACTUAL DOCUMENTS HERE.

Anti-Tea Party Web Site Part of Scheme to Funnel Funds

A seemingly grassroots organization that's mounted an online campaign to counter the tea party movement is actually the front end of an elaborate scheme that funnels funds -- including sizable labor union contributions -- through the offices of a prominent Democratic party lawyer.

A Web site popped up in January dedicated to preventing the tea party's "radical" and "dangerous" ideas from "gaining legislative traction," targeting GOP candidates in Illinois for the firing squad.

"This movement is a fad," proclaims TheTeaPartyIsOver.org, which was established by the American Public Policy Center (APPC), a D.C.-based campaign shop that few people have ever heard of.

But, Laffer rightly continues, "when the U.S. economy comes to 2011, the train's going to come off the tracks."

Not only will the slingshot effect of recovery from the deep recession be over. The positive effect of the enormous Fed monetary expansion will be petering out. Monetary expansion does not create long-term economic growth. The Fed has to press the accelerator faster and faster to maintain the same stimulative effect. But if it does, then inflation starts to arise, accelerating faster and faster if the Fed continues. Indeed, the runaway expansion of the monetary base the Fed has already engineered will generate explosive inflation if the Fed does not pull it out in time.

But if the Fed pulls back, interest rates will start to rise sharply. The borrowing needs of Obama's record-shattering deficits will exacerbate this effect, as will the borrowing needs of a newly growing economy. Those higher interest rates will squelch the recovery. Or as Laffer says, "Any attempt to rein in excessive monetary expansion would lead to an immediate and precipitous economic collapse."

It has been widely recognized that President Obama's attack on the Supreme Court during his State of the Union address

was arrogant and rude. Obama broke with two hundred years of SOTU tradition and publicly humiliated and denounced the honorable justices of the Supreme Court in a move that should make Americans cringe. By using the privileged platform of his State of the Union

address to attack a specific judicial ruling, Obama crossed a line that even many in his party have admitted was beyond the pale.

Air quality in the United States has improved dramatically over the past 40 years, yet MoveOn.Org wants you to believe that breathing the air is like being a pack-a-day smoker.

MoveOn broadcasts this disinformation in TV ads bashing Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Ben Nelson (D-NB), and Mary Landrieu (D-LA). The ads show little leaguers, a mother and her bottle-feeding infant, track athletes, and even a mother giving birth all smoking cigarettes. As these images flash by, the text of the ads says:

While Senator Landrieu [or Lincoln, or Nelson] works to roll back the Clean Air Act

Many Americans are already smoking the equivalent of a pack a day.

Just from breathing the air.

The Anglican Church in Canada – once as powerful in the nation's secular life as it was in its soul – may be only a generation away from extinction, says a just-published assessment of the church's future.

The report, prepared for the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, calls Canada a post-Christian society in which Anglicanism is declining faster than any other denomination. It says the church has been “moved to the far margins of public life.”

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have intensively studied the New York Times list of most-e-mailed articles, checking it every 15 minutes for more than six months, analyzing the content of thousands of articles and controlling for factors like the placement in the paper or on the Web home page.

The results are surprising — well, to me, anyway. I would have hypothesized that there are two basic strategies for making the most-e-mailed list. One, which I’ve happily employed, is to write anything about sex. The other, which I’m still working on, is to write an article headlined: “How Your Pet’s Diet Threatens Your Marriage, and Why It’s Bush’s Fault.”

But it turns out that readers have more exalted tastes, according to the Penn researchers, Jonah Berger and Katherine A. Milkman. People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics. MORE

Planned Parenthood Wants Fifth Graders Taught "The Pleasures of Sex"

The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) today released a report entitled “Stand and Deliver: Sex, health and young people in the 21st Century.” ...
Those view include seven principles of “sexual rights” including that “Sexuality is an integral part of the personhood of every human being, for this reason a favourable (sic) environment in which everyone may enjoy all sexual rights as part of the process of development must be created” and “Sexuality, and pleasure deriving from it, is a central aspect of being human...” MORE

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

A Perfect Storm Brewing In Iran

Yesterday Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance [Western powers] on the 22nd of Bahman [Feb. 11] in a way that will leave them stunned," Today, despite the objections of the US and its allies, Iran began enriching uranium to a higher level bringing the Islamic republic closer to having nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile in the country Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says should be "wiped off the face of the earth", Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for immediate and crippling sanctions against Iran saying, "Iran is rushing forward to produce nuclear weapons...I believe that what is required right now is tough action by the international community. This means crippling sanctions and these sanctions must be applied right now."

Athiests Vow to Destroy Roadside Memorials

...Roadside memorials are generally crosses, flowers, etc. little reminders placed by families at the side of roads where their loved ones died in car accidents or being run over. It appears that Atheist Activists are so saturated with hatred that they encourage the destruction and disposal of these. They refer to them as “macabre eyesores and dangerous distractions…offensive, annoying and depressing” and state, “When you do see them, remove them as soon as possible…the State condones religious symbols being placed along the road on State property. There is nothing stopping us from taking down these religious symbols. We don't need any new laws, we need direct action.”

READ MORE...

Obama to Give Global Warming Eternal Life

It's reinventing-the-wheel time. The Obama administration has announced intentions to create a big, fat, shiny, new federal office called the "Climate Service" to track global warming, complete with six regional offices and lots of good intentions.

"It looks like the [warming] empire strikes back. Obama is attempting to engineer a global warming bailout. This is a classic response of the federal government: Bail out a corrupt and dying industry,".....READ MORE

Racial Bias Alive and Well if You're Asian

....“When you look at the private Ivy Leagues, some of them are looking at Asian-American applicants with a different eye than they are white applicants,’’ says Oiyan Poon, the 2007 president of the University of California Students Association. “I do strongly believe in diversity, but I don’t agree with increasing white numbers over historically oppressed populations like Asian-Americans, a group that has been denied civil rights and property rights.’’ But Poon, now a research associate at the University of Massachusetts Boston, warns that there are downsides to having huge numbers of Asian-Americans on a campus...Read More