Friday - July 17, 2009

Read The Bill

Obama To Outlaw New Private Health Insurance Policies

Investor’s Business Daily: It’s Not An Option

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states:

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington’s coverage.

The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, “fizzle out altogether.”

What wasn’t known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.

IBD found this commie stinker in just 16 pages. What do you think might be hidden in the other 1000 pages?

Source Link to IBD

Oops, it’s too late!

(AP) – 3 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A second House committee has approved health care legislation that President Barack Obama is seeking.

The vote in the House Education and Labor Committee was 26-22. A few hours earlier, the Ways and Means Committee passed its portion of the bill.

Democrats are hoping to push the entire measure through the full House for a vote by the end of the month, but to do that, they still need approval in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Republicans are methodically seeking to strip out many of the central provisions of the bill, but have been outvoted consistently.

READ IT AN WEEP. Go to page the bottom of page 15:

(a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE DEFINED.—Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health[Discussion Draft] insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 (as defined in section 100(c)) if the following conditions are met:
(1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.
(B) DEPENDENT COVERAGE PERMITTED.
Subparagraph (A) shall not affect the subsequent enrollment of a dependent of an individual who is covered as of such first day.

So, whoopty do, you can enroll your kids if they aren’t already in your plan. But you the citizen CAN NOT CHOOSE to join a different plan after this bill becomes law. Yeah baby, land of the free!!

   Wednesday - July 08, 2009

I THINK THIS IS AN EMBARRASSING PHOTO. IT’S EMBARRASSING TO AMERICA. NOT OBAMA.

I can’t imagine anyone here at BMEWS, at least among our regulars, who’d disagree.

Was this photo published back home in USA?

That’s the Russian president, Medvedev, who looks oh so interested in shaking the presidential hand.

Alright. Many (most?) conservatives and some so conserv. they are off the scale, do not like Obama. Ooh, what an understatement.
I bet ya even he’s embarrassed. How could he not be?  Never mind for a moment we don’t care for him.  And that’s pretty mild.
He is the president (for now), and he represents our flag and country.  We may not glory in that large fact but it is so and will be until the next election.

So then, seeing this photo I couldn’t help but think .....  The bow to the Saudi Prince and now this almost fawning shot. Which gave way to another thought.

Was Mr. Medvedev thinking ....

“THIS IS NOT MY NEW BEST FRIEND”

this photo has been reduced by much for space but imagine it covering most of an entire front page in a newspaper.  IMPACT! 

Stretching a Buck

If your money doesn’t seem to be going far enough lately, it could be because it has too much company. When the money supply grows and that supply is not matched to the creation of actual wealth, then the value of a given dollar shrinks. And it looks like Obama has the presses at the mint going 24-7.








So expect inflation to surge. It has to. The only way to get equal value for your product when the value of the cash is diminishing is to charge more.


Prior to the Obama administration, the money supply was still growing, but at a much slower rate:



Remember how much devaluation we had during the Bush years? That’s nothing compared to what is coming.



Please follow the links for more information, or Google up “percentage change in monetary base”.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/mt/page10.pdf
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&s[1][id]=BASE&s[1][transformation]=pc1

and a link to an economics blog ...
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/

   Sunday - June 28, 2009

One of these is not like the others…

Complete the sentence…

While minding my own business…

While minding my own business on FreeRepublic.com, I came across this video embedded in a comment.

To be honest, I could nit-pick some of the points, but overall, I agree. Which means I’m a threat to… somebody.

“You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.” - Charles A. Beard

I wouldn’t normally post this sort of thing, but these are not normal times. We are now being governed ruled by a foreign-born African-Colonialist. This is a Constitutional crisis. We need to ‘pressure’ our so-called elected leaders rulers.

I may have to re-read Thomas Paine. I lost my early infatuation with him when I found out that he supported the French Revolution. That was a human atrocity comparable to Hitler. Maybe he recanted at some point…

BTW Drew, in these times I’m thinking that the category ‘Freedom’ needs to be added.

“We didn’t know what we voted for…”

Yes, that’ll be the mantra if and when this cap and tax bill becomes law. Ditto for national kill-Republicans-and-conservatives ‘healthcare’.

We didn’t know? Why not? Because we didn’t read the bill!

I ran into this about fifteen years ago, around the time that now-Congressman Mike Turner was making his first run for Dayton Mayor. The Dayton City Commission at that time had passed, without reading, a gun-control bill that banned several common firearms from the city limits. As a then-sitting Democrat City Commissioner explained at my neighborhood association meeting, ‘We just rely on our staff to tell us what’s in the bills…’

No excuse. The buck stops with the elected official.

The issue was that the bill outlawed the very firearms the Dayton Police used. There was a huge stink, which I think may have contributed to Mike Turner’s mayoral victory. Sadly, the Dayton City Commission has always had at least a 3-2 majority, so all Mr. Turner could do was mitigate some of the more egregious legislation.

Now, the Dayton City Commission is 5-0 Democrat. We are pretty much in the same shape as Flint, MI. I expect bulldozers in 5… 4… 3…

So now Congress, also a bastion of ‘Democrats-that-can’t-read-without-staff’, passes the cap and tax bill. (I thought Democrats were for the little people?) John Boehner had this to say. After this, the ‘we didn’t know’ excuse should fail the donks:

That’s right, they don’t even read what they’re voting on.

Target for 2010: everybody that voted for this. Democrats, certainly. Especially the Stupid Party GOP members who should know better or just do an Arlen Spectre:

Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)
Mike Castle (R-DE)
Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL)
Leonard Lance (R-NJ)
Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ)
John McHugh (R-NY)
Dave Reichert (R-WA)
Chris Smith (R-NJ)

Oust them! Especially Mary Bono. (I really always liked Sonny, shame wifey doesn’t measure up.)

   Monday - June 22, 2009

Somehow this seems familiar

Now, where have we heard this one before?








stolen from Theo’s of course!

Modern Revelations

The coming of the Obamalypse



And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America,

having lost their morals,

their initiative,

and their will to defend their liberties,

chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as “The One”.

He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning;

But He hypnotized the people telling them, “I am sent to save you.

My lack of experience, my questionable ethics,

my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence.

For I shall save you with Hope and Change.

Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who preceded me is evil,

that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed.”

And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what “The One” would do,

he had promised that it was good; and they believed. 

And “The One” said “We live in the greatest country in the world.

Help me change everything about it!”

And the people said, “Hallelujah!  Change is good!”

Then He said, “We are going to tax the rich fat-cats.”

And the people said “Sock it to them!”

“And redistribute their wealth.”

And the people said, “Show us the money!”

And then He said, “Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody”

And Joe the plumber asked, “Are you kidding me?

You’re going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??”

And “The One” ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe’s personal records were hacked and publicized.

One lone reporter asked, “Isn’t that Marxist policy?”

And she was banished from the kingdom!

Then a citizen asked, “With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge,

how will you deal with radical terrorists?”

And “The One” said, “Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them

and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!”

And the people said, “Hallelujah!! We are safe at last,

and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!”

Then “The One” said, “I shall give 95% of you lower taxes.”

And one, lone voice said, “But 40% of us don’t pay ANY taxes.”

So “The One” said, “Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!”

And the people said, “Hallelujah!! Show us the money!”

Then “The One” said, “I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!”

And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed…

And He said, “I shall mandate employer- funded health care for EVERY worker and raise the minimum wage.

And I shall give every person unlimited health care and medicine and transportation to the clinics.”

And the people said, “Give me some of that!”

Then he said, “I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas.”

And the people said, “Where’s my rebate check?”

Then “The One” said, “I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!”

And the people said, “Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal!

But we don’t care for that part about higher electric rates.”

So “The One” said, “Not to worry. If your rebate isn’t enough to cover your expenses,

we shall bail you out. Just sign up with ACORN and your troubles are over!”

Then He said, “Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted.

Let’s grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches,

free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing...”

And the people said, “Hallelujah!!” And they made him King!

And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes,

raised their prices and laid off workers.

Others simply gave up and went out of business

and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff.

The banking industry was destroyed.

Manufacturing slowed to a crawl.

And more of the people were without a means of support.

Then “The One” said, “I am the “The One” - The Messiah - and I’m here to save you!

We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!”

But our foreign trading partners said unto Him, “Wait a minute.

Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung!

You will have to pay more...”

And the people said, “Wait a minute. That is unfair!!”

And the world said, “Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced.

Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!”

And the people cried out, “Alas, alas!! What have we done?”

But yea verily, it was too late.

The people set upon “The One” and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung.

And the once mighty nation was no more;

and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope.

And the Change “The One” had given them was as like unto a poison

that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built.

And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish,

“Give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!”

But it was too late, and their homeland was no more. 

   Thursday - June 18, 2009

Rush Limbaugh: Obama is Destroying the Economy

Rush has made his opening monologue from June 8th available on YouTube. It’s broken into ten parts. Here’s part one, as viewed through the DittoCam:

“You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.” - Charles A. Beard

   Wednesday - June 17, 2009

Mirror, mirror, on the wall …

Another email! Yes, I’m finally getting caught up with all of the great stuff BMEWS readers send me. I think I even have some Rancino graphics in there somewhere, but this one comes from Carol. Thanks Carol!

Subject: Narcissism

Dr. Vaknin has written extensively about narcissism.

Dr. Vaknin States “I must confess I was impressed by Sen.Barack Obama from the first time I saw him.  At first I was excited to see a black candidate.  He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package.  I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling.  His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama’s speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history.  Never a politician in this land had such quasi “religious” impact on so many people.  The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming. Obama is not an ordinary man.  He is not a genius.  In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects.”

Barack Obama is a narcissist.

Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of the Malignant Self Love believes “Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist.” Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism.  He understands narcissism and describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person.  When he talks about narcissism everyone listens.  Vaknin says that Obama’s language, posture and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest and nearest suggest that the Senator is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).  Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves.  Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of People’s Temple, the man who led over 900 of his followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder their own children was also a narcissist.  David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao,Kim Jong Ill and Adolph Hitler are a few examples of narcissists of our t ime.  All these men had a tremendous influence over their fanciers.  They created a personality cult around themselves and with their blazing speeches elevated their admirers, filled their hearts with enthusiasm and instilled in their minds a new zest for life.  They gave them hope!  They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their doom.  When you are a victim of a cult of personality, you don’t know it until it is too late.  One determining factor in the development of NPD is childhood abuse. 

“Obama’s early life was decidedly chaotic and replete with traumatic and mentally bruising dislocations,” says Vaknin.  “Mixed-race marriages were even less common then.  His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant (two years old).  Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident.  Then his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia , a foreign land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a s tep-father.  At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white)grandparents.  He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979.  She died of cancer in 1995”. 

One must never underestimate the manipulative genius of pathological narcissists.  They project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around them.  Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands.  They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service.  The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own inverted image.  He creates a cult of personality.  His admirers become his co-dependents.  Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their personal objective.  They are focused on one thing alone and that is power.  All other issues are meaningless to them and they do not want to waste their precious time on trivialities.  Anything that do es not help them is beneath them and do not deserve their attention.

If an issue raised in the Senate does not help Obama in one way or another, he has no interest in it.  The “present” vote is a safe vote.  No one can criticize him if things go wrong.  Those issues are unworthy by their very nature because they are not about him.  Obama’s election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations. 

The University of Chicago Law School provided him a lot longer than expected and at the end it evolved into, guess what?  His own autobiography!  Instead of writing a scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which he had been paid, Obama could not resist writing about his most sublime self.  He entitled the book Dreams from My Father. 

Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was still nobody.  So did Stalin.  For a narcissist no subject is as important as his own self.  Why would he waste his precious time and genius writing about insignificant things when he can write about such an august being as himself?  Narcissists are often callous and even ruthless.  As the norm, they lack conscience.  This is evident from Obama’s lack of interest in his own brother who lives on only one dollar per month. 

A man who lives in luxury, who takes a private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and who has raised nearly half a billion dollars for his campaign (something unprecedented in history) has no interest in the plight of his own brother.  Why?  Because, his brother cannot be used for his ascent to power.

A narcissist cares for no one but himself.  This election is like no other in the history of America . The issues are insignificant compared to what is at stake.  What can be more dangerous than having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world?  I hate to sound alarmist, but one is a fool if one is not alarmed. Many politicians are narcissists.  They pose no threat to others...They are simply self serving and selfish.

Obama evidences symptoms of pathological narcissism, which is different from the run-of-the-mill narcissism of a Richard Nixon or a Bill Clinton for example.  To him reality and fantasy are intertwined.  This is a mental health issue, not just a character flaw.  Pathological narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent.  It is this disguise that makes them treacherous. 

Today the Democrats have placed all their hopes in Obama.  But this man could put an end to their party.  The great majority of blacks have also decided to vote for Obama.  Only a fool does not know that their support for him is racially driven.  This is racism, pure and simple.  The downside of this is that if Obama turns out to be the disaster I predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites.

The blacks are unlikely to give up their support of their man.  Cultic mentality is pernicious and unrelenting.  They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama’s detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites.

The white supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive widespread support.  I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960’s. 

Obama will set the clock back decades… America is the bastion of freedom.  The peace of the world depends on the strength of America , and its weakness translates into the triumph of terrorism and victory of rogue nations. 

It is no wonder that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castrists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the Guantanamo terrorists and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House. America is on the verge of destruction.  There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological narcissist as president.

   Friday - June 12, 2009

That sound you heard in Cairo is the tingy ping of a hollow superpower.  Mark Steyn, on O. & the USA

Here’s a few hundred words from Mark Steyn I found a week ago. Or was it two. ?
Good grief. Talk about late.  Sorry. Thought I’d already posted it. Guess not.

Something to think and worry about.

This editorial may be late, but for those who haven’t read it I would urge you do so. Steyn says it all very well. 

Mark Steyn: Obama’s message of weakness
A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past.
By MARK STEYN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

“Fundamentally, Obama’s goal was to tell the Muslim world, ‘We respect and value you, your religion and your civilization, and only ask that you don’t hate us and murder us in return.’”

As recently as last summer, General Motors filing for bankruptcy would have been the biggest news story of the week. But it’s not such a very great step from the unthinkable to the inevitable, and by the time it actually happened the market barely noticed, and the media were focused on the president’s “address to the Muslim world.” As it happens, these two stories are the same story: snapshots, at home and abroad, of the hyperpower in eclipse. It’s a long time since anyone touted GM as the emblematic brand of America – What’s good for GM is good for America, etc. In fact, it’s more emblematic than ever: Like General Motors, the U.S. government spends more than it makes, and has airily committed itself to ever more unsustainable levels of benefits. GM has about 95,000 workers but provides health benefits to a million people: It’s not a business enterprise, but a vast welfare plan with a tiny loss-making commercial sector. As GM goes, so goes America?

But who cares? Overseas, the coolest president in history was giving a speech. Or, as the official press release headlined it on the State Department Web site, “President Obama Speaks To The Muslim World From Cairo.”
Let’s pause right there: It’s interesting how easily the words “the Muslim world” roll off the tongues of liberal secular progressives who’d choke on any equivalent reference to “the Christian world.” When such hyperalert policemen of the perimeter between church and state endorse the former but not the latter, they’re implicitly acknowledging that Islam is not merely a faith but a political project, too. There is an “Organization of the Islamic Conference,” which is already the largest single voting bloc at the United Nations and is still adding new members. Imagine if someone proposed an “Organization of the Christian Conference” that would hold summits attended by prime ministers and Presidents, and vote as a bloc in transnational bodies. But, of course, there is no “Christian world”: Europe is largely post-Christian and, as President Barack Obama bizarrely asserted to a European interviewer last week, America is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Perhaps we’re eligible for membership in the OIC.

I suppose the benign interpretation is that, as head of state of the last superpower, Obama is indulging in a little harmless condescension. In his Cairo speech, he congratulated Muslims on inventing algebra and quoted approvingly one of the less-bloodcurdling sections of the Quran. As sociohistorical scholarship goes, I found myself recalling that moment in the long twilight of the Habsburg Empire when Crown Prince Rudolph and his mistress were found dead at the royal hunting lodge at Mayerling – either a double suicide, or something even more sinister. Happily, in the Broadway musical version, instead of being found dead, the star-crossed lovers emigrate to America and settle down on a farm in Pennsylvania. Recently, my old comrade Stephen Fry gave an amusing lecture at the Royal Geographical Society in London on the popular Americanism, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade” – or, if something’s bitter and hard to swallow, add sugar and sell it. That’s what the president did with Islam: He added sugar and sold it.

The savvier Muslim potentates have no desire to be sitting in a smelly cave in the Hindu Kush, sharing a latrine with a dozen half-witted goatherds while plotting how to blow up the Empire State Building.

The speech nevertheless impressed many conservatives, including Rich Lowry, my esteemed editor at National Review, “esteemed editor” being the sort of thing one says before booting the boss in the crotch. Rich thought that the president succeeded in his principal task: “Fundamentally, Obama’s goal was to tell the Muslim world, ‘We respect and value you, your religion and your civilization, and only ask that you don’t hate us and murder us in return.’” But those terms are too narrow. You don’t have to murder a guy if he preemptively surrenders. And you don’t even have to hate him if you’re too busy despising him. The savvier Muslim potentates have no desire to be sitting in a smelly cave in the Hindu Kush, sharing a latrine with a dozen half-witted goatherds while plotting how to blow up the Empire State Building. Nevertheless, they share key goals with the cave dwellers – including the wish to expand the boundaries of “the Muslim world” and (as in the anti-blasphemy push at the U.N.) to place Islam, globally, beyond criticism. The nonterrorist advance of Islam is a significant challenge to Western notions of liberty and pluralism.

Once Obama moved on from the more generalized Islamoschmoozing to the details, the subtext – the absence of American will – became explicit. He used the cover of multilateralism and moral equivalence to communicate, consistently, American weakness: “No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons.” Perhaps by “no single nation” he means the “global community” should pick and choose, which means the U.N. Security Council, which means the Big Five, which means that Russia and China will pursue their own murky interests and that, in the absence of American leadership, Britain and France will reach their accommodations with a nuclear Iran, a nuclear North Korea and any other psychostate minded to join them.

On the other hand, a “single nation” certainly has the right to tell another nation anything it wants if that nation happens to be the Zionist Entity: As Hillary Clinton just instructed Israel regarding its West Bank communities, there has to be “a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions.” No “natural growth”? You mean, if you and the missus have a kid, you’ve got to talk gran’ma into moving out? To Tel Aviv, or Brooklyn or wherever? At a stroke, the administration has endorsed “the Muslim world’s” view of those non-Muslims who happen to find themselves within what it regards as lands belonging to Islam: the Jewish and Christian communities are free to stand still or shrink, but not to grow. Would Obama be comfortable mandating “no natural growth” to Israel’s million-and-a-half Muslims? No. But the administration has embraced “the Muslim world’s” commitment to one-way multiculturalism, whereby Islam expands in the West but Christianity and Judaism shrivel remorselessly in the Middle East.

And so it goes. Like General Motors, America is “too big to fail.” So it won’t, not immediately. It will linger on in a twilight existence, sclerotic and ineffectual, declining unto a kind of societal dementia, unable to keep pace with what’s happening and with an ever more tenuous grip on its own past, but able on occasion to throw out impressive words albeit strung together without much meaning: empower, peace, justice, prosperity – just to take one windy gust from the president’s Cairo speech.

There’s better phrase-making in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, in a coinage of Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Committee on Foreign Relations. The president emeritus is a sober, judicious paragon of torpidly conventional wisdom. Nevertheless, musing on American decline, he writes, “The country’s economy, infrastructure, public schools and political system have been allowed to deteriorate. The result has been diminished economic strength, a less-vital democracy, and a mediocrity of spirit.” That last is the one to watch: A great power can survive a lot of things, but not “a mediocrity of spirit.” A wealthy nation living on the accumulated cultural capital of a glorious past can dodge its rendezvous with fate, but only for a while. That sound you heard in Cairo is the tingy ping of a hollow superpower.
©MARK STEYN

   Saturday - May 30, 2009

Shirk Gets The Shaft

US Citizen Gets Anti-Terrorist Visit From FBI
Because he wrote a letter to Senator Whitehouse (D-RI)




No wonder Obama has dropped the voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panthers. His government is using the same tactics. Agree!! Obey!! You shall not question Teh One!! Or any Democrat, or else we’ll get you, your Chrysler dealership, and your little dog too!! Mwaahahahahahahaaa!!!111!

Dear Senator,

I am fairly certain you are going to merely send me a canned response that I am not your constituent, and you therefore could care less how I feel. However, I am part of a movement that will put you back where you belong. The mandate from the 2008 election did not include the Democrats turning our nation into a Socialist Democracy.

We will not stand for it. We will vote you out starting in 2010, but in the event you go to far,, starting with the New Hampshire Resolution we will take the power of the federal government away from the federal government.

The stimulus bill was a travesty beyond description. I see you democrats saying in public that the people are in favor of these policies, but I can tell you that everyone I know is arming themselves, installing sophisticated alarms, trip wires, buying gold, investing outside the United States, and taking every measure possible to protect ourselves from a government gone crazy. We could very well wind up in anarchy, particularly while you in Congress site idly by, spending money we do not have, while ignoring everything else going on in the world. Even the border with Mexico is going unnoticed, while three drug cartels take control of the Mexican government, including the military hardware we provided them. You democrats are very dangerous right now. I hope to God we can survive until 2010 when we take back the House. I realize it may take a little longer to throw you out of the Senate, but we will in large numbers. Now we realize that democrats stand for Socialism.

Steve Shirk

This is “threatening the government” according to Senator Whitehouse.

Mr. Shirk, a blogger, wrote several letters to the government, and was paid a visit by the FBI. Because they were told to do so. The good news is that the agent was all “right on bro, keep on keepin on.” The bad news is that Senator Whitehouse (D - Rhode Island) has not yet been tarred and feathered [metaphorically of course], and drummed out of office for his tyrannical behavior.

Beginning in earnest in September of 2008 I began a campaign of letter writing to elected United States Representatives, Senators, and the White House under both President Bush and now President Obama. The tone of my correspondence has been that of a citizen who is fed up with the government for spending money we do not have, at a time when we are experiencing economic deflation, and taking control of private business, where I believe it is in violation of the constitutional rights of business owners, shareholders, and frankly every citizen of this country.

...

Yesterday, as a result of one of my letters, I was paid a visit by the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI. One Senator, Sheldon Whitehouse [ D- RI ] , reported to the FBI that he felt I was endangering the government and should be investigated as a suspected terrorist. This after every single one my letters was sent through the official website of the government, and contained all of my personally identifying information and was specifically stated as advising each U. S. Senator that I was offering political opinion about pending legislation, or governmental policy.

Apparently, as this left leaning Congress assaults our rights on a daily basis, they are now resorting to reporting dissenters to their policies to the FBI, under the guise of terrorist threats.

Original entry here, actual letters in comment #4

A blog post on the outrage, and a bit of info about Senator Whitehouse, here

This is an outrage. An act of jack booted thuggery unseen in this nation in more than 200 years. How dare he? How DARE he? I call for Senator Whitehouse’s (DEMOCRAT - Rhode Island) immediate suspension and ouster, with no pay, no benefits, and no retirement plans. And then we’ll see about criminal charges ... because if “being a fascist scumbag” isn’t illegal, it damn well ought to be.

   Friday - May 29, 2009

Barack Obama’s great uncle criticises him over Buchenwald visit. Ya mean it’s all about politics?

I guess by the time I’ve seen things you at home may already have. However, we do get lurks from other parts so hope folks find of some interest.
Now lets not be too hard on him for the visit because all of you know THEY ALL (any politician, any party) have to make an obligatory visit.
You know how it goes. When in Europe be sure to visit ....
I’m not trying to be mean hearted but rather just a bit tired of the must stop visits simply because they are just that. “Musts.” They must visit. They must be seen to be “moved.” They then must say a few words, blah,blah to show their humanity and that they are not anti anything, blah,blah and must show that they feel someone else’s pain, blah,blah. You get the picture.

Barack Obama faced unprecedented public criticism from a member of his own family when his great uncle said he was only visiting a concentration camp next week for ‘political reasons’.

By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 7:29PM BST 29 May 2009

Charles Payne, 84, was among the American infantrymen who liberated Ohrdruf, a subdivision of the Buchenwald camp, in April 1945.

Mr Obama will next week attend a memorial ceremony at the former camp with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, before heading to Normandy to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Asked if his great nephew was following in his footsteps, which the White House has suggested as a reason for the trip, Mr Payne told the German magazine Der Spiegel: “I don’t buy that. This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I’m sure, but for political reasons.”

Denting the normally smooth-running presidential public relations machine, he added: “Perhaps his visit also has something to do with improving his standing with Angela Merkel. She gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards.”

Exposing the haste with which political biographies can be formed, Mr Payne expressed surprise at how his great-nephew had used his wartime experiences on the campaign trail. As a candidate, Mr Obama used the wartime service of his white mother’s parents and family to allay concerns about his heritage.

“I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany. We had never talked about that before,” he said, adding that he enjoyed a “warm and friendly relationship” with his great nephew, though he was not part of his inner circle.

The first time they discussed his participation in the war was when Mr Obama wrongly said during the campaign that Mr Payne had “liberated” Auschwitz. Opponents swiftly pointed out that had been done by the Red Army.

“He couldn’t have gotten it from me since we had never talked about this particular episode in the war,” he said. “My sister and her husband were both great storytellers and sometimes made up the details to go along with it. They told him about my deployment with the 89th Infantry Division and apparently they mixed up a few details.”

Mr Obama soon called Mr Payne to check the details of his war experience, he said. “He wanted to know where this camp was that I had helped liberate. I told him that it was Ohrdruf and that it was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. I described a little bit of what I had seen,” he said.

Raised in Kansas, Mr Payne was the brother of Mr Obama’s late grandmother Madelyn Dunham, and joined the army as soon as he had finished school. He was among the first US soldiers to discover the horrors of the Holocaust first hand.

He appeared at the 2008 Democratic national convention, when Mr Obama was formally nominated as the party’s candidate, and attended the inauguration in January. He has not however been invited on the trip to Europe, but “if he invites me on Air Force One, I’ll be there”, he said.

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