Justice and Mercy...

The recent capture of Roman Polanski, a convicted and admitted rapist, in Europe, and the subsequent debate over whether or not he should be extradited to the United States in order to serve the remainder of his life in prison, has me disturbed.



The most disturbing thing is that there is any debate at all. The second most disturbing thing is that those opposing his incarceration argue for forgiveness.



Mr. Polanski lured his victim under false pretenses and used drugs and alcohol to incapacitate a 13-year old girl in the home of one of his friends. He then proceeded to sexually assault and rape her.



He was arrested for his crime and confessed to it. He was sentenced to prison and, before he served a day of his time he fled to Europe.



That was 30 years ago.



His victim, now in her 40s, has said publicly and repeatedly that she forgives Mr. Polanski and wishes him no malice. That is an exceptional example for all of us to strive to follow. The world would be a much more peaceful place if we could.



So, why am I so upset about the debate?



Mercy and forgiveness are things extended by INDIVIDUALS to individuals. They may only come legitimately from a PERSON of his own volition.



Governments and courts may NOT dispense mercy or forgiveness. They MUST dispense justice in the protection of the innocent and the punishing of the guilty. Society must NEVER forgive a person who violates another, who murders another, who abuses another.

When we allow our personal feelings to interfere with the order of the civil society we are setting the civil society up for failure.

Scary?

Okay, it's a given that President Obama leans to the left. I'd argue that he has socialist, communist, and totalitarian ideas that help guide his actions.

Socialist - government ownership and control of banks and control of executive compensation.

Communist - UAW ownership of General Motors enforced by government.

Totalitarian - proposed and supports "preventive detention" of people that government feels may be dangerous.

Now look at the President's assertion as a candidate that national security requires more than a military response. He says that we need a civilian security force that is trained and equipped in a manner similar to our military!

That is eerie! That is really, really scary.

Obama WANTS a Single-Payer Healthcare System...

Obama Proposes Civilian Security Force...

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt Coal Industry...

 

It's interesting that the video of this interview was removed from YouTube because of a copyright violation asserted by Hearst Publishing.

 

How deep does this conspiracy go?

Rachel Maddow is RIGHT ON!

Flaming Liberal Wants Obama OUT!!!

Ted Rall: It’s increasingly evident that Obama should resign...

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted May 29, 2009 @ 12:02 AM

MIAMI — We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.

From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss.

I refer here to Obama’s plan for “preventive detentions.” If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in “prolonged detention.” Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama’s shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes).

As if that made it OK.

In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people’s lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can’t control, what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime” — contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.

Locking up people who haven’t done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to “preventive detention” is an outrage. That the president of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.

Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed George W. Bush, I won’t follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.

“Prolonged detention,” reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon “terrorism suspects who cannot be tried.”

“Cannot be tried.” Interesting choice of words.

Any “terrorism suspect” (can you be a suspect if you haven’t been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried.

What they mean, of course, is that the hundreds of men and boys languishing at Guantánamo and the thousands of “detainees” the Obama administration anticipates kidnapping in the future cannot be convicted. As in the old Soviet Union, putting enemies of the state on trial isn’t enough. The game has to be fixed. Conviction has to be a foregone conclusion.

Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners “cannot be tried”?

The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this “entirely new chapter in American law” in a boring little sentence buried a couple of paragraphs past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: “Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted.”

In democracies with functioning legal systems, it is assumed that people against whom there is a “lack of evidence” are innocent. They walk free. In countries where the rule of law prevails, in places blessedly free of fearful leaders whose only concern is staying in power, “tainted evidence” is no evidence at all. If you can’t prove that a defendant committed a crime — an actual crime, not a thoughtcrime — in a fair trial, you release him and apologize to the judge and jury for wasting their time.

It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush’s lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign.

Ted Rall is a columnist for Universal Press Syndicate.

What In The World???

Follow the link below. It will lead you to a scene that should NEVER happen in a public school.

Can you imagine the reaction on the LEFT if this chant and song had been taught to elementary kids about George W. Bush?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zrsl8o4ZPo

The Star Spangled Banner....

The Star Spangled Banner
Francis Scott Key

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

A Conversation With My ACLU-Boardmember-Cousin...

Here’s a conversation with my dad’s cousin Terry. Terry works with the ACLU, but strangely is an advocate of the 2nd Amendment….

T: Congress has gotten so polarized and dogmatic that they put the next election ahead of anything that might be good for the country. Both sides of the aisle are guilty of this mentality, but (forgive the bias) the ultra-conservatives don’t have any compunction about checking their brains and honesty at the door in order to present a unified opposition. So who is lying??? Do you believe that:

· There are death panels that will determine which old people get treatment and which ones don’t?
· That Obama wasn’t born in the United States?
· That the world is only 6,000 years old?
· That Obama is a socialist and/or communist and/or nazi?
· That maybe it’s time for some of the states to succeed from the union and that the constitution supports this position?


J: Let me answer your questions first, just so you can get the lay of the political land in my head.

1. "Death Panel" is certainly an exaggeration. The focus of any bureaucratic review of recipients of government healthcare will certainly not be on any individual. Rather the review will be a rational and objective one that compares the economic benefit of the treatment in question with the viability of the patient.
2. I don't know. Do you?
3. I don't care. Why do you?
4. President Obama certainly has expressed views that are not capitalist in nature. He has railed against "profit" and has moved to bring several large companies including banks and manufacturers into government and union ownership. That lies somewhere between socialist (state ownership) and communist (worker ownership). He has supported an ousted would-be socialist dictator in Honduras over the country's legitimate constitution and the actions of its Supreme Court and military. That is at very least tacit endorsement of socialist aggression.
5. While it certainly is the right of states to secede from the Union, I do not believe that is a good idea. States have a long history of yielding their rights under the 10th Amendment, going back at least to Reconstruction. If the States want to, they must understand that teaching the federal government that the 10th Amendment is as important as the 1st or the 14th is going to take time.

T: And CAN you believe that the same Republicans that are opposed to the government interfering with end-of-life decisions are the ones who supported the government intervention in the end-of-life family decision for Terry Schaivo?


J: So, with the Terri Schaivo case, are you saying that government will interfere with end-of-life choices; and we should be okay with that because (and you must forgive me - I was busy that summer and didn't pay much attention to the whole Schaivo thing...) some Republicans thought it was okay? (There are plenty of "Republicans" who think that government is the answer.) Do you think it's okay for government to do that? You see, on one hand I hear liberals protesting that the government will not make those decisions for us, and on the other I hear them saying we shouldn't complain about the government making those decisions for us.

T: I am easily convinced that Democrats can stretch the truth and revise history. But the outrageous allegations made by Republicans who can’t stand being out of power for 8 months outclasses anything I have witnessed before.

Given the fact that the Republicans believe that if they defeat health care reform, then it will be “Obama’s Waterloo,” I have no doubt about who is willing to lie in order to accomplish that lofty objective. And… One final question that has been niggling at me for the last couple of weeks… Why are so many Americans, even those on the extreme right, so darned concerned about preserving the fantastic profits of the insurance companies??? They are actually concerned about the company’s well-being if they are faced with… get this… competition. Please explain to me why. I await with bated breath.


J: As for "Obama's Waterloo", this is the first time I've heard healthcare reform called that. But let's look at the context of Waterloo. It was not that Napoleon's enemy was superior. The reason Napoleon lost at Waterloo was a series of mistakes he made. Waterloo is synonymous with a self-inflicted defeat. Napoleon had bad timing, a bad plan, and a set of poor leaders. He failed to execute; failed to exploit his advantages. In short, he overestimated his own forces' capabilities and underestimated his enemy. Further, he failed to see the possibility of 50,000 Prussian reinforcements arriving on the scene. In that context, whoever came up with the "Waterloo" analogy may be right.

President Obama missed the wave of popular support. He used that time to pass a stimulus package that is still largely impossible to track. That was a big withdrawal from the fledgling emotional bank account he had with the American people. It left him trying to paddle up the backside of the wave. President Obama still has not articulated a plan for healthcare reform which leaves many wondering if there is a plan at all. The extraordinarily poor quality of appointees he has made - ranging from tax avoiders to conflicts of interest - has been a distraction.

He has failed to execute; failed to exploit his advantages. In short, he overestimated his own election. Rather than reading it as the rejection of a spineless and double-dealing Republican president he read it as a whole-hearted mandate of his socialist agenda - which was largely hidden from the ignorant voting population that numbs its mind on CNN and the Today Show. That misreading caused him to fail to see the possibility of really upsetting a large number of people who would take time off work and travel long distances to express their disappointment (and some contempt) to their elected representatives.

Anyone who paints those folks (of which I am part) as "astroturf" is living in denial.

Your final niggling question about why we Americans are concerned about preserving the profits of insurance companies has a simple answer that ought to be crystal clear to any of you who are drawing down a 401k, 403b, or IRA. All of our financial futures are tied to the profitability and the future profitability of large companies, not just insurance companies or auto makers. Take away the profit potential for any company and what is the investment value? Zero. Now, go try to cash in your investments so that you can live with dignity in retirement when the profit potential for even a small portion of your portfolio has been taken away. You WILL be eating dog food, as the fearmongers in the 1980s asserted.

Competing with the government never was competition, Terry.

Don't point to UPS and FedEx, either. They are not allowed to play in the first-class postage arena. If they were, we might see some very interesting things happen at the USPS. You see, government writes the rules and, as is the case in parcel post, government writes them in its favor.

If you want to open up competition in healthcare, let's deregulate the market and allow companies to practice in all 50 states. I'd love to have the Kaiser Permanente option here in Arizona, but becaus the market is so tightly regulated Kaiser is locked out. Level the playing field, as the liberals say.

And let's get some tort reform going here. When I try to understand what trial lawyers add to the cost of medical care in the country my head swims. I think back to Tina's OB in Ohio who paid $500,000 per year in malpractice premiums - although she'd never lost a case and was only sued 2 or 3 times per year.

I return to my assertion: We do not understand the root problems of healthcare in this country. Therefore we cannot fix them by addressing the symptoms of cost and availability.

The REASON to Cut Carbon Emissions!

Here's the reason - or one of them - we should all reduce our carbon emissions: So that the more enlightened among us, our Glorious Leaders, can do things like THIS!

And so that my aunt Sally can cruise the Pacific Northwest in her boyfriend's diesel powered yacht and so that my aunt Mary can live 35 miles from the nearest organic market and drive there several times a week for fresh produce and so that my cousin Mark can make surfboards out of foam and fiberglas that contain and emit VOCs like they're going out of style and on and on and on.

By the way, my entire family of seven's ANNUAL carbon footprint is just under 7.5 tons. This single trip generated 7 tons of carbon!

Hi-Ho, the Derry-O
By Dana Milbank

Friday, September 18, 2009

Let's say you're preparing dinner and you realize with dismay that you don't have any certified organic Tuscan kale. What to do?

Here's how Michelle Obama handled this very predicament Thursday afternoon:
The Secret Service and the D.C. police brought in three dozen vehicles and shut down H Street, Vermont Avenue, two lanes of I Street and an entrance to the McPherson Square Metro station. They swept the area, in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with bomb-sniffing dogs and installed magnetometers in the middle of the street, put up barricades to keep pedestrians out, and took positions with binoculars atop trucks. Though the produce stand was only a block or so from the White House, the first lady hopped into her armored limousine and pulled into the market amid the wail of sirens.

Then, and only then, could Obama purchase her leafy greens. "Now it's time to buy some food," she told several hundred people who came to watch. "Let's shop!"

Cowbells were rung. Somebody put a lei of marigolds around Obama's neck. The first lady picked up a straw basket and headed for the "Farm at Sunnyside" tent, where she loaded up with organic Asian pears, cherry tomatoes, multicolored potatoes, free-range eggs and, yes, two bunches of Tuscan kale. She left the produce with an aide, who paid the cashier as Obama made her way back to the limousine.

There's nothing like the simple pleasures of a farm stand to return us to our agrarian roots.
The first lady had encouraged Freshfarm Markets, the group that runs popular farmers markets in Dupont Circle and elsewhere, to set up near the White House, and she helped get the approvals to shut down Vermont Avenue during rush hour on Thursdays. But the result was quite the opposite of a quaint farmers market. Considering all the logistics, each tomato she purchased had a carbon footprint of several tons.

The promotion of organic and locally grown food, though an admirable cause, is a risky one for the Obamas, because there's a fine line between promoting healthful eating and sounding like a snob. The president, when he was a candidate in 2007, got in trouble in Iowa when he asked a crowd, "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" Iowans didn't have a Whole Foods.

For that reason, it's probably just as well that the first lady didn't stop by the Endless Summer Harvest tent yesterday. The Virginia farm had a sign offering "tender baby arugula" -- hydroponically grown, pesticide free -- and $5 for four ounces, which is $20 a pound.

Obama, in her brief speech to the vendors and patrons, handled the affordability issue by pointing out that people who pay with food stamps would get double the coupon value at the market. Even then, though, it's hard to imagine somebody using food stamps to buy what the market offered: $19 bison steak from Gunpowder Bison, organic dandelion greens for $12 per pound from Blueberry Hill Vegetables, the Piedmont Reserve cheese from Everson Dairy at $29 a pound. Rounding out the potential shopping cart: $4 for a piece of "walnut dacquoise" from the Praline Bakery, $9 for a jumbo crab cake at Chris's Marketplace, $8 for a loaf of cranberry-walnut bread and $32 for a bolt of yarn.

The first lady said the market would particularly appeal to federal employees in nearby buildings to "pick up some good stuff for dinner." Yet even they might think twice about spending $3 for a pint of potatoes when potatoes are on sale for 40 cents a pound at Giant. They could get nearly five dozen eggs at Giant for the $5 Obama spent for her dozen.

But whatever the socioeconomics, there can be no doubt that Obama brought some serious attention to her cause. Hundreds of people crowded the market entrance on I Street as police directed pedestrians to alternative subway entrances. Hundreds braved a light rain and gave a hearty cheer when Obama and her entourage took the stage. "I can't imagine there's been a day in the history of our country when people have been more excited about farmers markets," Mayor Adrian Fenty, Obama's warm-up act, told the crowd.

The first lady, in gray slacks and blue sweater, marveled that the people were "so pumped up" despite the rain. "I have never seen so many people so excited about fruits and vegetables!" she said. (Must be the tender baby arugula.)

She spoke of the global reach of her cause: "The first thing world leaders, prime ministers, kings, queens ask me about is the White House garden. And then they ask about Bo."

She spoke of the fuel fed to the world's most powerful man: "I've learned that when my family eats fresh food, healthy food, that it really affects how we feel, how we get through the day . . . whether there's a Cabinet meeting or whether we're just walking the dog."

And she spoke of her own culinary efforts: "There are times when putting together a healthy meal is harder than you might imagine."

Particularly when it involves a soundstage, an interpreter for the deaf, three TV satellite trucks and the closing of part of downtown Washington.

More From the AP on America's Health "Crisis"

By SCOTT HARRINGTON
In his speech to Congress last week, President Barack Obama attempted to sell a reform agenda by demonizing the private health-insurance industry, which many people love to hate. He opened the attack by asserting: "More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care. It happens every day."

Clearly, this should never happen to anyone who is in good standing with his insurance company and has abided by the terms of the policy. But the president's examples of people "dropped" by their insurance companies involve the rescission of policies based on misrepresentation or concealment of information in applications for coverage. Private health insurance cannot function if people buy insurance only after they become seriously ill, or if they knowingly conceal health conditions that might affect their policy.

Traditional practice, governed by decades of common law, statute and regulation is for insurers to rely in underwriting and pricing on the truthfulness of the information provided by applicants about their health, without conducting a costly investigation of each applicant's health history. Instead, companies engage in a certain degree of ex post auditing—conducting more detailed and costly reviews of a subset of applications following policy issue—including when expensive treatment is sought soon after a policy is issued.

This practice offers substantial cost savings and lower premiums compared to trying to verify every application before issuing a policy, or simply paying all claims, regardless of the accuracy and completeness of the applicant's disclosure. Some states restrict insurer rescission rights to instances where the misrepresented or concealed information is directly related to the illness that produced the claim. Most states do not.

To highlight abusive practices, Mr. Obama referred to an Illinois man who "lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found he hadn't reported gallstones that he didn't even know about." The president continued: "They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it."

Although the president has used this example previously, his conclusion is contradicted by the transcript of a June 16 hearing on industry practices before the Subcommittee of Oversight and Investigation of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The deceased's sister testified that the insurer reinstated her brother's coverage following intervention by the Illinois Attorney General's Office. She testified that her brother received a prescribed stem-cell transplant within the desired three- to four-week "window of opportunity" from "one of the most renowned doctors in the whole world on the specific routine," that the procedure "was extremely successful," and that "it extended his life nearly three and a half years."

The president's second example was a Texas woman "about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne." He said that "By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more than doubled in size."

The woman's testimony at the June 16 hearing confirms that her surgery was delayed several months. It also suggests that the dermatologist's chart may have described her skin condition as precancerous, that the insurer also took issue with an apparent failure to disclose an earlier problem with an irregular heartbeat, and that she knowingly underreported her weight on the application.

These two cases are presumably among the most egregious identified by Congressional staffers' analysis of 116,000 pages of documents from three large health insurers, which identified a total of about 20,000 rescissions from millions of policies issued by the insurers over a five-year period. Company representatives testified that less than one half of one percent of policies were rescinded (less than 0.1% for one of the companies).

If existing laws and litigation governing rescission are inadequate, there clearly are a variety of ways that the states or federal government could target abuses without adopting the president's agenda for federal control of health insurance, or the creation of a government health insurer.

Later in his speech, the president used Alabama to buttress his call for a government insurer to enhance competition in health insurance. He asserted that 90% of the Alabama health-insurance market is controlled by one insurer, and that high market concentration "makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly—by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates."

In fact, the Birmingham News reported immediately following the speech that the state's largest health insurer, the nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, has about a 75% market share. A representative of the company indicated that its "profit" averaged only 0.6% of premiums the past decade, and that its administrative expense ratio is 7% of premiums, the fourth lowest among 39 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans nationwide.

Similarly, a Dec. 31, 2007, report by the Alabama Department of Insurance indicates that the insurer's ratio of medical-claim costs to premiums for the year was 92%, with an administrative expense ratio (including claims settlement expenses) of 7.5%. Its net income, including investment income, was equivalent to 2% of premiums in that year.

In addition to these consumer friendly numbers, a survey in Consumer Reports this month reported that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama ranked second nationally in customer satisfaction among 41 preferred provider organization health plans. The insurer's apparent efficiency may explain its dominance, as opposed to a lack of competition—especially since there are no obvious barriers to entry or expansion in Alabama faced by large national health insurers such as United Healthcare and Aetna.

Responsible reform requires careful analysis of the underlying causes of problems in health insurance and informed debate over the benefits and costs of targeted remedies. The president's continued demonization of private health insurance in pursuit of his broad agenda of government expansion is inconsistent with that objective.

Mr. Harrington is professor of health-care management and insurance and risk management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Why Don't They Get It?

Here's a great example of the ego-centric "me" projecting my reasons to people around me.

I hear commentators spanning the political spectrum analyzing why people (like me) went to tea parties on 15 April 09. They discuss the outrage expressed by people (like me) over the first stimulus package. Others (like me) were angered with the bailouts given to large companies in America. Pundits banter about people (like me) who rage over the healthcare "reforms" that are proposed.

The consensus seems to be split. One group believes that these groups of people are "astroturf". That we are a fabrication of some corporate/rightwing/naziesque/fringe entity. That is wrong. The other group believes that we are "Republicans" who are finally voicing our support for the Republican Party. That is wrong, too.

I know I cannot speak for others, but I will tell you why I am getting involved.

I grew up believing that the United States of America was a fundamentally good country. I believed that its leaders wanted the best for the people and that they would act in defense of the principles of the Constitution. I thought that if I worked hard I could succeed and that if I did not want to work hard enough I would be allowed, likewise, to fail. I thought that if I met with ruin I would have a chance to rebuild. I thought that if I had an idea, a thought or a belief I could hold it and express it without fear and without reprisal. I thought that we Americans were a free and independent people who shared a vision of opportunity.

I have learned that there is a significant portion of Americans who are content to surrender freedom and independence in exchange for some sense of security. I have learned that there are beliefs, thoughts and ideas that are "politically incorrect". That is not to say that they are bad or antisocial, but expressing them often leads to derrision and social isolation. I have learned that if some Americans meet with financial or other ruin they expect the government to support them in perpetuity. And in many cases the government will do just that. I have learned that there are some in government and others in the population who support them who, regardless of the input or the outcome of my efforts, would not allow me to fail, but would force me to attain some level of mediocrity in housing, in healthcare, in education. I have learned that there are some - and I say now, "many" - in government whose efforts are not expended in the interest of the country. They would compromise the liberty of their constituents and national security in an effort to curry favor with special interests and large financial contributors.

But at the root of it all still stands the Constitution of the United States of America. It is still good. The principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are still sound. The ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence are still ideals.

That is why I attended my local tea party. That is why I have been calling my representatives in Congress and in the state legislature to express my views.

I am disgusted by the mealymouthed Republican Party. I am repulsed by the radical leftleaning Democrat Party. I am terrified that both of their policies lead to the same place: An increasingly powerful federal government and further restriction of individual liberties. One claims to lead in the interest of Security. The other claims to lead in the interest of Equality. Both will lead us to Slavery.

But no one gets it.

I, for one, am mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!

This is not a Republican v. Democrat thing. This is not a Right v. Left thing. This is not a Religious v. Atheist thing.

This is nothing but a Libery v. Tyranny thing!

That is the line in the sand. Those who favor individual liberty and believe that man has a natural right to his liberty must gather to oppose those who believe that man has no inherent rights and that the State gives or takes rights as it seems appropriate to the State to do.

Which side are you on?

Then lay aside your petty "politics" and join us in fighting to save all of our liberties. You need to understand that we are fighting to preserve your right to have a homosexual relationship as avidly as we are fighting to preserve our right to have a heterosexual "marriage". We are working as hard to ensure your right to oppose wars as we are to ensure our right to live without fear. We are struggling to provide you relief from poverty as well as to allow us to retain the just fruits of our labors.

It's not about parties or politics, this is about people and preserving possibilities.

This May Not Be For Kids...

Second Video Shows ACORN Officials Helping 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' in Washington Office - Local News News Articles National News US News - FOXNews.com

Posted using ShareThis

I thought that this was a good snapshot of the mental and moral orientation of the good people at ACORN.

Now ACORN stands to get BILLIONS of stimulus dollars for their community work.

Give me a break!

Thoughts on 11 September....

It feels like it's been a lifetime since I was walking in the hall at graduate school and Karen stopped me. It was 6:30am and we walked into the lounge where a handful of other students were watching the twin towers of the World Trade Center burning. The scene was surreal.

We must never forget that there are people and groups of people who hate us because of who we are. There are those who resent the liberties of the American way of life so much that they would kill us.

Their hatred does not stop at hijacking airliners and killing faceless thousands. They delight in the very personal killing of defenseless individuals, too. Do not forget Nick Berg and Danny Pearl and the many others who suffered torture, disfigurement, and beheading in the most painful and sadistic ways.

Their sadism is not reserved only for the unbeliever. They endorse and enjoy mutilating, torturing, humiliating, and degrading Muslim women. The lifelong abuse of women in Islamic culture breeds a mother that is capable of desiring her offspring become martyrs by blowing themselves to pieces in the process of murdering innocent and unsuspecting people.

Their stated objective is to kill all infidels and create an Islamic state ruled under sharia law.

While for you and me it seems a lifetime since 9/11, for the Muslim terrorist it has only been a short while in which he has worked and trained and gathered in preparation for his next action.

We must never lose sight of the fact that whether or not we are at war with terrorists, they are at war with us. The horrific and cowardly attacks we saw on 9/11 were not the beginning and they were not the end. This is a fight that will continue as long as good and evil coexist on earth. We cannot opt out of it. We can choose sides or sides will be chosen for us.

Checking the Facts with AP

FACT CHECK: Obama uses iffy math on deficit pledge
By CALVIN WOODWARD and ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writers Calvin Woodward And Erica Werner, Associated Press Writers Thu Sep 10, 3:15 am ET
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama used only-in-Washington accounting Wednesday when he promised to overhaul the nation's health care system without adding "one dime" to the deficit. By conventional arithmetic, Democratic plans would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars.
The president's speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance.
A look at some of Obama's claims and how they square with the facts or the fuller story:
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OBAMA: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period."
THE FACTS: Though there's no final plan yet, the White House and congressional Democrats already have shown they're ready to skirt the no-new-deficits pledge.
House Democrats offered a bill that the Congressional Budget Office said would add $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years. But Democrats and Obama administration officials claimed the bill actually was deficit-neutral. They said they simply didn't have to count $245 billion of it — the cost of adjusting Medicare reimbursement rates so physicians don't face big annual pay cuts.
Their reasoning was that they already had decided to exempt this "doc fix" from congressional rules that require new programs to be paid for. In other words, it doesn't have to be paid for because they decided it doesn't have to be paid for.
The administration also said that since Obama already had included the doctor payment in his 10-year budget proposal, it didn't have to be counted again.
That aside, the long-term prognosis for costs of the health care legislation has not been good.
CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf had this to say in July: "We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount."
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OBAMA: "Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have."
THE FACTS: That's correct, as far as it goes. But neither can the plan guarantee that people can keep their current coverage. Employers sponsor coverage for most families, and they'd be free to change their health plans in ways that workers may not like, or drop insurance altogether. The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the health care bill written by House Democrats and said that by 2016 some 3 million people who now have employer-based care would lose it because their employers would decide to stop offering it.
In the past Obama repeatedly said, "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period." Now he's stopping short of that unconditional guarantee by saying nothing in the plan "requires" any change.
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OBAMA: "The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally." One congressman, South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson, shouted "You lie!" from his seat in the House chamber when Obama made this assertion. Wilson later apologized.
THE FACTS: The facts back up Obama. The House version of the health care bill explicitly prohibits spending any federal money to help illegal immigrants get health care coverage. Illegal immigrants could buy private health insurance, as many do now, but wouldn't get tax subsidies to help them. Still, Republicans say there are not sufficient citizenship verification requirements to ensure illegal immigrants are excluded from benefits they are not due.
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OBAMA: "Don't pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut. ... That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare."
THE FACTS: Obama and congressional Democrats want to pay for their health care plans in part by reducing Medicare payments to providers by more than $500 billion over 10 years. The cuts would largely hit hospitals and Medicare Advantage, the part of the Medicare program operated through private insurance companies.
Although wasteful spending in Medicare is widely acknowledged, many experts believe some seniors almost certainly would see reduced benefits from the cuts. That's particularly true for the 25 percent of Medicare users covered through Medicare Advantage.
Supporters contend that providers could absorb the cuts by improving how they operate and wouldn't have to reduce benefits or pass along costs. But there's certainly no guarantee they wouldn't.
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OBAMA: Requiring insurance companies to cover preventive care like mammograms and colonoscopies "makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives."
THE FACTS: Studies have shown that much preventive care — particularly tests like the ones Obama mentions — actually costs money instead of saving it. That's because detecting acute diseases like breast cancer in their early stages involves testing many people who would never end up developing the disease. The costs of a large number of tests, even if they're relatively cheap, will outweigh the costs of caring for the minority of people who would have ended up getting sick without the testing.
The Congressional Budget Office wrote in August: "The evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall."
That doesn't mean preventive care doesn't make sense or save lives. It just doesn't save money.
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OBAMA: "If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage."
THE FACTS: It's not just a matter of being able to get coverage. Most people would have to get coverage under the law, if his plan is adopted.
In his speech, Obama endorsed mandatory coverage for individuals, an approach he did not embrace as a candidate.
He proposed during the campaign — as he does now — that larger businesses be required to offer insurance to workers or else pay into a fund. But he rejected the idea of requiring individuals to obtain insurance. He said people would get insurance without being forced to do so by the law, if coverage were made affordable. And he repeatedly criticized his Democratic primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for proposing to mandate coverage.
"To force people to get health insurance, you've got to have a very harsh penalty," he said in a February 2008 debate.
Now, he says, "individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance — just as most states require you to carry auto insurance."
He proposes a hardship waiver, exempting from the requirement those who cannot afford coverage despite increased federal aid.
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OBAMA: "There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage."
THE FACTS: Obama time and again has referred to the number of uninsured as 46 million, a figure based on year-old Census data. The new number is based on an analysis by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, which concluded that about two-thirds of Americans without insurance are poor or near poor. "These individuals are less likely to be offered employer-sponsored coverage or to be able to afford to purchase their own coverage," the report said. By using the new figure, Obama avoids criticism that he is including individuals, particularly healthy young people, who choose not to obtain health insurance.
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Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.