These contents are based on Fact and Truth. Challenges are invited.
The day’s top political news:
Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) vote for Harry Reid’s health care scheme: Staffers on Capitol Hill call it the “Louisiana Purchase”.
On the eve of Saturday's showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn't secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.
And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor mid-afternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote -- and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going to be defensive," she declared. "And it's not a $100 million fix. It's a $300 million fix."
Only a Louisiana Democrat would think such a public admission of corruption not a political risk. Now the base cause of the Katrina disaster is a bit more obvious. Among Louisiana Democrat politicians “follow the money” is an answer.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/21/AR2009112102272_pf.html
Cong Patrick Kennedy: Barred from Communion by the bishop
Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin has forbidden Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy to receive the Roman Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion because of his advocacy of abortion rights, the Rhode Island Democrat said Friday.
Kennedy says the bishop has explained the penalty by telling him “that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I’ve taken as a public official,” particularly on abortion. He declined to say when or how Bishop Tobin told him not to take the sacrament. And he declined to say whether he has obeyed the bishop’s injunction.
Finally, it seems far left Democrats are being faced with legitimate actions by the leaders of their church when they refuse to follow the tenets of their Faith.
http://www.projo.com/news/johnmulligan/KENNEDY_COMMUNION_11-22-09_7PGHOLP_v17.38abb89.html
Congressman Joe Wilson and Obama lies about the “stimulus” and jobs
Wilson notes: The Obama Administration recently launched a website at www.recovery.gov to track stimulus spending, fraud, and abuse, but unfortunately the website seems to be its very own worst offender. It reports millions of dollars spent to create jobs in congressional districts that do not exist.
Fake jobs in fake districts. In South Carolina alone, the website reports spending $40 million to create 155 jobs in our 16th, 43rd, 45th 32nd, and 12th districts. The problem is South Carolina only has 6 congressional districts. Somehow, $1.8 million was even spent for 1.4 jobs in district 00 and $3 million couldn’t even produce a single job in South Carolina’s 43rd imaginary Congressional District.
This would all be funny if we weren’t talking about the biggest expansion of government in decades and real jobs for American families who need to get back on their feet. American taxpayers deserve to know where their hard-earned dollars are being spent.
action@joewilsonforcongress.com
Opinion:
Harry Reid, Christmas presents for Republicans
(NOTE: “Christmas” not “Holiday” or some other liberal term designed to cover up and hide the real motivation for the celebration. Let the ACLU sulk in the corner.)
Harry Reid certainly didn’t intend to do so, but he may have provided a real boost to Republicans with his health care take over scheme and the steps he employed building up to bringing it to a vote by opening up debate.
Not the least of Reid’s accomplishment is providing GOP grass root activists with a facile targeting process, allowing us to so easily identify real political enemies next year…Democrats in the Senate who face re-election bids. Mary Landrieu comes to mind immediately. Her vote supporting Reid will deny her the tag of being “moderate” and many observers say she is now a sure bet for defeat next year.
Nothing like volunteering to wear a bulls eye just to please Reid, or to kiss up to a far left President who is unpopular among constituents whose votes will be needed next year.
Reid crafted his bill in secrecy. The work went on day after day behind closed doors. No Republican was allowed near the Reid process. Throughout the days from his bunker, Reid would occasionally emerge to issue threats he intends to manipulate Senate rules and use the huge majority he enjoys to impose his bill on an unwilling America.
His threats underscore the critical necessity for defeating every vulnerable Democrat next year in order to allow real Americans an honest shot at retaking their government and protecting their futures and those of their families.
There may remain a possibility of defeating the infamous “public option” schemes through which liberals intend to sneak in Canadian style socialized medicine – rationed care and all. Pelosi, Reid, et al, deny that is the case, ridiculing those who point out that fact saying the “Options” only create competition through which real insurance companies will be induced to lowering prices. If they were honest, these liberal schemers would have to admit the real result would be the dissolution of real insurance companies and their replacement by the government run process. Infamous Congressional far left extremist, Barney Frank, let slip an admission that “public option” is a pathway to the Canadian form of health care diminished in quality and access.
It gets even worse.
The Wall Street Journal has revealed another threat from the Democrat proposals:
“The Rationing Commission”, an unelected body that will dictate future medical decisions.
The threat is dire and very real.
This aspect of Democrat plans is a new commission (Surprise, more and more bureaucracy) telling Congress how to control health spending. Democrats are quietly attempting to impose a "global budget" on Medicare. It has radical implications for U.S. medicine. Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year — and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how the resulting cost will be paid. White House budget director Peter Orszag admits this Medicare commission is "critical to our fiscal future" and "one of the most potent reforms."
The scheme gets worse and becomes more and more ominous the more we read.
Get fuller details at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703792304574504020025055040.html
This scheme has been sneaked in as craftily as a gaggle of illegal aliens on our border. Liberals hope real Americans will go on their way, oblivious of both such threats.
If we have missed a detail as horrendous as this, imagine what other horror stories hide within the combined total of four thousand pages of governmental verbiage. One thing is for sure – we have only raised a tiny corner and can see only some of the threats to our freedoms, the threats to health care quality, and schemes envisioning a rationing of health care that will leave many seniors abandoned and deserted.
That inclusions such as that constituted “death panels” or seem to make that claim, then so be it.
This is no time for political correctness insanity. Our nation and our futures are in danger.
Buddy
Top blogs of the day:
1.
200 Web sites spread al-Qaida's message in English
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading al-Qaida's message to Muslims in the West. They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings.
The U.S.-born al-Awlaki has been an inspiration to several militants arrested in the United States and Canada in recent years, with his Web-based sermons often turning up on their computers.
"The point is you don't have to be an official part of al-Qaida to spread hatred and sectarian views," said Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants.
"If you look at the most influential documents in terms of homegrown terrorism cases, it's not training manuals on building bombs," Kohlmann said. "The most influential documents are the ones that are written by theological advisers, some of whom are not even official al-Qaida members."
Most of the radical Islamic sites are not run or directed by al-Qaida, but they provide a powerful tool for recruiting sympathizers to its cause of jihad, or holy war, against the United States, experts who track the activity said.
The number of English-language sites sympathetic to al-Qaida has risen from about 30 seven years ago to more than 200 recently, said Abdulmanam Almushawah, head of a Saudi government program called Assakeena, which works to combat militant Islamic Web sites.
In contrast, Arabic-language radical sites have dropped to around 50, down from 1,000 seven years ago, because of efforts by governments around the world to shut them down, he said.
Al-Qaida has long tried to reach a Western audience. Videotaped messages from its leader, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri usually have English subtitles. But translations of writings and sermons that form the theological grounding for al-Qaida's ideology, along with preachers like al-Awlaki, mostly eliminate the language barrier.
Al-Awlaki's sermons have turned up on the computers of nearly every homegrown terror suspect arrested in the United States, Kohlmann said.
Members of a group of Canadian Muslims arrested in 2006 for allegedly forming a training camp and plotting bombing attacks in Toronto listened to his online calls for jihad, according to the case against them in court. According to prosecutors, an al-Awlaki sermon on jihad was among the numerous materials — including videos of beheadings — found on the computers of five men convicted in December of plotting attacks on the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey.
On his Web site and in widely circulated lectures, the 38-year-old al-Awlaki, now in hiding in Yemen, often calls on Muslims to fight against the United States, accusing it of waging war on Islam in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nidal Hasan, who has been charged in the Fort Hood shootings, contacted al-Awlaki nearly a year ago.
In an interview published in The Washington Post, al-Awlaki said he did not pressure Hasan to carry out the shooting, but after the attack, al-Awlaki praised him as a hero. U.S. investigators have said Hasan appears to have acted alone, not on orders from anyone, when he opened fire Nov. 5 at the Texas military base, killing 13.
The cleric met two of the 9/11 hijackers at mosques where he preached in the United States, and after his return to Yemen he was detained for more than a year on suspicion of involvement in a kidnapping gang. Yemeni officials released him because they could not confirm an al-Qaida link, but they say they are hunting for him again on suspicion he may have ties.
U.S. intelligence officials declined comment on the spread of English-language jihadist Web sites.
Such sites are expected to follow closely the upcoming trials of Hasan and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused of being a top architect of the 9/11 attacks, said Rita Katz, head of the U.S. based SITE Intelligence Group, which follows on line militant traffic. The Obama administration announced this week that Mohammed and four others will be put on trial in New York City.
Almushawah said clerics like al-Awlaki are "more dangerous than any other group." And if these clerics are jailed, "it's no big loss for al-Qaida because they don't belong to the network," he said.
Many of the sites post speeches by English-speaking clerics like al-Awlaki or, more often, translations of sermons and lectures by Arabic-speaking clerics.
One site, the Pulpit of Monotheism and Jihad links to sermons by al-Awlaki, alongside English versions of speeches by some of the top sheikhs of jihadist ideology — even some who are dead like Abdullah Azzam.
The proliferation of sites in English means "potential jihadists can know only their native language and still be radicalized," Katz said.
While al-Awlaki has become popular, "other, more prominent and influential Arabic-speaking jihadist sheikhs ... have had their works and speeches translated into English and other languages. Their works tend to be used more often by the jihadist community to justify violence," she said in an e-mail interview. Al-Awlaki "fills a void in that he can directly interact, understand and communicate with English-speaking jihadists in a way that Arabic-speaking clerics cannot."
Almushawah says most of the servers for the sites are in Britain, but they can be run from anywhere and most of them are operated and receive content from the U.S. Most of the clerics who appear on them are in the Arab world with some in France and England.
U.S. intelligence officials declined to comment on the spread of English language sites and their influence.
Saudi Arabia set up its Assakeena program after authorities found that 70 percent of al-Qaida sympathizers were drawn to the group through the Internet. In the campaign, government-backed preachers monitor 400 radical Islamic web sites and inject a more moderate message on the sites.
The campaigners also directly contact and dialogue with militants they encounter on the Web, conversations that can take weeks or months. Of 2,631 militants contacted by the group, 1,170 withdrew their support for radicals, according to the campaign. About a fifth of the militants were from Europe and North American, and the rest from Arab countries.
Assakeena — the name is Arabic for "Tranquility from God" — is part of other hearts-and-minds programs the kingdom launched to complement its crackdown on al-Qaida after the group carried out a series of attacks on foreigners and oil infrastructure in 2004.
2.
Travesty in New York
Charles Krauthammer
For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the "propaganda of the deed." And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 -- not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.
And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York. Just as the memory fades, 9/11 has been granted a second life -- and KSM, a second act: "9/11, The Director's Cut," narration by KSM.
September 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable -- a civilian trial in the media capital of the world -- from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.
So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system, where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.
Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) "do not get convicted," asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. "Failure is not an option," replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn't the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure -- acquittal, hung jury -- is an option?
By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place.
Moreover, everyone knows that whatever the outcome of the trial, KSM will never walk free. He will spend the rest of his natural life in U.S. custody. Which makes the proceedings a farcical show trial from the very beginning.
Apart from the fact that any such trial will be a security nightmare and a terror threat to New York -- what better propaganda-by-deed than blowing up the courtroom, making KSM a martyr and turning the judge, jury and spectators into fresh victims? -- it will endanger U.S. security. Civilian courts with broad rights of cross-examination and discovery give terrorists access to crucial information about intelligence sources and methods.
That's precisely what happened during the civilian New York trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. The prosecution was forced to turn over to the defense a list of 200 unindicted co-conspirators, including the name Osama bin Laden. "Within 10 days, a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum," wrote former attorney general Michael Mukasey, the presiding judge at that trial, "letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered."
Finally, there's the moral logic. It's not as if Holder opposes military commissions on principle. On the same day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, Holder announced he was sending Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, (accused) mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole, to a military tribunal.
By what logic? In his congressional testimony Wednesday, Holder was utterly incoherent in trying to explain. In his Nov. 13 news conference, he seemed to be saying that if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, you get a civilian trial; a military target like the Cole, and you get a military tribunal.
What a perverse moral calculus. Which is the war crime -- an attack on defenseless civilians or an attack on a military target such as a warship, an accepted act of war that the United States itself has engaged in countless times?
By what possible moral reasoning, then, does KSM, who perpetrates the obvious and egregious war crime, receive the special protections and constitutional niceties of a civilian courtroom, while he who attacked a warship is relegated to a military tribunal?
Moreover, the incentive offered any jihadist is as irresistible as it is perverse: Kill as many civilians as possible on American soil and Holder will give you Miranda rights, a lawyer, a propaganda platform -- everything but your own blog.
Alternatively, Holder tried to make the case that he chose a civilian New York trial as a more likely venue for securing a conviction. An absurdity: By the time Barack Obama came to office, KSM was ready to go before a military commission, plead guilty and be executed. It's Obama who blocked a process that would have yielded the swiftest and most certain justice.
Indeed, the perfect justice. Whenever a jihadist volunteers for martyrdom, we should grant his wish. Instead, this one, the most murderous and unrepentant of all, gets to dance and declaim at the scene of his crime.
Holder himself told The Post that the coming New York trial will be "the trial of the century." The last such was the trial of O.J. Simpson.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
3.
EMPLOYMENT
Parties Sharpen Their Partisan Attacks About Job Creation
While House leaders from both parties insist they are focusing on how Congress can help the economy rebound, the two sides seem just as intent on sharpening partisan attacks they can use if the economy continues to wobble in advance of next year's congressional elections.
Republicans have been emphasizing what they see as a failure of President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus plan pushed through Congress in February. They see this week's call by Speaker Pelosi for the House to move a jobs bill by Dec. 18 as a tacit admission by Democrats that the stimulus isn't working.
"Are Democrats in Washington finally admitting their so-called stimulus package was an enormous failure?" House Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price of Georgia asked Wednesday. "If so, the real question is, 'what took them so long?' "
(NOTE: It should be noted, that government cannot create real jobs. Only business – usually small business can do that. That wont keep Obama and his far left Democrats from staging the usual “mating dances” to seem to be doing something they are powerless to do.)
A day earlier, House Minority Whip Cantor said House Democrats have, until now, been more focused on climate change and healthcare reform, and "leaving a wake of deficits in their trail." Meanwhile, he said, Republicans have been working on "real solutions" to the nation's economic woes.
Cantor said he hoped Pelosi would include some of the GOP proposals, which he said focus primarily on business tax breaks aimed at reinvigorating the sluggish economy. But he and other Republicans question Democratic seriousness in moving a bill targeted at job growth.
"Republicans have focused on jobs, the economy, and the deficit since January, and unlike some, not because our pollsters told us to," said Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring.
That theme is expected to be underscored today as Cantor reconvenes the House Republican Economic Solutions Group. The session will focus on GOP ideas as well as Obama's planned Dec. 3 jobs conference -- the GOP meeting notice calls it a "jobs summit not focused on jobs" and the Democrats' plan for a jobs bill, which the Republicans refer to as "a second stimulus bill."
For their part, Democrats led by House Majority Leader Hoyer are questioning what besides tax breaks House Republicans have offered in their repeated opposition to Democratic efforts to create jobs during the recession.
Hoyer's office issued a statement pointing out that not only did House Republicans vote unanimously against Obama's recovery plan in February, but most Republicans voted against a number of other economic-relief measures.
Only 10 Republicans crossed party lines to help pass a bill to give the Treasury Department power to block federal bailout money from companies that didn't curb excessive executive compensation, and all but 59 Republicans voted against the "cash for clunkers" program to help the auto industry,
"Republicans have offered little more than empty rhetoric, distractions, and misrepresentations -- playing politics with important issues -- and have overwhelmingly opposed legislation that would spur economic growth and create jobs," Hoyer said. "Votes don't lie. Republicans have consistently said 'no' to creating jobs and helping Americans during this recession."
In the Senate, Majority Leader Reid has said the jobs bill will follow healthcare reform to the Senate floor this year. About 20 Democrats were already meeting Wednesday to talk about what might go into the package.
"We've got more ideas than we've got room," said Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who with Senate Majority Whip Durbin was heading up Senate work on the bill.
Billy House, with Dan Friedman contributing
Urgent!! Robert Reich on your healthcare http://bit.ly/SAQ7a
Why A Strong Public Option Is Essential - By jacksmith - Working Class
Robert Reich explains the pubic option: http://bit.ly/dDYSJ
Hollywood Supports The Public Option :-) http://bit.ly/3XLwPi
Beautiful HEATHER GRAHAM http://bit.ly/12sRYD :-)
It's not just because more than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 77% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (86% of democrats, 75% of independents, and 72% republicans). Basically everyone.
It's not just because according to a new AARP POLL: 86 percent of seniors want universal healthcare security for All, including 93% of Democrats, 87% of Independents, and 78% of Republicans. With 79% of seniors supporting creating a new strong Government-run public option plan, available immediately. Including 89% of Democrats, 80% of Independents, and 61% of Republicans, STUNNING!!
It's not just because it will lower cost. Because a strong public option will dramatically lower cost for everyone. And dramatically improved the quality of care everyone receives in America and around the World. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.
It's not just because it will save trillions of dollars and prevent the needless deaths of millions more of YOU, caused by a rush to profit by the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
It's not just because every expert in every field, including economist, and Nobel laureates all agree that free market based healthcare systems don't work. Never have and never will. The US has the only truly free market based healthcare system in the World. And as you all know now, IT IS A DISASTER!
It's not just because providing or denying medically necessary care for profit motivations is wrong. Because it is WRONG! It's professionally, ethically, and morally REPUGNANT!, Animalistic, VILE and EVIL.
THE REASON THE PUBLIC OPTION IS ESSENTIAL:
The public option is ESSENTIAL because over 200 million of you are trapped in the forest of the wolves. Which is the forest of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! With no way out except through needless inhumane suffering, and DEATH. While the wolves tear at your flesh, and rip you limb from lib. Then feast on your lifeless bodies like a dead carcase for transplant parts.
At the most vulnerable times of your lives (when you were sick and hurting), millions of you have had to fight and loose cruel, but heroic battles. Fighting against the big guns of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! in the forest of the wolves. All because you have no place else to go. You have no other CHOICE!
But the PUBLIC OPTION will give you someplace safe to go. And it will give us someplace safe to take you. The public option will be your refugium (your refuge). Where the wolves cannot get at you when your down, hurting, and vulnerable. Where everyone who needs it can find rest, security, comfort and the care they need. Protected by the BIG GUNS of We The People Of The United States. THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE AND COUNTRY ON EARTH.
This is why it is so critical that we do not lead another 50 million vulnerable, uninsured Americans into the forest of the wolves, without the protections of a Strong Government-run MEDICARE like public option. We The People Of The United States MUST NOT LET THAT HAPPEN to any more of our fellow Americans. If healthcare reform does not contain a strong MEDICARE like public option on day one. YOU MUST! KILL IT. Or you will do far more harm than good. And millions more will die needlessly. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.
To those who would continue to obstruct good and true healthcare reform for the American people, and who seek to trap millions more vulnerable Americans in the forest of the wolves. We will continue to fight you. We are prepared to wage all out war against you, and will eagerly DESTROY! you. Time...is...UP! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! No Co-op's! No Triggers! NO INDIVIDUAL MANDATES! without a Strong MEDICARE like public option on day one.
Healthcare reform can be the GREATEST! Accomplishment of our time and century. A time when future generations may say of us, that we were all, AMERICAS GREATEST GENERATIONS.
BUT WE MUST ACT!
I therefore call on all my fellow Americans and the peoples of the World. To join us in this fight so that we may finish becoming the better America that we aspire to be for everyone.
SPREAD THE WORD!
I have been privileged to be witness as many of you fought, and struggled to take your first breath, and your last breath on this earth. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Life is precious.
Whatever the cost. WE! MUST SUCCEED.
God Bless You My Fellow Human Beings
jacksmith - Working Class
ATTENTION!! Congress Has The Votes Needed To Pass A Public Option - TODAY http://bit.ly/TCq7O
Things You Can Do To Help NOW! http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/09/tired_of_watching_people_die_n.html
A majority of voters would rather have a Democrats only bill with a Public Option. Than a bipartisan bill without a Public Option.
A state based insurance plan is NOT!! a Public Option. Nor is it a Strong, National, Medicare like Public Option.
No Triggers! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/a-trigger-for-the-public_b_277910.html
Triggers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/weve-seen-these-triggers_b_283583.html
Krugman on heathcare (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/)
Senator Bernie Sanders on healthcare (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSM8t_cLZgk&feature=player_embedded)
John Garamendi on the Public Option and the Grassroots: http://bit.ly/TJMty
Howard Dean on the Public Option http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SKfW2dUnow&feature=player_embedded
We're Number 37! in quality of health care http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4&feature=player_embedded
Twitter search (#welovethenhs #NHS #hc09 #hcr #healthcar #obama #p2 #topprog #) Check it out.
Posted by: jacksmith | November 22, 2009 at 04:10 PM
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Posted by: BellJANIE | August 11, 2011 at 12:09 PM