The contents of these articles are based on Fact and Truth. Challenges are invited.
The day’s top political news:
Rasmussen sees Obama sees increasing loss of support for Obama
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that Forty-three percent (46%) of the nation’s voters strongly disapprove of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President, while 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve. This gives Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of - 21 (see trends).
Fifty-three percent (53%) of men Strongly Disapprove along with 39% of women. Most African-American voters (58%) Strongly Approve while most white voters (53%) Strongly Disapprove.
Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans Strongly Disapprove as do 52% of unaffiliated voters. Forty-seven percent (47%) of Democrats Strongly Approve.
Rasmussen Reports
Rep. Parker Griffith switches to GOP
Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, is announcing today that he’s switching parties to become a Republican.
Griffith’s party switch comes on the eve of a pivotal congressional health care vote and will send a jolt through a Democratic House Caucus that has already been unnerved by the recent retirements of a handful of members who, like Griffith, hail from districts that offer prime pickup opportunities for the GOP in 2010.
Griffith becomes the first Republican to hold the historically Democratic, Huntsville-based district. A radiation oncologist who founded a cancer treatment center, Griffith plans to blast the Democratic health care bill as a prime reason for his decision to switch parties—and is expected to cite his medical background as his authority on the subject.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30896.html
House Democrats Still Have “Some Selling to Do”
House Democrats entered 2009 with sky-high expectations but ended a roller-coaster year facing steady erosion in the polls with the bulk of their agenda piled up in the Senate.
Democrats are scoring poorly with voters regarding key issues.
Far left approach of Obama’s administration is powering a major revolt by activists who are still joining in Tea Party movement protests and activities. The Tea Party movement has already moved Republicans toward a more conservative slant.
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/55_73/news/41730-1.html
Opinion:
Democrats reveal desperation as their health care debate turns ugly
Recent actions on Capitol Hill have not been good news for normal Americans. They prayed for better news for their most important holiday of the year.
Harry Reid conspired to rob them of that opportunity, ignoring the Christmas season entirely. He also robbed America of its health care system – condemning it to government control which will lessen the quality of care, and deny access to many – especially the elderly. Key Democrats at the White House declare the elderly have an obligation to “die and get out of the way”. Obama himself has voiced such thoughts.
All who have studied the Reid bill know it’s a bad one – a really bad one. It is not “reform”, it is “takeover”. In the end, it provides federal funding of abortion, and will begin serious moves toward Canadian-styled socialized medicine.
What’s almost as bad as Reid’s plot, is the process caused by the desperation motivating Democrats to engage in acts so obvious little room for denying corruption remains. Democrat politics on parade in the cause of health care take over, proves to be every bit as bad as its sharpest critics have claimed and street-level rumor suggested. It’s rotten to the very core.
The most flagrant example of a raw sell comes from Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska who managed wringing the mother of all sweet deals from the hapless Reid – making Nebraska free from paying its share of government medical programs forever.
Liberals – especially those staffing the Washington Post who long ago signed on as liberal Democrat activists – went ballistic when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) rose on the Senate floor to say: "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray." Coburn was stating the true nature of the debate. Only divine intervention preventing a Senator from being able to vote on Reid’s bill, could prevent its passage. After all, the fix was in.
The Post chose to jump to another conclusion – “It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Coburn was referring to the 92-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) who has been in and out of hospitals and lay at home ailing.” The Post thus failed to grasp the desperation of a majority of Americans regarding the health legislation and who had given up on the voting.
Recognizing a crass political opportunity, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the number-two Democrat, grabbed a Senate microphone to intone: "When it reaches a point where we're praying, asking people to pray, that senators wouldn't be able to answer the roll call, I think it has crossed the line."
A few days earlier, Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Sam Brownback (Kansas) joined a public prayer for the bill's defeat. Does prayer cross the line in Durbin’s view?
It was Reid’s bill and the Democrat conspiracy that assured its passage that crossed the line.
Meanwhile, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) proved himself a fool by comparing Republicans and all who oppose the Democrat health scam with Nazis, lynch mobs of the South, and bloodthirsty crowds of the French Revolution.
Whitehouse flunks American history. After all, those lynch mobs of the South consisted to a man, of Democrats. Democrats only. Segregation, Jim Crow laws and denial of black voting rights were all Democrat programs and reflected official party policy. That racism was as void of Republican participation as Reid’s odious bill is.
The Post article sees Coburn’s prayer being aimed at Byrd. Had it been the case, there would be great irony at work. Byrd was an active member of the old KKK – and even famously used the “N” word in a TV attack rather recently.
But the Post remains quite prejudiced in how it sees the news. The Post reports, “When his name was called, Byrd shot his right index finger into the air as he shouted "aye," then pumped his left fist in defiance.
I wonder if Byrd was addled and confused, intending to extend an entirely different finger, meaning his arrogant display for normal America.
In any case, such a vulgar assault on those who oppose the health care bill sums up Democrat behavior as it regards opponents. Democrats have made it quite clear they could not care less what real Americans think, want, or demand. They have the numbers giving them a dominating power to do as they wish, despite the interests of our nation, its people, and its future.
(Fortunately, it seems Reid will not be returning after next year’s election. The people of Nevada are preparing to speak – for ALL America.)
“Nuff said” covers matters quite well, I think.
Buddy
The day’s top blogs:
1.
Congressman Mike Pence Calls Senate Health Care Bill “Washington At Its Worst”
Urges Senators to reconsider partisan approach to health care reform
Washington, DC - U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, issued the following statement today after the U.S. Senate voted to advance debate over a government takeover of health care:
“The American people should be appalled. In the dead of the night, when families are immersed in travel and events around the Christmas holiday, Senate Democrats advanced their latest plan for a government takeover of health care. Government-run insurance and tax increases passed by cutting backroom deals for certain states and special interests is a disappointment to millions of Americans and betrayal of their trust.
“This is not the change the American people were promised, this is Washington at its worst. Horse trading in Congress is always distasteful but it is especially repugnant when legislators trade away our values. Reports suggest that one backroom deal was enough to win support for federal funding of abortion. It is incomprehensible to think that so-called pro-life Democrats in the Senate would abandon longstanding protections for pro-life taxpayers when pro-life Democrats in the House fought successfully to prevent federal funding of abortion in their bill.
“A 2,700 page, $2.5 trillion bill that will increase taxes, raise health care costs, mandate insurance and fund abortion coverage is not what American families want to wake up to on Christmas morning. This bill and this process are Washington at its worst and, on behalf of the American people, House Republicans will continue to oppose it.
“I urge every Senator to reconsider this misguided and partisan approach to legislation that will impact the lives of every American. And I especially urge those Senators with the privilege of representing the great state of Indiana, to give special consideration to Hoosier families and their values and reject this bill. The American people and the people of Indiana will remember which Senator stood for freedom and our values by opposing this legislation and which Senator followed the party line in support of a government takeover of health care."
2.
The Case of the Missing Muslims: Why Is Islamberg Now a Ghost Town?
Paul Williams, PhD
The Wall Street Journal reports this week that U.S. investigators are discovering that more and more young Muslims are vanishing from mosques, madrassas, and Islamic centers.
The disappearances, the Journal notes, are raising grave concerns among FBI and Homeland Security officials who fear that an onset of jihadist activity will take place on American soil in the near future.
Hundreds of Muslim men are also missing from Islamberg and this is not a propitious omen.
The sentry post is gone and no guards are in sight at the entrance to the 70 acre Islamic settlement located in the dense forest between Deposit and Hancock in upper New York State.
Young men in Islamic garb no longer congregate before the makeshift mosque, and no students are in attendance at the one room shack that serves as Sheikh Gilani's “International Quranic Open University.”
Gunfire no longer can be heard from the firing ranges along the eastern parameter of the property – and no grunts come from new recruits at the obstacle course.
A new sign at the entranceway reads, “Welcome to Holy Islamberg: The International Quranic Open University.” Next to this sign, which features the image of a mosque emerging from the mountains, is a pot of plastic carnations. Another sign proclaims that the community is home to the “United Muslim – Christian Forum.”
Such statements of welcome are offset by the “No Trespassing” signs that have been nailed to trees throughout the compound.
On the opposite side of the road leading into the community is a rack of metal mailboxes bearing such names as Abdul-Haqq, Abdul Jalil, Mumim Roberts, Abdullah Simonds, and Salam Insan.
What has happened to this once bustling complex of radical Islamists – a place where the cries of muezzins were accompanied by the incessant rat-tat-tat of machine gunfire? Where are the Arab dignitaries that used to visit this remote community in chauffeur-driven limousines? Where are the armed sentries who warded away all intruders?
A handful of children play in the mud and muck before rows of rusty old trailers, and a few women in full burkas walk along the rutty dirt road that leads to the heart of the squalid Muslim compound.
The few residents who remain in the settlement are not environmentalists. Sewage seeps from septic tanks and outhouses into the creek that flows at the base of the settlement. Bags of rotting garbage remain stacked between the trailers. And the once pristine countryside is now littered with junk cars, moldy mattresses, empty tanks of propane, and old appliances.
Where are the men?
What has happened to this bustling center of jihadi training?
Why has Islamberg become a ghost town?
The same phenomenon of vanishing Muslim men is taking place at mosques, madrassas, and other Islamic communities throughout the country and at other Jamaat ul-Fuqra paramilitary compounds, including one in Red House, Virginia.
U.S. investigators have now discovered that many of the missing Muslims are showing up in the killing fields of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
Five American Muslims recently were arrested in Pakistan following a raid at the home of a member of the Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistani movement designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2001.
The five American Muslims – identified as Ahmed Abdullah, Waqar Hassan Khan, Eman Hassan, Yasir and Rami Zamzam – were planning to join forces with the Taliban to fight the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Zamzam is a graduate dental student at Howard University, where he served as president of the Muslim Student Association.
David Coleman Headley, another Muslim who disappeared, is a native of Chicago who attended Lashkar-e-Toiba-operated terrorism training camps in Pakistan and helped Lashker-e-Toiba members and others plan and execute the attacks in Denmark against the newspaper which published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, which Muslims found offensive, as well as the violent attack in Mumbai, in about 170 people died.
At the same time Headley was taken into custody, U.S. investigators discovered that 20 Somali immigrants, who were reported missing from a mosque in Minnesota, had joined the Islamist insurgent group, al Shabaab, and were engaged in fighting Somalia's U.S.-backed government.
And there is the case of Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old resident of Denver, who made a trip to Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2008 for the stated purpose of visiting his wife only to show up at an al Qaeda training camp where he received instruction in making and detonating explosives. In September, Zazi was collared by federal officials as he made his way to New York City to carry out attacks with the same back-pack bombs that were used to blow up a train station in Madrid and several subway stations in London.
Where are the Muslim men from Islamberg?
The answer comes from a heavy-set woman in a long black burka who stops to check her mail box. “The men – all gone,” she says in halting English. “All – in Pakistan.”
Islamberg was established in 1980 by Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, a Pakistani cleric who served as the imam of the Yasin Masjid in Brooklyn. A quack practitioner of something called “Koranic psychiatry,” Sheikh Gilani presented himself to the Brooklyn congregation as "the sixth Sultan ul Faqr,” with a lineage that dates back to the prophet Mohammed. He claimed to have supernatural powers that came from his regular reception of visits by jinn and “non-human beings.”
Sporting ammunition belts, Gilani called upon members of a Black Muslim street gang known as Dar al-Islam (DAR) to take part in the holy war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Hundreds answered the call and headed off to training camps in Pakistan, which had been established by Osama bin Laden, and other members of the mujahadeen.
Under Gilani’s direction, the DAR transformed into Jamaat ul-Fuqra (“the community of the impoverished”) and continued its prison ministry under Muslims of the Americas, a new, non-profit corporation. The sheikh soon came to realize that it would be financially advantageous to train new recruits for the holy war on American soil rather than shelling out the freight of sending them to Lahore and Peshawar. He purchased a 70-acre parcel of land near Green Haven, set up a firing range and an obstacle course, purchased a slew of old single-wide trailers and created a paramilitary compound called Islamberg.
When released from the federal prison, former convicts now received not only the customary $10 and a suit of clothes but also a one-way ticket to Gilani’s compound.
What took place at Islamberg and the International Quranic Open University?
The answers came from Sheikh Gilani in his recruitment videos: “We give [students] specialized training in guerilla warfare. We are at present establishing training camps. You can easily reach us at Open Quranic offices in upstate New York or in Canada or in South Carolina or in Pakistan.”
Similarly, in a handbook, published by the university, Gilani wrote that the foremost duty of all students is to wage war against “the oppressors of Muslims.” The students are expected to sign an oath that reads: “I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah’s sake.”
Now that the recruits at Islamberg have been trained in the basics of guerilla warfare, they have been deployed to Pakistan for advanced courses in explosives and weapons of mass destruction.
They will be returning home soon.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul L. Williams is the author of The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books. He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Visit his website at http://thelastcrusade.org.
3.
Socialism Creeps In As America Sleeps
Health Care: Democrats on the take and in the dead of night pass an execrable piece of legislation that they haven't read, the public doesn't want and only socialists could love. What has happened to this country?
If we hadn't stayed up past midnight Sunday, we wouldn't have known what was going on. Here we thought a vote on the proposed health care overhaul wasn't going to take place until Thursday night — Christmas Eve.
But there they were, the United States Senate, at 1 a.m. Monday, rushing to vote in the middle of a snowstorm to close debate on the most important piece of legislation of our time — the nationalization of the U.S. health care system. And we've been scrambling ever since to make sense of it.
Let's see if we have this right:
• This was a vote on a Democrat-concocted scheme that Americans have rejected every time it's been proposed for 100 years and that is opposed again, by 54% to 41% by the public at large, by 2-to-1 by practicing physicians and by every last member on the Republican side of the aisle.
• The vote was taken without any members having read the main 2,074-page bill, let alone the 383 pages of amendments that were tacked on at the last minute to buy off senators, including Nebraska's Ben Nelson, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu and Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders.
• Despite growing public opposition, Democratic members had the nerve to call those who questioned their monstrosity "obstructionists" and worse. Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse called health care bill foes "birthers," "fanatics" and "people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups." Is this what Democrats meant when they said they seek bipartisan solutions to the nation's problems?
• The bill contains at last count 18 new taxes totaling an estimated $406 billion — including significant new levies on those earning less than $250,000, a major breach of Obama's pledge not to raise taxes by "one penny" on those in that income group.
A family of four that refuses to buy into a "qualifying" health insurance program will pay a "surtax" of as much as $6,750. At the same time, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that health insurance premiums will nearly double by 2016.
As the nonpartisan Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation put it, "The House and Senate health care bills contain enormous tax hikes to accompany massive increases in government spending."
• Spending under the package, which Democrats vowed will "cut costs," will in fact increase. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that total health care spending will rise by $289 billion from 2010 to 2019. That's a lowball guess. Once all the budget gimmicks are removed, the real 10-year price tag is at least $2.5 trillion, Senate Budget Committee staffers say.
What's truly frightening about this bill isn't what it does, but what it sets us on course to do. Democrats have long said they see this bill as a first step toward a total takeover of U.S. health care, regardless of the consequences.
The bill's requirement that Americans buy insurance is a major step toward that takeover. It's the first time in our nation's history the government has made Americans buy something. Get used to it. It's going to become a pattern.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=515934
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