Dr. Phil and the Fort Hood terrorist

Dr. Phil and the Fort Hood Killer - His terrorist motive is obvious to everyone but the press and the Army brass.

Excerpt:

It can by now come as no surprise that the Fort Hood massacre yielded an instant flow of exculpatory media meditations on the stresses that must have weighed on the killer who mowed down 13 Americans and wounded 29 others. Still, the intense drive to wrap this clear case in a fog of mystery is eminently worthy of notice.

The tide of pronouncements and ruminations pointing to every cause for this event other than the one obvious to everyone in the rational world continues apace. Commentators, reporters, psychologists and, indeed, army spokesmen continue to warn portentously, "We don't yet know the motive for the shootings."

What a puzzle this piece of vacuity must be to audiences hearing it, some, no doubt, with outrage. To those not terrorized by fear of offending Muslim sensitivities, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's motive was instantly clear: It was an act of terrorism by a man with a record of expressing virulent, anti-American, pro-jihadist sentiments. All were conspicuous signs of danger his Army superiors chose to ignore.

What is hard to ignore, now, is the growing derangement on all matters involving terrorism and Muslim sensitivities. Its chief symptoms: a palpitating fear of discomfiting facts and a willingness to discard those facts and embrace the richest possible variety of ludicrous theories as to the motives behind an act of Islamic terrorism. All this we have seen before but never in such naked form. The days following the Fort Hood rampage have told us more than we want to know, perhaps, about the depth and reach of this epidemic.

One of the first outbreaks of these fevers, the night of the shootings, featured television's star psychologist, Dr. Phil, who was outraged when fellow panelist and former JAG officer Tom Kenniff observed that he had been listening to a lot of psychobabble and evasions about Maj. Hasan's motives.

A shocked Dr. Phil, appalled that the guest had publicly mentioned Maj. Hasan's Islamic identity, went on to present what was, in essence, the case for Maj. Hasan as victim. Victim of deployment, of the Army, of the stresses of a new kind of terrible war unlike any other we have known. Unlike, can he have meant, the kind endured by those lucky Americans who fought and died at Iwo Jima, say, or the Ardennes?

Comment: Read it all!

Fort Hood shooter: Blame the gun?

Chicago Mayor Daley blamed the Ft. Hood Jihad Massacre on America’s love of guns!

Excerpt:

“Unfortunately, America loves Guns. We love guns to a point where that uh we see devastation on a daily basis. You don’t blame a group.”

Comment: See earlier post.

Continued:

Mayor Daley, and other politicians, like to blame gun violence on the guns themselves because that is so much easier than admitting any inconvenient (politically incorrect) truths which might be revealed if they were to place blame where it belongs.

Kids murdering each other in the inner city? That’s because of guns, not the War On Drugs which turns poor children into black market drug distributing gang members.

Islamists murdering people while shouting Allah Akbar? That’s because of guns, not the Jihad being perpetrated globally against all so called “infidels”.

They blame guns because guns don’t vote.

Taking Mayor Daley at face value for a moment, is he seriously arguing for increased gun control on a military base? If there had been more guns around, this ticking Jihad bomb could have been put down a lot faster than he was.

Some valid questions:

• Why didn't the military (or the FBI / CIA) zero in on this guy since they were aware of his radical muslim leanings? (see below)
  
• Why was he permitted to bring loaded weapons into an area like this?
  

Officials: U.S. Army Told of Hasan's Contacts with al Qaeda

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with an individual associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

According to the officials, the Army was informed of Hasan's contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused.

Check out this article: in 2007 Hasan Warned Army of "Adverse Events" if Muslims Not Released. View his 50 page presentation!

On a page of "comments" in the presentation, Hasan wrote "We love life death more then (sic) you love life!"

He warned that "If Muslim groups can convince Muslims that they are fighting for God against injustices of the "infidels"; i.e. enemies of Islam, then Muslims can become a potent adversary i.e.: suicide bombing etc."

Updated:

Pentagon Didn't Learn About Alleged Fort Hood Shooter's Ties to Extremist

The Pentagon said it wasn't notified that U.S. intelligence agencies had intercepted emails between suspected Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan and an extremist imam until after last week's bloody assault, fueling new questions about whether the government missed warning signs that could have helped prevent the incident.

A senior defense official said that federal investigators didn't tell the Pentagon that they were investigating months of communication between Maj. Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, who knew three of the Sept. 11 hijackers and hailed Maj. Hasan as a "hero" after the Army officer allegedly killed 13 people and wounded 29 others at Fort Hood.

"Based on what we know now, neither the United States Army nor any other organization within the Department of Defense knew of Maj. Hasan's contacts with any Muslim extremists," the official said. "Not until after the tragic shooting at Fort Hood last week were Maj. Hasan's email communications first brought to our attention by federal investigators."

New York State: "[will] run out of cash in four and a half weeks"

Paterson: NYS Will Be Broke Before Christmas - Delivers Scary News To Legislature

Excerpt:

Governor David Paterson called an unusual joint session of the Legislature Monday to implore recalcitrant lawmakers to close the state's huge budget gap before New York runs out of money.

To some lawmakers it's nothing more than a photo op to help Paterson get re-elected. But the governor is dead serious. He said if the Legislature doesn't cut the budget now the state could run out of money by next month.

"We're going to run out of cash in four and a half weeks. We are going to run out of money. Unless we do something about it, (it will) threaten generations," Paterson said.

And so began what is turning out to be a tense tug of war between Gov. Paterson and the Legislature.

The governor says $3.2 billion in cuts must be enacted how -- or else. The cuts range from $500 million in agency spending to over $1 billion in already committed in aid to school districts and hospitals.

"I will mortgage my political career, but I will not mortgage the fate of the State of New York," Paterson said.

Comment: Yet another Democrat controlled state out of control.

What does a "win" look like in Afghanistan?

Gorbachev Says Obama Should Start Afghan Withdrawal

Excerpt:

President Mikhail Gorbachev, drawing on his experience of military failure in Afghanistan in the 1980s, said the U.S. can’t win the conflict there and should begin pulling out its soldiers.

Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces are battling a Taliban-led insurgency, is too fragmented between clans to be controlled militarily, Gorbachev, 78, said in an interview today in Berlin. While he said President Barack Obama would be unlikely to take his advice, Gorbachev said he saw no chance of success even with more U.S. troops.

“I believe that there is no prospect of a military solution,” Gorbachev said in Russian through a translator. “What we need is the reconciliation of Afghan society -- and they should be preparing the ground for withdrawal rather than additional troops.”

Comment: It seems that (and I am not blaming President Obama for this!) that whenever leadership uses the military option, that there is rarely a definition of what "success" looks like. And rarely a plan to get out. Our middle son served 6 years in the Marines and now is in the Army National guard. I am encouraging him to get out before his unit is deployed to Afghanistan.

The Texas-sized Pacific garbage patch

Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash

Excerpt:

Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.

Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.

Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.

But once it does split into pieces, the fragments look like confetti in the water. Millions, billions, trillions and more of these particles are floating in the world’s trash-filled gyres

Comments: More in Wiki; Just makes one want to cry! I'm awaiting the New Heavens and the New Earth! (2 Peter 3:13)

Gold surpasses $ 1,100

Orrin Hatch: On "One big joke in Washington"

Hatch vows House health bill will never pass the Senate

Excerpts:

"That exercise in the House, that’ll never pass the Senate," Hatch said during an appearance on "Imus in the Morning" on the Fox Business Network.

“I think they’re going to have a heck of a time passing that kind of a bill in the Senate," the senator added. "One big joke in Washington is if the government ends up running health care, it’ll be just like the U.S. Postal Service—there will be long waiting periods, care would be expensive, and no babies would be delivered without adequate postage.”

.......

Hatch claimed that Reid's insistence at including the public plan would only make his path more difficult with colleagues.

"“It’s going to be interesting to see what Reid and Baucus and the rest of them come up with," he said. "I do think they’re going to have a rough time because they’re insisting on having this government plan in the bill, and anybody who thinks that the government can do healthcare better than the private sector just really hasn’t lived in the real world.”

He also poked fun at President Barack Obama for being out-of-touch on healthcare.

"I’m not an ear doctor, but I think the President must be tone deaf if he thinks that the American people are anxious to put government bureaucrats between them and their doctors," Hatch said.

Comment: Times like this one really appreciates that congress is bicameral!

PC: Underscoring need for antivirus protection

PC users framed by virus collecting child porn

Excerpt:

One case involved Michael Fiola, a former investigator with the Massachusetts agency that oversees workers' compensation.

In 2007, Fiola's bosses became suspicious after the Internet bill for his state-issued laptop showed that he used 4 1/2 times more data than his colleagues. A technician found child porn in the PC folder that stores images viewed online.

Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child pornography, which carries up to five years in prison. He endured death threats, his car tires were slashed, and he was shunned by friends.

Fiola and his wife fought the case, spending $250,000 on legal fees. They liquidated their savings, took a second mortgage and sold their car.

An inspection for his defense revealed the laptop was severely infected. It was programmed to visit as many as 40 child-porn sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer, and porn flowed in for an hour and a half.

Prosecutors performed another test and confirmed the defense findings. The charge was dropped — 11 months after it was filed.

The Fiolas say they have health problems from the stress of the case. They say they've talked to dozens of lawyers but can't get one to sue the state because of a cap on the amount they can recover.

"It ruined my life, my wife's life and my family's life," he said.

The Massachusetts attorney general's office, which charged Fiola, declined interview requests.

At any moment, about 20 million of the estimated 1 billion Internet-connected PCs worldwide are infected with viruses that could give hackers full control, according to security software maker F-Secure Corp. Computers often get infected when people open e-mail attachments from unknown sources or visit a malicious Web page.

Comment: Sadly in his case, he was presumed guilty and had to prove his innocence!

Wells Fargo Wachovia Colorado conversion

We’re ready: a Colorado reminder

Excerpt:

This weekend Wells Fargo and Wachovia are combining banking operations in Colorado — 19 Wachovia stores in Colorado will convert and re-open as Wells Fargo stores on Monday morning!

Comment: The first state of many! Kathee worked all weekend (and is still working)

Fort Hood shooter a "self-radicalized, home-grown terrorist"?

Lieberman Suggests Army Shooter Was 'Home-Grown Terrorist'

Excerpt:

Mr. Lieberman said that if news reports were true that Mr. Hasan had turned to Islamic extremism, "the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most-destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11."

Comment: Consider Fort Hood suspect said his goodbyes before rampage

Soldiers reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" — an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" — before opening fire Thursday, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the base commander.

CNN questioned whether religion was a factor in the shooting. LIKE DUH!

Updated: Alleged shooter tied to mosque of 9/11 hijackers - Hasan apparently attended mosque when a radical imam preached there

The alleged Fort Hood shooter apparently attended the same Virginia mosque as two Sept. 11 hijackers in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there.

Whether the Fort Hood shooter associated with the hijackers is something the FBI will probably look into, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

The family of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded 29 at the Texas military base, held his mother's funeral at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., on May 31, 2001, according to her obituary in the Roanoke Times newspaper.

Heath Care bill: Is there common sense here?

What the Pelosi Health-Care Bill Really Says - Here are some important passages in the 2,000 page legislation

Excerpt:

The health bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing to a vote (H.R. 3962) is 1,990 pages. Here are some of the details you need to know.

Comment: Worthwhile read. I'm of the view that this bill is seriously flawed and a threat to our liberties and to the economic future of our Republic.

"Dead on arrival" in the Senate?

House health care overhaul faces Senate stone wall

Excerpt:

"The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.

Democrats did not line up to challenge him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has yet to schedule floor debate and hinted last week that senators may not be able to finish health care this year.

Marine Cpl. David Kenneth J. Kreuter

Marine Cpl. David Kenneth J. Kreuter

Excerpt:

26, of Cincinnati; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve, Columbus, Ohio; attached to Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward); killed Aug. 3 when his amphibious assault vehicle was attacked by an improvised explosive device while he was conducting combat operations south of Haditha, Iraq. Also killed were Marine Lance Cpl. Timothy M. Bell Jr., Lance Cpl. Eric J. Bernholtz, Lance Cpl. Nicholas William B. Bloem, Sgt. Bradley J. Harper, Sgt. Justin F. Hoffman and Cpl. David S. Stewart.

Comment: More . I went to High School with his Mom and Dad.

17.5% unemployed or underemployed

Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5%

Excerpt:

This includes the officially unemployed, who have looked for work in the last four weeks. It also includes discouraged workers, who have looked in the past year, as well as millions of part-time workers who want to be working full time.

The official jobless rate — 10.2 percent in October, up from 9.8 percent in September — remains lower than the early 1980s peak of 10.8 percent.

The broader rate is highest today, sometimes 20 percent, in states that had big housing bubbles, like California and Arizona, or that have large manufacturing sectors, like Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina.

Comment: And why the unofficial and official numbers are different

The real "Who's your patty?"!

Who’s your patty? Not McDonald’s

Excerpt:

A Minnesota hamburger parlor and McDonald's Corp. have settled a federal lawsuit over the phrase, "Who's your patty?"

Michael Lafeber is an attorney for The Lion's Tap in Eden Prairie. He says the parties reached a "mutually beneficial amicable resolution." McDonald's also says a satisfactory agreement was reached.

The lawsuit says Lions Tap registered the phrase, "Who's your patty?," in Minnesota four years ago and also applied for a federal trademark. McDonald's recently began using the phrase in conjunction with its Angus burgers.

Comment: The real one! The Lion's Tap in Eden Prairie

I eschew Facebook Apps

Facebook’s fantasy games cost more than time

Excerpt:

Seriously? You’d do that? You’d totally provide your personal information to yet another third-party application in trade for “free” coins to use in that virtual sharecrop you’ve got going over on Facebook? Do you really want a pig that bad?

Well, even if you claim you wouldn’t do that, there are plenty out there who would. Yes, they’d expose their info to exploitation, just to move that much faster toward “Level One of Daffodil Mastery” within the faux feudal system that is “FarmVille.” If not that, then for a bounty to pay friends willing to fight an enemy in “Mafia Wars,” to upgrade a pretend panda in “Pet Society” ... or pay for whatever it is y’all Yos do in “YoVille.”

Social network gaming apps are making big news for the big bucks they haul in by the bushel. FarmVille, for example, boasts more than 60 million members, not to mention a plethora of fan Web sites.

Comment: I'm actually thinking of quitting Facebook altogether.

Pelosi's gambit

The Madness of Queen Nancy

Excerpt:

It's one thing to be serene under fire, it's another to be delusional.

More than a few Democrats in Congress are perplexed and worried that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is insisting on ramming through a 1,900-page health care bill on Saturday, just days after her party took heavy losses in Tuesday's elections. "It reminds me of Major Nicholson, the obsessed British major in the film 'Bridge on the River Kwai,'" one Democrat told me. "She is fixated on finishing her health care bridge even as she's lost sight of where it's going and what damage it could cause to her own troops."

Indeed, the Speaker's take on Tuesday's off-year elections struck some of her own members as delusive "happy talk." "From our perspective, we won last night," a cheerful Ms. Pelosi told reporters, citing her party's pick-up of a single House seat in a New York special election and retention of another strongly Democratic seat in California.

That's not how many of her own troops see it. Democratic Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama told Politico.com that members are "very, very sensitive" to the fact that the agenda being pushed by party leaders has "the potential to cost some of our front-line members their seats"

On health care, added New Jersey Democrat Bill Pascrell: "People who had weak knees before are going to have weaker knees now."

Ms. Pelosi, however, apparently thinks the moment is ripe to use sheer political muscle to pass legislation reordering one sixth of the economy, with zero Republican support. The right mixture of "incentives" and Rahm Emanuel-style pressure, she believes, will bring enough Democrats to heel to vote for the bill.

Comment: a trio of WSJ editorials!

The Return of the Inflation Tax: The Pelosi tax surcharge applies to capital gains and dividends

Excerpt:

Americans of a certain age have seen this movie before. In 1960, only 3% of tax filers paid a 30% or higher marginal tax rate. By 1980, after the inflation of the 1970s, the share was closer to 33%, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis of tax returns.

These stealth tax increases—forcing ever more Americans to pay higher tax rates on phantom gains in income—were widely seen to be unjust. And in 1981 as part of the Reagan tax cuts, a bipartisan coalition voted to index the tax brackets for inflation.

In order to raise enough money to make their plan look like it won't add to the deficit, House Democrats have deliberately not indexed two main tax features of their plan: the $500,000 threshold for the 5.4-percentage-point income tax surcharge; and the payroll level at which small businesses must pay a new 8% tax penalty for not offering health insurance.

This is a sneaky way for politicians to pry more money out of workers every year without having to legislate tax increases. The negative effects of failing to index compound over time, yielding a revenue windfall for government as the years go on. The House tax surcharge is estimated to raise $460.5 billion over 10 years, but only $30.9 billion in 2011, rising to $68.4 billion in 2019, according to the Joint Tax Committee.

Hello, Tipping Point

Excerpt:

The White House knew its liberal agenda would prove unpopular in many parts of the country represented by Democrats. So long as the president looked strong, those Blue Dogs and freshmen and swing-state senators would stick. Show them any sign of weakness, however, and rattled Dems would begin to care more about their own re-elections than they did their president.

Tuesday, the White House hit that tipping point.

To understand why, join some of those "nervous Democrats" who at this very moment are digging into, say, Virginia's returns. Last year, Dems captured three GOP House seats in the Old Dominion as the state voted for its first Democratic president since 1964. This week, those very same districts provided Democrats their first proof that the Obama agenda is a liability.

Comment: The third article details how Pelosi's gambit could sink some Democratic congressmen in 2010!

Denver light rail - more taxes needed?

Grand Plans for Rail in Denver Hit a Wall of Fiscal Realities

Excerpt:

Projected costs have ballooned to nearly $7 billion, and the system faces a budget gap of $2.2 billion, mainly because of a sharp drop in sales tax revenues. Worse still, most rail lines are still on the drawing board, and the 10,000 or so workers needed when construction reaches full swing beginning in 2011 have not yet been hired, muting the economic stimulus.

Voters could be presented with a proposed sales tax increase as early as next year to finish a system that remains mostly an idea.

Comment: It's more expensive than buses!

Recession 2 years in: Unemployment = 10.2%

Comparing This Recession to Previous Ones: Job Losses

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has had a net loss of about 5.3 percent of its nonfarm payroll jobs.

Comment: NYTimes chart.

Fiserv: "a faster, easier, more convenient way to send mone"

Money Transfers Between People Could Get Easier Soon

Excerpt:

The financial services technology provider Fiserv announced this week that it was starting a money transfer service for banks and credit unions that already use its online bill pay system. It said it expected the customers would be able to use the new service as early as the first half of next year. The announcement comes as PayPal is also seeking new ways to use its system.

Here’s how Fiserv’s service is expected to work: Customers of participating banks will be able to make next-day transfers of funds to the accounts of anyone who has enrolled in the service at his or her own bank or at the service’s public Web site, which doesn’t exist yet. To make the transfer, customers would just need the e-mail address or mobile phone number that the recipient used to sign up for the service and the transfers could be made online or by cellphone.

“The industry right now is ripe for this kind of service,” said Erich Litch, general manager of customer services at Fiserv. “We are seeing a demand by consumers for a faster, easier, more convenient way to send money.”

Comment: INGDirect has money transfer to accounts outside of their bank. I typically use Paypal or write an Electric Orange check. All very convenient.

The Droid-iPhone faceoff

A Place to Put Your Apps

Excerpt:

.... the Droid wins on phone network, customizability, GPS navigation, speaker, physical keyboard, removable battery and openness (free operating system, mostly uncensored app store). The iPhone wins on simplicity, refinement, thinness, design, Web browsing, music/video synching with your computer, accessory ecosystem and quality/quantity of the app store.

Comment: Sounds like the Droid wins on what's really important - the phone! For me, the phone is the important part. GPS and navigation? I've managed to get most anywhere I need to go without a GPS system (but we do travel with a Garmin!)

GOP: ‘‘Affordable Health Care for America Act’’

The House GOP's Healthcare Alternative

Excerpt:

The CBO says the bill will actually cost $61 Billion over 10 years and it will reduce the federal deficit by $68 Billion. The bill will lower premiums by 8% for individuals, 10% for small businesses, and 3% for large companies that currently enjoy the cheapest plans.

Provisions:

• Each state will be required to create, or update to new standards, a high-risk pool for individuals to purchase insurance privately. Many starts already have such programs. The difference is that now premiums will be capped at 150% of the average standard premium in that state, preventive care must be covered, there can be no waiting lists at all, and illegal aliens need not apply (each of these reforms are not even mentioned in the House Democrat bill). The Feds will be offering $25 Billion to states to get these pools working.
  
• Insurance plans will not have zero annual or lifetime spending limits nationwide, and no plan can be unjustly revoked when someone gets sick or at any other time without an independent third party review of the reason. While such a review is pending, care will continue to be provided.
  
• Each state will be able to take its own innovative approach to health care reform (Federalism at work), and cash incentives of up to $50 Billion dollars over 10 years will be given to states that meet or exceed benchmarks for lowering premiums, health care costs, and the percentage of uninsured Americans. These cash incentives will be strictly performance based.
  
• Both intra-state and multi-state health plan “finders” will be created online that give all necessary cost and benefit information to consumers so that they can pick a plan right for them from anywhere in the country. This will help to spur competition.
  
• Allow small businesses to pool together for greater bargaining power
  
• Allow dependents to remain on their parent’s insurance plans until age 25.
  
• Allow companies to adopt auto-enrollment programs.
  
• Incentivize health savings accounts through tax credits for lower and middle income families
  
• Cap non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits to $250,000. According to the CBO this will shave $54 Billion off the deficit over 10 years.
  
• Expressly states that nothing in this bill can interfere with the Doctor-Patient relationship and even repeals the Federal Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research that was created in the Stimulus Package.
  
• Allow for incentives to companies who offer wellness programs
  
• Prohibiting taxpayer funded abortions and keeping conscience protections in place
  
• Create an approval pathway at the FDA for generic drugs to get them to market sooner
  

Comment: PDF of the proposal: Affordable Health Care for America Act

Highlighted in red are key provisions that are important to me!

2010: A 5% shift would be big for GOP

Tuesday's Suburban Vote Swing

Excerpt:

Tuesday's elections should put a scare into red state Democrats—and a few blue state ones, too.

Barack Obama was said to have redrawn the electoral map by winning Virginia last year with 53% of the vote. On Tuesday, Republican Bob McDonnell flipped the state back to the GOP, winning his election for governor with 59% of the vote. Mr. Obama carried New Jersey easily last year with 57% of the vote. This year, despite being outspent 3-to-1, Republican Chris Christie ousted Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine there by 49% to 45%. Mr. Obama carried Pennsylvania last year by 10 points. On Tuesday, Republican Judge Joan Orie Melvin was elected to the state's Supreme Court by 53% to 47%, leading a GOP sweep of six of seven statewide contests.

The trend here is that suburban and independent voters moved into the GOP column. The overall shift away from Democrats was 13 points in Virginia, 12 points in New Jersey, and eight points in Pennsylvania.

Even a five-point swing in 2010 could bring a tidal wave of change. Today, Democrats enjoy 60 votes in the Senate, Republicans a mere 40. Had there been a five-point swing away from Democrats last fall, the party would have started this year with 54 seats and the Republicans 46.

Even a five-point swing in 2010 could bring a tidal wave of change. Today, Democrats enjoy 60 votes in the Senate, Republicans a mere 40. Had there been a five-point swing away from Democrats last fall, the party would have started this year with 54 seats and the Republicans 46.

Tuesday's Biggest Loser: the Union Agenda

Excerpt:

... after Tuesday's elections, it looks like fewer Democrats will be elected to Congress in 2010 than in 2008. In the election results and the exit polls there are clear signs that the Obama majority coalition has splintered.

Mr. Obama benefited last year from a big turnout of young voters, who backed him by a 66% to 32% margin. This year young voters formed only about half as large a percentage of the electorate in Virginia and New Jersey as they did in 2008, and in Virginia they voted about as Republican as their elders.

The big-government programs of Obama Democrats evidently have less appeal than those trendy posters and inspiring rallies and cries of "We are the change we are seeking." I have yet to see survey research showing that young Americans want to work under union contracts, with their 5,000 pages of work rules and rigid seniority systems. That doesn't sound like a tune that appeals to the iPod generation.

Economically, the Obama majority was a top-and-bottom coalition. The Democratic ticket carried voters with incomes under $50,000 and over $200,000, and lost those in between. As the shrewd liberal analyst Thomas Edsall has noted, there's a tension between what these groups want. High earners in non-Southern suburbs have been voting Democratic since the mid-1990s largely because of their liberal views on cultural issues; low earners vote Democratic because they want more government money shoveled their way.

Tuesday's elections suggest those whose money gets shoveled are having second thoughts about this odd-couple coalition. In Virginia, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell carried affluent and immigrant-heavy Fairfax County, which Barack Obama carried by 21%. In New Jersey, Republican Christopher Christie cut Democrat Jon Corzine's margin in demographically similar Bergen County from 16% in 2005 to 1%. A Republican was elected county executive in Westchester County, New York, and the Republican candidate for state Supreme Court in Pennsylvania carried the four-county suburban Philadelphia area—turf that voted 57% for Barack Obama in 2008.

A health-care bill financed by either higher taxes on high earners or on those with generous, employer-provided health insurance, looks like a hard sell in high-earner constituencies. It looks politically risky especially for newly elected Democrats.

Comment: Hoping for a 5% shift in 2010!

Broke!

• The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
• Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
• Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
• War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they are still poor.
  
• Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
  
• Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
• The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
  

You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM??

Comment: Sent to me by a friend

Obama's blame game!

One year on, Obama cites struggle with Bush legacy

Excerpt:

He used the preamble of his speech to insist his administration had indeed had important successes and also to remind Americans of the litany of daunting challenges he inherited when he took office in January.

"One year ago, Americans all across this country went to the polls and cast ballots for the future they wanted to see," Obama said.

But he said his administration was also confronted with a "financial crisis that threatened to plunge our economy into a Great Depression, the worst that we've seen in generations."

"We had record deficits, two wars, frayed alliances around the world," Obama added.

He said his administration had acted swiftly to save the economy from "imminent collapse."

"While we still have a long way to go, we have made meaningful progress toward achieving that goal," he said.

Nine months into his term, Obama's Republican critics have accused him of overplaying the "blame card" against Bush, a Republican who left office with one of the lowest poll ratings of any modern president.

Comment: Oh please! And what has Obama done about the "record deficits"?

Carly Fiorina: Running for Senate in California

Fiorina Will Challenge Boxer in Senate Race

Carly Fiorina: Why I'm running for Senate

Excerpt:

Our most pressing problems today are too few jobs for Americans and too much spending in Washington. As California's senator, economic recovery and fiscal accountability will be my priorities. I will not settle for a jobless recovery. And we can start the important work of getting our financial house back in order by demanding to know where our money is being spent. Let's put every government budget and every government bill on the Internet for every citizen to see.

Tax, spend and borrow is not a governing philosophy; it's a cycle of dependency and it is one that must be broken. Washington must show the discipline to cut spending and create policies that encourage and empower businesses to put people back to work.

For example, about 40,000 California farmers and farm workers in our Central Valley are out of work because we can't find a balance between protecting our environment and protecting the economy. We can change this terrible situation by changing our representation in the U.S. Senate.

Another issue that is center stage on Capitol Hill is health care reform. As a cancer survivor, this is an issue close to my heart. Rather than remaking the entire national health care system at the cost of higher taxes and exploding deficits, we should build on what works, such as expanding access to community clinics that will give those most in need appropriate care at a reasonable price.

Congress should reform medical malpractice to match what we have in California where frivolous lawsuits are a thing of the past. We should permit consumers to purchase health insurance from any company in the country, expanding consumer choice and driving down cost and unnecessary mandates.

Comment: Former CEO of HP

More "Village of the Damned" videos

ELEMENTARY EPIDEMIC: 11 Uncovered Videos Show School Children Performing Praises to Obama

Excerpt:

Big Hollywood has already posted a couple disturbing videos of young school children singing/speaking praises to President Obama, but when eleven more dropped in our email box it came as quite a shock. What seemed like an aberration now appears to be a troubling pattern.

Maybe “epidemic” is a better word.

Each one of the videos below is creepier than the last because the further down you go, the younger the children — brace yourself for kindergartners – except for the last and most disturbing video, which you have to see to believe.

Comment: Love the graphic of the kids with glowing eyes!

The Liberal Paradigm:: Sheep, wolves, and shepherds

Obama and the Liberal Paradigm: The sheep are quite capable of looking out for themselves. Someone tell the Democrats

Excerpt:

What is [the Liberal Paradigm]? The basic premise is that the population is divided into three groups. By far the largest group consists of ordinary people. They are good, God fearing and hard working. But they are also often ignorant of their true self-interest ("What's the matter with Kansas?") and thus easily misled. They are also politically weak and thus need to be protected from the second group, which is politically strong.

The second group, far smaller, are the affluent, successful businessmen, corporate executives and financiers. Capitalists in other words. They are the establishment and it is the establishment that, by definition, runs the country. They are, in the liberal paradigm, smart, ruthless and totally self-interested. They care only about personal gain.

And then there is the third group, those few, those happy few, that band of brothers, the educated and enlightened liberals, who understand what is really going on and want to help the members of the first group to live a better and more satisfying life. Unlike the establishment, which supposedly cares only for itself, liberals supposedly care for society as a whole and have no personal self-interest.

Thus the liberal paradigm divides the American body politic into sheep, wolves, and would-be shepherds. The shepherds must defeat the efforts of the wolves.

Comment: Very good read! More on racism:

The Congressional Black Caucus still routinely sees a pervasive racism, even though both the president of the United States and the chairman of the Republican National Committee are black.

On nastiness in politics:

[The Liberal Paradigm] has largely congealed into a political religion, especially in the nearly 30 years since Ronald Reagan shifted the nation's political center of gravity, just as FDR had done 48 years earlier. Since liberals care about the sheep, all who disagree with liberalism must not, making them morally inferior if not downright immoral. Thus the nastiness in American politics is largely on the left. Whatever you think of Sarah Palin, her treatment in the liberal press was ugliness personified.

On today's conservatives (of which I count myself!)

[Today's conservatives] want to utilize the great power of markets to force efficiency, drive down costs, and drive up yields. But liberals refuse to engage those ideas, simply because they are not liberal ideas and must, therefore, be wrong if not the latest plot by the wolves to exploit the sheep.

My hope:

But in a world where a majority of Americans work at white-collar jobs, have high-school and college degrees, own their own homes, and hold financial securities in their own right, the so-called wolves are now a majority. If liberals don't begin to take that fact into account in formulating policy, the Obama administration will not only be an unsuccessful liberal administration, it may well be the last liberal administration.

Final comments:

• Sadly the nastiness in politics is not just a liberal problem.
  
• Before Senate Democrats pass the Cap and Trade (already passed by the house) and before the Pelosi-Reid Health Care reform passes, I hope some of the Blue Doggers bark some sense into the Democratic party!
  

GOP wins New Jersey Gubernatorial!

Christie Gives GOP Stunning Win In N.J.

Excerpt:

In the end, all the stumping in the world from the President of the United States wasn't going to stop regime change in New Jersey's highest office.

Republican Chris Christie ended Democrat Jon Corzine's four-year run in Trenton with a narrow victory on Tuesday, CBS News projected. Independent Chris Daggett, thought of by many as the wildcard who could upset the order of things by siphoning off votes from Christie, finished well back.

With 5,138 of 6,305 precincts reporting, Christie led Corzine 49 percent to 44 percent.

Independent voters gave President Barack Obama a huge advantage in the state last year, but they heavily favored Christie on Tuesday.

Voters said their top concerns were the economy and jobs, followed by property taxes. Voters who said the economy was important favored Corzine, while voters who said taxes mattered most supported Christie.

Christie's win will likely be perceived as a big defeat for the White House. President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden had stumped for Corzine several times during the campaign, and they had hoped the result would speak positively to the job they are doing in Washington.

Comment: Cf yesterday's post. We lived in New Jersey for 7 years (1980-1987)

More from the NY Times. (image above is a screen capture from the NY Times)

Kent Hovind - 3 years (and counting) in prison

Dear Joyce

Excerpt:

After being locked up just under 3 years I am sure no expert, but I have been in 5 different facilities and can tell you what has happened to me.

Comment: Tax scofflaw. More info here.

Crucifixion Saudi style

Saudi court upholds child rapist crucifixion ruling

Excerpt:

A Saudi court of cassation upheld a ruling to behead and crucify a 22-year-old man convicted of raping five children and leaving one of them to die in the desert, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

The convict was arrested earlier this year after a seven-year old boy helped police in their investigation. The child left in the desert after the rape was three years old, Okaz newspaper said.

International rights groups have accused the kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, of applying draconian justice, beheading murderers, rapists and drug traffickers in public. So far this year about 40 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia.

In Saudi Arabia, crucifixion means tying the body of the convict to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after beheading.

Comment: Not the death by crucifixion our Lord suffered! (read any of the Gospels)

Gold = $ 1085

Gold surges to new record high

Excerpt:

Gold surged to a new record high price of 1,085.07 dollars an ounce Tuesday, a day after an announcement of a massive sale of gold by the International Monetary Fund to India.

Prices in London hit 1,085.07 dollars per troy ounce and New York prices reached 1,084.70 dollars, breaking records set last month.

The latest surge came a day after the International Monetary Fund announced it sold 200 tonnes of gold to India's central bank over a two-week period last month for a total of 6.7 billion dollars to bolster its finances.

Comment: Gold, deficit spending, and the Dollar

Gold and other commodity prices have resumed their surge in recent months amid a move away from the dollar, which has been slumping. The move accelerated last month on a report that Gulf states may stop using the greenback for oil trading.

Gold also gets support from fears about higher inflation because the metal is widely regarded by investors as a safe store of value.

An Archbishop's outrage and the column that sparked it

Archbishop's blog slams Gray Lady's

Excerpt:

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan has condemned The New York Times -- blasting the Gray Lady and its columnist Maureen Dowd for what he says are examples of unfair, prejudicial and just downright mean anti-Catholicism.

Dolan used his blog last Thursday on the Archdiocese of New York's Web site to rail against the Times a day after the paper refused to print his critique as an op-ed piece.

He singled out Dowd -- a poison-penned, Pulitzer winner and former Catholic-school girl -- for "the most combustible," "intemperate and scurrilous" "diatribe" she wrote on Oct. 25, which "rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish or African-American religious issue."

Comment: Full blog post here.

Maureen Dowd: The Nuns’ Story

Excerpt:

Nuns were second-class citizens then and — 40 years after feminism utterly changed America — they still are. The matter of women as priests is closed, a forbidden topic.

In 2004, the cardinal who would become Pope Benedict XVI wrote a Vatican document urging women to be submissive partners, resisting any adversarial roles with men and cultivating “feminine values” like “listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise and waiting.”

Nuns need to be even more sepia-toned for the über-conservative pope, who was christened “God’s Rottweiler” for his enforcement of orthodoxy. Once a conscripted member of the Hitler Youth, Benedict pardoned a schismatic bishop who claimed that there was no Nazi gas chamber. He also argued on a trip to Africa that distributing condoms could make the AIDS crisis worse.

The Vatican is now conducting two inquisitions into the “quality of life” of American nuns, a dwindling group with an average age of about 70, hoping to herd them back into their old-fashioned habits and convents and curb any speck of modernity or independence.

Nuns who took Vatican II as a mandate for reimagining their mission “started to look uppity to an awful lot of bishops and priests and, of course, the Vatican,” said Kenneth Briggs, the author of “Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns.”

The church enabled rampant pedophilia, but nuns who live in apartments and do social work with ailing gays? Sacrilegious! The pope can wear Serengeti sunglasses and expensive red loafers, but shorter hems for nuns? Disgraceful!

Comments: I'm not a Catholic, but I think the Archbishop is onto something. More on Maureen Dowd AND Timothy Dolan.

An article where Dolan takes on Pelosi and Biden over abortion: How can anyone be silent on this key civil rights question?

Excerpt:

It was not the bishops who started this rhubarb but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who took it upon themselves to explain Catholic teaching on abortion to the nation - and blundered badly.

Now, to be sure, church teaching highly respects the charism of civic responsibility and political leadership as belonging to the laity, not the clergy, a tenet especially strong in the writings of Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and defends as well a properly understood separation of church and state, so clear in Pope Benedict's remarks in France just two weeks ago.

But church tradition is equally clear that bishops are the authentic teachers of the faith. So, when prominent Catholics publicly misrepresent timeless Church doctrine - as Biden and Pelosi regrettably did (to say nothing of erring in biology!) - a bishop has the duty to clarify. Cardinal Justin Rigali and Bishop William E. Lori were thus hardly acting as politicians, "telling people how to vote," but as teachers.

Even more significantly, when all is said and done, abortion is hardly a religious issue at all. Women and men of every religion, or none at all, express grave reservations about our abortion-on-demand culture, insisting that it is not a theological matter but a civil rights one.

Does the baby alive in the womb (a biological, not a doctrinal, fact) deserve the full protection of the law or not? Does one have the right to terminate the life of another at will? Can we consider one form of life - that of the innocent, fragile baby in the womb - inferior and expendable?

Or does the American proposition of certain self-evident truths mentioned in our foundational documents, the first of which is the right to life, have a say in all of this? Was Robert Kennedy correct in observing that the true test of a society's mettle is how it treats the most vulnerable among us, which has to include the tiny baby in the womb?