FOXNews.com

Acknowledging that his presidency has not yet lived up to his campaign vision, President Obama on Wednesday vowed to press ahead with his ambitious agenda in 2010 on everything ranging from health care reform to jobs creation to immigration reform. 

Acknowledging that his presidency has not yet lived up to his campaign vision, President Obama on Wednesday vowed to press ahead with his ambitious agenda in 2010 on everything ranging from health care reform to jobs creation to immigration reform. 

Rather than dial back expectations, the president used his first State of the Union address to elevate them. He pledged to see health care reform through to the finish, even as he turned his attention toward the economy and pledged to make jobs creation his "number one" priority in the months ahead. 

"We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come," Obama said. "We don't quit. I don't quit." 

The president took the podium at a vulnerable time for his agenda, his party and his relationship with Congress. 

Health care reform, which earlier this month seemed on the verge of final passage, screeched to a halt last week after Republican Scott Brown won election to the U.S. Senate in the seat formerly held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. The victory broke the Democrats' supermajority in the Senate and heightened the party's anxiety over the November midterm elections. 

Obama on Wednesday urged Congress and the American people to stick with him on health care reform and other initiatives, as he lamented the coarse nature of politics in Washington and suggested that tension was eroding the public's faith in government. 

"I campaigned on the promise of change -- change we can believe in, the slogan went. And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren't sure if they still believe we can change -- or that I can deliver it," Obama said. "But remember this -- I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I could do it alone." 

Playing the role of Washington outsider, the president said it's time to put away the partisan "schoolyard taunts" and work together toward achieving reforms he says the American people need. 

On health care, the president said he would not "walk away" from the issue and urged Congress to take "another look" at the plan on the table. 

"Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close," Obama said. "Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people." 

Obama took partial responsibility for the near-collapse of talks while leaving the details of the road ahead for another day. 

"I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people," Obama said. In a gesture of bipartisanship, Obama said he's open to new ideas that will bring down premiums and cover the uninsured. He also said he's going to start monthly meeting with leaders from both parties. 

But the centerpiece of Obama's address was jobs creation. The president called on Congress to pass a new jobs bill right away, telling the Senate to pass something similar to the bill passed by the House last year as its "first order of business." 

"People are out of work. They're hurting. They need our help. And I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay," Obama said. 

Obama called for $30 billion from repaid Wall Street bailout funds to be directed toward helping community banks lend to small businesses. He pitched a new tax credit for small businesses that hire new workers and a tax incentive for businesses that invest in new plants and equipment. Plus he called for the elimination of all capital gains taxes for small business investment. 

Obama said the "devastation" of the economic crisis remains, but also defended his approach so far, saying his administration acted "immediately and aggressively" to stave off a "second depression." 

The president emphasized that conditions would be worse if his administration and Congress had not approved the stimulus package last February. He said the package has saved 2 million jobs. 

He also defended the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, calling it unpopular but necessary. 

"It was not easy to do," he said. "I hated it. ... You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal." 

The president spoke for about 70 minutes, and was interrupted nearly 90 times by applause. 

Obama coupled his call for stimulating job growth with a call for cracking down on "recklessness" on Wall Street. He urged Congress to pass financial regulatory reform, which the House has already approved. Obama threatened to veto any bill that "does not meet the test of real reform." 

On education, Obama backed a plan to give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and an increase in Pell Grants, along with other proposals aimed at making higher education more affordable. 

Obama kept pressure on Congress as well to pass a "comprehensive energy and climate bill," though such a bill has stalled in the Senate after passing the House. 

He devoted relatively little of the speech to foreign policy and national security. In a brief section on international matters, he said Iran will face "growing consequences" if it fails to curb its nuclear program. And he said "far more" Al Qaeda operative have been killed under his watch than in the previous year. 

Obama took one fairly direct shot at his predecessor George W. Bush, as he urged the American people not to buy into calls for less regulation and more tax cuts for the wealthy. 

"That's what we did for eight years. That's what helped us into this crisis. It's what helped lead to these deficits. We can't do it again," Obama said. 

The deficit has greatly expanded under Obama's watch, and Republicans were not shy to point out this fact in response. 

"There is just no amount of spin and blame shifting that can hide the fact that tonight the president added more zeros to an already burdensome deficit with no explanation as to how he would pay for this 'new foundation,'" Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement.

In opening his address, Obama compared the challenges he and the country face to historic setbacks like the Great Depression and the start of the Civil War, but said the American people are being "tested" and must "answer history's call." 

Obama also outlined new transparency requirements for lobbyists, called on Congress to draft legislation undermining the recent Supreme Court decision striking down campaign finance restrictions and called for earmark reform. 

He also pushed anew for immigration reform, something that has been on the backburner as Congress hunkered down for the better half of the last year to deal with health care reform. And he called on Congress to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military. 

"It's the right thing to do," Obama said, pledging to address the issue "this year."  

Obama also proposed a freeze on some domestic spending for three years, a move some Republicans call lip service to the idea of fiscal discipline. Obama assured Congress he was serious Wednesday, though lawmakers in the audience laughed when he said the freeze wouldn't take effect until next year. 

"If I have to enforce this discipline by veto, I will," Obama said. 

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who delivered the GOP response Wednesday night, applauded the partial freeze proposal in his speech but called for much more belt tightening. 

"The president's partial freeze on discretionary spending is a laudable step, but a small one. The circumstances of our time demand that we reconsider and restore the proper, limited role of government at every level," he said. 

Brown said in a written statement the president needs to "cut spending and not just freeze it." 

Cal Thomas
Thursday, January 21, 2010

In his first comment following Scott Brown's stunning victory in the Massachusetts special election to fill the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, President Obama told the losing candidate, Martha Coakley, "you can't win them all." No, but President Obama hasn't won any since his own election more than 15 months ago (not counting the Nobel Peace Prize, which was an unearned gift). Three candidates he campaigned for in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts lost, and his personal appeal for Chicago to host the Olympics in 2016 was rejected. That's 0-4. If he were a quarterback, the coach would be eyeing the backup right about now.

Many lessons were taught, but how many will be learned from Brown's victory? Chief among them is that the public doesn't like arrogance, whether it comes with a "D" or an "R" after the name. Democrats were taught that lesson in 1994 when voters gave Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in more than 40 years. Republicans ran against arrogance and the tyranny of the majority. But they quickly became what they replaced, believing that voters had given them a license to do whatever they wished.

It seems President Obama and the congressional leadership both need to be taught the same lesson. Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn't getting the message. She is promising to push through health care "reform" no matter what. Her San Francisco seat is safe, but the seats of many other Democrats -- especially those Blue Dogs and Democrats who won in traditionally Republican districts -- are not. Will those Democrats be willing to play "Thelma and Louise" and drive off a cliff just so the Obama-Pelosi-Reid wing of their party can claim victory?

President Obama's poll numbers, which have been sinking almost since his inauguration, will not be helped if he refuses to change course. Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza quoted a Democratic operative in the Post on Tuesday, "My message to my clients?" he said. "Jump ship now. ... Obama can't help you." Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) advises his colleagues to "take a step back" from health care reform and focus on creating jobs. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), up for re-election in November, reacted to the Brown victory: "There's going to be a tendency on the part of our people to be in denial about all this ... if you lose Massachusetts and that's not a wake-up call, there's no hope of waking up." Bayh added: "It's why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren't buying our message. ... They just don't believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems."

In 1966, Arkansas Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright wrote about the arrogance of power: "The attitude above all others, which I feel sure is no longer valid, is the arrogance of power, the tendency of great nations to equate power with virtue and major responsibilities with a universal mission." It is as true of individuals as it can be of nations. Some politicians arrive in office seeking to serve themselves and not the people and quickly forget why they were sent to Washington in the first place. They build empires to their egos and too quickly sell their souls to lobbyists and other bidders in the belief that re-election is the ultimate goal and highest good.

Anger isn't policy and Republicans must prove not only that Democrats are misusing their power, but also that if Republicans are given another chance at power, they won't again squander it on themselves. Humility is a light grace. The path to getting things done serves the people, not politicians.

The Massachusetts election showed that even in the bluest of blue states, "we the people" still means something. Voters in Massachusetts have jerked the chain of Washington politicians and reminded them who is in charge. This is what "the tea party" movement is about. Liberal Democrats dismiss it at their peril. Just ask Martha Coakley.

By Rusty Weiss
Created 2010-01-13 22:06

In an unfortunate choice of articles, MSNBC earlier had a featured set of headlines in their politics section regarding the stimulus package and its effect on the troubled job market.

One article touts the recent White House claim that the stimulus package had saved 2 million jobs.

But the other article explains why a new method of accounting adopted by the White House will make it "impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money."

The screenshot below leads viewers to two very different reports:

The lead headline [1] in the politics section, White House:  Stimulus saved 2 million jobs, brings the reader to a glowing article about a standard claim from the Obama administration that yes, the unemployment rate is at a disastrous level, but it would be so much worse if not for the stimulus package.

The other headline [2] at the bottom, White House changes stimulus job accounting, points out how the administration had to respond to its previous - um, embellishments - on the number of jobs effected by the stimulus package, then points out how the new method would actually inflate those erroneous numbers, and subsequently explains why said method would make accuracy an impossibility.

How's that for muddled transparency?

So why would the White House make such a ridiculous claim about ‘jobs saved' so shortly after the AP proved that their new methods were "no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it's a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus"? 

The short answer is that the administration is wrapped up in such a fantastic level of public deception, that they are no longer capable of keeping track of all of the lies they're telling the American people.

The more detailed answer is that the AP article only reported on the new rules recently because they were slipped into a memorandum to federal agencies about a month ago. 

What, they didn't want to air that on C-SPAN either?

As the AP reports (emphasis mine throughout):

The White House has abandoned its controversial method of counting jobs under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus, making it impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money.

...the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It's no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it's a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus.

That means that any stimulus money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs credited to the program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who never were in jeopardy of losing their positions.

Bear in mind that this is the White House response to the AP's report [3] on flaws in the job count, published back in October.  The report at that time revealed how the White House stimulus numbers were being inflated.  One such example follows:

A child care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with stimulus money. Instead, it gave pay raises to its existing employees.

You would think that being caught red-handed in a numbers shell game would influence team Obama to correct their mistakes.  Instead, they change the rules so that it is now permissible to fudge the numbers.  In other words, an original complaint that job counts were flawed because the administration was counting pay raises as jobs saved was corrected by - allowing pay raises to be counted as jobs saved?!

Says Tom Gavin, spokesman for the White House's Office of Management and Budget, "The new rules are intended to streamline the process."

Using the handy pocket version of the White House to English Dictionary, this phrase translates to, "We've just decided it would be easier to blatantly lie to the American people."

So, armed with a new system that makes it impossible to track jobs saved, the White House announces that, "emergency spending measures last year saved up to 2 million U.S. jobs."

This is a provably false claim, according to the administration's own policies and statements.

What's worse is the following statement from the White House:

In addition ... 640,000 jobs had been saved or created by direct recipients of stimulus money, implying that this estimate may be on the low side.

This is in direct contrast, and a glaring disregard, to the AP article which states that, in regards to the 640,000 number:

... more errors were found, with tens of thousands of problems documented in corrected counts, from the substantive to the clerical.

Can the Obama administration get any more baffling at this point?  They get caught in a lie, essentially admit to it, and then pretend it never happened.

That's change they should be embarrassed by...

Photo Credit:  Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Some warn expansion of military involvement in domestic security could lead to end of United States as a Republic

An Obama executive order that creates a council of state governors who will work with the feds to expand military involvement in domestic security has stoked fears that the administration is stepping up preparations for martial law.

The order, which is entitled Establishment of the Council of Governors (PDF), creates a body of ten state governors directly appointed by Obama who will work with the federal government to help advance the synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States.

The governors will liaise with officials from Northcom, Homeland Security, the National Guard as well as DoD officials from the Pentagon in order to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments, according to the executive order.

In October 2008, Northcom, a Unified Combatant Command of the United States military based out of Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, was assigned the 3rd Infantry Divisions 1st Brigade Combat Team returning from Iraq. An alarming September 8 Army Times report which was later denied after it sparked controversy stated that the troops would be used by Northcom to deal with civil unrest and crowd control in the aftermath of a national emergency.

The Obama executive order states that governors will help advise the feds on National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.

The fact that the order further blurs the lines between state and federal power, as well as greasing the skids for more military involvement in domestic affairs has stoked fears that Obama may be laying the groundwork for his promised national civilian security force.

Conservatives and libertarians responded to the announcement by expressing their suspicion that Obama is preparing to give governors their marching orders in targeting anti-government types that have long been characterized as a terrorist threat by the feds in numerous reports stretching back over a decade.

There is a definite purpose to this, wrote one commenter on the popular Free Republic website, The initial steps toward a domestic Civilian Security Force in each state, as called for by the fascisti during the campaign. It will be coordinated at the state level, under the authority of DHS and DoD and assorted agencies. The provision will be made for it to be federalized in an emergency, as is the National Guard.

This is a concrete step toward eliminating the independent authority and dissolving the sovereignty of the several States. It lays the groundwork for the end of the United States as a Republic, she adds.

Others warn that Obama could be preparing to cancel elections under the justification of a national emergency, a fear that was often expressed when Bush was in office but one that never materialized.

However, the executive order clearly represents another assault on Posse Comitatus, the 1878 law that bars the military from exercising domestic police powers, which was temporarily annulled by the 2006 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act before parts of it were later repealed.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-exe...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/defau...

David Limbaugh
Friday, January 15, 2010

There are definitely two Americas, but not the two that fallen former presidential candidate John Edwards had in mind. There's the real America, and there's the imaginary America President Barack Obama has boasted of creating.

Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, tells us on the White House's alternative universe blog that "President Obama inherited unprecedented challenges at home and abroad," including "diminished American standing in the world. ... A year later, America is stronger because of the President's leadership."

How has Obama been able to perform this miraculous feat in such a short time?

Well, Obama's "steady diplomacy" has made America stronger and renewed its moral authority. In his superior wisdom, he realized that our real enemy isn't all Islamic extremists dedicated to world conquest, the annihilation of all infidels, and jihad, but the sole branch of that larger group, al-Qaida. So he's smartly and efficiently recalibrated our war effort against this solitary group of jihadists -- though I could have sworn his people have told us it's not exactly a war.

Through his myopic lenses, Obama apparently can't understand that terrorists would be virtually impotent against us without nation-state sponsors. Without that perspective, how can he possibly lead this nation in this "overseas contingency operation"?

Simple. He's not trifling so much with the prosecution of war details, but addressing the root causes of the man-caused disaster that occurred on American soil Sept. 11, 2001.

On that score, Rhodes brags that Obama has embarked on a path to restore our alliances, renew our moral leadership, and reinvigorate our efforts to address the challenges of nuclear proliferation and "climate change."

How has he done all this? His unique gift of gab. Reaching out. Apologizing. Torquing the teleprompter. Just being himself.

He's making the world more comfortable for terrorists, being careful not to alienate them or provoke them to attack us again. He's making amends for our dastardly misdeeds of holding their brethren in detention facilities, treating them like prisoners in our finest federal "country club" penal institutions, and according them constitutional rights they could never dream of in their own cultures.

Even though he's convinced that we're not really at war -- and that the enemy we are not at war with does not comprise all Islamic extremists, and certainly not the entire Muslim world -- he felt compelled to apologize to the entire Muslim world anyway.

Last year, he told millions of Muslims in an interview with Al-Arabiya that America must re-establish with the Muslim world "the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."

Obama's perspective was notably one-sided -- in favor not of the United States, but the Muslim world. As others observed at the time, our track record for the previous 20 years had been one of continually coming to the aid of Muslims all over the world, from Bosnia to Kosovo to Kuwait to Afghanistan to Iraq.

As part of his worldwide tour to apologize for the shameful America that predated his inauguration, he went to Cairo, where he reached out to the people in the Muslim world to make sure they understood that he understood their extraordinary contribution to America and his acute sensitivity and remorse for America's past colonialism and imperialism.

As for his progress in addressing "the challenges of nuclear proliferation," he set a year-end deadline for Iran to start behaving. The deadline passed with no Iranian concessions -- just more insults and defiance from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Obama's denying he'd ever set a deadline in the first place. Now that's leadership.

Not only that but China has just announced that it would not support another round of sanctions against Iran. Guess that deep bow in Shanghai didn't quite do the trick.

But never mind those details. Obama has already accomplished what needed to be accomplished on this front. Rhodes tells us how: "In April, the President delivered a landmark speech in Prague where he stated America's commitment to seek the security of a world without nuclear weapons." We can rest easy now.

Besides, why should Obama unduly agonize over this "contingency operations" thingy when he has much bigger fish to fry, such as cataclysmic, catastrophic, apocalyptic anthropogenic global warming, which is going to incinerate us all, including al-Qaida, anyway -- unless he transfers all this nation's wealth to "underdeveloped nations" and sends us back to the Stone Age?

And he plans on doing just that, as he has made clear with his efforts to pass cap-and-trade legislation, his trip to Copenhagen, and his Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory edict outlawing CO2 emissions.

Meanwhile, in the real world, terrorists still hate us just the same and feel they've been given the green light to prove it, while ours remains fixed on yellow.

John Stossel
Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Tomorrow, my Fox Business Network show about Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" will finally air. That should stop the emails like this one from Karen Cooper:

"Oh for the love of god! 'Atlas Shrugged' explains about 99 percent of what's wrong in all of the arenas of topics: health care, education, climate change, unions, the economy, etc. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE cover 'Atlas.'"

Cooper makes a good point. Even though Rand published "Atlas" in 1957, her descriptions of intrusive and bloated government read like today's news. The "Preservation of Livelihood Law" and "Equalization of Opportunity Law" could be Nancy Pelosi's or Harry Reid's work.

The novel's chief villain is Wesley Mouch, a bureaucrat who cripples the economy with endless regulations. This sounds familiar. Reason magazine reports that "as he looks around Washington these days," Rep. Paul Ryan "can't help but think he's seeing a lot of Wesley Mouch".

Me, too. I also saw a lot of him under George W. Bush.

So I'm conducting this unscientific poll: Who is our Wesley Mouch? Hank Paulson? Tim Geithner? Barney Frank? You can vote here.

Personally, I think Chris Dodd's ridiculous financial proposals ought to win him the honor. But he isn't among the choices on Fox's list. As I write this, Geithner, President Obama and Barney Frank lead the voting.

My first guest on the show (FBN, 8 p.m. Eastern Thursday, repeating at 10 p.m. Friday) is BB&T Chairman and "Atlas" fan John Allison. Allison's bank, the ninth largest in America, is doing very well, but he's angry the government forced him to take TARP money http://tinyurl.com/lguje9).

Allison once told The New York Times, "To say man is bad because he is selfish is to say it's bad because he's alive."

I'll pack the audience with some "Atlas" haters. That shouldn't be hard. My daughter's boyfriend offers up his Yale classmates. Many "liberals" agree with the "South Park" episode in which one character said that "because of this piece of s--t, I am never reading again." Rand brings out ferocious hatred in some people.

Also, I'll get a fish pedicure. Really.

This is a dubious Turkish idea that's become popular in Asia and is now trying for a foothold (pun intended) here. Instead of scraping dead skin off their feet, people have little garra rufa fish gently chew on them.

Fourteen states have banned fish pedicures, claiming they are unsafe, and other local governments have proposed bans. OK, compared to the assault on entrepreneurship described in "Atlas Shrugged," this is sort of a dumb example, but look -- I work in television -- dumb examples can make good points.

The bureaucrats say the fish can't be sterilized without killing them. They say customers will get infections. People could die! It's not safe! And it's cruel to the fish!

Has anyone died? Can you refer me to someone who got an infection? Anyone? The bureaucrats' answer is always no. But it's better to be cautious, they say.

In fact, the free market sorts such things out far more efficiently than bureaucrats. It's just not good business to hurt your customers. My 30 years of consumer reporting taught me that businesses rarely do this, and -- here's the market's self-regulation -- those that do don't stay in business long. That's not a perfect system, but it's much better than central planning. Had today's bureaucrats been in charge decades ago, they would have banned things like aspirin, cars and airplanes.

Sadly, they are in charge now. That makes the "Atlas" message important today.

Although Rand idolizes businessman in the abstract, "Atlas Shrugged" makes clear that she (like Adam Smith) understood that they are not natural friends of free markets. They are often first in line for privileges bestowed by the state. That's called "crony capitalism," and that's what Orren Boyle practices in "Atlas." After my "Atlas Shrugged" show, I plan a show on that subject. Suggestions invited.

I don't want to be controlled by business any more than I want to be regulated by Nancy Pelosi or Wesley Mouch.

I want the freedom to make my own choices.

Christopher Merola
Wednesday, January 06, 2010

On Tuesday, January 5, 2010, the United Kingdom’s Times On Line reported that the Obama administration had released six Guantánamo Bay (GITMO) enemy combatants (terrorists) and sent them back to their home country of Yemen just last month, December of 2009.

Coincidentally, this release of GITMO terrorists occurred around the same time another terrorist attempted to explode a bomb on Christmas Day as his airline flight was on route to Detroit. That terrorist appeared to have help planning his attack by way of a formerly released GITMO detainee.

Oddly enough, Yemen is fast becoming a breeding ground for terrorism. The Times On Line Reported that eleven former GITMO inmates have rejoined Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Yemen’s Al-Qaeda terrorists merged with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qaeda terrorists last year.

Obama’s response to this news was to announce that for the short term he would not release GITMO terrorists from Yemen. How is the supposed to keep us safe? Not all terrorists held at GITMO are from Yemen. Furthermore, President Obama is still planning to release all GITMO prisoners, including the ones from Yemen, though not at this time.

In less than a year as President, Obama has flown around the world apologizing for America and has cowered to the Iranian holocaust denier and megalomaniac, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Obama also met with the Venezuelan socialist dictator Hugo Chavez, who said that Obama was a “comrade” more left wing than he; an astounding statement from a leftist dictator like Chavez.

Obama has called for the slashing of funds for missile defense for the USA and for our allies like Poland and the Czech Republic, while calling for cuts in the defense budget as we fight two wars. Included on the Obama defense chopping block are cuts for the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, the Multiple Kill Vehicle, the Airborne Laser program and Ground Based Interceptors.

Obama even ordered the National Security Council to focus on climate change instead of terrorism. This from Obama, who has flown around the world in his first six months in office more than any president in history, costing taxpayers millions and spewing green house gases.

We should not be surprised by all that Obama has done in less than a year concerning foreign policy and national security. Obama is just following in the footsteps of the last two Democrat Presidents, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Together, Obama, Clinton and Carter make up what I like to call: The Axis of Weasels. Let’s think about this for a second. We face a real global catastrophe as a fanatic in Iran threatens nuclear holocaust with Israel and the world. Communist China threatens Taiwan with nuclear weapons, while North Korea threatens South Korea and the west coast of the United States with nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Obama wants to release more GITMO terrorists.

It all sounds like something out of the Twilight Zone but it is as real as the air we breathe. Consider this: In late 2005, North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon. When satellite surveillance and seismic instruments estimated the North Korea nuclear blast at one kiloton, the American news media denied this was of great consequence. Yet, days later a tsunami overtook the region, causing a multitude of deaths, and some blame the North Korean blast for causing an underground ripple effect that created the tsunami.

Now, fear looms as we wait to see what a larger than life dictator with a bad case of little man’s syndrome does with those weapons.

We are now learning that North Korea is sharing its nuclear ambitions with terror sponsoring nations like Syria. It is being widely reported that Israel bombed a nuclear weapons facility in Syria in September of 2007. Where did the Syrians obtain the technology to build a nuclear weapon facility? They received it from North Korea.

So where did North Korea get the nuclear weapons technology?

Under the reign of William Jefferson Clinton, the United States gave our nuclear technology to the North Koreans in exchange for a promise that they would only use that technology for nuclear power. Why the Clinton administration cut a nuclear technology deal with North Korea is a question that has yet to be answered. It is common knowledge that Kim Jong-Il is a dictator who starves his own people in order to fund his police state. The likelihood that he would use the nuclear technology for nefarious purposes was more than obvious.

In 1993, the North Koreans threatened to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty unless the United States met its terms. This was a clear case of blackmail on behalf of Kim Jong-Il, who was asking the United States to give him diplomatic recognition, end sanctions of his nation and provide North Korea with millions of tons of grain and fuel oil. Worse yet, he wanted the United States to deliver two light-water nuclear reactors that cost $4.5 billion.

On October 21, 1994, the Agreed Framework was signed by the United States and North Korea as the Clinton administration danced with devil and made the world a much more dangerous place in the process. After North Korea signed and then broke the terms of the 1994 Agreed Framework, the Clinton administration then gave North Korea billions more of our tax dollars for “humanitarian aid.” This was then diverted to paying for an even larger police state and a larger North Korean military.

In order to understand just how inept Bill Clinton’s actions were, consider whom he chose as the chief negotiator for the nuclear agreement with North Korea. It was none other than Jimmy Carter. It is worth noting that Carter was one of the worst presidents in our history and is to blame for undermining the Shah of Iran, which led to the demise of a pro-western, American-friendly Iran. In its place, a more militant and dictatorial regime took power and has waged war on the USA and our allies ever since.

This is the same Jimmy Carter who has made hostile remarks about the nation of Israel and even leaked to the world how many nuclear weapons they have; the same Jimmy Carter who gave his seal of approval to Hugo Chavez’s cheating in order to be “elected” President of Venezuela.

This is also the same Bill Clinton that cut and ran in Somalia when the going got tough. Osama Bin Laden was in Somalia at the time and witnessed Clinton’s retreat and defeat actions. Bin Laden said in his own words that watching Clinton retreat from Somalia inspired him to attack the USA. He then planned the first attack on the World Trade Center and the five subsequent attacks on the USA, including the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

The Clinton administration also allowed for the sell of our Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM’s) nuclear weapons technology to communist China. What did Clinton have to gain from this exchange? Just before the 1996 Presidential elections it was discovered that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee received illegal campaign funds from communist China.

Today, North Korea has between 20 and 53 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, enough to create 13 nuclear bombs. The world is hardly safer as a result of the Carter and Clinton led Agreed Framework.

It gets worse.

North Korea shared with Iran the nuclear weapons technology they received from the United States via Carter and Clinton. Iran now threatens the world with the development of its own nuclear weapons.

Amazingly, Congressional Democrats are not concerned with the world problems their party helped create. They are more concerned with supposed man-made global climate change. Does it ever dawn on them that the worst thing that can happen to the globe and the environment is a nuclear war?

Thanks to the abysmal foreign policy failures of the Axis of Weasels -- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama -- the world is a whole lot more dangerous place to live. It is hard to believe, but we still have to cope with at least three more years of Obama’s dangerous foreign policy.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Middle Class Tax Hikes on the Way?

Posted by: Michele Bachmann at 12:39 PM

Yesterday I mentioned that the Obama Administration and Democrat Congressional leaders plan to meet behind closed doors to reconcile their two differing versions of health care reform. So much for President Obama’s pledge to make the entire health care reform process open and transparent. In fact, C-SPAN has asked Congressional leaders to reconsider their thinking and allow the network to air the full proceedings.

As it turns out, providing an open and transparent negotiation process isn’t the only broken promise.  The Senate’s version includes a significant tax increase on the middle class that comes in the form of increased taxes on “Cadillac” insurance plans. Democrats attempted to label these insurance plans “Cadillac” in order to give the impression that people with these types of plans are wealthy. The problem for Democrats is that a large segment of folks with these plans are hard-working American families.

Fox News reports.

The Senate bill raises the biggest chunk of its new revenue through a 40 percent tax on so-called Cadillac health insurance plans -- plans that cost more than $23,000 per family.  And that tax, critics say, will trigger a series of changes that will result in billions of dollars in new taxes on the middle class over the next decade.

First, the tax will hit plans widely used by middle-class employees. The majority of workers with the high-value plans are union members and state government employees who are not considered wealthy, even though Obama advisers like to say the tax is aimed at benefits enjoyed by the likes of Wall Street bankers.

‘A lot of those folks that have Cadillac plans have Chevy wages. And that's what makes it, has made it, somewhat controversial and a real issue of contention,’ said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy with the non-profit think tank Third Way.

And according to the New York Times:

The tax would apply to nearly 20 percent of all workers with employer-provided health coverage in the country, affecting some 31 million people. Within six years, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax would reach a fifth of all households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually. Those families can hardly be considered very wealthy.

All eyes will be on these health care negotiations in the coming weeks, and I hope Democrat Congressional leaders reverse course and allow these negotiations to be viewed by the public. They’ve already locked Republicans out of these critical negotiations. They shouldn’t do the same to the American public.

AP News
Wednesday, December 30, 2009

How contagious is swine flu? Less than the novel viruses that have caused big world outbreaks in the past, new research suggests.

If someone in your home has swine flu, your odds of catching it are about one in eight, although children are twice as susceptible as adults, the study found. It is one of the first big scientific attempts to find out how much the illness spreads in homes versus at work or school, and who is most at risk.

The study was done by outbreak specialists from Imperial College London and from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Swine flu has sickened an estimated one-sixth of Americans since the novel virus was first identified in April. The second wave of cases now seems to have peaked, and health experts do not know if another surge lies ahead.

People with swine flu are advised to stay home for at least a day after their fever goes away by itself to avoid spreading illness. That puts family members at risk, but who is vulnerable and to what extent has not been known.

About 60 percent of swine flu cases have been in children, but researchers wondered: are they truly more likely to get swine flu, or just more likely to be taken to a doctor and tested for it? Are they more likely to spread the virus than adults are?

To find out, researchers studied infection patterns in 216 people with swine flu from around the United States (half of them children) and 600 people living with them.

Respiratory illnesses that researchers assumed were swine flu developed in 78 of the 600 household members, or 13 percent. However, 10 percent had symptoms more specific to flu.

That's less than the "spread" rate during earlier flu pandemics in 1957 and 1968, when 14 percent to 20 percent of household members were infected. Less is known about spread in the 1918 pandemic, but households and lifestyles were very different then. In an ordinary flu season, the virus spreads to 5 percent to 40 percent of household members, various studies have shown.

Children were twice as susceptible to catching swine flu as adults were, and even more so if they were younger than 4, said one of the researchers, Lyn Finelli, surveillance chief for the CDC's flu division.

"It fits with what I'm seeing clinically," said Dr. James King, chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians' board of directors and a family medicine doctor in Selmer in western Tennessee. "Most of the people I'm seeing are people under 20, mostly kids," he said.

Nearly three-fourths of households in the study managed to avoid spreading the illness to any family members.

In homes where the germ was transmitted, researchers found something unexpected: "People at all ages were just as likely to spread the virus," Finelli said. "That was surprising, since we always think of kids as super-spreaders."

The study was funded by several public and private health-related groups in England and the United States, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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On the Net:

New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org

Debra J. Saunders
Thursday, December 31, 2009

Most Americans already have health care insurance, but many middle-class Americans are afraid of losing what they have. The fear is especially profound when a person can work hard and steadily for years, only to find him-or-herself suddenly out of a job and without the means to pay for a costly illness.

There have been too many horror stories about people who responsibly buy personal health plans, only to find out that the plans don't really cover large medical bills. If a person gets a job that provides health care benefits, his or her current health problems may not be covered because they are pre-existing conditions.

Washington's catchphrase for the above situation has been, as the fiscal-watchdog group the Concord Coalition wrote in its recent report on health care reform, "doing nothing is not a responsible option."

The other half of the equation, however, is, as the report continued, "It does not follow, however, that doing anything would improve the situation." Alas, doing anything seems to be the one thing at which Washington excels.

Now, I've got issues with the bills passed in the House and Senate when Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid kept tossing in benefits while promising to reduce the country's health care tab.

But my new fear is that during conference committee, lawmakers will throw in even more goodies and then, to make everybody happy, reduce the tax increases necessary to fund the plan. The closer they come to President Obama's 2008 campaign rhetoric -- universal health care that only rich people pay for -- the more red ink they will pass on to the next generation.

The House proposes a 5.4 percent tax on workers earning more than $500,000 annually, or $1 million for couples. The Senate relies heavily on what is called hide-the-tax -- excise tax on so-called Cadillac health care plans. The Senate also would increase Medicare taxes on families earning more than $250,000.

The problem with soaking the rich to pay for a health care plan? This is the fastest-shrinking tax imaginable when the economy sours. If California can serve any useful function in this debate, it should be as a warning to the dangers of over-relying on taxes on the rich.

Besides, as the Concord Coalition noted, broadly based taxes "spread the notion that all must contribute something for government benefits -- imposing an important breaker against 'free lunch' spending giveaways." Hence the coalition's support for the tax on so-called Cadillac health care.

While critics on the left complain that the Cadillac tax will squeeze union workers and the middle-class, I have issues with taxing those with health care benefits to pay for those who don't. Better to pass a value-added tax, but at least this excise eventually would make everyone pay for a universal benefit.

Concord Coalition Policy Director Josh Gordon believes, "Once people start feeling the cost of their insurance, they start getting concerned about premiums being too high." He added that if negotiators remove the Senate excise-tax and cost-control measures, the Concord Coalition would have to brand a final bill as "irresponsible legislation."

Note to anti-tax Republicans: If Washington passes a bill, someone has to pay for it. The only question is who, when and how much.

Note to soak-the-richers: You can't say that universal health care is a moral imperative, but only other people should pay for it.