REP. ELLISON: Most of us are co-authors of HR676, which is a single-payer bill so we feel like we’ve already compromised. I think that the reality is the public option has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office as saving $150 billion, so this actually helps deal with the fiscal responsibility issues…It offers choice, which is a good thing…
ESKOLA: Isn’t the public option really just a step towards the single payer that you want so much?
REP. ELLISON: Yes but the reality is that for many people that’s not what it is.
This is a full admission, just as Congressman Jankowski and Frank have stated, just a way to put regular health insurance out of business and prepare for a government take over of health care. This means that all of the Democrats and news pundits who have said that this blog and people like Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and others are liars, are themselves lying…and this includes the president. Of course, to anyone who has read the bill as we have this is obvious.
[Editor's Note: I like Camille Paglia, she is an honest liberal, not a full blown leftist, but an honest, left of center person in almost a traditional sense...OK maybe traditional is the wrong word, but it will have to do for now. I try to not miss her columns and I am kicking myself for missing this one that she wrote in November 2008. Paglia was all for Obama and hoped that he would be a center left president and not a hard left one. She didn't get her wish.
And as truly bright, refreshing and observant as Paglia is, she missed just how far left he was even though it seems that Paglia did some homework and knew Obama's record almost as well as I did. This goes to show that even a considerable intellect as Camille Paglia can be tricked up by an emotional attachment. It was clear in reading her columns that to a degree Paglia was caught up in the emotionalism of the election.
I cannot fault someone for not wanting to vote for John McCain. As great an American hero he is, his political leadership has proved to be flawed and inconsistent on too many occasions.
Ayers comes off in the film as a vapid, slightly dopey, chronic juvenile with stunted powers of ethical reasoning. The real revelation is his wife, Bernardine Dohrn (who evidently worked at the same large Chicago law firm as Michelle Obama in the mid-1990s). Of course I had heard of Dohrn — hers was one of the most notorious names of our baby-boom generation — and I knew her black-and-white police mug shot. But I had never seen footage of her speaking or interacting with others. Well, it’s pretty obvious who wears the pants in that family!
The mystery of Bernardine Dohrn: How could such a personable, attractive, well-educated young woman end up saying such things at a 1969 political rally as this (omitted in the film) about the Manson murders: “Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach. Wild!” And how could Dohrn have so ruthlessly pursued a decade-long crusade of hatred and terrorism against innocent American citizens and both private and public property?
“The Weather Underground” never searches for answers, but it does show Dohrn, then and now, as a poised, articulate woman of extremely high intelligence and surprising inwardness. The audio extra of her reading the collective’s first public communiqué (“Revolutionary violence is the only way”) is chilling. But the tumultuous footage of her 1980 surrender to federal authorities is a knockout. Mesmerized, I ran the clip six or seven times of her seated at a lawyer’s table while reading her still defiant statement. The sober scene — with Dohrn hyper-alert in a handsome turtleneck and tweedy jacket — was tailor-made for Jane Fonda in her “Klute” period, androgynous shag. Only illegalities by federal investigators prevented Dohrn from being put away on ice for a long, long time.
Given that Obama had served on a Chicago board with Ayers and approved funding of a leftist educational project sponsored by Ayers, one might think that the unrepentant Ayers-Dohrn couple might be of some interest to the national media. But no, reporters have been too busy playing mini-badminton with every random spitball about Sarah Palin, who has been subjected to an atrocious and at times delusional level of defamation merely because she has the temerity to hold pro-life views.
How dare Palin not embrace abortion as the ultimate civilized ideal of modern culture? How tacky that she speaks in a vivacious regional accent indistinguishable from that of Western Canada! How risible that she graduated from the University of Idaho and not one of those plush, pampered commodes of received opinion whose graduates, in their rush to believe the worst about her, have demonstrated that, when it comes to sifting evidence, they don’t know their asses from their elbows.
Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during this sorry episode will not so easily go back into its bottle. A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology — contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. One would have to look back to the Eisenhower 1950s for parallels to this grotesque lock-step parade of bourgeois provincialism, shallow groupthink and blind prejudice.
I like Sarah Palin, and I’ve heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is — and quite frankly, I think the people who don’t see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn’t speak the King’s English — big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns — that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.
As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee — what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry’s nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama’s pick and who was on everyone’s short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin’s.
The Obama Administration shouted from the rooftops that their stimulus plan was the only thing that would keep unemployment from rising above 8%. Of course that figure was blown away months ago.
Yesterday the Labor Department Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their August unemployment data. The Wall Street Journal summarized the data in their article:
Job Losses Weigh on Recovery
Layoffs Slow but Unemployment Rate Hits 9.7%, Highest Since 1983
Nonfarm payrolls fell by 216,000 jobs in the month, fewer than the 276,000 lost in July, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy has shed 6.9 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. The data reinforced expectations that employers will begin adding jobs by early next year, though the pace of job creation remains uncertain.
The latest figures are consistent with an economy pulling out of the deepest downturn since the Great Depression. But rising unemployment portends persistent weakness in consumer confidence, income and spending, even as manufacturers start bouncing back and stocks revive. The construction and manufacturing sectors together accounted for more than half of August’s job losses. Losses in retail and business services narrowed. The biggest gains came in health care.
The rise in unemployment, after dipping to 9.4% in July, came as more Americans returned to the work force. Teenage unemployment hit 25.5%, the highest since the government began keeping records in 1948. Most economists expect the rate to top 10% in coming months and stay over 9% through 2010.
Japan’s recent elections have ushered in a period of political change, and the new government is likely to revise its relationship with the United States. The Obama administration’s new ambassador to Japan is not an expert on the region, but rather a Silicon Valley lawyer and political fundraiser.
This is just one sign of how President Obama is continuing a time-honored tradition of rewarding donors with plum assignments abroad.
When Obama came into office talking about change, he raised some expectations that he would alter the way he would choose new ambassadors.
But so far, more than half of the ambassadors he has named are political appointees — including several so-called bundlers, or superfundraisers who organize and collect campaign contributions, according to Dave Levinthal of the Center for Responsive Politics.
“They are people who are financiers who’ve helped the Obama campaign from the outset, and they are getting some plum positions — France, Spain, Germany, the U.K., Japan, Canada,” he says.
British news reports highlighted the fact that the new U.S. ambassador there, Louis Susman, has been called “the vacuum cleaner” for his ability to pull in political donations.
In Japan, Silicon Valley lawyer Roos — who had never been to the country prior to his appointment — is already settling in as ambassador. Levinthal says Roos was a bundler who brought in more than $500,000 for the Obama campaign.
Hat Tip to Hotair.com for reading NPR so the rest of us don’t have to. NPR so rarely breaks news so they just aren’t in my rotation.
PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup finds organized labor taking a significant image hit in the past year. While 66% of Americans continue to believe unions are beneficial to their own members, a slight majority now say unions hurt the nation’s economy. More broadly, fewer than half of Americans — 48%, an all-time low — approve of labor unions, down from 59% a year ago.
These results are from the 2009 installment of Gallup’s annual Work and Education survey, conducted Aug. 6-9. The 48% of Americans now approving of unions represents the first sub-50% approval since Gallup first asked the question in the 1930s. The previous low was 55%, found in both 1979 and 1981.
The health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats contains many controversial items that divide the general public. However, one area of consensus among the public is the desire to restrict government health care benefits to U.S. citizens only.
Eighty-three percent (83%) of voters nationwide say that people should be required to prove they are a citizen of the United States before receiving government health care subsidies. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 12% disagree and five percent (5%) are not sure.
The desire to limit the benefits to U.S. citizens is found across demographic and partisan lines. It is held by 95% of Republicans, 70% of Democrats and 87% of those not affiliated with either major party.
Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters nationwide believe that Congress is too liberal while 22% hold the opposite view and say it is too conservative. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 14% say the ideological balance of Congress is about right and 12% are not sure.
Republicans overwhelmingly believe that Congress is too liberal, a view shared by 59% of those not affiliated with either major party (independents).
A plurality of Democrats have a different view. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Democrats say Congress is too conservative, 19% too liberal, and 26% about right.
In the race to become the next Governor of Virginia, Republican Robert F. McDonnell retains a steady lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Virginia voters finds McDonnell leading Deeds 51% to 42%. That’s little changed from a month agowhen McDonnell held the advantage 49% to 41%. All of those figures include “leaners.” Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either of the candidates but answer a follow-up question and say they are leaning towards a particular candidate.
At town hall meetings on the health care issue, most Americans say it’s more important for those in Congress to listen rather than speak.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide say that it’s more important for Congressmen to hear the view of their constituents rather than explain the proposed health care legislation. The latest Rasmussen Reports nationaltelephone survey found that 37% hold the opposite view while 7% are not sure.
Forty-nine percent (49%) have a favorable opinion of those opposing the health care reforms at town hall meetings. That’s up eight points from 41% a month ago. Thirty-five percent (35%) have an unfavorable view of the town hall protesters, unchanged from last month.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) now say the town hall protesters are citizens reflecting the concerns of their neighbors. That’s up ten points over the past month.
Thirty percent (30%) believe the protests are phony efforts drummed up by special interest groups and lobbyists.
Good video and an important point. While war powers give the executive more power during times of conflict, the DHS Secretary did go through the standard vetting process and the few presidents who have created “Czar” positions in the White House appointed only 1-4 of them and kept their role in the government very limited such as the “Drug Czar” appointment whose job it is to keep the president informed on the international drug trade. The Drug Czar runs the President’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (LINK) and unlike many of these other new “czar” positions it is a pretty open book.
The point about the shadow government is an important one and Democrat Robert Byrd was the first to sound the alarm on this issue. Remember when one of Obama’s Czar’s was caught telling the staff ”to put nothing in writing, ever.” LINK. Czar’s can escape Congressional oversight because it can be said that they are special advisors to the president and are thus covered by “executive privilege”. These people are not just advisors, they seem to be implementors.
This one is pretty rich… Film maker Michael Moore says that capitalism is evil. The same system that has made him a multi-millionaire. Tom Tancredo says fine, if you love Marxism so much than spread the wealth, starting with your own.
An Obamabot tries to tell Michelle Bachmann, who has birthed five children and foster cared for 23 more, that here in America thousands of women every year like in the UK are forced to give birth in stairways and waiting rooms because they can’t get care from their national health system (LINK). Of course that is total nonsense.
A school principal has apologized for showing a video at an assembly that a politically conservative group leader is calling “radical, leftist propaganda.”
Children at Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington were shown a short video called “I pledge” on Aug. 28. The video opens with an image of President Barack Obama and part of a speech in which he says, “Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.” The video then features celebrities making pledges about how they will help the president and the world — and that’s where some say the problem lies.
Gayle Ruzicka, president of conservative Utah Eagle Forum, said the video was blatantly political. She said other offensive pledges included, “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama,” “I pledge allegiance to the funk, to the united funk of funkadelica,” and pledges to not use plastic grocery bags and not flush the toilet after urinating.
“It’s very inappropriate to show a radical, leftist propaganda piece that political to children,” Ruzicka said. “If parents want their children to learn about those things and do them in the home, wonderful, fine, but it’s not the place of the school to show a one-sided propaganda piece to children without parents knowing about it.”
Bremerton resident and blogger Keli Carender challenges Norm Dicks to come and take the first $20 for healthcare from her. He refuses. Shot at his August 31st, 2009 town hall meeting in Bremerton, WA.
The federal government has made it illegal to buy insurance across state lines. This is a huge part of the health insurance accessibility problem. Her name is Catherine Bragg and she owns a bakery.
Catherine goes “On The Record” at Fox News
Thanks to Hotairpundit for the vid link.
Fox News does a good job presenting this issue factually as it is consistent with the history of government radio censorship that we learned in communications classes at IUSB.
There is the video, notice the HCAN stickers he is handing out. This was before Representative Jankowski’s meeting. Rep. Jankowsky (D-IL) is the one who boasted to a group of radical supporters that a government provided insurance plan would put private insurers out of business.
The man who shot that video interviewed. It is a must see:
And now you understand why the Stimulus Bill is mostly just growing government and not creating jobs.
By the way, one of the founders of Apollo Alliance is Jeff Jones, the other guy who founded the “Weather Underground” terrorist group with Bill Ayers who was Barack Obama’s employer before he ran for Senate. (LINK)
UPDATE II – OUT. Keep in mind that before the resignation, ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT and WashPost did ZERO coverage of this story before the resignation. Fox News was the only one that covered it. – Byron York on the elite media giving no coverage of the mounting story.
UPDATE: Bob Beckel says that Jones should be filing for unemployment.
The past of Van Jones has been coming out for a while and as David Horowitz said, “One does not declare himself to be a communist three years after the wall came down without knowing and approving of what went on behind that wall.”
Gateway Pundit, a prominent blogger, did the background checks that the White House and/or FBI failed to do and found Van Jones as signatory number 46 on 911truth.org. The 9/11 Truther’s believe that the Bush Administration engineered the attack to murder 3000 Americans.
Jones was 47 on the list and now he is 46 (LINK to view), I wonder whose name got scrubbed.
Jones also helped to found a group called STORM, a self proclaimed revolutionary Marxist group. On September 12, 2001 STORM held an event to bring attention to the victims of evil AMERICAN imperialism. So much for our 300 victims of radical islamists.
Jones also led a protest to free a convicted cop killer LINK.
Charles Krauthammer, Mara Liasson and Stephen Hayes comment on Van Jones
In this video Van Jones Compares President Bush to a “Crack head” for wanting to increase the US supply of domestic energy. The problem with Van Jones point of view here is that it is typical of someone who is an avowed communist in that they are in complete denial of basic laws of economics. If I were thrown out a broken window I would hope that the laws of gravity would not apply to me, it is just as foolish to claim that the laws of supply and demand do not apply to energy as Van Jones does. perhaps Jones forgot that there is this oil cartel called OPEC that manipulates the market to suck as many dollars out of us as possible. The more domestic energy we produce the more energy prices fall and the more the influence of the cartel is lessened.
Van Jones says that white people and white environmentalists are putting poluution in minority communities. Ok talk about your goofball conspiracy theories.
Van Jones says and advocates that the “green movement” is being used to incrementally transfer the capitalist system to a socialist system. No shock we have been saying that for years, but at least now they admit it. Via Hotair.com and Naked Emporer News. This interview was from 17 months ago.
Ed Morrissey comments: Jones, the green jobs czar, explains how his allies want to conduct a revolution on the sly. Call it radical incrementalism, call it an offshoot of the Alinksy method, but it certainly seems that Jones is easily the most radical White House aide in many, many years.
By the way, the networks, the NYT and Washington Post have not covered this story at all. If Bush were president and a joker like this was in the administration they would be all over it, wall to wall. Fox is covering it.
Glenn Beck dedicated a show to Van Jones:
Ann Coulter: The elite media has become the guard dog for the administration instead of the guard dog for the people –
Michelle Malkin – On Jones and the other Marxist Czar’s that got lucky and were propped up bt far left foundation money from Tides Foundation, Ford Foundation and George Soros. –
UPDATE – You can view the teaching aid documents the government is giving teachers for the speech event HERE, so if you were silly enough not to believe us maybe you can believe the actual documents.
The networks are saying that Reagan and Bush41 both made speeches to school kids so what’s the problem? The problem is that Reagan and Bush had a “do good for yourself in school and that’s good for America message” and the first released portions of Obama’s speech asked “What can you do for Obama.” They are revamping the message now to something a little more appropriate, but the trust is blown.
UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin and National Review tell about how Obama worked with Ayers and Klonsky to use foundation money to move education away from the three R’s to showing teachers how to radicalize students LINK. We had covered much of that story. See Links HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
Michelle Malkin Comments:
And now for the school aged propaganda creep out:
And the “Obama Youth” creep out:
AP:
DALLAS — President Barack Obama’s back-to-school address next week was supposed to be a feel-good story for an administration battered over its health care agenda. Now Republican critics are calling it an effort to foist a political agenda on children, creating yet another confrontation with the White House.
Obama plans to speak directly to students Tuesday about the need to work hard and stay in school. His address will be shown live on the White House Web site and on C-SPAN at noon EDT, a time when classrooms across the country will be able to tune in.
Schools don’t have to show it. But districts across the country have been inundated with phone calls from parents and are struggling to address the controversy that broke out after Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to principals urging schools to watch.
Districts in states including Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, Wisconsin have decided not to show the speech to students. Others are still thinking it over or are letting parents have their kids opt out.
Some conservatives, driven by radio pundits and bloggers, are urging schools and parents to boycott the address. They say Obama is using the opportunity to promote a political agenda and is overstepping the boundaries of federal involvement in schools.
“As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality,” said Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell. “This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”
Arizona state schools superintendent Tom Horne, a Republican, said lesson plans for teachers created by Obama’s Education Department “call for a worshipful rather than critical approach.”
The White House plans to release the speech online Monday so parents can read it. He will deliver the speech at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va.
“I think it’s really unfortunate that politics has been brought into this,” White House deputy policy director Heather Higginbottom said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“It’s simply a plea to students to really take their learning seriously. Find out what they’re good at. Set goals. And take the school year seriously.”
She noted that President George H.W. Bush made a similar address to schools in 1991. Like Obama, Bush drew criticism, with Democrats accusing the Republican president of making the event into a campaign commercial.
Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson plans, available online, originally recommended having students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.”
The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could “write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.”
“That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it,” Higginbottom said.
In the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, the 54,000-student school district is not showing the 15- to 20-minute address but will make the video available later.
PTA council president Cara Mendelsohn said Obama is “cutting out the parent” by speaking to kids during school hours.
“Why can’t a parent be watching this with their kid in the evening?” Mendelsohn said. “Because that’s what makes a powerful statement, when a parent is sitting there saying, ‘This is what I dream for you. This is what I want you to achieve.’”
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, said in an interview with the AP that he’s “certainly not going to advise anybody not to send their kids to school that day.”
“Hearing the president speak is always a memorable moment,” he said.
But he also said he understood where the criticism was coming from.
“Nobody seems to know what he’s going to be talking about,” Perry said. “Why didn’t he spend more time talking to the local districts and superintendents, at least give them a heads-up about it?”
Several other Texas districts have decided not to show the speech, although the district in Houston is leaving the decision up to individual school principals. In suburban Houston, the Cypress-Fairbanks district planned to show the address and has had its social studies teachers assemble a curriculum and activities for students.
“If someone objected, we would not force them to listen to the speech,” spokeswoman Kelli Durham said.
In Wisconsin, the Green Bay school district decided not to show the speech live and to let teachers decide individually whether to show it later.
In Florida, GOP chairman Jim Greer released a statement that he was “absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.”
Despite his rhetoric, two of the larger Florida districts, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough, plan to have classes watch the speech. Students whose parents object will not have to watch.
“We’re extending the same courtesy to the president as we do with any elected official that wants to enter our schools,” said Linda Cobbe, a Hillsborough schools spokeswoman. Cobbe said the district, which includes Tampa, has gotten calls from upset parents but said officials don’t think the White House is trying to force politics on kids.
The Minnesota Association of School Administrators is recommending against disrupting the first day of school to show the speech, but Minnesota’s biggest teachers’ union is urging schools to show it.
Quincy, Ill., schools decided Thursday not to show the speech. Superintendent Lonny Lemon said phone calls “hit like a load of bricks” on Wednesday.
One Idaho school superintendent, Murray Dalgleish of Council, urged people not to rush to judgment.
“Is the president dictating to these kids? I don’t think so,” Dalgleish said. “He’s trying to get out the same message we’re trying to get out, which is, `You are in charge of your education.’”
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — California authorities say a clash between opponents and supporters of health care reform ended with one man biting off another man’s finger.
Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Frank O’Hanlon says about 100 people demonstrating in favor of health care reforms rallied Wednesday night on a street corner. One protester walked across the street to confront about 25 counter-demonstrators.
O’Hanlon says the man got into an argument and fist fight, during which he bit off the left pinky of a 65-year-old man who opposed health care reform.
There were 25 of them and one of him, hmm wanna guess who initiated the attack? Interesting that every reported case of violence has been from the SEIU/ACORN pro ObamaCare people. Well at least the people opposing ObamaCare have not have had to advertise for rent-a-mobs on Craigs List.
UPDATE: Allegedly the Obamacare thug charged at the 65 year old man and the man threw a punch to defend himself. The Obamacare thug then bit his finger off.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.
But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.
As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.
“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.
“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients.”
The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.
The scheme, called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), was designed to reduce patient suffering in their final hours.
George Orwell call your office, the plan to reduce patient suffering was starving and killing them.
In the first video, you will see that poor Allen Colmes has been given the task of defending the indefensible. In such a case actually engaging in the argument would do him more harm than good so all he can do is call names, mock and act like a child.
More indoctrination on video –
This one is truly disturbing –
College too, including threats. …..
School has Obama celebration party and rally for kindergarteners.
Finally someone has come up with a satirical response to famed Patty Joseph who says that with Obama being elected she wont have to worry about paying her mortgage or paying ger gas.
