op ed review 12/27

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

THIS WEEK’S NEWS

The consequence of losing elections: The Democratic-controlled Senate passed health care legislation Thursday, 60-39, strictly along party lines, one day after Democrats succeeded in crushing a filibuster.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul

Unbelievable. To protect it from future Republican Congresses, the Senate health care bill declares on page 1020 that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board is permanent and cannot be repealed.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/reid_bill_declares_future_cong_1.asp

With Obamacare, you get the good, the bad, and the ugly -- except for the first part. The Congressional Budget Office's score is in for the final Senate health bill, and it's amazing how little Americans would get for so much. The Democrats are irresponsibly and disingenuously claiming that the bill would cost $871 billion over 10 years. The CBO says that the bill's full 10-year tab is approximately $2.5 trillion.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/cbo_real_10year_cost_of_senate.asp

The ‘health care reform’ legislation is the most corrupt piece of legislation in our nation’s history. Yes, we understand that is a strong statement and there have been other abominations throughout our nation’s life. But never before did corrupt legislation threaten to radically and forever change the lives of every American. Exhibit A is the outright bribe extracted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Corn Huckster State) from Sen. Harry Reid. As a result of Nelson’s performance in his role of Hamlet in the health care deliberations, we will have two health care systems in this country; one for Nebraska and one for the other 49 states.

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/19/sen-nelsons-bribe/

In exchange for Nelson’s critical 60th vote, Sen. Reid agreed that the federal government would pick up 100 percent of the tab for the planned Medicaid expansion in Nebraska – forever.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/58899

The CBO’s analysis indicates the bill would slap a mandatory annual fee of about $15,000 on middle-class families of four earning more than $88,200 and not provided with health insurance by their employer.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/58913

But Democratic celebrations are premature, the battle isn’t over, and opponents of the legislation could still win.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2Y0ZmQwYTRlMzA5MzBjMTZjMzY1M2FlNGY5OTRiOTg=

Organizations and lawmakers opposed to the health care reform package are getting their legal briefs organized, threatening to challenge the constitutionality of the sweeping overhaul.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/22/health-care-face-string-legal-challenges/

The Senate also voted Thursday to raise the ceiling on the government debt to $12.4 trillion, a massive increase over the current limit. ($41,000 for every American).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091224/ap_on_bi_ge/us_debt_ceiling

Thirteen years ago, Damon Dunn ran 93 yards to score a touchdown against USC. Now the Irvine CA Republican, who had never voted until this year, is running for secretary of state. He's articulate, outgoing, good looking -- and one of the few black Republican political candidates in California. Why Republican? "No entitlement program got me out of poverty," he says. "It was hard work."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap24-2009dec24,0,611441.column?track=rss

Usually one does not see Congressmen or Senators flipping parties to join the minority. Blue Dog Democrat Parker Griffith of Alabama, a freshman in Congress, has seen enough of Nancy Pelosi’s leadership. He will join Republicans in a move that has far more symbolic than substantive impact — for now.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/22/breaking-blue-dog-flips-to-gop/

A decision to ordain actively gay clergy has caused deep fissures in the nation's largest Lutheran church group, with some traditional Lutherans saying they have been subjected to threats and retaliation as they consider breaking away. Several disaffected members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) say the decision made at the church's national convention in Minneapolis in August could prompt a major exodus.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/19/dissident-lutherans-claim-bullying-over-gays/

Scotland Yard has warned businesses in London to expect a Mumbai-style attack on the capital.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6962867.ece

A devout Christian teacher in the UK has lost her job after discussing her faith with a mother and her sick child and offering to pray for them.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1237204/Christian-teacher-lost-job-told-praying-sick-girl-bullying.html

Hawaii, New Mexico, Washington and Utah are the only states that don't ban illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580626,00.html

Great moments in socialized medicine: Women in the UK are still waiting months to find out whether they have breast cancer because of the Labor Party’s failure to meet a commitment. The party promised before the last election that any woman with signs of breast cancer would be seen by a specialist within two weeks by 2008. The deadline was later extended to the end of 2009 but the “cancer czar” has admitted the NHS will still fail to hit the target.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1237319/Labour-breaks-election-manifesto-women-wait-months-breast-cancer-diagnosis.html

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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN

Tea Parties, Go Home! All Politics is Local! 12/22/09

By “A Confidential Source in the Halls of Power”

TEA Parties nation-wide have found that calling, writing, and showing up in person in D.C. has the same impact as a hiccup in a hurricane. After turning out thousands of citizens at rallies, overwhelming the Senate phone lines and crashing Congress’ e-mail system, our elected representatives are poised to enact the greatest expansion of government in history. The TEA Parties followed the direction of national organizations and associations. They answered the call, but were sent over the trench-line without an actual plan or support. (See, for example, Somme, Battle of) It is time for the TEA Party movement to turn inward. In the words of the age-old adage, “ All politics is local “.

Stories like the ACORN tapes have massive national legs, yet they do not destroy the local farm team of tax-and-spend big government. Fighting for Liberty and the ability to live the American dream requires getting your hands dirty far closer to home. For the TEA party and 9-12 groups to become effective, they must evolve again, and this time the Gadsden Flag will be a marker laid down to far more personal targets.

People find the mundane of daily life and local news forgettable, yet this is how the TEA party can enact meaningful change. To end the progression of large intrusive government and the progressive agenda, the TEA party must neuter the left’s farm team. City Council, County Board, Park Districts, and School Boards may not have the flash of State Representatives, State Senators or their federal partners, but, they are, indeed, perhaps more the important .

The progressives and Big Government-types have entrenched themselves into local power bases. They have expanded the role of government from the garbage man to the kindergarten teacher. They are taking us over from within, yet we can push back…..

Now is the time for the TEA party to show it’s real colors and longevity. Now it is time for us to stop the rallies and start the process of running for election and holding our current officials directly accountable. Now is the time for the plumber, the electrician, and the Joe Six-pack American to end this madness.

No more will we go quietly into that long night. Now, we must fight. We must take back the system and make our elected officials fear “we the people”. This is the battle our forefathers saw many years ago.

This is the time for the Tea Party to seize the day and make a difference. Which party you decide to run on doesn’t matter. Republican or Democrat matters little, as the national leaders of both have lost touch. What matters is we destroy the go-along-to-get-along farm team. It also matters that we pick a party…the Republicans and Democrats have together gamed the system against third parties. Creating a TEA Party isn’t a serious solution. Leverage your power locally to change your party.

Make a pledge to not vote to tax and spend the people’s money. Make a pledge to quit after “x” amounts of terms in office. The people are waiting for a leader; they are waiting for a Captain. Be that Captain. March to the sound of the guns, and seize the day.

With TEA party people in every position of government, the political class in Washington will listen. They will no longer have the political cover of pork-hungry Mayors doing tricks for the political elite. There will no longer be days of staffers blowing people off to vote for their party line.

A carpet-layer has more experience to lead than any political hack. An insurance man has more ability to look at regulations than a risk-adverse lawyer. A veteran has more understanding of what it takes to support our men and women in harms way…

Help start the process and run for office. The great sleeper that is America has woken up. 2010 is not the end game, neither is 2012. The end game is when we level the playing field and make America once again the land of opportunity.

Fly that Gadsden flag high and fly it proud. But, that isn’t enough. It is time to leave your fields and join the battle. March to the sound of the guns.

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/21/code-tea-tea-parties-go-home-all-politics-is-local/

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS

“It's Christmas Eve and we already know we got coal. The overzealous Left has wailed and won a major victory. They've passed a bloated bill that perfectly captures their statist state of mind. Americans stew, but our brake pedal (Congress) simply isn't working. We want more time, more thought, more debate, and all we got is this lousy bill rushed to us like some Tickle Me Elmo we never wanted but everyone thinks we're crazy about. Let's hope the gift is returnable. This is one receipt we're sure to keep.”

-Robert Costa

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GLOBALONEY

The United Nations climate change conference ended in recrimination without reaching a clear deal on emissions targets. After a stormy session in Copenhagen, in which a vociferous anti-American minority brought the talks close to collapse, most countries agreed simply to ''take note'' of a watered-down agreement brokered by President Barack Obama and supported by Britain. Critics pointed out, however, that the agreement failed to say how this limit on rising temperatures would be

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6962879.ece

Like Al Gore, the head of the UN's climate change panel has made a fortune from his links with 'carbon trading' companies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html

Record snow in Alaska : Valdez got five feet eight inches this week.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/dispatches/news/3334-valdez-socked-in

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LEFTIST WATCH

In a wide-ranging interview, Obama funder, terrorist sympathizer and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans spoke about her meetings with the Taliban and President Obama. “She lauded the Taliban for bringing peace and justice to Afghanistan” while saying that the U.S. has failed to deliver either.

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/21/obama-funder-jodie-evans-on-her-new-tali-pals-taliban-bring-peace-and-justice-u-s-created-hell-on-earth-in-afghanistan/

The political advocacy group ''Rock the Vote'' has a new video out encouraging young people to abstain from having sex with folks opposed to healthcare reform.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/12/20/rock-vote-encourages-youth-use-sex-pass-obamacare

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) says those who don’t support health care legislation are “birthers and fanatics in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups.”

http://washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2009/dec/20/sen-whitehouse-foes-health-care-bill-are-birthers-/

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ARTICLES

'Page 1,020" — it may soon be a mantra for one of the most disturbing abuses of legislative power in history. In setting up an Independent Medicare Advisory Board, that page of the Senate health overhaul bill passed in the dead of night early Monday says, "It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection." That is the arrogance of the mind-set dominating the legislative and executive branches: Your money is really theirs, to be handed out like a Mob-backed union boss toting a bag of cash on the waterfront. The statists may now finally have bitten off more than they will be able to chew politically. If Republicans act like Republicans and convince the populist Tea Party movement not to go the suicidal third-party route, the coming public backlash will see to it that the greatest health care system in the world is not gone for good. Look for demonstrators to start burning copies of Page 1,020 the way '60s radicals used to burn their draft cards.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=516040

Obamacare would require Americans to buy government-approved health insurance. It would make it illegal to offer choices in insurance plans beyond the handful of very similar ones that the government would allow. It would become illegal to offer new and innovative plans. Under any of the government-approved plans, it would become illegal to pay your doctor directly for more than a certain percentage of your care. Higher deductible, consumer-driven plans would be severely altered or eliminated. By law, a greater percentage of money would have to be paid in insurance premiums, rather than directly for care. Competition and choice would diminish tremendously. One-size-fits-all conformity would rule the day. At its core, what Obamacare really means is a loss of freedom.

http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Mjc5ZmM4ODk4MWZhZTA5NDlhY2JkODE3ZTQ1ZmZmZWY=

Sen. Mary Landrieu was the new "Louisiana Purchase." Sen. Ben Nelson got the federal government to pick up his state's future Medicaid tab. Maybe we should just put Senate votes up on eBay. Nelson, the 60th vote in the middle-of-the-night Senate party line vote on health care reform, will go down in American political history as the inventor of the permanent earmark.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=515933

Ben Shapiro: If this is the beginning of the full-scale implementation of socialized health care, we must stop it in its tracks. Here is a basic, three-step plan for putting an end to the Democrats’ sickening “beginning”:

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/58949

How a political wave builds (turnout is the key) a wave only happens when two things happen simultaneously: 1) turnout skyrockets overall 2) one side makes massive increases in its vote share from the previous midterm elections while the other side stays stable or loses slightly from its total votes.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/house/how-a-political-wave-builds.html?wprss=thefix

Nat Hentoff: “I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had.”

http://www.rutherford.org/oldspeak/articles/interviews/oldspeak-Hentoff_2009.html

Ted Nugent: “Of the many self-inflicted problems that face our country, none is as dangerous to the survival of our nation as the curse of political correctness.”

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=34933

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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES

Dick Cheney named HUMAN EVENTS ‘Conservative of the Year’

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=34906

A chronology of suspicious behavior:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/terror_test_runs_on_airlines.html

Understanding the universe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U&feature=player_embedded#

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WISE WORDS

"[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."

-Benjamin Rush, 1806

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."

-Patrick Henry, 1788