op ed review 4/4

THIS WEEK’S NEWS

By 50%-46%, those surveyed in a USA Today/Gallup poll say Obama doesn't deserve re-election.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-31-poll_N.htm

Rasmussen poll: “70 percent of voters say they are angry with the policies of the federal government, with 48 percent saying they are “very angry.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63617

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much and expands the government's role in health care too far……Obama's approval rating was 47%-50% — the first time his disapproval rating has hit 50%.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-29-health-poll_N.htm

A new national poll indicates that the voting public thinks members of the Tea Party movement are more ethical and know the issues facing Americans better than members of Congress. Rasmussen Reports, which administered the poll, found that while the media may treat the Tea Party movement as a fringe element in society, voters across the nation "feel closer to the Tea Party movement than they do to Congress.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63544

The Tea Party Express has raised more than $50,000 over the past few days to target Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak, whose last minute deal over abortion language in President Obama’s health-care bill allowed the legislation to pass. The group considers Stupak to be their No. 2 target, after Sen. Harry Reid.

http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/01/tea-party-express-goes-after-their-number-2-target-bart-stupak-with-tv-and-radio-ads/

Seven months before the November midterm elections, the Democrats are awash in ethics and corruption scandals in Congress and among the nation’s biggest governorships. The major networks’ nightly news shows have largely ignored or played down the mounting allegations, charges and investigations targeting Democrats, but they are becoming a major issue in key campaigns that could help the Republicans make large gains in the House, Senate and state capitals.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36271

“Dino Rossi is believed to be running for U.S. Senate against Patty Murray.”

http://blog.thenewstribune.com/politics/2010/03/30/thurston-gop-leader-rossi-to-run-against-murray/#ixzz0jnbnTwUl

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna is within his authority to challenge the individual mandate in the new federal health-care bill, writes Slade Gorton, former U.S. senator and state attorney general. Gov. Chris Gregoire, who previously was AG, has criticized McKenna's action.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2011453250_guest27gorton.html

The final version of Obamacare, as signed into law, is a dream come true for big-money plaintiffs' lawyers.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/01/trial-lawyers-love-obamacare/

The health-care debate has generated intense levels of frustration among the bill's opponents, and those who say they are outright angry almost universally believe that the country is going in the wrong direction -- some say toward an America they no longer recognize.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/01/AR2010040102468_pf.html

A Florida doctor posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-mount-dora-doctor-tells-patients-go-aw20100401,0,6040296,full.story

One group is taking freedom of speech and freedom of expression to the limits in a series of Metro Atlanta highway billboards voicing strong opinions against President Obama. They offer pre-packaged messages like "Stop Obama Socialism," or one saying "Now it's personal." The group behind the billboards call themselves BillboardsAgainstObama.com.

http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=142417&catid=3

The federal government took its first formal step to regulate global warming pollution on Thursday by issuing final rules for greenhouse gas emissions for automobiles and light trucks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/science/earth/02emit.html

The EPA administrator says these inaugural regulations on greenhouse gas emissions on cars are only “the first” of such regulations, promising that her agency would move “deliberately” to institute regulations in other areas of the economy as well..

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63656

The 11 House Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak who dropped their opposition to health care reform legislation mere hours before the final vote have requested $3.4 billion in earmarks, which were put in one day after health care reform cleared Congress

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/29/pro-life-democrats-switched-vote-health-request-billions-earmarks/

300 large corporations urged President Obama and Congress to repeal a provision of the health care overhaul

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/30subsidy.html

The Boeing Co. expects to take a $150 million charge against first-quarter earnings because of recent government health-care changes, the latest in a line of companies to do so. The Chicago-based aircraft maker and defense contractor said it expects the charge to reduce first-quarter earnings by 20 cents a share.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304252704575155613728130190.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

"Each state has its own Tax Freedom Day. Because of modest incomes and low state and local tax burdens, Alaska and Louisiana celebrate Tax Freedom Day earliest on March 26, the 85th day of the year. Washington comes in at number 5 (April 15).)"This means workers in Washington need 105 days in order to pay off the government and begin earning for themselves.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday

Sarah Palin’s media domination continues this week with the debut today of “Real American Stories,” a new series on Fox News hosted by the former Alaska governor about people with “real-life tales of overcoming adversity.”

http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/04/01/1005666/palins-stories-of-american-spirit.html

These are the people who want to run healthcare: “Despite months of dire warnings and millions in taxpayer dollars, less than half of the 229 million doses of H1N1 vaccine the government bought to fight the pandemic have been administered -- leaving an estimated 71.5 million doses that must be discarded if they are not used before they expire.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033104201.html?hpid=moreheadlines

And these are the ones who want to regulate the economy: “Obama’s EPA Gave Energy Star Certification to ‘Gas-Powered Clock Radio’ and 14 Other Phony Products, GAO Says”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63638

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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN

America's Quiet Anger

James P. Gannon 3/30/10

There is a quiet anger boiling in America. It is the anger of millions of hard-working citizens who pay their bills, send in their income taxes, maintain their homes and repay their mortgage loans -- and see their government reward those who do not.

It is the anger of small town and Middle American folks who have never been to Manhattan, who put their savings in a community bank and borrow from a local credit union, who watch Washington lawmakers and presidents of both parties hand billions in taxpayer bailouts to the reckless Wall Street titans who brought down the economy in 2008.

It is the fury of the voiceless, the powerless, the ordinary nobodies of Flyover Country who are ridiculed, preached to, satirized and insulted by the Celebrity Loudmouths of the two Left Coasts, the Jon Stewarts and Keith Olbermanns, the Paul Krugmans and their ilk.

It is the salted wound of the millions who see that ruling Democrats in Congress are not listening to them but are willfully ignoring public opinion and the verdict of recent elections in passing a huge new health care entitlement when the existing entitlements of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are already going broke.

It is the frustrating helplessness of citizens who revere the Founding Fathers and the genius of the Constitution that they wrote, who actually believe the words of the Constitution mean what they say, not more and not less. They who watch politicians and the courts stretch and bend that Constitution -- finding "rights" not enumerated, powers never granted, meanings unimagined -- believe that their country is being redefined without their consent.

Most of the angry are not out marching in the streets, waving signs or shouting into bullhorns. And they are not smashing windows or phoning death threats to politicians. They are simply waking up angry in the morning, and going to bed angry at night. And their resentment is multiplied by the media's efforts to portray them all as dangerous, crazy people, and by the effort of certain Democrats to tar them with brush of violent intent.

They are embittered, too, by the rhetoric of a triumphant president who turns on its head Winston Churchill's heroic attitude promising defiance in defeat but magnanimity in victory. For a president of a deeply divided country, defiance in victory is not an endearing posture. It has all the persuasive charm of a Chad Ochocinco victory dance in the end zone of the opponent's stadium.

These quietly angry people gather in their churches while their religions are called divisive and their beliefs are labeled as bigotry, and they pray for a better day. They talk among themselves in their Main Street cafes, at the Rotary club or at their kids' softball games, seeking others who understand their frustration and will not respond with arrogant dismissal.

They are tired of being told they are too stupid to understand the country's complex problems, too rooted in the past to find solutions, too selfish to share what they have worked for with everyone else who wants it. They are not reaching for guns or for pitchforks. They are holding their anger within, waiting for their time, watching those in power over-reach and over-indulge.

Their wound is deep, and it will not be salved by more presidential speeches, Congressional hand-outs, or promises of wonderful things to come. They no longer believe any of that. Their quiet rage abides, waiting till it can be expressed in that silent place behind the curtain where the ballot lists the names that they have now committed to an angry memory.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/30/americas-quiet-anger

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS

"The very day the president smugly and exuberantly (for him) signed this bill into law, the other shoe dropped. Certain Republican leaders expressed their resignation to the fact that this bill is now the law of the land and that full repeal might not be feasible. The Huffington Post reported that the 'entire slate of Republican senatorial candidates' appear poised to run on a full repeal platform. But the main one coordinating their election strategy -- National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn, R-Texas -- had already begun 'softening the message.' What? I couldn't believe what I was reading. ... Cornyn explained that 'there is noncontroversial stuff here, like the pre-existing conditions exclusion and those sorts of things.' Noncontroversial? You mean he considers a provision that will completely change the character of insurance companies from private businesses to public utilities a little detail? Seriously -- what the heck is in the water in Washington? I can't take this insanity. What the normally excellent Sen. Cornyn needs to understand is that this entire bill needs to be scrapped. War-weary Republicans need to get over this battered spouse syndrome and quit tolerating and sublimating the abuse. Enough is enough. ... Now is not the time for the weak of heart, the complacent, the sycophants or the career politicians who believe collegiality is the highest virtue. Now is the time for principled, bold, peaceful revolution. Full repeal -- nothing less; replace, reform! Now."

-David Limbaugh

"As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh. With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable. ... As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health care costs -- which are now locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates. That's where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion). It's the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent. American liberals have long complained that ours is the only advanced industrial country without universal health care. Well, now we shall have it. And as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation."

-Charles Krauthammer

“Surely, a teacher, a doctor, a mechanic, a network news anchor and perhaps even a member of Congress can understand the words of the 10th Amendment as well as any lawyer can. It says: 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.' If the Constitution has not delegated to the federal government the power to force Americans to buy health insurance, then Congress and the president do not have that power. Period."

-Terence Jeffrey

"President Obama signed the health care reform bill [last] Tuesday. He's taken over the auto industry, banking industry and health care industry. As a child he used to play Monopoly by seizing the box and accusing the other children of scare tactics."

-Argus Hamilton

"I am surprised that the numbers [in favor of ObamaCare] in the Washington Post poll weren't better. I mean, since this thing passed last weekend, we've been seeing the longest wet kiss in political history given to the Obama administration by the liberal media elite."

-Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour

"[Vice President Joe Biden] is the man who, perhaps without intending, has given historical context to this presidency. After all, Obama sees himself as a successor to FDR and Truman, so now we have the historical procession: the New Deal, the Square Deal, and the Big [expletive] Deal. It would make a great T-shirt."

-Charles Krauthammer

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GLOBALONEY

“No people on earth are more righteously Green than the Germans. They built the foundations and set the tone of the modern Green movement in, ahem, the 1930s. They invented the phrase Atomkraft Nein Danke. They were the first country to allow nasty, dangerous Sixties eco-radicals to reinvent themselves as respectable politicians. They were the first place to buy, wholesale, into the solar power con, which is why so many of their roofs – especially on churches – shimmer and glow like reflective-coated crusties at a mid-Nineties rave, while the German taxpayer is ruing the day his government ever chose to subsidize this fantastically pointless scheme. So when the Germans say “Auf Wiedersehn AGW” it really is time for the rest of the world to sit up and take notice. And that’s exactly what they just have said. See for yourself.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100032460/when-the-germans-give-up-on-agw-you-really-do-know-its-all-over/

A prominent environmentalist says humans are too stupid to prevent climate change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change

Global warmists continue to circulate alarming warnings that the past winter was among the warmest on record. Somehow the Arctic Ocean did not get the memo.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/oh_that_inconvenient_growing_p.html

A study released on Monday by researchers at George Mason University and the University of Texas at Austin found that only about half of the 571 television weathercasters surveyed believed that global warming was occurring and fewer than a third believed that climate change was “caused mostly by human activities.” More than a quarter of the weathercasters in the survey agreed with the statement “Global warming is a scam,” the researchers found.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/03/30/nyt-56-trust-weathercasters-more-gore-global-warming#ixzz0jgbNGcqx

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NEWS FROM THE ISLAMIC WORLD

A man charged with sorcery in Saudi Arabia is scheduled to be beheaded for predicting the future on a TV show and giving out advice to his audience. He was arrested by Saudi Arabia's religious police (known as the Mutawa'een) and charged with sorcery while visiting the country in May 2008.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/03/31/saudi.arabia.sorcery/index.html?hpt=Sbin

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BOOKS

Sean Hannity has an important new book out, “Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda”, making the case for defeating the left.

http://www.amazon.com/Conservative-Victory-Defeating-Obamas-Radical/dp/0062003054/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270308788&sr=8-1

“A major proposition that I advance in a book that will be published later this month, “After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery”, is that there exists an odious subgroup of conservatives who since the beginning of the conservative movement have made their way to prominence in the mainstream media by a cheap act. They disparage with great melodrama other conservatives. Liberals love it -- and for a while love the disparagers.”

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/04/01/odious-conservatives

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ARTICLES

“We've all heard the story. Hundreds of young sexual abuse victims long afraid to come forward for fear of embarrassment and scorn, abusers escaping prosecution and quietly moving to different jurisdictions, authorities covering up the crimes to avoid scandal and litigation. It's a saga of grave, grave sin. Of course, you would assume that I'm talking about the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal. And you would be wrong. I'm describing the situation in America's schools -- something that, although mirroring the problems dogging the Church, is strangely ignored.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_scandal_driving_the_church_1.html

If Mitt Romney is going to compete in the 2012 GOP primary, he'll have to champion conservative rage against Obama's health care reform. So it's curious that Romney is increasingly touting the near-universal health care plan he implemented while governor of Massachusetts, while at the same time harshly criticizing Obama's similar health care plan. What on Earth is he up to?

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Why-Is-Romney-Campaigning-on-Health-Care-Reform-3055

Anybody who thinks the multiple trillions of federal tax dollars spent by President Obama and the Democratic Congress on the Troubled Assets Relief Program bailouts for Wall Street and the auto industry, the economic stimulus bill, and Obamacare were excessive better get a good grip. The mother of all taxpayer bailouts is right around the corner. Union bosses want taxpayers to foot the cost for bailing out the labor organizations' many failing pension plans that millions of their members are counting on to "be there" when they retire.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Look-for-the-union-agenda_-and-get-ready-to-pay-89604917.html

Dan Quayle: “Don't let the tea party go Perot”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/01/AR2010040102181.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

There are approximately 1,300 insurance companies in America today. Beginning January 1, 2011, these companies will be required to pay out 85% of all premiums collected as direct medical care, leaving 15% of corporate income to fund operations and yield any potential profit. The health care industry has a profit margin of about 3%. Most American businesses rely on securing annual profits of 8% to 10%. American oil companies operate on about 4% profit. Alcoholic beverage sales net annual profits of 26%.Among numerous regulations implemented immediately, ObamaCare cannot deny children with preexisting illnesses coverage, no matter the illness, no matter the long-term cost -- and children are now "children" until age 26.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/obamacares_economic_dominoes.html

“Before President Barack Obama took over the White House, no United States citizen had ever been forced by the federal government to buy a product against their will. But now, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, Americans, by dint of their mere existence, are now required to purchase Obama administration approved health insurance or face a penalty assessed through the Internal Revenue Code. This is simply unprecedented.”

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/31/morning-bell-one-nation-under-arrest/#more-30220

Our polarized society increasingly ponders what would happen if American conservatives and liberals simply agreed that their differences had become irreconcilable, and redivided the nation to go their separate ways. Which side would prosper and experience an influx of migration from the other? Conversely, which side would likely become a fiscal and socio-political basket case? Any reasonable person already knows the likely answer. One need only compare the smoldering wreckage wrought by liberal governance in such states as California or Michigan with the comparative prosperity created by conservative governance in such states as Texas or Utah.

http://biggovernment.com/tlee/2010/03/30/the-ominous-s-word-secession/#more-98462

Lloyd Marcus: “Tea Party Express tour III.in Searchlight NV, Harry Reid's town. Sarah Palin was awesome as usual.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/lloyd_marcus_update_from_the_r.html

Sarah Palin at Saturday's Tea Party Express: "There's something not quite right when Fidel Castro comes out and says he likes ObamaCare when we don't."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304370304575151830740900748.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLESecond

During President George W. Bush's two terms, you couldn't drive far without seeing a particular bumper sticker: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Now that Democrats control the White House and Congress, the left treats dissent as the lowest form of treason. When the left agitates over government policies, it's considered righteous anger. When the right - and much of the center - agitate, it's painted as the rantings of the criminally and violently insane.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/31/enemies-of-the-state/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_must-read-stories-today

“The same Apple Corp. which introduced the Che IPhone app we posted about last month -- now regards Glenn Beck as a hate-monger!”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/apple_iphone_che_si_glenn_beck.html

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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES

Sarah Palin’s new show on Fox:

http://www.realamericanstories.com/

We need to elect more of these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G44NCvNDLfc&feature=player_detailpage

And fewer of these: “Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.. has now identified with certainty the heaviest element known to science. The new element, Pelosium (PL), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/pelosium-heaviest-element-yet-known-to-science-discovered/question-877665/

Long list of violent liberal hate rhetoric: fifteen quotes (warning-offensive)

http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2010/03/30/violent_liberal_hate_rhetoric_fifteen_quotes?page=full&comments=true

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WISE WORDS

"One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. ... Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it."

-Ronald Reagan

"Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.”

-Cicero