op ed review 11/21
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner, R-Ohio, filed an amicus brief Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate in the health care law passed by Democrats earlier this year. “ObamaCare is a job-killer, and our economy simply cannot afford this unprecedented, unconstitutional power grab by the federal government.”
Senate Republicans voted to ban "pork-barrel" spending as a couple of Democrats rushed to join the fight on a politically potent issue that has enraged voters and helped give rise to the GOP's "tea party"-infused midterm election victories.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45136.html#ixzz15UpFQ1VR
House Republicans announced Wednesday they plan to force a floor vote on defunding NPR in response to the firing of analyst Juan Williams last month.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/129723-house-gop-to-force-vote-on-npr-defunding
The new Congress will consider denying citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/18/103946/birthright-citizenship-will-be.html
Republicans are preparing to make things very difficult for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman if he tries to push ahead on net neutrality in December.
Representative Nancy Pelosi was retained as the House Democratic leader on Wednesday on a vote that exposed clear unease among some colleagues about her remaining as the party’s most visible figure in the House after deep losses in the November elections.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/us/politics/18cong.html
Hindus are upset over the cover of the November 22 edition of Newsweek which depicts US President Barack Obama posed as a Hindu god. This Newsweek cover page is headlined as "GOD OF ALL THINGS".
The White House is set to announce a major new initiative that would place up to 5,000 salad bars in public schools nationwide, .
http://www.sunvalleyonline.com/links/2010/11/18/white-house-to-put-up-to-5000-salad-bars-in-schoo
The acquittal of Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani on all but one of 285 counts in connection with the 1998 Al Qaeda bombings of the U.S. embassies in Keyna and Tanzania has once again demonstrated that the leftist lawyers’ experiment in applying civilian trial rules to terrorists is gravely misguided and downright dangerous.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/381533
Bill Gates, Sr.,still smarting from the shellacking his income tax initiative took at the ballot box, is to have said the following at a fundraiser for the Economic Opportunity Institute: “The notion that society should be disproportionately supported by individuals of substantial or even immense wealth—that’s the way society ought to work! There is just no excuse for this erroneous proposition that we should reduce the tax burden on the rich because that’s the way the economy will prosper. That’s bull%#*%”
http://www.libertylive.org/blog_main/post.php?post_id=2398
“Migration from high-tax states to states with lower taxes and less government spending will dramatically alter the composition of future Congresses, according to a study by Americans for Tax Reform. Eight states are projected to gain at least one congressional seat under reapportionment following the 2010 Census: Texas (four seats), Florida (two seats), Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington (one seat each). Their average top state personal income tax rate: 2.8 percent.”
At the groundbreaking of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, Dick Cheney quipped that "this may be the only shovel ready project in America."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20022971-503544.html
The organization in Seattle that sent out illegal immigrants to register voters, illegally concealed its finances from public disclosure.
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/014440.html
“A married couple have sparked fury by setting up a website to let the public vote on whether or not they should have an abortion.”
Tea Partiers across the nation in an all-out push to send Mama Grizzly cub Bristol waltzing away the winner on election night in the top-rated ABC network hit “Dancing with the Stars.”
Sacramento CA: “13-year-old Cody Alicea rides with an American flag on the back of his bike. He says he does this to be patriotic and to honor veterans, like his own grandfather, Robert. He's had the flag on his bike for two months but Monday, was told to take it down. A school official at Denair Middle School told Cody some students had been complaining about the flag and it was no longer allowed on school property.” After this was made public, the Superintendent backpedaled and said Cody will be allowed to keep the flag on his bike.
http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-americanflagbike11122010,0,3045879.htmlstory
When he rode from his home to school on Monday, he was followed by a parade of people on motorcycles. The group said the Pledge of Allegiance upon arriving at school.
http://www.kcra.com/r/25795718/detail.html
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Arnold Ahlert 10/18
..“but what we’re doing, what we’re putting up with, what we’re accepting at this airport is so symbolic of us just not standing up and saying ‘enough is enough.’”—Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)
Maybe it really did need to come to this. Maybe Americans had to literally have their privates groped by a government bureaucrat to finally realize that they have been the proverbial frogs sitting in a pot of water, unaware that they are being incrementally boiled to death. For those of you who still don’t get it, let me make it clear: The ultimate destination of Political Correctness is totalitarianism.
For decades, Americans have tolerated the drip, drip, drip of Marxist-inspired progressivism right under our collective noses. We’ve watched our public schools eliminate the Pledge of Allegiance, because patriotism is “unseemly.” We’ve watched the same do-gooders eliminate keeping score in kids’ sports because competition is “evil,” and anything which produces winners and losers—including free-market capitalism—is “damaging to one’s sense of self-esteem.”
We stood by while a Supreme Court said it was OK to take private property from one individual and give it to another one because the second person could improve the tax base. We ignored the Obama administration’s obliteration of bankruptcy laws in order to hand GM over to the unions which ran the company into the ground.
We’ve watched our soldiers get wounded and die to protect us, and said nothing when state governments didn’t get them ballots in time to vote in the last election. We’ve watched them struggle to “win hearts and minds” of people that hate us, and attempt to kill the bad guys with one hand tied behind their backs, due to the politically correct obscenity known as the Rules of Engagement. We’ve watched our borders being overrun by millions of illegals, and then tolerated sanctuary cities which protect them, and idiotic court decisions which grant them such things as drivers’ licenses, bank accounts and in-state tuition breaks at colleges. We’ve watched many of our state governments imploding because we allowed socialist/Marxists to bloat budgets with unaffordable union contracts, and then we meekly surrender when those same hacks outlaw smoking, trans-fats, soda pop and kiddie toys at hamburger joints “for our own good.”…..
We’ve been sucking our collective thumbs while these same people championed “alternative lifestyles” which have led to a 40% out-of-wedlock birth rate, relegating millions of fatherless young men to miserable lives of poverty and crime. We’ve allowed the media marxists to corrupt the popular culture and turn morality into an “anything goes” affair in which “feeling good” is the only thing that matters.
Government of, by and for the people? Not when some TSA clock-puncher can put his hand on my “junk” as a condition for flying. Not when all of this invasive garbage is all about protecting political correctness at the expense of freedom—and sanity.
It’s “insensitive” to single out certain people for different treatment? Baloney! The progressives have been doing it for years. They’ve been playing the rich off the poor, the blacks off the whites, the gays off the straights, one grievance group off another, ad nauseam. And if the aforementioned concept of affirmative action isn’t the essence of singling out particular groups for different treatment, then I don’t know what is.
I’m sorry that innocent Muslims might be forced to endure greater scrutiny than other groups of Americans when it comes to flying. But not nearly as sorry as I am for the soldiers and others whose lives are dedicated to keeping American free, even the real enemies of freedom hide behind political correctness and pretend an “overseas contingency operation” isn’t a war against radical Islam. Not nearly as sorry as I am for the millions of Americans forced to endure de facto totalitarianism every time they wish to fly, because the elites refuse to bow to the reality that terrorism is overwhelmingly a Muslim phenomenon—and has been for decades.
It’s time to fire the Queen of Cluelessness, aka Homeland Security Secretary Janet “The System Worked” Napolitano. It’s time to find out which government officials made the sweetheart deal with former HS Secretary Michael Chertoff who, it turns out, has been repping the Rapiscan full-body scanners the TSA is buying and installing—at a cost $300 million. It’s time to tell Muslims that while we understand your concerns, reality is reality, and we’re not about to turn our airports—and maybe our train stations, bus depots, shopping malls and our schools into armed camps in order to placate the folks at CAIR or the ACLU. And it’s way past time to put Muslims around the world on notice: if you truly want a fight to the finish, the formerly “sleeping giant” will be more than happy to accommodate you.
One more thing: if the Republicans have an ounce of guts, they’ll offer up a bill on the floor of Congress. It will state one thing: Every law Congress subjects Americans to, they will live under as well. That goes for everything from enduring the same pat downs inflicted on ordinary Americans at airports, to the same Social Security and Medicaid programs good enough for the rest of us, and everything in between.
Like Ron Paul said: Enough is enough.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/30122
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“…..the one advantage we have in this war: In a lucky stroke, all the terrorists are swarthy, foreign-born, Muslim males…This would give us a major leg up -- if only the country weren't insane. Is there any question that we'd be looking for Swedes if the 9/11 terrorists, the shoe bomber, the diaper bomber and the printer cartridge bomber had all been Swedish? If the Irish Republican Army were bombing our planes, wouldn't we be looking for people with Irish surnames and an Irish appearance? Only because the terrorists are Muslims do we pretend not to notice who keeps trying to blow up our planes.”
-Ann Coulter
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LEFTIST WATCH
George Soros: "..China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States.”
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/16/soros_china_has_better_functioning_government_than_us
Soros funds the Center for American Progress, which has been characterized as Barack Obama's Ideas Factory. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/11/soross_cap_gives_obama_his_mar.html
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GLOBALONEY
“This week marks the anniversary of Climategate but even though I helped break and name the story I’m certainly not celebrating. That’s because, despite the marked shift it effected in public opinion, its effect on public policy-making has been close to zilch. For chapter and verse on the horrifying disjunct between what all sane, informed people know about “Anthropogenic Global Warming” (ie, it’s a crock) and what our governments are doing in response (ie, “Nyah nyah. Not listening. We’re going to go ahead with our crazy tax, regulation and wind farm schemes anyway”)”
Americans for Prosperity brought our Hot Air Tour to The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15) in Copenhagen in December of 2009. Some of the things we saw were down right comical – like international bureaucrats driving around in private limousines and chauffeured vehicles at a conference aimed at curbing carbon emission. Other things we saw were just scary – like the gas prices under Cap-and-Trade and the parade of environmentalists promoting socialism. Below you can see a broadcast of last year’s Hot Air Tour Live from Copenhagen and other videos of our observations in Copenhagen.
http://hotairtourcancun.com/?page_id=110
In the UK, some citizens must freeze to death to save the planet.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/11/freezing_citizens_to_death_to.html
King County wants you to be like these model citizens: “EcoCribz”
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=76&sid=390149
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ISLAM
The satirical geniuses over at the Iranian Foreign Ministry have reportedly just advised Iranian citizens to avoid the country of Canada, claiming that it’s a hotbed of human rights abuses and corrupt courts.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/alana-goodman/381749
.The sword-shaped tie is just one of a series of Islamocentric products that have been unveiled in Iran recently, according to a report on YNet. There's also a hijab-wearing Barbie doll wannabe that goes by the name "Fatima."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged young girls to marry at age of 16.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/11/21/ahmadinejad-urges-girls-marry/?test=latestnews
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ARTICLES
The 90-plus members of the House Class of 2010 are a diverse lot. In their day jobs, they were funeral directors, gospel singers, football players, farmers, nurses and retired military officers. In one way, however, they are not diverse: nearly 90 percent of them are Republicans. Here is a look at 10 potential stars of the incoming freshman class. And, yes, they are almost all Republicans. #1 Jaime Herrera, R-Washington
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/7293927.html
Amid all the recriminations about the electoral ineffectiveness of some Tea Party–backed candidates, it’s easy to lose sight of a central fact: It’s doubtful that, without a newly emboldened grassroots movement, Republican politicians would have been able to create enough momentum against Obama to produce the landslide of November 2. As ebullient progressives descended on Washington for Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, many Republicans assumed the fetal position. Party strategists wondered just how much they could openly oppose the new president’s agenda, lest they be tarred as obstructionist or even racist……
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/253215/tea-2012-patrick-ruffini
To paraphrase Pogo, “Barack Obama has met the enemy and it is his own party.” The Democrats are doing all they can to see that their president is a one-termer. In only two weeks since midterm elections exposed the Democrat's vulnerability, the political party with palpable problems continues to alienate the electorate. Through arrogance, hubris and world class public relations tone-deafness, the Democrats have managed, in less than three weeks, to convert defeat into even bigger defeat. Last week it was Nancy Pelosi, thumbing her nose at cooler Democratic Party heads who begged her to step down voluntarily…..
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/11/18/democrats-stumble-big-defeat/
Two views on Sarah Palin:
“….And then it hit me. The reason Palin has become such a lightening rod, a kingmaker and a punching bag, a celebrity and a power player, is simple. It's because she's so gosh darn happy. For her fans, like the ones I had the pleasure of meeting in Chicago, she's refreshingly upbeat and resilient, the bubbly friend from childhood who was always great at cheering you up and cheerleading you on. But for her detractors, nothing raises the ire of cynical liberals more than a happy-go-lucky, totally unburdened, freethinking and self-assured conservative woman who has everything she wants and then some. And without anyone's help…..How dare she? Liberalism, after all, needs to imagine an unhappy populace. Passing sweeping entitlement programs and convincing voters that big government is the answer only works if people are frustrated with their stations in life.”
Mona Charen: “By telling Barbara Walters that she thinks she can defeat President Obama, Sarah Palin has dimmed hopes cherished by sensible Republicans that she might decide against a run for the White House in 2012. Here are just some of the reasons she should not run. The Republican nominee should be someone with vast and impressive experience in government and the private sector -- and a proven record. Voters chose a novice with plenty of star power in 2008 and will be inclined to swing strongly in the other direction in 2012….”
http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2010/11/19/why_sarah_palin_shouldnt_run/page/full/
Pat Buchanan: Missiles fired from the Chinese mainland could destroy five of the six major U.S. air bases in the Far East. So states a new report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, adding: "Saturation missile strikes could destroy U.S. air defenses, runways, parked aircraft, and fuel and maintenance facilities. Complicating this scenario is the future deployment of China's anti-ship ballistic missile, which could hold U.S. aircraft carriers at bay outside their normal operating range." Opposite Taiwan, China's missile force has reached 1,600.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=40080
“Only the government would consider it a success to buy stock at $43.84 a share and sell it at $33. -- But President Obama and those who supported his bailout of General Motors and Chrysler are claiming just that today.”
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/11/18/gms-bailout-financial-disaster/
Inflated self-esteem can be decidedly counterproductive. American students, for example, took first place in self-judged mathematical ability in a comparative study of eight countries, but last place in actual mathematical competency. Korean students, in contrast, ranked themselves last in self-judged mathematical skills and took first place in actual mathematical performance……it's not unusual for 25 percent of American students to self-judge themselves to be in the top 1 percent. The downside can be a declining nation that's overstocked with egotistical and incompetent narcissists. That might be the problem at the White House.”
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_709088.html
KVI is no longer Seattle conservative talk radio. But Hugh Hewitt - 3 to 6 pm - and Dennis Prager - 9 am to noon - are back on the air on KLFE AM 1590 And some other good hosts: William Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Miller and Mark Levin.
http://www.ontheradio.net/klfe
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Tips from the Smithsonian on preserving your old family documents and photos.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/11/taking-care-of-your-personal-archives/66425/
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LATE NITE
Jay Leno: This will be a rough week for President Obama. He’s got a lame duck Congress, he has to pardon a turkey, he has to eat crow, and the Chinese just flipped him the bird. It’s been a fowl week……..President Obama wrote a children’s book. If only one person reads it, it will be double the number of people that read the healthcare bill……. If Rep. Charles Rangel is found guilty by the ethics committee, they said they could expel him, but experts say that is not likely. See, that would set a bad precedent in Washington, punishing the guilty….. It was bad enough when the TSA agents would go through your underwear in your luggage. Now they’re going through your underwear while you’re wearing it……..to make it worse, the airlines are charging a $15 molestation fee.
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WISE WORDS
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
posted by gary at
8:41 AM
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