op ed review 9/11
-President Bush, Sept. 11, 2001
The United States has tumbled further down a global ranking of the world's most competitive economies, landing at fifth place due to its massive deficits and declining public faith in government.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/EU-Global-Competitiveness/2011/09/07/id/409992
The number of Americans who say the country is on the wrong track has risen to its highest level since just before Obama took office -- into what one commentator calls the "incumbent death zone."
GOP Debate: Mitt Romney and Rick Perry wasted little time in going straight at each other Wednesday night, sparring over whether the former’s business experience or the latter’s decade as governor of Texas is better training for boosting jobs as the occupant of the White House.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/7/in-wide-field-its-romney-vs-perry/?page=all#pagebreak
Anyone hoping or fearing that Rick Perry would crash and burn in his first GOP debate last night can either feel depressed or rest easy. In his debut on the national stage, Perry proved he possesses a somewhat indefinable star quality -- exactly what Republicans were distressed to feel was missing from the field.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/national_republican_star_is_born_ipEybVn0W5m2A9EkJPPtUM
Presidential debate: The most entertaining, unexpected, weirdest and awkward moments
“Seven things the country learned about Rick Perry at his first debate”
“Republican Bob Turner holds a six-point lead in next week's special election to replace disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y……..voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic district are poised to deliver a stinging rebuke to President Obama and his party.” (this is also the most Jewish district in America)
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/09/poll-republican-2.php
FBI agents executed search warrants at the headquarters of Solyndra LLC, which was awarded more than $500,000 in federal stimulus loans in 2009.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/8/fbi-raids-solar-panel-company-hailed-by-obama/
Company representatives from the now-bankrupt Solyndra made twenty visits to the White House.
“Solyndra is fast becoming a poster child for the administration's failed economic stimulus efforts, wasteful government spending, ineptitude and political cronyism.”
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/04/3881585/solar-deal-needs-probe-not-witch.html
Last week, the Obama administration announced it is extending an $852 million loan guarantee to something called the Genesis Solar Project in California, which will “employ perhaps 800 people during its construction and 47 people once it is up and running. This would seem to be a lot of money to generate very few jobs…”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/6/last-week-the-obama-administrations-department-of-/
Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa calls for a war on Republicans.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is calling out the “thuggery” of Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., who described tea partiers and congressional Republicans as “sons of bitches” and called for a war against them. “Please don’t be taken in by union bosses’ thuggery like Jim Hoffa represented yesterday,” Palin wrote in a message posted on her Facebook. “Union bosses like this do not have your best interests at heart,” she wrote. “What they care about is their own power and re-electing their friend Barack Obama…”
http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/06/palin-calls-out-hoffas-thuggery-for-his-sons-of-bitches-remarks/
She got that right: “Obama Says He Is "Proud" Of Hoffa After Union Leader's Remarks”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/09/05/obama_says_he_is_proud_of_hoffa.html
More thuggery: Hundreds of Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview, WA early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute. “Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal..’
http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/sep/07/Longview-terminal-dispute-police-union-clash/
Joe Biden tells an AFL-CIO rally: "You Are The Only Folks Keeping The Barbarians From the Gates"
http://www.hapblog.com/2011/09/biden-at-afl-cio-rally-you-are-only.html
Michigan Gov. Snyder signed into law a stricter, four-year lifetime limit on cash welfare benefits. Michigan's first-year Republican chief executive said the state will offer exemptions to the limit for those with a disability who can't work, those who care for a disabled spouse or child and those who are 65 or older and don't qualify for Social Security benefits.
http://news.yahoo.com/mich-governor-signs-48-month-welfare-limit-231915012.html
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida plans to challenge the state's law requiring new welfare recipients to pass a drug test.
http://www.news4jax.com/news/29105590/detail.html
Obamacare includes a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices that will send the durable medical equipment industry into intensive care, eliminate 43,000 jobs, and whack $3.5 billion from local shops and communities, according to a new study by two free market economists.
Republican leaders are reminding President Obama that the House of Representatives has passed more than a dozen "pro-growth" measures to spur job creation, but with one exception, Senate Democrats have refused to consider any of those bills.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/republicans-remind-obama-democrats-are-b
With the official end of the U.S. military’s ban two weeks away, gay-rights activists are pressing the Pentagon for more. Now they want military housing and other benefits to the same-sex spouses of personnel.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/5/after-winning-key-right-gays-press-for-more-from-m/
The nanny state on steroids: In the UK, obese children can be permanently removed from their family by social workers if their parents fail to bring their weight under control.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033486/Your-children-fat-again.html
307,000 British children, more than one in every 50, live in homes where they have never seen an adult work.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/8735978/Record-levels-of-workless-households.html
Great moments in socialized medicine: A German company has been in talks to take over British National Health Service hospitals.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/04/german-company-takeover-nhs-hospitals
Nearly 3 in 4 Californians say the country is on the wrong track, and nearly half favor slashing government spending — a potentially dismal finding for President Obama.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-poll-economy-20110906,0,7074574.story
Only 55 percent of working-age Californians have jobs.
Gov. Rick Perry sat in front of group of South Carolina citizens and was asked: “Are you for gun control?” The audience howled with laughter that the question was even asked, but Perry answered dutifully: “I am actually for gun control.” (At this point you could hear the laughter nervously diminish.) Then Perry added, “Use both hands.”
http://biggovernment.com/awrhawkins/2011/09/07/gov-rick-perry-gun-control-means-using-both-hands/
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Dr. Milton Wolf is a board certified radiologist who opposes Obamacare. He also happens to be President Obama’s cousin.
Dr Milton Wolf, Washington Times, 9/2
My father used to tell me that if I worked hard, it would pay off in the long run. How could he have been so blind? Laziness pays off now!
We all know that the power to tax is the power to destroy. So too is the power to regulate. Equally powerful is the reality that rewarded behavior is repeated. After applying these inescapable truths to the analysis of Obamanomics, a collection of policies designed to reward or deter (or even outright banish) certain behaviors - to ordain winners and losers - it’s all clear to me now. The reason Obamanomics has been such a miserable failure is that I failed to follow its cues. I hope America will forgive me.
First, despite so many communities lacking a village organizer, I chose instead to serve mine. At the time, the practice of medicine seemed like a noble calling, but little did I realize what a threat physicians pose to communities. Surgeons, President Obama warned, will run around lopping off patients’ feet or yanking out children’s tonsils just to pocket a quick buck…..The president doesn’t trust you or your doctor…….Why else would he appoint as the head of Medicare a man who declared that the doctor-patient relationship is “no longer tenable”?
What’s worse - at least in Obamaworld - is that I, like most physicians, have two jobs: I’m also responsible for a business that creates jobs and employs some great Americans. This despite our government’s burdensome taxes, regulations and licenses, which already have created formidable obstacles to entrepreneurial success. You don’t believe me? Try launching a company or getting a new drug approved. Heck, try starting a lemonade stand. As if these barriers weren’t enough already, Obamanomics increases taxes, regulatory burdens and uncertainties that weigh heavily on each new hire. And yet I stubbornly ignore the president’s incentives by keeping many good people employed. In my defense, however, medical practices today have to hire their own in-house bureaucracies just to cope with the demands of Washington’s bureaucracies. You might think it would be nice if health care money went to, you know, health care, but don’t be naive - your government knows best.
Embarrassingly, I must confess that I balance my own budget, both personal and professional. I realize that’s anathema to Obamanomics, but I just can’t escape my vice of fiscal sanity. What’s more, even though there’s “shovel-ready” money to be had from “Obama’s stash,” I stubbornly insist on paying my own bills. This sometimes leads to difficult choices: I’m the only doctor in America, for example, who drives a car officially declared a “clunker” by his own cousin-in-chief, but I’m from the branch of the family that doesn’t believe in spending money you don’t have - plus, I love my SUV. Still, the undeniable reality is that according to the Obama way of thinking, I obviously sabotaged our economy when I undercut the stimulus and its related gimmicks like “Cash for Clunkers” by refusing to participate in the giveaways.
Worst of all, however, I have become the single greatest impediment to Americans’ prosperity in Obamaworld: a high-wage earner. That I clawed my way toward the American dream with humbling jobs since the age of 12, volunteered for a grinding decade of medical training and lived more of my adult years deep in the bottom rungs of incomes than the top, I know now, is no excuse. Obamanomics is about spreading the wealth, not creating it. In my defense, wildly increased taxes, stifling malpractice insurance and even steep medical school loans have worked wonders to erase the gains. Still, Mr. Obama claims that families earning more than $250,000 a year are “millionaires and billionaires.” Who knew? Those tax-free corporate jets can’t be far behind.
Of course, I’m not alone. Tens of millions of Americans are frustrating the socialist aspirations of this president simply by getting up each morning and going to work. You know who you are. You’re not just suckers, you’re saboteurs. Barack Obama would prefer we all be wards of the state rather than active producers. How else can you explain the incentives he champions: endless jobless benefits, cradle-to-grave welfare handouts, “tax cuts” for non-taxpayers, and on and on. Thus proclaims the president who himself raked in a cool $7.2 million over the past two years, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” The key word there is “you.”
Obamanomics hasn’t failed America; we’ve failed it. We refused to become the wards of the state as it demands. I cling (though not bitterly) to my belief that America would be better served if Barack Obama concentrated more on spreading my work ethic than my wealth. I now realize that by serving my community rather than organizing it, by creating jobs and wealth and by holding dear the American dream, I have sabotaged Obamanomics. I hope America will forgive me.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/2/im-exactly-whats-wrong-with-barack-obamas-america/
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“The American Political Science Association gathered in Seattle over the weekend and you could have papered a barn with the learned conclusion that in every Tea Party voter there’s a racist struggling to escape…….One professor at the University of California at San Diego conceded there’s nothing “intrinsically racist” about opposing liberal schemes like global warming or ObamaCare, but he said the Tea Party movement nevertheless appeals mostly to racists. A professor at Emory University says such Republicans, who are likely to be older, wealthier and evangelical Christians, think blacks could overcome prejudice if they work harder in the example of Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants. Tea Party voters, the professor concludes in what he calls a “multivariate analysis,” display “racial resentment” and hold “negative opinions” about President Obama. (Who but a racist would do that?)…..One professor of “variables” even concluded that “we failed to find any systematic evidence that the Tea Party was responsible for the Republican success in 2010.” Such political insight explains only why the professor is a professor.”
-Wes Pruden
"[T]o hurl the charge of racism without any evidence is slanderous. The GOP's opposition to Obama is rooted in profound political and philosophical disagreements; Republicans believe he is championing policies injurious to our nation. They may be wrong, but that does not make them malevolent. And to accuse people of racism in such a casual, promiscuous and reckless manner ultimately has the effect of draining the charge of its potency. Genuine racism is a terrible thing, which is why it should be reserved for the real deal rather than used as a clumsy and transparently ideological club."
-Peter Wehner
"However, with charity as with everything else, it cannot simply be assumed that more is always better. A 'safety net' can easily become a hammock. 'Social justice' can easily become class warfare that polarizes a nation, while leading those at the bottom into the blind alley of resentments, no matter how many broad avenues of achievement may be available to them."
-Thomas Sowell
"In addressing our economic challenges, Obama wants more government because he and people like him believe (often against the raw evidence) that more government works; that experts know better than consumers, merchants and the like the ways that they should behave. Obama progressives -- liberals as they called themselves before the term apparently became an embarrassment -- are offended by suggestions that economic decision making can be turned over to a loose herd of consumers who don't know a demand curve from a snowy egret's nest. Taxation is the great tool the progressives wield to make sure consumers know their place in the economic order."
-William Murchison
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LEFTIST WATCH
Just days after the Labor Department announced zero job growth for the month of August, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), the chair of the DNC, said that the economy is “continuing on the upswing" and that every economist "worth their salt" acknowledges that this is the result of the economic stimulus signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/dnc-chair-says-economy-continuing-upswin-0
New online video game: "Tea Party Zombies Must Die" allows players to slaughter Tea Partiers and famous conservatives with a variety of weapons.
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GLOBALONEY
Is Al Gore to Blame for the stench that hangs over Snohomish, Washington?
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/09/is_al_gore_to_blame_for_snohom.php
Prince Charles, now imitating Al Gore, warns of 'sixth extinction event' Mankind faces extinction, the Prince of Wales has warned, unless humans transform our lifestyles to stop mass consumption, run away climate change and destruction of wildlife.
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THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Rich Lowry, National Review: “I underestimated Rick Perry. I had no idea what relish he brings to politics, on the trail and — we learned last night — on the debate stage. He was loose, confident, likable — and blunt as hell….”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/276604/perrys-good-night-rich-lowry
Texas Governor Rick Perry has been criticized for saying that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. But he’s absolutely right, and he is hardly the first guy to notice. I figured that out 30 years ago. A Ponzi scheme is an investment program where there are no real dividends. It is able to make payouts to early investors only as long as there are enough new investors to pump money into it. Once the new investments decline, the payouts decrease, and eventually there are no more payouts. When a private party sets up something like this and gets caught, we put him in prison (Bernie Madoff, for example). But when the federal government does it, it’s different. It’s not a crime at all. It’s a “contract” and a sacred obligation. Even so, when the money runs out, “investors” in it should expect to get exactly what the Madoff investors got: screwed. Rick Perry has simply pointed out the obvious.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/03/rick-perry-is-right-social-security-is-a-ponzi-scheme/
“6 Reasons For Conservatives to Support Rick Perry in 2012”
Michelle Bachmann is scheduled to appear Friday, Sept. 16, on NBC's Tonight Show.
New polling shows reliably blue Pennsylvania, a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1988, could be up for grabs in 2012.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/08/union-members-could-cost-obama-pennsylvania-in-2012/
The thrill tingling up the leg of Chris Matthews has become something else trickling down his leg. Democrats are worried that they will lose the White House in 2012 — and both chambers of Congress by bigger margins than the Republicans have enjoyed since Hoover.
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/41730
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ARTICLES
VDH: Post-9/11 Mysteries – “The aftershocks of 9/11 have generated a bizarre collective amnesia.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/276432/post-911-mysteries-victor-davis-hanson
Top 10 records set by President Obama.
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/41856
Very interesting article to find in the New York Times: “…..something curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa…….she delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide…….Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism. On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity. No one knows yet whether Ms. Palin will actually run for president. But she did just get more interesting….”
President Obama wants to kill you. First came the death panels, unchecked socialism and czarists run amok. Now Mr. Obama has decided to kill as many as 12,000 Americans. In addition, he aims to give heart attacks to another 5,300, send 20,000 more to hospitals and emergency rooms and sicken another 2.5 million so they miss school or work. An exaggeration, you think? Vile blather from evil right-wing talk radio? Crazy vitriol from those racist tea partyers? Nope. These figures and this scientific analysis come directly from none other than the Obama administration itself.
“Was Barack Obama smart enough to make it as an Air Force pilot?”
Interview with Wash. State GOP Chair Kirby Wilbur.
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/015039.html
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
The Internet Archive has compiled “Understanding 9/11”
http://www.archive.org/details/911/day
Chart showing each American’s share of the national debt:
http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/national-debt-burden-600.jpg
Just what it says:
http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2011/07/what-a-dog-does-when-its-cold/
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HUMOR
"New statistics show the U.S. economy added zero jobs in August. The White House cautioned Americans not to read too much into those numbers. What numbers?"
-Jay Leno
"President Obama's uncle Omar vowed to call the White House after he was arrested for drunken driving last Sunday near Boston. You have to feel for the poor guy. He's sitting in jail and the only guy he can call for bail money is fourteen trillion dollars in debt."
-Argus Hamilton
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WISE WORDS
"English experience indicates that when two political parties agree about something, it is generally wrong."
-G.K. Chesterton
posted by gary at
8:28 AM
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