op ed review 10/27
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
More of the “fundamental transformation” of America
that Obama promised: The Air Force
Academy is contemplating the removal of "so help me God" from its
Cadet Honor Oath. However, on the facing page in Contrails, the Cadet handbook,
"so help me God" has already been removed from the Cadet and Officer
oaths.
Soldiers attending a pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood
say they were told that evangelical Christians and members of the Tea Party
were a threat to the nation and that any soldier donating to those groups would
be subjected to punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The Democratic National Committee has narrowly edged its
Republican rival in fundraising for the first time all year.
Almost the point of no return: “49%
of Americans Now Get Gov’t Benefits”
Most Americans accumulating debt faster than they’re saving
for retirement
Senate majority leader Harry Reid says that
"Everybody" is "willing to pay more" taxes.
NSA leaker Edward Snowden: “…no telephone in America
makes a call without leaving a record with the NSA….Our representatives in
Congress tell us this is not surveillance. They're wrong."
University students have been told not to wear
"offensive" halloween costumes including cowboys, indians and
anything involving a sombrero.
“There are smart people on both sides of this debate, of
course, and it was clear back in the summer when the defunding Obamacare
movement began gathering steam that it enjoyed less than universal support
among conservatives. But Cruz critics appear to be forgetting that the
government shutdown battle isn't over and the final verdict on its impact on
the 2014 congressional elections, including especially Republican prospects for
gaining a majority in the Senate, won't be known until the votes are counted.”
“World Is Spending $1 Billion Per Day To Tackle Global
Warming”
"We have just concluded the 5th fiscal year since
President Obama took office. During those five years, the federal government
has spent a total $3.7 trillion on approximately 80 different means-tested
poverty and welfare programs. The common feature of means-tested assistance
programs is that they are graduated based on a person’s income and, in contrast
to programs like Social Security or Medicare, they are a free benefit and not
paid into by the recipient,"
British government removes signs on buses and vans telling
illegal immigrants to go home….”too blunt an instrument."
Food stamp recipients are turning the government handouts
into quick cash with ads on Craigslist, despite efforts to stem fraud.
The Obamacare program´s flagship website is so error-prone
and user-unfriendly that Consumer Reports magazine has thrown up its hands in
disgust, advising readers to ´stay away from Healthcare.gov for at least
another month if you can.´
While the president of the United States pitched his crumbling
healthcare program like a late-night infomercial barker, the Army´s chief of
staff made a shocking admission about national defense. Gen. Ray Odierno told a
Washington
conference Monday that the U.S. Army had not conducted any training in the last
six months....And, he said, there currently are only two Army brigades rated
combat-ready.
CGI, the Canadian company whose U.S. subsidiary built the failed
Obamacare website, was once contracted to build a federal gun registry for the
Canadian government, which also failed.
Maybe it’s just coincidence:
“First Lady Michelle Obama’s Princeton
classmate is a top executive at the company that earned the no-bid contract to
build the failed Obamacare website.”
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Jeff Kuhner 10/18
The debt deal simply hastens the day of reckoning
The conventional wisdom is wrong. The mainstream media — and
their parrots in the Republican establishment — are claiming that President
Obama decisively won the government shutdown battle. In fact, the narrative
being peddled is that the GOP brand has been badly damaged, paving the way for
a possible Democratic Party takeover of the House of Representatives in the
2014 elections. This is puerile nonsense. Tea Party Republicans, led by Texas
Sen. Ted Cruz, may have lost the battle, but they are poised for a major
victory in the larger Obamacare war.
Liberal pundits and Republican moderates, such as Sen. John
McCain of Arizona,
are blaming one person for the partial government shutdown: Mr. Cruz. They
argue that for all their attempts to defund or delay Obamacare, Mr. Cruz and
his conservative allies accomplished nothing. The final deal reopens the
federal government until Jan. 15 and lifts the debt ceiling into early
February. In exchange, no significant reforms or revisions were made to Mr.
Obama’s signature health law. As for the repeal of the medical devices tax, a
one-year delay in the individual mandate and an end to the exemption given to
Congress and its staff, none of these proposals were accepted by the Democrats.
Hence, the political and media class are convinced Mr. Cruz’s obstructionist tactics
backfired, fostering the public perception that “right-wing extremists” have
hijacked the GOP. Mr. Obama now openly refers to the Tea Party as a “dangerous
faction.”
This is myth and propaganda masquerading as analysis. The
legislative deal simply does one thing: kick the can down the road. Yet the
same, enduring problems remain — the very problems identified by Mr. Cruz and
Tea Party Republicans. America
is sitting on a ticking debt bomb, Obamacare — the most destructive law in
modern memory — is a disaster, and our ruling elites are incapable of reining
in out-of-control public spending.
America
is increasingly dominated by one seminal reality: We are the most indebted
nation in history. The national debt is approaching $17 trillion. By 2016, the
debt is expected to hit $20 trillion. That will be Greece-like levels, a debt
load so crippling that Washington
will have trouble simply paying the interest on the debt payments. Our
creditors will realize we are sliding toward the United States of Argentina — a
fiscal basket case unable to live within our means. The value of the dollar
will plunge. Interest rates will soar. Taxes will have to be increased. The
social safety net will be shredded. Unless Congress immediately confronts the
reckless spending and near-record trillion-dollar deficits, the United States
will go bankrupt. The question is no longer if, but when.
Mr. Obama’s massive health care overhaul is precipitating
the impending economic collapse. Nearly every aspect of Obamacare has turned
out to be a lie. The real price tag is not less than a $1 trillion; rather, it
is a multitrillion-dollar entitlement program that America cannot afford. Rather than
lowering premium costs for the average family, it dramatically raises them —
sometimes by thousands of dollars a year. Millions of citizens have lost their
health benefits or are unable to keep their doctor. People seeking to enroll in
Obamacare’s marketplace exchanges are stunned at the high costs of the health
insurance plans. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office acknowledges that the
law will not achieve its stated goal: universal coverage. Instead, about 30
million Americans will still not have health care. Hence, one-sixth of the U.S. economy
will have been revolutionized essentially to put only 17 million new recipients
on the Obamacare rolls. The complex law also undermines economic growth and job
creation, compelling employers to either slash employees’ hours or not hire new
workers. In short, Obamacare is a cancer, slowly devouring our economic
dynamism, individual liberties and medical care.
As the law is implemented, its devastating effects will be
increasingly felt. By next year, the government shutdown will be a fading
memory. What the public will remember, though, is that a band of Tea Party
patriots sought to thwart the oncoming disaster. Mr. Cruz, along with Sens.
Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, represent the
future. The question is no longer ideological — small government versus big
government, free-market-based health care versus nationalized health care, or
capitalism versus socialism. Rather, it is about something more simple — and
profound: basic arithmetic.
The United
States is a giant bus that is rushing toward
an economic precipice. A few more years of Mr. Obama’s borrow-and-spend
policies and America
will crash upon the rocks of fiscal reality and national insolvency. The
Democrats are keeping their foot on the gas pedal, full speed ahead. The
Republican establishment thinks we may need to slow down — at least a little.
The bus, however, will still go off the cliff. Only the Tea Party is saying —
in fact, yelling — to hit the brakes. They’re right, and they will be
vindicated. The only question is this: Will Americans wake up before it’s too
late?
More good reads:
“In the recent internecine conservative donnybrook over the
government shutdown, the insurgents insisted they were in an ideological
struggle with the establishment. But there was precious little ideology
involved. Instead, it was a fight over tactics and power. The Republican Party
almost unanimously opposed Obamacare, and the Republicans who’ve been in office
far longer than Cruz & Co. have voted more than three dozen times to get
rid of the disastrous program. And yet, the latecomers to the battle talk as if
the veterans in the trenches were collaborators the whole time. … But the real
source of that frustration is not the insufficient conservatism of the
establishment; it’s the insufficient power and popularity of conservatism
coupled with the very real failures of the GOP to reverse conservatism’s
fortunes over the last two decades.”
-Jonah Goldberg
“We have just endured six weeks of contentious debate
between Republicans and Democrats and, worse yet, four weeks of fratricidal
infighting between conservatives and moderates within the Republican Party. Given
the chronically rancorous tone in Washington
since Barack Hussein Obama took office -- a tone often punctuated by periods of
acute acrimony as in recent weeks -- inevitably the din can temporarily obscure
all the good that is America,
both historically and today. Consequently, some grassroots folks either resort
to reckless box-canyon politics or retreat in surrender.
Fortunately the vast majority of American Patriots who will
read these words are not among them. But if you know others who have become so
frustrated that they have lost sight of the prize, please share these words of
encouragement with them.
Greet every sunrise as "morning again in America," every dawn as affirmation that,
in the words of Ronald Reagan, "America's best days are yet to come.
Our proudest moments are yet to be. Our most glorious achievements are just
ahead." (Indeed, the Reagan model for restoration was based on the sum
total of our nation's history, and it is as applicable today as ever.)
Approach every sunset in the spirit of a Patriot from
Reagan's generation, John Wayne: "There's a lot of things great about
life. But I think tomorrow is the most important thing. Comes in to us at
midnight very clean, ya know. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself
in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."
-Mark Alexander
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“We are on course to becoming the first nation of
negative-millionaires. … In Australia, each citizen’s share of the debt is
$12,000; in New Zealand, it’s $15,000 per person; in Canada and Spain, $18,000;
in the United Kingdom, $28,000; in Germany and France, $38,000; Italy, $44,000.
And in the United States
it’s $54,000 per person – twice as much as Britain,
thrice as much as Canada,
closing in on five times as much as Oz. On this trajectory, America is exiting the First
World. And that’s before counting the ‘unfunded liabilities’ that Washington keeps off the
books but which add another million bucks per taxpayer. Nor does it include
Obamacare, with which the geniuses of the ‘technocracy’ have managed to spend a
fortune creating the Internet version of a Brezhnev-era Soviet supermarket. …
Either you think those numbers above are serious or you don’t. And, if you do
think they’re serious and you’re a ‘lawmaker’ … when are you going to get
serious? Next month? Next year? Or shall we all sportingly agree to leave it
till 2015 after the bipartisan deal on a $20 trillion debt ceiling?”
-Mark Steyn
________________________________________________________________________
BOOKS
Things That Matter is a collection of Charles Krauthammer’s
extraordinary writings over the last 30 years.
_______________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), a liberal firebrand known for
his controversial comments, compared the Tea Party to the Ku Klux Klan in an
email to supporters that features a photo of a burning cross
_______________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
Ann Coulter: “One of the most
effective ways of discouraging people is to make them think there’s absolutely
nothing they can do about something, anyway. Thus, liberals have tried to
insinuate that Obamacare is impossible to remove, hoping conservatives will
despair. But with only one-half of one branch of government, Sens. Ted Cruz and
Mike Lee and the House Republicans have made it absolutely clear that
Republicans are not giving up on repealing Obamacare. Inasmuch as “bubonic
plague” is polling higher than “Obamacare,” I’d say this is a brilliant
marketing strategy for the GOP.”
In what rational world is trying to get the government of,
for and by the people under the people's control equated with "hating
government"? The same one in which
1) being opposed to reverse discrimination and special privileges for certain
racial groups is 'racist' 2) being opposed to gay 'marriage' is equated with
'hating gays' 3) favoring the enforcement of immigration laws is equated with
'hating immigrants' 4) favoring security measures that factor in the prevalence
of Muslims involved in terrorism is equated with 'hating Muslims’.
Greenfield:
“Beating Obama: Obama can only be beaten
in the popular arena. In his mind, he derives his power from the bully pulpit.
He is a creature of the media age and popularity is his only law and the only
verdict that he will accept. The Republican Party is still playing this game by
Washington rules while Obama is playing it by Chicago rules where the
only rule is to do whatever you can get away with for as long as the people let
you. Obama isn’t just challenging a few laws, he is challenging whether the
government has any hard limits that can’t be overcome by asserting popular will
or the force of history. And the Republican Party is not only unable to answer
his challenge, but is unable to even understand that it is being made.”
According to recent data compiled by the CDC, people who eat
organic and "natural" foods are eight times as likely as the rest of
the population to be attacked by a deadly new strain of E. coli bacteria. Organic food is more dangerous than
conventionally grown produce because organic farmers use animal manure as the
major source of fertilizer for their food crops. Animal manure is the biggest
reservoir of nasty bacteria that are afflicting and killing so many people.
Genetically modified food can greatly increase yields and
feed a hungry world. They are safe, say doctors, food scientists, and plant
biologists: National Academy of
Sciences, The World Health Organization, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, The
American Medical Association, The International Council for Science
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/conventional_unwisdom.html#ixzz2iTpdWGcQ
___________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Top Five ObamaCare Catastrophes the Media Refuse to Cover
__________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
From making babies to being struck by lightning, a new map
has revealed the surprising things that countries are best at. The map is based
on statistics gathered from across the internet - ranging from sources as
diverse as the World Bank to the Guinness World Records. Created by online
comic and website DogHouse Diaries, the map shows what each country leads the
rest of the world in and the words picked - which are written across the
country´s geographical territory - are in many cases surprising.
_________________________________________________________________________
LATE NITE
Leno: People have been
speculating lately about what President Obama will do when he leaves office in
2016. The one thing I think we can safely rule out — website designer……..Some
marketing experts are comparing the Obamacare website rollout to a Ford Edsel
filled with New Coke. But they are making progress. They said today that if you
find yourself getting too frustrated trying to log on, they’ve added a link to
a suicide hot line. …….What the president should do is put the NSA in charge of
the website. That way there’s nothing to fill out. They already have all our
information. You just put your name in.
________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
"Sure I wave the
American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with
all her faults. I'm not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be."
-John Wayne
“Posterity: you will
never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you
will make good use of it."
-John Quincy Adams
"Americanism
means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood
-- the virtues that made America.
... We can have no 50-50 allegiances in this country. Either a man is an
American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all."
-Teddy Roosevelt
"In the words of
Thomas Paine: 'These are times that try men's souls.' We need more than summer
soldiers and sunshine patriots. ... We must draw anew on the individual
strength, ingenuity, and vision that built America. But our gaze is not set on
the past; it's firmly fixed on tomorrow. ... You and I have a rendezvous with
destiny. We will preserve for our children (America), the last best hope of man
on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years
of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children
say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be
done."
-Ronald Reagan
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