op ed review 10/6
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
Federal government loses funding for the first time in 17 years.
President Obama says he won't negotiate with Republicans over the
government shutdown or the higher-stakes fight over the federal debt ceiling.
Actually it’s a 17% shutdown. 83% of the government still operates.
Gallup
Daily: Obama Job Approval taking a very sudden dive:
“If 900,000 federal workers can be furloughed as ´non-essential,´ why employ them?”
The Obama administration is determined to create weepy
stories about the impact of the shutdown for friends in the media.
Said one administration official: "We are winning...It
doesn't really matter to us" how long the shutdown lasts "because
what matters is the end result."
The Obama Administration has decided to block
access to public memorials on the National Mall as a result of the government
shutdown…..there is no rational reason for this. The Park Police, nominally in
charge of monitoring these spaces, isn't even effected by the shutdown.
Shutting off access to these sites is gratuitous and petulant.
“This was an act of such spiteful nastiness that it shocks
the conscience. (Indeed, the shutdown
selections seem to have particularly targeted the military and veterans.)”
Grocery stores on Army bases are closed. President Obama’s
golf course at Andrews Air Force base remains open.
The administration quietly changed its furlough guidance
Friday to allow government employees who are also union representatives to
return to work and receive a regular paycheck during the government shutdown.
Seven officials were dispatched to
set up a ring of barricades to block tourists from the World War II memorial.
That is two more than the State Department had in Benghazi a year ago on the night of the
terrorist attack.
In case there’s any doubt as to who’s to blame for this
outrage, a spokesman for National Park Service said the White House Office of
Management and Budget ordered up the blockades. Even Bill Clinton didn’t have
the audacity to try such a thing during the 1995 government shutdown.
An angry Park Service ranger in Washington
says of the harassment. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people
as we can. It’s disgusting.”
“Need health insurance? The Obama administration has you
covered. Simply dial 1-800-F*CKYO to reach the next available health-care
provider. Far from being a mistype, that’s the official number that Health and
Human Services wants Americans to dial when seeking health care. Obamacare’s
national call center really did list its number as 1-800-318-2596,
helpfully spelling out President Barack Obama’s tendency to blatantly flip the
bird in plain view.
Tenn.
TV Station Can't Find Anyone Who Has Successfully Signed Up for Obamacare
Free Obamaphones offered as incentive
to health insurance buyers. http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/02/obamacare-phones-offered-to-health-insurance-buyers/#ixzz2gfnBGV8O
Just months after he gave a speech earlier this year that
challenged America’s
leadership in President Obama’s presence, Dr. Ben Carson was targeted by IRS
agents who requested to review his real estate holdings and then conducted a full
audit without finding any wrongdoing.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/3/irs-targeted-dr-ben-carson-after-prayer-breakfast-/#ixzz2gfnepOgF
Tea party groups, Franklin Graham, Christine O´Donnell, a pro-marriage
group. And now Dr. Ben Carson. The list of conservatives targeted by the
Internal Revenue Service for audits, tax-exempt reviews or tax privacy breaches
keeps growing, raising fresh questions in Washington about whether a scandal the Obama
administration has blamed on bureaucratic incompetence and coincidence may in
fact involve something more nefarious.
Citizens United will press ahead with plans for a movie
about Hillary Clinton. The yet-to-be titled movie will be distributed
theatrically, shown on television and released on DVD, though partnerships are
under wraps so far. Citizens United is a conservative organization frequently
attacked by liberals, primarily because it successfully sued the U.S.
government over a 2008 movie that was also about Clinton.
Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson admitted that fake bleeps
were inserted into the show even though there was no cursing happening. Robertson also said that the name Jesus has
been cut out during the family’s prayer scene at the end of the show. “(The editors) just think that they don’t
want to offend some of the Muslims or something.’”
http://houston.cbslocal.com/2013/10/04/duck-dynasty-star-show-adding-fake-bleeps-despite-no-cursing/
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Mathew May, American Thinker, 10/1,: “I will not comply”
Like most members of the Congress that passed it and,
undoubtedly, the president of the United States who signed it, I have
not read the entirety of the ill-named Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act. Yet there is one aspect concerning that legislation of which I am
certain: I will not comply.
I will not comply because I am a free citizen of the United States,
not a subject of its government. I consider non-compliance with this
monstrosity and the tens of thousands of pages of regulations that are to be
enforced by an unelected bureaucracy, and that have left a gigantic carbon
footprint on our environment and the United States Constitution, a duty.
Non-compliance is my executive order, and that order reads in part that
I do not recognize any government's claim on my action or inaction in the
marketplace, nor upon any personal information I am unwilling to divulge.
I will not submit to a cabal who read George Orwell's 1984 not as a terrifying
warning, but as an instruction manual. Nor will I submit to the dictates
of those who attempt to trample the right of free speech of others in the halls
of government who are warning us about the looming tyranny. I refer to
those sons of liberty who, as Camus wrote, "are not all legitimate or to
be admired. Those who applaud it only when it justifies their privileges and
shout nothing but censorship when it threatens them are not on our side."
If (when) the IRS or HHS or any other such entity attempts
to extort a tax or fee of any kind for not participating in mandated commerce,
they will be met with resistance. I will not pay any such tax or fee.
I live in Massachusetts,
where, once upon a time, a spirit of resistance and independence animated much of
the citizenry. But many here have devolved from the shot heard round the
world to sheltering in place. Not I -- nor many of my fellow Bay Staters,
who are outnumbered but undaunted.
Refusing to comply with the dictates of an illegitimate law
that is selectively enforced, and from which the privileged few are exempted,
is not, in the annals of American history, brave or difficult. Those who
refuse to comply are not barefoot in the snows of Valley Forge, crying out in
agony at Gettysburg,
or rushing the cockpit of Flight 93. While there will be consequences to
civil disobedience in defiance of oppression, any difficulties can be and will
be overcome.
We are, however, drawing a line that the forces of
repression, socialism, and tyranny must not cross. Some might even color
the line red. Yet unlike a certain other, this red line is immovable.
I yield nothing on the plane of freedom. I will not take any small
step that is, in actuality, one giant leap backward to the darkness we thought
we had vanquished.
Who is with me?
Other good reads: “A new wave of redistribution will arrive in America on Jan.
1, primarily thanks to the Affordable Care Act. The president's
health-insurance plan forces those who hire, work and produce to pay full price
for health care, while creating generous discounts for practically everyone
else……..Regardless of whether redistribution is achieved by collecting more
taxes from families with high incomes, levying employment taxes on businesses,
providing more subsidies to families with low incomes, or all of the above, an
essential consequence is the same: a reduction in the reward for working. ….
(The marginal tax rate is now) close to 50%, driven up by the expiration of the
payroll tax cut and multiple provisions of the Affordable Care Act……In the
years 2015 and beyond, full-time workers with median incomes will keep only
half of the compensation created by their decisions, with the other half going
to the government in the form of additional taxes and savings on subsidy
payments. By keeping 50% rather than 60%, workers will find that the reward for
holding a job will have fallen a damaging 17%. “
VDH: “Obama: Transforming America : From energy to foreign
policy to the presidency itself, Obama’s agenda rolls along.”
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"The founders of
the United States
drew up a Constitution to serve as an operating manual, in its checks and
balances, for peaceful, deliberative government. They understood human nature
and set up a system in which competing interests would have to give in.
Compromise, they understood, is a necessary lubricant for the wheels of
government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people' to turn and allow
us to move forward. But compromise is meant for those competing interests --
not for the core principles of the country that the Constitution exists to
protect and secure. When the principles of our free nation under God are under
siege, it is a time for confrontation, not compromise."
-Star Parker
"Nothing amuses
me more than the typical leftist garbage -- aided and abetted by these same
establishment Republicans -- that it is the American right who has
become radicalized, even as the Democrat party has welcomed every
socialist/Marxist, redistributionist, race-baiting, Alinsky-ite hack into its
midst. Those who don't believe that assessment should ask themselves how far a
politician who believes in a strong military, a largely self-reliant populace
and large tax cuts would go in today's Democrat party. If you answered
virtually nowhere, you'd be right on the money. If you recognized those
policies were heartily endorsed by a Democrat icon, President John
Fitzgerald Kennedy, you'd begin to get a clue about which political party has really
undergone a radical transformation. And yet establishment Republicans remain
more than willing to split the difference with Democrats, under the banner of
'compromise' in the House and 'collegiality' in the Senate. What's the
split-the-difference position between freedom and slavery? Solvency and national
bankruptcy? The rule of law and executive fiat? All Constitution all the time,
or only when it suits the ruling class's political purposes?"
-Arnold ahlert
________________________________________________________________________
BOOKS, FILM, TV
Ann Coulter: “AMC’s
smash TV series “Breaking Bad” (is) the most Christian Hollywood production
since Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” It may seem counterintuitive
that a TV show about a meth cook could have a conservative theme, much less a
Christian one, but that’s because people think Christian movies are supposed to
have camels — or a “Little House on the Prairie” cast. READ THE BIBLE! It’s
chockablock with gore, incest, jealousy, murder, love and hate.” (Editor’s
note: Guinness says Breaking Bad is the
highest rated TV series in history but it has some very graphic violence that
some viewers may find objectionable.)
__________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
Temperatures have flat-lined for 15 years, the Arctic and
Antarctic are gaining record amounts of ice, most computer models have been
wrong, yet the media networks are buying into the alarmists´ narrative. Earth
might not have a fever but the media do, judging by their hyperventilating about
the IPCC’s quite fraudulent report.
Not all scientists are panicking about global warming —
one of them finds the alarmism “hilarious.” A top climate scientist from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
lambasted a new report by the UN’s climate bureaucracy that blamed mankind as
the main cause of global warming and whitewashed the fact that there has been a
hiatus in warming for the last 15 years. “I think that the latest IPCC report
has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence,” Dr. Richard Lindzen told
Climate Depot, a global warming skeptic news site. “They are
proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between
their models and observations increase.”
________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
British Government Makes a Modest Proposal to Support Marriage……..Reaction
to the announcement from the left has been predictably hostile.
________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
A list published in the Washington Post of “21 surprising
effects of the government shutdown you haven’t heard about”. This list seems designed to horrify and mobilize
liberals: “No one will oversee the
program that makes sure your organic food is actually organic…..The Department
of Homeland Security will stop investigating civil liberties complaints and
training…..Wild horse and burro adoptions will stall…..The Dodd-Frank Wall
Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will be back-burnered…..agencies
studying global warming will shut down….Charges of on-the-job discrimination
complaints will not be investigated….No one will advise the government on matters
pertaining to the arts…….Whales will be
on their own……..Only 15 people will care for the White House and
the Obama family, down from their usual 90”
Newt Gingrich: “Founding Fathers Liked Shutdowns…..There are
moments when different branches of government cannot reach agreement. Shutdowns
are an expression of those differences.”
http://ideas.time.com/2013/10/03/newt-gingrich-founding-fathers-liked-shutdowns/#ixzz2gfm5sK1p
___________________________________________________________________________
OBAMACARE
At one time, getting a job was not that much of a problem.
Neither was getting married. But the Affordable Care Act appears to create
substantial disincentives both to hiring and marriage, potentially changing the
fabric of American society in serious ways.
Ten states where Obamacare wipes out existing health care
plans
“Beginning now, with the opening of government-run
health-insurance exchanges, President Obama will be prohibiting American
Catholics from practicing their faith in the way they live their daily lives.
This is an act of tyranny.”
Obamacare Website Quietly Deletes Reference to 'Free Health
Care'
Less than 1% of
visitors are signing up for Obamacare on state health exchange websites California's program registered an estimated
0.58 per cent of website visitors in its first day A Connecticut congressman boasted that his
state took 167 applications for Obamacare services on day one, a rate of 0.59
per cent
President Obama’s old friends in the ACORN crime syndicate
have decided to get a piece of the big-money Obamacare action.
Let the death spiral begin:
If President Obama were really clever, he’d jump at the Republicans’
proposal in the continuing resolution to delay Obamacare for one year. A
one-year delay is perhaps the only chance to prevent the Obamacare exchanges
from becoming a disaster.
__________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
An interview with Newsmax:
94 year old Rev. Billy Graham Prepares 'Perhaps … My Last Message'
The original Kodak moment: Snapshots taken from the camera
that changed photography in 1888
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2439904/The-original-Kodak-moment-Snapshots-taken-camera-changed-photography-1888.html#ixzz2gTyhpNVF
_______________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
Ronald Reagan:
"Governments that set out to regiment their people with the stated
objective of providing security and liberty have ended up losing both. Those
which put freedom as the first priority find they have also provided security
and economic progress."
-Ronald
Reagan
"It has been said
that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the
necessity of any Government is a misfortune."
-James Madison
_________________________________________________________________________
LATE NITE
Leno: It is day
three of the government shutdown. Right now 33 percent of the government is
doing absolutely nothing, which is not bad considering that before the shutdown
80 percent wasn’t doing anything… ….All non-essential employees were sent home
— including President Obama's economic team…..How many are worried about a
government shutdown? How many are more worried about it starting back
up?.....President Obama has officially cancelled his trip to Asia.
He said he didn’t want to be in Indonesia
not doing anything to solve the crisis, when he could be in Washington
not doing anything to solve the crisis….Actually, it’s the perfect time for him
to go to Asia. I mean, what better time to
leave Joe Biden in charge of the country than during a a shutdown? He couldn’t
do any more damage. right?........I’m glad the government has shut down. Think
about it, for the first time in years it’s safe to talk on the phone and send
emails without anybody listening in….Regarding the problems with starting
Obamacare, President Obama said that Apple had some glitches with the iPhone
but then they fixed them. Technically the president is correct, but you have to
remember: Apple has geniuses working there. This is Washington. They don’t have any geniuses……A
lot of new words are being introduced to the Oxford Dictionary. They include
"bling" and "bromance." And then there are words you don't
use anymore, words that have become passé — like privacy, solvency, freedom.
These are words that have disappeared while new words are coming in.
posted by gary at
8:55 AM
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