Obama Administration Moves to Downplay 9/11

The commemoration of the devastating 9/11 terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people used to be known as “Patriot Day.” That designation was established in December 2001 after the House of Representative passed Joint Resolution 71 by a unanimous 407 to 0 vote.The new term, the September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance, stems from an amendment to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act that Congress passed and President Obama signed into law in April.

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor’s Business Daily — No Going Back On New Style Of Capitalism?

As memories of the Cold War fade, like photographs in sunlight, few remember the Brezhnev Doctrine. It was enunciated by Leonid Brezhnev in Warsaw in November 1968 as a retrospective justification for the Soviet-led invasion of Prague the previous August by Warsaw Pact forces to halt Czechoslovakia’s liberalization.

The doctrine was supposed to guarantee history would be directional, controlled by a leftward-clicking ratchet. It asserted a Soviet right to intervene to protect socialism wherever it was imposed. We are already testing whether President Obama and other statists who have given his administration and this Congress their ideological cast have a doctrine analogous to Brezhnev’s.

Having aggressively, even promiscuously, blurred the distinction between public and private sectors with improvised and largely unauthorized interventions in the economy, will they countenance a retreat of the state?

via IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor’s Business Daily — No Going Back On New Style Of Capitalism?.

Mark Davis: Health care outrage is plenty real | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Columnists: Mark Davis

As the Obama-Pelosi health care vision takes additional body blows in a long, hot summer of righteous discontent, its proponents have stooped to a level of insult that proves they have lost control of their message.

When two of Congress’ most powerful Democrats bash disagreeing citizens as “un-American,” you know the hinges have fallen off. Their smug lecture in a USA Today op-ed piece this week radiates the sanctimonious condescension that is dragging down President Barack Obama’s suddenly human approval ratings.

via Mark Davis: Health care outrage is plenty real | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Columnists: Mark Davis.

Facebook | Tammy Bruce: Swine Flu Shot Linked to Fatal Nerve Disease

A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter.

The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins.

It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine.

GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal.

via Facebook | Tammy Bruce: Swine Flu Shot Linked to Fatal Nerve Disease.

Town halls burst with Obama ‘plants’

By Chelsea Schilling

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

In town hall meetings billed as opportunities for Americans to ask health care

questions of an “open” and “transparent” administration, the White House may be selecting President Obama’s own supporters to ask non-compromising questions.

The White House insists that attendees are selected at random, but a closer look reveals many questioners range from Obama campaign donors and Organizing for America volunteers to single-payer health care lobbyists and Service Employees International Union members.

via Town halls burst with Obama ‘plants’.

Michelle Malkin » Lanny Davis wants you photographed and investigated

Perhaps it is important that we, supposedly conservatives and independents should evaluate our tactics carefully so as not to give the left an option, whether right or wrong, to attack us.  And this definitely qualifies as an attack by the left on our speech.

The consigliere to the Clinton thugocracy decries the taxpayer counterinsurgency — and calls on left-wing hitmen to photograph and investigate Obamacare protesters to prove that they are being “paid” by the “Republican right” to express their opinions and demand accountability from their congressional representatives (never mind that so many of these protests have been aimed at Republicans who have betrayed their principles).

via Michelle Malkin » Lanny Davis wants you photographed and investigated.

Heritage’s Ben Lieberman Sets the Record Straight on Europe’s Cap and Trade Experience » The Foundry

Testifying before the Committee on Foreign Relations, The Heritage Foundation’s Senior Policy Analyst in energy issues explained:

“Most western European nations are currently learning, the hard way, that ratcheting down carbon emissions [through cap-and-trade] is very difficult and expensive…To the limited extent European nations have reduced emissions below business-as-usual levels, it has hurt their economies. Almost every western European nation has had higher unemployment and energy costs than America, and a weaker overall economy, even as emissions were rising. Far from seeing evidence of the new green economy some are now promising, we are seeing that cap and trade has contributed to the harm. For example, Spain has been cited repeatedly as the example of a successful clean energy economy and source of green jobs, but it is rarely mention that Spain currently has 18 percent unemployment.”

via Heritage’s Ben Lieberman Sets the Record Straight on Europe’s Cap and Trade Experience » The Foundry.

NEA General Counsel: Union Dues, Not Education, Are Our Top Priority » The Foundry

Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas; it is not because of the merit of our positions; it is not because we care about children; and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child.

The NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of million of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them; the union that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.

This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing drop rate rates, improving teacher quality, and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary these are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights, or collective bargaining.

That is simply too high a price to pay.

via NEA General Counsel: Union Dues, Not Education, Are Our Top Priority » The Foundry .

Get it from those that got it! « DirtyRottenScoundrels

As David Boaz states – Barbara Mikulski said it so well herself in simpler terms in 1990:

Let’s go and get it from those who’ve got it.

Shall we prove what we are stating? Here are some of the programs proposed, both formally and informally:

• Raise the top income tax rates from their current 33 percent and 35 percent rates to 36 percent and 39.6 percent in 2011
• Limit itemized deductions for people paying high rates
• Increase capital gains and dividend taxes by 33 percent for people paying high income tax rates
• Impose a value-added tax (VAT) on all goods and services
• Raise the Social Security tax by lifting the cap
• Raise a variety of business taxes by $353 billion over 10 years, including repeal of LIFO rules, restoring Superfund taxes, seven tax increases on energy companies, and more
• Tax employer-provided health benefits
• Implement a cap-and-trade system for emissions permits, the functional equivalent of a massive new tax
• Tax drivers on their mileage
• Change rules to raise gift taxes
• Restore the estate tax at 45 percent
• Raise cigarette tax by 62 cents a pack
• Raise taxes on beer, wine, liquor, and soda
• Eliminate health savings accounts and flexible savings accounts
• Tax employer-provided cellphones
• Tax AIG employee bonuses
• Raise taxes on overseas corporate earnings

Yep – that sounds like that whole “Gimme – I want it – you have it – I don’t” mentality. Problem is, we earned it. Are we going to keep letting the school bully take on kids one at a time? By the time you do something to help yourself, there might not be anyone left to help YOU. Remember this in 2010.

What North Texas lawmakers had to say about climate bill | Business | Star-Telegram.com

Area lawmakers’ views on climate-change bill

A look at how some North Texas U.S. House members voted on the historic climate-change bill:

Joe Barton, R-Arlington: Against. This bill “will be the largest tax and job killer ever.”

Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville: Against. “We cannot afford to risk our economic future on unproven science and a reliance on nonexistent technology.”

Chet Edwards, D-Waco: Against. “I’m concerned it could increase gasoline and utility costs for families, farmers and businesses during tough economic times.”

Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth: Against. If impacted companies “can’t operate within their emissions limit, they [will] have to pay the government or other parties to get a higher limit.”

Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas: For. “I believe we have a responsibility to our young people, and this legislation will preserve our planet for them by reducing the pollution that causes global warming.”

Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell: Against. “This legislation has nothing to do with becoming energy independent. It has everything to do with an agenda by some to have government control every aspect of its citizens’ lives.”