I thought it would be interesting to get comments on the “reason for the Season” — from today “Hanukkah” through the end of the month there are various holidays to various people; but is anyone the reason for the Season to you, your family or friends. I know there is disagreement in this area, so various views will be respected — but there is no need for personal attacks, disrespect or disdain. Lets be civil.
 

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.

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?.

An anonymous administration official told The Atlantic that Sebelius “misspoke” and White House health reform communications director Linda Douglass released a statement explaining: “Nothing has changed. The president has always said that what is essential is that health-insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health-insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”

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.

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.

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’.

This fabulous quote from C.S. Lewis (1989-1963) strikes at the heart of today’s political debate. The first sentence would probably be enough…

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

A decent runner-up, also by C.S. Lewis and also applicable to the disastrous path that Obama and the Democrats are on:

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

And maybe best of all is this, which came as a comment to this posting but which I’ve added to the main part of the posting because it’s so damn good. (The next two sentences of intro prior to the quote are from my friend “The Freak”.)

This one is from fiction. It’s from The Two Towers (which you should read, by the way). It is from the chapter about the speech of Saruman.

In spite of the fact that this is fiction, I find it eerily applicable to what happens to many when The One speaks.

Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard; and if they did, they wondered, for little power remained in them. Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves. When others spoke they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast; and if they gainsaid the voice, anger was kindled in the hearts of those under the spell. For some the spell lasted only while the voice spoke to them, and when it spake to another they smiled, as men do who see through a juggler’s trick while others gape at it. For many the sound of the voice alone was enough to hold them enthralled; but for those whom it conquered the spell endured when they were far away, and ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them. But none were unmoved; none rejected its pleas and its commands without an effort of mind and will, so long as its master had control of it.

The Obama administration is considering an overhaul of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would strip billions in bad loans and create a new home-loan organization, according to a report from the Washington Post.

Government officials told the Post that the firms’ bad debt would be given to new government financial institutions that would then be responsible for collecting on the debts.

via Report: U.S. Considers Remaking Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac – Political News – FOXNews.com.