How does one explain the article below about our Vice President speaking out today regarding the danger of the H1N1 flu, now spreading around the globe?
Biden is playing fear card, pure and simple. Consider the scenario: last night at his "press conference" event, the President directly addressed the flu issue but made zero reference to trains, planes or subways. Why? All the President's men are aware of the panic that such a statement would cause and it would trace straight back to Obama. Can't have that.
Further, neither the WHO or the CDC have warned people to stay away from mass transit. Why? Because the existing possible pandemic has not yet reached that level of concern. If it does, expect such announcements. If not, there will be no such proclamations.
But as has been stated before within Team Obama, "...a crisis is a terrible thing to waste". So those behind the scenes, who have to date proven very effective in spreading public panic, trot out old slow Joe Biden to do a bit of fear mongering for the good of their cause. As expected it worked, which triggered part two of the plan for the day. Send Joe back out again to backtrack, after the damage has already been done. Doing so dulls the fear just a bit, making everyone (other than Joe) look professional and responsible.
For those of you who cannot believe such things go on, it is time for you to review how the rough and tumble world of Chicago machine politics works. After all, it takes a little panic to help justify the $1.5 billion request the President mentioned last night that he has made to Congress to deal with the flu. He earlier proposed and Congress passed a budget in the trillions of dollars. Cannot the needed flu funds come out of that if this is in fact such an emergency? Sure, but it won't. Common sense solutions are not in the game plan.
Fear mongering a potential flu pandemic to drive even more tax payer dollars into the hands of our nanny state federal government is what the Obama administration is all about. Take-take-take: all under the guise of panic and fear, with the government the only one who can save us all.
Remember the financial panic: government had to save the banks with taxpayer money. How has that worked? The big banks are still on full life support and need even more money, which they will get after additional panic is spread around. Some banks want to pay back the loans and get out from under the control of Team Obama. Geithner and the Obama Euro socialists will not allow them to do so since they would lose control of those operations. There were voices insisting on bankruptcy as a solution from the start. The difference now of course is that the federal government controls our big banking institutions which was obviously not the case to begin with. But with our banks nationalized, it is OK to consider all options.
How about the automaker fear mongering: government said the big three were too big to fail. The Feds had to save them. Taxpayer generated billions were poured into GM and Chrysler. How has that worked? Both are on the fast track to bankruptcy and the billions of public dollars poured into their coffers has gone to pay off union members. The topper now is that in the case of both companies, the unions will come out owning close to half of each, a sweet deal for them. Last night the President said he doesn't want to be in the car business. So instead he is putting his union minions in control. In the meantime, the majority of bond holders will lose their shirts. Thus government saved them from bankruptcy by guiding them into a bankruptcy that benefits the Obama union constituencies. That's a big political payoff.
To date, fear and panic have worked so effectively that Axlerod and Emanuel most certainly are on the lookout for more opportunity to extend their remake of American society. Conveniently, along comes H1N1 and a whole new focus for panic can be manipulated to extend the string of spending more and failing more.
Slow Joe Biden is the tool for today (which answers the mystery as to why he was selected by Team Obama to be VP). The American people are, like Chicagoans have long been, the suckers.
Biden says avoid planes, subways; puts out clarifying statement
By: Carol E. Lee and Amie Parnes
Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would not recommend taking any commercial flight or riding in a subway car “at this point” because swine flu virus can spread “in confined places.” A little more than one hour later, Biden rushed out a statement backing off.“I would tell members of my family — and I have — I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” Biden said on NBC’s “Today” show.. “It’s not that it’s going to Mexico. It’s [that] you’re in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. … “So, from my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation. If you’re out in the middle of a field when someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or closed container or closed car or closed classroom, it’s a different thing.” That contradicted more restrained advice from President Barack Obama and the federal government — and the last thing the White House wants to do right now is shut down the airline industry and big-city subways out of mass panic. The White House quickly arranged for Biden to make this statement through a spokesperson.
“On the Today Show this morning, the vice president was asked what he would tell a family member who was considering air travel to Mexico this week. The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways. This is the advice the vice president has given family members who are traveling by commercial airline this week. As the president said just last night, every American should take the same steps you would take to prevent any other flu: Keep your hands washed; cover your mouth when you cough; stay home from work if you're sick and keep your children home from school if they're sick.”
Host Matt Lauer had asked the vice president: “This is by no means a ‘gotcha’ type of question. … But if a member of your family came to you … and said, ‘Look, I want to go on a commercial airliner to Mexico, and back within the next week,’ would you think it’s a good idea?” Biden made it unmistakably clear he would not want his family to make any trips on planes or subways.These sorts of comments are what the Obama administration fears from Biden, who after more than three decades in Washington is known for making gaffes.
Biden has had fewer of them since the election and even fewer since taking office. Recently, he stirred things up by saying he was once in the Oval Office with George W. Bush and told the president that no one was following his leadership. Karl Rove flatly called Biden a "liar." “If you are feeling certain flu symptoms, don't get on an airplane, don't get on any system of public transportation where you're confined and you could potentially spread the virus. So those are the steps that I think we need to take right now. But understand that because this is a new strain, we have to be cautious.”
Before taking office, Biden was the unpredictable one in the Obama team. He compared the economic crisis with Sept. 11, saying, "We're at war!" and he said it was “a mistake” that Obama selected a CIA director without consulting the Senate Intelligence Committee. Geoff Freeman, the senior vice president of the Travel Industry Association of America, called Biden's comments "unfortunate." "We need to leave this in the hands of the medical experts, and medical experts are not discouraging anyone" from using these modes of transportation, he said. Biden and other government officials "need to be very cognizant of the words they use and not make inflammatory comments." "We're pleased to see the White House working to clarify these comments, and we urge all elected officials to watch their words because they can take on a life of their own." To keep from getting sick, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends: “Try to avoid close contact with sick people. If you get sick with influenza, CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.” Obama said at his news conference on Wednesday night that “individual families [need to] start taking very sensible precautions — that can make a huge difference. “So wash your hands when you shake hands,” he advised. “Cover your mouth when you cough. I know it sounds trivial, but it makes a huge difference. If you are sick, stay home. If your child is sick, keep them out of school.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
PLAYING THE FLU FEAR CARD
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
ARLEN SPECTER: THE PERFECT CASE IN POINT
Career politicians are destroying our democratic republic. They are morphing into a greedy, self-serving, mutually enabling ruling aristocracy. Yesterday's change of political party by Senator Arlen Specter is proof positive of the plague that is upon us.
Several points of importance to be made at this juncture follow.
1. Specter was last elected to office as a Republican. That is what the voters believed and it is how he represented himself. He has now changed party. That is deceptive and dishonest. Either he should have done so prior to the last election or he should have waited until the next one. He has an obligation to his constituents first and foremost to be up front with full disclosure.
2. He changed party because he was in trouble, according to his own polling, within his own party. Through his performance on the job he had lost the backing of his supporters. A person with at least some integrity would attempt to win back that support and if he failed, would accept the will of the people. Obviously Specter considers himself among the ruling elite, fully above the wishes and the desires of the constituency that elected him and that he promised to represent.
3. Like his fellow career political aristocrats, he considers himself too self-important to step down or be set aside. In his tiny little world, he must be in office if the nation is to move forward. How pathetic! Specter, like all of the rest of them, is easily replaceable. We can do without the entire collection. After all, America got to this point in history without them and we will continue forward long after they are gone. They are of no importance or significance, particularly Specter. He is no Lincoln, Washington or Truman. He will not go down in history among the greats of the Senate. But now that he has exposed his true character, he will go down as one of the real pigs in Pennsylvania political history. The people we have in office today are far from the best and the brightest.
4. Our founders did not have full time career politicians in mind when they created our system of governance. The concept centered around citizen politicians. If interested or asked, they would leave their full time professions to be part time legislators, thereafter to return to their normal means of making a living. Part time citizen legislators. Limited government. What we have today on both federal and state levels of government is a complete corruption of the intent of this American democracy. In other words, Specter should find gainful employment elsewhere although at his advanced age he could retire and live like a fat hog off of his full government pension (the same as his annual salary during his last year of employment) plus off the hook benefits.
5. Do not delude yourself into believing this act by Specter is about public service to the nation or to the people of Pennsylvania. Full time politics is a corrupt, greed based, graft driven, back stabbing and fully self-serving activity. Specter is used to feeding at the public trough. He is drunk on his presence within the halls of power. And he is self-impressed with his self-importance at being part of the Senate, the most exclusive club in the world. Truth is, he is nothing more than a crass, groveling political animal in full panic mode as the end of his not so impressive career inside the beltway looms.
6. Our full time careerist political party hacks love to play "gotcha" as their number one priority right after the all important task of self-preservation. The interests of the nation and the welfare of the American people are not nearly as important to these ruling aristocrats as is being able to stick it to those in the party opposite. They do so endlessly and with great glee. If the country suffers in the process, they care not since, at the end of the day, they are all about themselves and their survival in office.
Think about that the next time you get to vote. If you have the ability to think independently and are not controlled by self-centered, misleading politicians, selfish interest groups, silly identity politics or political party propaganda, than consider this:
Never, ever vote for an incumbent. After all, yours are as bad as all the rest and even if they are just wonderful, neither you nor the rest of us need them to stay in office. They've had their turn. Send someone else to Washington and to your statehouse.
Specter had disavowed a switch
by Eric Zimmermann
News of Sen. Arlen Specter's party switch today comes after months of strong statements to the contrary by the Pennsylvania Senator.
In a March 17th interview with The Hill, Specter said he absolutely would not switch parties:
[Democrats] are trying very hard for the 60th vote. Got to give them credit for trying. But the answer is no.
I'm not going to discuss private talks I had with other people who may or may not be considered influential. But since those three people are in the public domain, I think it is appropriative to respond to those questions.
I am staying a Republican because I think I have an important role, a more important role, to play there. The United States very desperately needs a two-party system. That's the basis of politics in America. I'm afraid we are becoming a one-party system, with Republicans becoming just a regional party with so little representation of the northeast or in the middle atlantic. I think as a governmental matter, it is very important to have a check and balance. That's a very important principle in the operation of our government. In the constitution on Separation of powers.
Also on the Specter switch:
–Specter move caught GOP leaders by surprise
–Michael Steele on the switch of the 'left-wing' senator
–Harry Reid on convincing Specter to switch
–Who will Specter eat lunch with now?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
FACT IS, THE LEFT LOVES TORTURE
Torture is a word we hear a lot today. It is tossed around in the political realm in reference to just about anything that could prove advantageous in the manipulation of the American public.
In the past several decades it has been the pattern of the left to embrace torture wherever and whenever it can pay political dividends. Thus we have seen the following contradictory behavior and declarations, all done to advance political advantage. The fact that these positions are contradictory or hypocritical does not matter. To the left, the ends justify the means as long as the ends are self beneficial. Standing on principle is simply not an option on the left.
1. During the Vietnam war, the left became increasingly anti-war over time as public opinion about the war soured. The leftists never had a word to say about the kind of torture that American POW's were subject to as the accompanying article describes in some detail. The torture practiced by the North Vietnamese was openly in violation of the Geneva Conventions, but the radical left did not take a stand. The political gold lied in opposing the war, all the while focusing on American military excesses (which should have been and were widely condemned). But principle played no role. Only political leverage and self promotion were important. No one was ever held accountable for torturing our POW's, least of all by those on the left.
2. In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, most all on the left (there were a very few exceptions) lined up in favor of using "enhanced interrogation" to uncover any and all plots to wreck havoc upon and murder in cold blood even more innocent Americans. We know now that those techniques led to the disruption of such additional events. But as time passed and the War in Iraq became increasingly unpopular at the same time that there were no further attacks on our homeland, the left shifted from their position of support for the protection of the nation to an anti-war posture that mirrored the discontent expressed by popular public opinion. Once again, political convenience and shameless self promotion prevailed.
3. Now that the left finds itself in control of the levers of power in Washington following the 2008 election, their campaign to manipulate the public has shifted into full gear. Via polling, they have gleaned that the word "torture" is not popular among voters. Thus they use it to describe almost anything practiced by the federal government under the Bush administration designed to protect the country against terror attacks. What they once voted for in Congress and supported openly, they now call torture and lie about publicly by denying any past approval. Again, be mindful that there were a very few who opposed "enhanced interrogation" from the start. But the vast majority of leftists fell in line with public opinion from start to finish. Principle be damned. 'Vote for me since I agree with you no matter what you believe' was their pattern and practice.
Certainly a national debate can be had relative to what constitutes torture and whether or not we should practice what is defined as torture and what we can in good conscience and with the welfare of our people at heart, allow to be done in our name by our government. We know the Army Field Manual definitions and restrictions are inadequate. We know that the threat of prosecution by the American justice system is inadequate. What we don't know is what the majority of us can accept to protect or families, friends and neighbors both in practical terms and in principle.
The left is not taking a principled stand on torture. They are taking instead a convenient, self promoting stand on torture. In fact, the left loves torture. They come down on any and all sides of the issue depending upon where there is an advantage to be gained. They will support "torture". They will oppose "torture". They will turn a blind eye to "torture". In short, they will do whatever the winds of advantage dictate on this hot button subject.
In doing so, they torture the practice of principle.
PoW/MIA Forum ®
War Crimes
Former senator Jeremiah Denton, who was tortured for more than seven years as a prisoner-of-war, told the press recently that since President Clinton has normalized relations with Vietnam, the U.S. Congress should begin a "war crimes investigation of those responsible for torturing American prisoners-of-war during the Vietnam War.
He said the United States must not "bow to arrogance" of Hanoi communists.
"There is no question that the government of Vietnam caused unlawful mistreatment of POWs, resulting in some cases in loss of life and in most cases in long-lasting physical and/or psychological problems to surviving POWs," Denton said.
Denton's plane was shot down over North Vietnam 30 years ago this July.
He was captured and spent seven years and six months in a Hanoi prison.
In 1966, Denton's North Vietnamese guards brought him into a sterile room in one of Hanoi's prison camps.
The North Vietnamese had spent four days and three nights torturing him, in preparation for an interview with a Japanese newsman, known for his sympathy to the North Vietnamese cause.
For the four days, Denton's torturers used their "standard" techniques of torture - they had starved him and then subjected him to "the ropes and iron bars."
Returned prisoners described the torturers' use of "the ropes".
They said the North Vietnamese would pull the prisoners arms behind him and tie them together at the elbows.
The prisoner's wrists were then locked in "torture cuffs" and "jumbo irons" were placed over his ankles.
A two-inch thick bar was slid through the "jumbo irons".
The torturers then looped a rope around the bar, over his shoulders, pulling the prisoner's head between his knees.
The prisoners were then forced to sit on a stool for days at a time.
"They took me right off of that {the ropes}, with me like a vegetable, up all night for three nights, telling me that I was going to go before this interviewer," Denton said describing the incident.
The cameras moved in for a close-up shot of the haggard Navy pilot, who the North Vietnamese expected to make a statement condemning the United States war effort.
Denton, who was slumped in a chair, rolled his eyes widely, staring at the ceiling.
He began to systematically blink his eyes as he was questioned in heavily accented English.
The blinking eyes, which gave Denton the appearance of a man who had lost his senses, spelled out in Morse Code the word "TORTURE".
Then, surrounded by his tortures, Denton gave this statement,
"Whatever the position of my government is, I believe in it, yes sir... I am a member of that government and it is my job to support it, and I will as long as I live."The North Vietnamese in the room questioned the Japanese interviewer.
What had Denton said?
Was it damaging to the North Vietnamese cause?
The interviewer obviously impressed by Denton's resistance and loyalty told them the statement was unimportant and managed to get it out of the country.
Later, the North Vietnamese, after discovering what Denton had done to them, brutalized him again and again.
Denton's warnings of POW torture drew international attention.
So, what about Congressional hearings on Vietnamese "war crimes"?
Before his death in April 1999, Former POW Col. Ted Guy wanted to know why not?
He is a retired Air Force colonel and one of ten U.S. fliers captured in Laos by the North Vietnamese.
He was held prisoner for 5 years in North Vietnam, and because he was a Senior Ranking Officer (SRO), he was singled out and tortured for encouraging other U.S. prisoners to resist.
Guy said, Clinton made a "tragic mistake" in rushing to normalize relations with Vietnam.
He said Clinton acted with apparent disregard for the feelings of former Vietnam prisoners-of-war, especially the "Seniors" who were held in the "dungeons" of the prisons in and around Hanoi.
"These men, in the grade of Lt. Col. and above, were subjected to the most barbaric tortures known to mankind,"
Guy told the U.S. Veteran Dispatch.
"If we are to welcome Vietnam into the family of nations, I think the least we can do, prior to granting any diplomatic plums, is to investigate Vietnam's actions towards prisoners-of-war.
I believe that we should insist that the Communist government of Vietnam tell the American people, why they did not comply with the Geneva Accords, which dictate specifically the conduct that should be used with POWs,"
Guy said.
The use of torture was an official Vietnamese Communist Party policy.
It was also a horribly blatant violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949, which hold that prisoners-of-war are
"victims of events", who merit "decent and humane treatment."
Vietnamese torture took many forms, but basically, according to returned POWs, it boiled down to four types:
beatings which either permanently crippled or killed the prisoner,
deprivation of food and rest,
solitary confinement for months at a time,
and the intentional denial of medical treatment.
The U.S. Department of Defense estimated in 1973 that the Communist Vietnamese had tortured to death more than 55 U.S. prisoners.
Today no one in the U.S. government seems to know or wants to talk about the actual number of U.S. POWs murdered by the Vietnamese.
There is also some question as to whether the U.S. Congress is willing to investigate and hold public hearings on the countless atrocities, torture, and mass murder ordered during and after the war, by such top Vietnamese officials as Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet and Vietnam's General Secretary, Do Muoi?
During the war, Kiet was a Central Committee member of the former National Liberation Front (the Viet Cong).
Muoi was a senior North Vietnamese political cadre.
Why the U.S. government has refused to acknowledge that top Vietnamese officials like Kiet and Muoi,
[who U.S. government officials deal with on a daily basis],
were responsible for the systematic and abhorrent policy of torturing U.S. prisoners-of-war.
Kiet's history of war crimes is clear.
As a ranking Communist Party member of the secret Central Committee of former National Liberation Front (Viet Cong), he was part of a small clique responsible for setting policies.
He also directed the Communist war which was waged against the pro-democracy Vietnamese, and their allies in South Vietnam.
As a senior Central Committee member, Kiet was not only responsible for ordering American POWs to be punished by execution, but he gave the orders which resulted in the murder of the thousands of pro-U.S./South Vietnamese in Hue, during the Tet Offensive of 1968.
Kiet's Communist Party henchmen executed over 3,000 men, women, and children.
They buried many of them alive in mass graves in that historic ancient Vietnamese city [Hue], which Kiet's political cadre and North Vietnamese troops briefly held during the offensive.
In their efforts to produce what they thought, erroneously, would be the ultimate utopian society, Kiet and other members of the Central Committee,
"set official Viet Cong policies that resulted in the deaths of many American POWs".
They labeled them "reactionaries", because the prisoners refused to verbally denounce their country.
These prisoners,
"in violation of international law" were tortured, with many of them purposely exposed to the elements.
They were also starved to death for refusing to embrace atheistic international communism.
The following names are just a few among hundreds of American prisoners labeled reactionaries by Viet Cong cadre:
Sgt. Harold G. Bennett,
U.S Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), from Perryville, Arkansas.
He was held as a prisoner for six months, before, according to a National Liberation Front radio broadcast, being publicly murdered June 24, 1965.
He was shot in the back of the head, execution style.
Capt. Humberto "Rocky" Versace,
U.S. Army Special Forces, of Norfold, Virginia.
He was held prisoner for two years before, according to a National Liberation Front radio broadcast, he was publicly murdered in September 1965.
Fellow prisoner, Lt. Nick Rowe said Versace, who Kiet's Viet Cong had labeled a "reactionary", was being tortured by guards in an indoctrination hut a few feet from Rowe's cage, when Versace defiantly told one of Kiet's Viet Cong cadre,
"I'm an officer in the United States Army. You can force me to come here, you can make me sit and listen, but I don't believe a damn word of what you say!"
Rowe said those were the last words any American ever heard from Versace.
Sgt. Kenneth Mills Roraback,
U.S. Army Special Forces, from Baldwin, New York.
He was held prisoner for two years before, according to a National Liberation Front radio broadcast, being executed.
A U.S. government report says, a Viet Cong guard, acting on Central Committee orders, walked up behind Roraback's bamboo cage, and shot him in the head, while Roraback was eating his daily bowl of rice.
Sgt. Leonard M. Tadios,
MACV, was held prisoner for nearly two years.
He was starved and intentionally denied medical treatment.
Tadios, from Lanai, Hawaii, died March 18, 1966 after being isolated from other prisoners and left to die alone.
Capt. Orien Judson Walker, Jr.,
MACV, was held prisoner for nearly a year before, according to the Vietnamese, he became sick from the effects of starvation.
He was intentionally denied medical treatment and was separated from other American prisoners, so they could not care for him.
According to the Vietnamese, Walker, of Boston, Massachusetts, died February 4, 1966.
SFC Joe Parks,
MACV, from Cedar Lane, Texas.
He was held for two years as a prisoner of the Viet Cong.
He became ill as a result of starvation and the Viet Cong denied him medical treatment.
Parks died as a result.
Capt. Donald Cook,
U.S. Marine Corps, was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for jeopardizing his own health , by sharing his meager supply of food and scarce medicines with other U.S. prisoners who were more sick than he was.
Cook, from Essex Junction, Vermont, became legendary for his refusal to betray the military Code of Conduct.
On one occasion, Kiet's cadre put a pistol to Cook's head, demanding that he denounce the United States.
Cook resisted and calmly recited the nomenclature of the parts of the pistol.
The Viet Cong were so infuriated at Cook's continued resistance that they isolated him from other American prisoners and refused him food and medicine.
Today, Hanoi claims Cook died as a result of malaria, and like all the others listed above, the Vietnamese Communists claim they do not know where his remains are buried.
Kiet and other Hanoi leaders, who still decide the life or death of their own people on a daily basis, are unrepentant communists - no different than the Nazis of the Third Reich, responsible for the deaths and murder of thousands of American POWs during World War II.
Would our political leaders, who today are rushing to shake the hands with Kiet and Muoi, be equally willing to shake the hands of Nazi SS Chief Heinrich Himmler or the infamous Japanese General Hedeki Tojo, if those two World War II criminals were alive today?
The establishment of diplomatic relations means the United States is more likely to grant Vietnam a most-favored nation trading status, qualifying some U.S. companies, [who plan to tap into Vietnam's slave labor market], for U.S. tax dollar subsidies.
As much as 30 to 40 percent of all money, including U.S. tax dollars, invested in Vietnam goes into the coffers of Vietnam's Communist Party, and subsequently into the private bank accounts of Vietnamese officials.
Don't the American people deserve to know which Vietnamese war criminals are receiving U.S. Tax dollars?
SOME GAVE ALL
SOME STILL GIVE
SOME STILL CARE
SOME DON'T!
The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their committment!
Return to the Home Page of the PoW/MIA Forum
us here!
Monday, April 27, 2009
SWINE FLU & WASHINGTON PIGS
Are the people in government living on another planet? As the article below reports, our "leaders" have announced they are not going to close the Mexican border. Really.
By making such a brilliant statement, they must make the assumption that it is possible to close our border. Have they no noticed their own non stop efforts to do so over the past several years? Do they need reminding that in all that time they have had zero, zip, nada, zilch and no success controling cross border access to the United States by any and all Mexicans, Central Americans, South Americans and other non hemispheric illegal entrants?
Do they think the rest of us are that stupid or is it simply the case that they are that stone dumb? The only impact that our federal fools could possibly have at our border is to prevent traffic from driving down the road. Gomer Pyle and Sheriff Andy could do that. Do we actually pay these people to act like they are fresh off a frontal lobotomy?
The swine flu can walk across the border, fly over the border, tunnel under the border, boat around the end of the border or simply come in via some more distant port of entry. Of course we won't close the Mexican border. After all, we can't. Commerce would suffer, families would suffer, the economy of both countries would suffer, but the flu would continue to survive, travel and florish.
The sick pork barrell pigs are in Washington DC. That is where a quarantine should be in place and from where access to the United States should be forbidden.
What a bunch of dopes!
Napolitano: Closing border not the answer to flu
By Bridget Johnson
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the government's response at a press conference Monday afternoon as reporters asked her about the risk of asymptomatic swine flu carriers entering the country.
Napolitano said the strategy of identifying and isolating those who seem ill and try to cross into the United States was adequate given the circumstances, as a reporter asked if closure of the border had been considered.
"We're already doing passive surveillance at the border," Napolitano said. "You would close the border if you thought you could contain the spread of disease, but the disease is already in a number of U.S. states.
"Noting that those infected with swine flu may not show symptoms for a few days, Napolitano said border closure is "a very difficult judgment to make."
Napolitano said Sunday night that there was no "realistic hope of containment" that would motivate a border closure, as was called for Saturday by Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.).
Napolitano said at the Monday conference that her department's preparations were as rigorous as if the swine flu was at pandemic status, and included sending doses of anti-viral medication to government employees manning the Mexican border.
"We are simply in preparation mode," Napolitano said. "We do not yet know how widespread this flu will be within the United States.
"The DHS secretary spoke with the Mexican ambassador and would be speaking with her Canadian counterpart in what she called a "tri-national approach" at flu containment.
"Mexico's had a much more acute problem to solve," Napolitano said. "It will help with our planning if we can see how widespread this really is in Mexico.
"Napolitano also said she had reached out to the governors of the states in which cases of swine flu have surfaced, and said these states and the border states would have priority in accessing the Tamiflu stockpile. "Full deployment" of the stockpile, she said, was expected by May 3.
Swine flu warnings had been posted at airport gates and fliers on the disease were being distributed at land ports, she said, and 19 airports have quarantine available that would cover about 85 percent of air travelers. "We haven't needed to activate that," she said.
When pressed about her acknowledgment that asymptomatic flu carriers could enter the country, Napolitano stressed the need for personal responsibility in preventing the spread of the disease.
"If people are sick and if you believe you have the flu ... we're asking people don't go to school, don't go to work, don't go to a place where you can infect other people."We believe at this level the appropriate precautions have been made."
Sunday, April 26, 2009
OH NO! HILLARY REASSURES IRAQIS
What follows below is the news announcement you do not want to hear if you are a concerned Iraqi. Particularly when the statement comes from a politician who was trained to be a lawyer.
When you get news like this, it is time to prepare for the worst. This is reminiscent of the public statements made in pro sports by owners or general managers relative to the job security of their head coach. Once it is announced that your job as coach is safe, start packing your bags and putting out your resume. Often, the coach will be gone by sun down.
With typical lawyerly double speak, Clinton notes that our withdrawal from Iraq will be done in a "responsible and careful way". What the heck does that mean? Answer: whatever the Obama administration decides on this end serves their political interest.
Were I Maliki, now would be a great time to dig a very deep fox hole. In other words, hope for the best but plan for the worst.
We shall see how long this 'we are on your side' declaration lasts. In the meantime, don't hold your breath. When there is a need for someone to publicly state obvious reassurances, the end is often near.
Remember, promises are made to be broken. Especially by paid advocates and politicians.
Clinton to Iraqis: US not going to abandon you
BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton assured Iraqis on Saturday that the Obama administration would not abandon their country even as it presses ahead with plans to withdraw American troops amid a recent surge in violence.
Clinton said the draw down would be handled in a "responsible and careful way" and would not affect efforts to improve Iraq's security forces, or complete reconstruction and development projects.
But Iraqis, and particularly their security forces, need to overcome sectarian and other differences if they are to build a united, secure nation, she said.
"Let me assure you and repeat what President Obama said, we are committed to Iraq, we want to see a stable, sovereign, self-reliant Iraq," she told a nervous but receptive crowd at a town hall meeting at the U.S. Embassy in the capital.
"We are very committed, but the nature of our commitment may look somewhat different because we are going to be withdrawing our combat troops over the next couple of years," Clinton said.
On her first trip to Iraq as America's top diplomat, Clinton said the country has made great strides despite a recent surge in violence. High-profile attacks this past week primarily targeted Shiite worshippers. More than 150 people, many of them Iranian pilgrims, have died.
Ahead of her arrival, Clinton said the attacks are a sign that extremists are afraid the Iraqi government is succeeding.
"I think that these suicide bombings ... are unfortunately, in a tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction," Clinton told reporters aboard her plane.
Violence is at its lowest since the months following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. But sectarian attacks have exposed gaps in security as Iraq takes over from U.S. forces in protecting the country.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered a military task force to investigate the attacks as well as shortcomings that allowed the assailants to slip through. The government on Saturday also ordered heightened security at major Shiite shrines.
The Pentagon plans to hand over responsibility for most urban security in about three months as part of the administration's goal of a complete exit of forces by the end of 2011.
U.S. officials say they remain committed to a June 30 deadline to move all forces outside major cities, including Baghdad. But the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, has said American troops could "maintain a presence" in some cities if requested by the Iraqis.
"Frankly, some people are afraid," said one participant in the town hall who said many questioned the ability, competence and neutrality of Iraq's security forces, given the U.S. withdrawal plan.
"There is nothing more important than to have a united Iraq," Clinton replied. "The more united Iraq is, the more you will trust your security services. The security services have to earn your trust but the people have to demand it."
"We will be working closely with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi security forces as we withdraw our combat troops, but we need to be sure that all of you are supporting a strong, nonsectarian security force and we will work to try and help make that happen," she said.
Clinton was met at the airport by the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and the new U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Christopher Hill.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
DIPLOMACY MYTHS THE LEFT LIKES TO TELL
What follows is how those on the left explain the fact that the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has chosen to begin to personally engage the thuggish tyrant from Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Although most Americans approve the idea of contacting international, anti-American bad actors like the election fixer Chavez on some level, the majority prefer that it not start at the top of the diplomatic chain with the President.
After all, Jimmy Carter has been down to see Hugo. Several Hollywood types have been there so that they could publicly bad mouth their country, led by that intellectual giant Sean Penn. Of course, Cindy Sheehan was invited to come down and bash George Bush. And leftist signer Harry Belafonte is a good friend and whole hearted supporter of Hugo's. Not to mention virtually every international petty dictator, punk, thug and fellow tyrant, Putin included. Nice company for our President to join.
Certainly we should talk with these people. But this is a job for the professional diplomats at the Department of State or for special envoys who serve at the pleasure of the President. The leader of the free world should not expose himself to the chance to be blindsided in front of the watching world by a punk like Chavez. That's fine for a Senator Obama, not a President Obama.
Note the comments inserted in the article below relative to the key points being presented. See the bold caps for some different perspective.
Why Obama Shook Chávez's Hand
He campaigned on a new approach to diplomacy.
By JAMES P. RUBIN
Beneath the attacks on President Barack Obama's performance at recent meetings abroad lie two fundamental questions about American foreign policy. The first is the extent to which Washington should make changing despised leaders of other countries a primary goal. NOTE TO THE WHITE HOUSE: YOU ARE NOT GOING TO CHANGE HUGO CHAVEZ. THAT IS A BAD CHOICE OF GOALS. The second is how to use the power of the presidency. NOT TO MENTION, IT IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE FOR THE PRESIDENT TO BE USED AS A PROPAGANDA TOOL FOR DESPOTS DOMESTIC POLITICAL AGENDAS.
What the chorus of Mr. Obama's critics is ignoring is that the 2008 election was, in part, a referendum on President Bush's policy of regime change and his approach to diplomacy. TO SOME EXTENT, AGREED. BUT HOW AND IN WHAT NEW DIRECTION? NOBODY VOTED ON THAT! CANDIDATE OBAMA WAS NEVER CLEAR ON THAT.
Candidate Barack Obama could not have been clearer. CORRECTION: HE FLIP FLOPPED AND WAS NEVER CLEAR. He was going to talk to foreign leaders directly whether the United States agreed with their policies or not. And the purpose of this new diplomacy, Mr. Obama emphasized, was not to change regimes around the world but to advance American interests. His opponent, Sen. John McCain, took the opposite view. He wouldn't be seen in the company of Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. AND THUS WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN PUNKED BY THAT THUG. And as far as Iran was concerned, Mr. McCain would demand that Tehran capitulate on a series of issues as the price for a meeting with the president. SO FAR, MR. OBAMA HAS DEALT WITH IRAN ON THE SAME LEVELS AND IN MUCH THE SAME FASHION AS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. NO SUBSTANTIVE DIFFERENCE TO DATE, JUST A WINDOW DRESSING CHANGES.
Despite the results of November's election, Mr. Obama's critics are judging him on the basis of the old Bush calculus. MAYBE A FEW CRITICS, BUT NOT MOST AMERICANS AS NOTED ABOVE. Whether it is Venezuela or Cuba, they assess Mr. Obama's actions based on whether or not they immediately contribute to the downfall of a regime. If not, then they go off in high dudgeon.
Worse yet, Mr. Obama's critics are using the same logic that contributed to early failures in Iraq. They say the president's politeness to Hugo Chávez, for example, should be judged by the standards of the Cold War. They point to the fact that dissidents in Eastern Europe were heartened when President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire." But that truth doesn't always translate to other parts of the world. If Iraq has taught us anything, it is that not all countries respond the same way when a dictator falls. Unfortunately, many heirs to the Reagan tradition haven't learned that policy by analogy is a risky business. SO IS POLICY BY UTOPIAN DOCTRINE, ESPECIALLY SINCE THERE IS NO MEANINGFUL HISTORICAL EVIDENCE THAT IT HAS EVER WORKED. ON THE OTHER HAND, IT CAN BE SAID THAT REAGAN DID ACHIEVE SOME SUCCESS.
Whether the challenge is Afghanistan, Pakistan or nuclear proliferation, the new administration seems determined not to be distracted by the advocates of regime change or the likes of Hugo Chávez. Instead, the Obama administration has used recent summits in London, Prague and Trinidad as a way to restore respect for the U.S. abroad, and to build the base of support that is necessary to achieve larger goals. THIS IS LEFTIST MYTHOLOGY COMBINED WITH JUST PLAIN WISHFUL THINKING. NOTHING OBAMA HAS DONE TO DATE HAS CREATED ANY ADDITIONAL RESPECT FOR THE UNITED STATES. MANY ON THE LEFT IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY HAD A LONG AND VISCERAL DISLIKE FOR GEORGE BUSH. THEY HAD NO RESPECT FOR HIS PRESIDENCY, HIS ADMINISTRATION OR HIS POLICIES. IT WAS BUSH, NOT THE UNITED STATES, THAT THE LEFT AROUND THE WORLD HATED. NEVER CONFUSE THE NATION WITH THE INDIVIDUAL POLITICIAN.
Mr. Obama not only has a different view than Mr. Bush about the ends of U.S. foreign policy, but he has also promised to use different means than his predecessor. Mr. Bush believed that he could extract concessions from recalcitrant governments as the price of admission for dialogue with the U.S. When it came to preventing North Korea from building nuclear weapons, or Iran from developing nuclear technology, the Bush policy failed. AS DID THE CLINTON POLICIES BEFORE BUSH, AND THE OBAMA POLICIES TO DATE. LET'S HOPE THINGS CHANGE! Denying direct access to U.S. officials did not compel the governments in Pyongyang or Tehran to reverse course.
Soon enough Mr. Obama's critics will be howling that he is meeting with the leaders of problematic countries with no dramatic concessions to show for it. But again, they will be missing the point. As he made clear during the campaign, the president believes direct diplomacy is a tool in America's arsenal. It is not a prize to be won. DIRECT DIPLOMACY HAS A ROLE. BUT IT DOES NOT START WITH THE PRESIDENT, IT ENDS WITH HIM.
Mr. Obama's new diplomacy is well-suited to an era of democratic government and instant communication. By refusing to snub Hugo Chávez, Mr. Obama makes it harder for dictators and anti-American activists to demonize the U.S. HARDER? NOT REALLY. THEY HAVE GONE ON AND WILL CONTINUE TO GO ON DEMONIZING THE WORLD'S BEACON OF FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALISM. NOTHING OBAMA HAS DONE OR WILL DO CAN CHANGE THAT REALITY. Of course, national security is not a popularity contest. But since governments around the world are increasingly democratic, they must respond to the attitudes of their people. VENEZUELA IS NO LONGER DEMOCRATIC AND, IN FACT, IS RAPIDLY HEADING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. A popular America has more leverage at the negotiating table on issues from trade to terrorism. While Republican operatives may dismiss the significance of having a president the world admires, the fact is that Mr. Obama's popularity brings tangible benefits we have lost over the last eight years. THIS IS CLASSIC FAR LEFT PAP. PEOPLE ON THE STREETS LIKE OBAMA THEREFORE THE UNITED STATES IS MORE POPULAR AND WE CAN ALL FEEL BETTER. THAT, ALONG WITH $2.50, WILL GET YOU A CUP OF COFFEE AT STARBUCKS. LEFTISTS ARE ABOUT FEELING BETTER ABOUT THEMSELVES, NOT OUTCOMES. THOSE WHO HATE THE UNITED STATES MAY LIKE OBAMA BUT THAT DOES NOT CHANGE THEIR ANTI-AMERICAN BENT ONE BIT. THEY WILL BE HAPPY ONLY WHEN AMERICA FALLS, AND NOT ONE MINUTE BEFORE. ONCE AGAIN, DO NOT CONFUSE THE NATION WITH THE INDIVIDUAL POLITICIAN.
If the president's critics continue to judge him by Bush-era standards of diplomacy and regime change, they are going to have a lot to shout about over the next four years. But the majority of Americans who supported Barack Obama will withhold judgment and give the administration the opportunity to implement its initiatives on climate change, nuclear proliferation, Afghanistan and Iran. THERE YOU HAVE IT: THIS WHOLE PIECE WAS REALLY ABOUT THE FULL AGENDA OF THE LEFT, HIDING IN THE GUISE OF COMMENTARY ABOUT HUGO CHAVEZ. THE FACT IS MOST OBAMA SUPPORTERS ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION YET. COUNT ON THIS FACT GOING FORWARD: THEY WILL! They may even give the new policies time to work.
Mr. Rubin, an adjunct professor at Columbia's School of International Affairs, was an assistant secretary of state under President Bill Clinton.
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Friday, April 24, 2009
AMERICA IS IN FULL DISCONNECT
Sanity has left the building. The article that follows outlines some of the indications of that current reality.
The election of a uni party government featuring Barack Obama playing the part of President and liberal Democrat pols pretending to be representatives of the people in Congress has turned this country upside down. That is exactly where the far left wants us to be: in chaos. We are there.
Our allies are now our adversaries. Our enemies are now are friends.
Borrowing is bad if we do it: borrowing is good if the government does it and hands us the bill.
Wall Street is bad in spite of the fact that we are the richest society in history: government will save us yet their decades long "war on poverty" is an acknowledged total failure.
Families need to sacrifice: governing elites live expansively.
Tax cuts for 95% of the people: tax hikes, fee hikes, pass through taxes and more for literally 100% of us.
We need to spend even more on our failed public education: all the while the government schools systemic problems remain in place, guaranteeing zero progress.
We need "free" government run health care for everyone: in the meantime, government run medicare and VA health care are failing badly. Further, if you feel it is inadequate and expensive now, wait until it is "free".
Working people must reduce their carbon footprint: but not our SUV driving, limo riding, private jet flying politicians. Nor our 1.5 billion Chinese brothers. Nor the 1.3 billion folks in India. All of whom crank out far more carbon in a day than we can collectively conserve in a year.
The list goes on. What does it all have in common? None of it makes any sense.
Such nonsensical chaos is the goal that leftists seek and their uni party Dem governing minions foster. The more chaos, confusion and panic they can engender, the more doctrine driven Utopian extremism they can put into place.
Remember, a crisis is not to be wasted. Using it to manipulate, redirect, remake, and redo the fundamentals of the nation's economy and social fabric is exactly what is happening right in front of our noses.
When radicals govern, chaos follows. America, we have a problem!
A Strange, New, Upside-Down Year That Presages Crazier Times Ahead
By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
We are in a weird age.
Do the smart thing, we were told, and invest in a 401(k) retirement account. Buy into the American dream and own your own home. But lately it seems that those who put their money in low-earning passbook savings accounts or rented rather than buying may have been better off.
Indeed, almost all the old familiar benchmarks of modern American life seem to be going by the wayside.
The blue-chip corporations that were long the brand names of world manufacturing and finance — American International Group, Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Chrysler, Citigroup, General Motors and Lehman Bros. — are either gone or teetering on insolvency.
The old-guard newspaper industry is fading — the Tribune Co. is in bankruptcy court, Hearst at one point threatened to shut down the San Francisco Chronicle, the Rocky Mountain News is already gone. The stock price of the New York Times is worth about the same as its Sunday paper.
Washington is more confusing. Bill Clinton balanced his last budgets but raised taxes. George Bush increased deficits but cut taxes. But now taxes, spending and deficits soar all at once. We are lectured that prior reckless federal spending and borrowing got us into this mess — but now are told that even more federal spending and borrowing will get us out of it.
We've seen housing sales slump when home prices were high but interest rates low. Or when prices were low but interest high. Or when prices and interest were alike high. But we never have seen a bad housing market in which both home prices and mortgage interest rates were low.
Nonsense is passed off as wisdom. Those who caused the financial meltdown walked away with millions in bonuses while taxpayers covered the debts they ran up. The big-spending government claims it may cut our annual $1.7 trillion deficit in half by 2012 — but only after piling up trillions more in national debt.
In our Orwellian world, borrowing to spend what we don't have has been renamed "stimulus." Those who pay no federal income taxes — almost half of Americans — can somehow be promised an income tax "cut." In the new borrowing of trillions of dollars here and trillions there, billions of dollars now sounds like pocket change.
When Americans turn to their political parties for answers, they are even more confused. Populist Democrats such as Sen. Chris Dodd and President Barack Obama took more AIG campaign cash than did pro-business Republicans.
And the list of big-tax liberals who cheated or avoided taxes they want to raise on others is astounding — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who oversees the Internal Revenue Service; failed Obama Cabinet nominee Tom Daschle; and Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Yet conservative Republicans during the Bush administration ran up the debt and increased federal spending far more than did liberals under Bill Clinton. A Republican president has not balanced a budget since Dwight Eisenhower did it over a half-century ago.
Abroad, we thought piracy ended with the age of sail — only to learn that the world's 21st century navies either will not or cannot sink a few brigands in speedboats. Meanwhile, a U.N. conference against racism showcased Iranian president — and Holocaust-denier — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spouting anti-Semitic hatred.
The old "bad" unilateral war in Iraq is now quiet; the once "good" multilateral effort in Afghanistan is not.
We are warned that we must be careful not to explicitly associate the radical Islam that fueled the Sept. 11 attacks with terrorism; yet, we are advised that we should worry about returning American veterans as potential terrorists.
When our president references the 19th and 20th centuries, he apologizes for American sins but stays silent about the United States defeating Nazis, fascists, Japanese militarists and Soviet communists. The world hears contrition about Americans dropping the bomb to end World War II but never remorse from those responsible for Darfur, Grozny or Tibet.
There have been a few crazy years like 2009 in American history — 1860, 1929, 1941 and 1968. And given what followed all of them, it might be wise to prepare for even crazier times for us ahead.
© 2008 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC
Thursday, April 23, 2009
LEFTIST COMMUNITY SERVICE DRIVEL
This depiction of the useless bull fits the idea of an army of volunteer Obama Youth or an expanded Americorps to a tee. Such Marxist-Communist ideology will never carry much appeal here in the land of liberty.
Note the story below about the decline of youth volunteerism since 9/11.
Like all Americans following the vicious and cold blooded murder of thousands of their innocent countrymen, young people were inspired to take action. Not because it was a requirement for graduation or because George Bush called for a youthful army to follow his lead. Not at all. It was simply a part of a larger movement by most everyone to do the right thing for the nation and for their neighbors. Nothing sinister or glorious about it. No need to organize and report. Kids weren't calling each other comrade or needing to wear uniforms. It came from a sense of unity and a feeling of loyalty to country.
But, as is always the case, time caused that to change.
Schools continue to force kids to do community service, but few of them do so of their own free will. It's required, so they do it. Sort of. Since it lacks any compelling self-motivation, it is not done very well and at that only for as long as required. Some may stay on for altruistic reasons, most abandon ship ASAP.
Liberal educrats and leftist politicians do not understand people. They like to decide what others must do and find a way to force them to do it, regardless of the outcomes. Thus young people are required to serve others in order to graduate high school or to enhance their chances for college admission. Kids don't get involved out of a sense of duty or a sense of giving. Because they feel pushed into it, they push back by simply meeting the minimum requirement and moving on. Liberals never figure that out that when humans feel pushed, we push back. Doing so is a part of our nature.
The Obama call for an army of young service volunteers has, to date, been met with nothing more than massive silence. So lefty Democrat pols in Congress push through legislation that will pay young people to serve others. That is otherwise known as a job, albeit a government job, and money will almost always get the attention of some. So much for the volunteering concept.
This government employment service program already exists in the form of Americorps. It has some success stories in various locations across the country. But like most all government programs, it is fraught with waste and subject to being used to gain no notable outcome other than a paycheck. Read about their faulty track record in an article titled, 'Rife With Bogus Idealism...'. It is another in what seems an endless line of failed leftist Utopian idealistic pap. Elitists always seem to be falling on their faces.
Living in a nation with a heritage of free market capitalism and personal liberty the American people, at the end of the day, are not going to be forced to do what others dictate. Americorps and an Obama youth corps will not succeed given their Utopian design. We are far more practical than that.
The common sense of our fellow citizens trumps leftist ideology every time. It will again.
Youth volunteering dips, first time since 9/11
By MARTHA IRVINE
CHICAGO (AP) - Volunteering has helped define a generation of young Americans who are known for their do-gooder ways. Many high schools require community service before graduation. And these days, donating time to a charitable organization is all but expected on a young person's college or job application.
Even so, an analysis of federal data has found that the percentage of teens who volunteer dipped in recent years, ending an upward trend that began after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"They're still volunteering at higher rates than their parents did," says Peter Levine, director of Tufts University's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, also known as CIRCLE.
But, he adds, there's been "a loss of momentum," which he hopes recent passage of the federal Serve America Act will help address.
CIRCLE researchers used data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey for their study, which was released Thursday and funded, in part, by the Corporation for National and Community Service. They found that one in three teens, age 16 to 18, volunteered in 2005, representing a peak in community service for all age groups since the survey began tracking volunteerism in 2002.
In 2006, however, that rate dropped to 29 percent and then to 28 percent in 2007, the most recent year for which data is available. Those are the lowest percentages for that age group since the data has been collected and just one percentage point higher than adults 25 and older each of those years.
Separate market research done for VolunteerMatch, an online site that links visitors with about 63,000 nonprofit groups, found a similar decline in queries from under-18 users.
But many agree that the reasons behind such numbers are more complicated than young people simply losing interest in giving back, especially in an era when so many worked without pay for the Obama campaign, while some who can't find jobs are volunteering to make use of their time and talents. Some nonprofit directors confirm that they've seen a surge in people seeking to volunteer since the recession hit.
"It's not just the incredible disappearing teen volunteer," says Robert Rosenthal of San Francisco-based VolunteerMatch.
CIRCLE researchers note a drop in funding in recent years for youth-oriented service programs such as AmeriCorps, which will receive new Serve America Act money next year.
Nonprofits have struggled, too.
Project Sunshine, an organization founded by a college student in 1998, has more than 10,000 volunteers who visit hospitalized children. More than half of those are 22 or younger, and hundreds more have asked about volunteering in recent months, says executive director Beatrice Kernan.
"We hate to turn down new interest, but we're in a position of having to put this new interest on hold," she says, citing recent staff layoffs.
The difficult job market has caused some young people to look at AmeriCorps and service-oriented Teach for America, which recruits educators for low-income urban and rural areas. But even those opportunities can be elusive.
"One of my best students got wait-listed for Teach for America - and I thought holy cow!" says Deborah Halperin, a volunteer coordinator at Illinois Wesleyan University.
Other students, she says, are trying to finish college early to find jobs or setting aside volunteer aspirations to work part time while still in school.
Diallo Burke, an 18-year-old college freshman from College Park, Ga., did the latter in high school.
He was a volunteer math tutor in seventh grade. "But my volunteer hours and participation started to drop in high school, and my main reason for this was money," says Burke, who cut way back on volunteering to work at McDonald's.
Now a prelaw major at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Massachusetts, he's finally volunteering again, this time at a local community center. "It feels good," he says.
The CIRCLE study found wide differences in youth volunteering rates, state to state.
Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, Utah and Washington were among those with the highest percentages of 16- to 18-year-olds (all above 40 percent, when combining the 2006 and 2007 samples).
Meanwhile, Nevada, Georgia, New Mexico, New York and South Carolina ranked among the lowest, with Nevada at about 14 percent and the others in the 20 percent range.
Increasing those rates would require more volunteer opportunities for lower-income teens, says Romero Brown, vice president of program and youth development services for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, which is expanding its volunteer initiatives.
"They want to give back, but they often don't know how," Brown says.
For others, community service is a chore, says 16-year-old Ashley Hawkins, who volunteers in the rehab unit at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital in Baltimore.
"Honestly, I think a lot of people my age feel like they have to do service hours. They're like 'Why do I have to do this?'" she says.
"But it really can be a life-changing experience."
Martha Irvine is an AP national writer.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
PRESIDENT PANDERS FOR PERSONAL POPULARITY
Clearly, the President is a man who wants to be liked. It helps that he is a likable fellow but the fact is he tries much too hard to curry favor. What he earns for himself in return is scorn and abuse.
The accompanying article addresses his, to date, international apology tours. What is that all about? Reaching out to our enemies by apologizing? How is that supposed to convince them to be our friends? It cannot and it will not. Any kid who has had to deal with a bully knows that.
Our allies look on in stunned amazement that the POTUS is spending his valuable time apologizing for American history. Most of those same allies have a great appreciation for that history although most certainly they do not consider us perfect. In the process of this foolishness, it is notable to observe that none of those same allies have leaders who make any effort to apologize for the less appealing parts of their nation's past. They all could, but none of them need to and none of them are that insecure or ill informed.
Why does Obama apologize? It does nothing positive for the United States and a case could be made that it does damage and leaves an impression of weakness and vulnerability. We all know how bullies react to that.
Could it be that the President craves the attention and perceived admiration that apologies are supposed to engender? One wonders. The sad part of that is he may get some attention but it does not bring admiration. Instead it creates doubt, especially about a man who is supposed to be the leader of the free world.
Pandering to international thugs like Hugo Chavez, punks like the Castro brothers, tyrants like Putin and other American "haters" changes nothing. To them, Obama appears to be a chump. He doesn't gain status, he loses credibility. He comes across as weak and ineffective. Thus he encourages bad actors while believing he is building bridges. These bad actors laugh at him.
Like almost all lefties, the President does not understand human nature. He needs to get out more, away from the elitist enclaves of the Ivy League and the rarefied "intellectual" atmosphere of the far left Utopians. Obama lacks common sense, let alone the common touch.
He is a man of the left, not a man of the people. He is not a leader, he is a faithful follower of leftist doctrine. He advocates the thoughts of others, all the while reaching out to be liked.
Pandering for popularity is not leading. It is failing.
Obama Blames America
Demonizing Harry Truman may not play well with voters.
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
The president of the United States has completed another outing abroad in his now standard form: as the un-Bush. At one stop after another -- the latest in Latin America, where Hugo Chávez expressed wishes to be his friend -- Barack Obama fulfilled his campaign vows to show the nations of the world that a new American leadership stood ready to atone for the transgressions of the old.
AP
The president departs for Europe, March 31.
All went as expected in these travels, not counting certain unforeseen results of that triumphal European tour. The images of that trip, in which Mr. Obama dazzled ecstatic Europeans with citations of the offenses against international goodwill and humanity committed by the nation he leads, are now firmly imprinted on the minds of Americans. That this is so, and that it is not good news for him, is truth of a kind not quite fathomable to this president and his men.
Now, on the heels of those travels, comes his release of the guidelines known as "torture memos" -- a decision designed to emphasize, again, the superior ethical and moral leadership the world can expect from this administration as compared with that of presidencies past. This exercise in comparisons is one of which Mr. Obama may well never tire.
The memos' publication had its consequences, most of them intentional. First, declaring his intention to have a forward-looking administration, the president had, to his credit, announced that there would be no trials of CIA personnel involved in the interrogations of terrorists.
Then came the memos. With his decision to release them, Mr. Obama guaranteed an instant explosion of outrage of a kind that could never have happened otherwise, notwithstanding his claim that most of the contents were already public. The results of the president's decision were predictable. Each day now brings, in the usual media quarters, fevered exhortations calling for the trials and punishment of Bush administration officials.
This decision may also have unintended consequences, none more interesting perhaps than the effects of the nonstop repetition of the president's rationale for this act. We could begin to see the possibilities clearly on Sunday, when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel appeared on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," where he confronted questions about the memo decision.
Turning aside the quest for answers to knotty questions -- including several on the point that most of what we now know about al Qaeda had been gleaned precisely from these enhanced interrogations -- Mr. Emanuel indicated that the Obama administration was guided by higher concerns. He proceeded patiently, to explain. By revealing the memos, with their detailed information on those interrogation techniques (now banned), we had elevated our moral status in the eyes of the world. More important, we had improved our standing in the eyes of potential terrorists. This would undermine al Qaeda, Mr. Emanuel explained, because those interrogations of ours helped to enlist terrorists to their cause. All of which was why the publication of the memos -- news of which would presumably touch the hearts of militants around the world -- would make America safer.
There is always danger in repeating propositions like this often, among them the likelihood that their irrationality will begin to make itself clear to anyone hearing it over time.
Any number of people listening to Mr. Emanuel -- those acquainted with terror's recent history, at any rate -- would have recalled, instantly, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the attack on the USS Cole, and the rest of the unending chain of terror assaults mounted against Americans long before anyone had ever heard of enhanced interrogation techniques.
In his appearance before employees of the CIA Monday -- part inspirational, part pep rally -- Mr. Obama held forth on the need to improve our image in the world, and on how in adhering to this great nation's principles of justice and right we could only be made safer. He was here to assure the employees of the CIA of his support, to explain, again, the release of those memos. And to describe, as he did, with some eloquence, how great and exceptional a democracy we were.
That no such estimation of the United States managed to infiltrate the content or tone of the president's remarks during his European tour -- nary a hint -- we know, and it is not surprising. He had gone to Europe not as the voice of his nation, but as a missionary with a message of atonement for its errors. Which were, as he perceived them -- arrogance, dismissiveness, Guantanamo, deficiencies in its attitudes toward the Muslim world, and the presidency of Harry Truman and his decision to drop the atomic bomb, which ended World War II.
No sitting American president had ever delivered indictments of this kind while abroad, or for that matter at home, or been so ostentatiously modest about the character and accomplishment of the nation he led. He was mediator, an agent of change, a judge, apportioning blame -- and he was above the battle.
None of this display during Mr. Obama's recent travels could have come as a surprise to legions of his supporters, nor would many of them be daunted by their new president's preoccupation with our moral failures. Five decades of teaching in colleges and universities across the land, portraying the U.S. as a power mainly responsible for injustice and evil, whose military might was ever a danger to the world -- a nation built on the fruits of greed, rapacity and racism -- have had their effect. The products of this education find nothing strange in a president quick to focus on the theme of American moral failure. He may not share many of their views, but there is, nonetheless, much that they find familiar about him.
The same can't be said for the large numbers of Americans who caught up with the details of the president's apology tour. Presidents have been transformed by office, and Mr. Obama may yet be one of them. But on the evidence so far, he has, as few presidents before him, much to transform. Or, at least, to understand.
Since that bridge too far to Europe, ordinary Americans, including some who voted for Mr. Obama, have shown evidence of a quiet but durable resentment over the list of grievances against the United States that the president brought to the world's attention while overseas. There are certain things that can't be taken back. There are images that are hard to forget. Anger of this kind has an enduring power that could, in the end, haunt this presidency.
Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
IRAN & NAZI GERMANY: ONE IN THE SAME
Just as the National Socialists seized control of Germany in the 1930's, so have the extreme Islamic Fascists grabbed power in today's Iran. The difference is in name and religion only. Substantively they seek similar outcomes.Israeli minister compares Iran to Nazis
Iran is trying to replicate Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jewish people, Israeli deputy prime minister Silvan Shalom said Tuesday ahead of a Holocaust ceremony at a former death camp.
"What Iran is trying to do right now is not far away at all from what Hitler did to the Jewish people just 65 years ago," Shalom told reporters before a ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.
Shalom spoke one day after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map and described the Holocaust as a "myth", verbally attacked Israel at a UN anti-racism conference in Geneva.
"Yesterday in Geneva and today here in Auschwitz are showing us unfortunately... the world still has to fight back against those enemies of peace, those enemies of living one with the other," said Shalom.
Ahmadinejad's speech, in which he called Israel "the most cruel and racist regime," sparked a walkout by European Union delegates at the anti-racism conference, which was already boycotted by the United States and Israel.
Shalom also called for US President Barack Obama to impose a deadline on Iran over its nuclear programme, which Israel and Western powers fear is aimed at building an atomic bomb. Tehran insists its aims are peaceful.
"I think that if the American administration -- and first and foremost President Obama -- is willing to open dialogue with Iran, I think it should be with a deadline and not dialogue that can last for years that will only enable them to end the programme and to have a nuclear bomb," he said.
"Israel can never live with the idea that Iran will hold a nuclear bomb because we have heard what the president of Iran and other leaders there have said: that Israel has no right to exist and that Israel should be wiped off the map and that they will do everything to destroy Israel," he added.
Shalom was speaking ahead of the annual March of the Living, which commemorates the more than one million Jews who perished at the camp in German-occupied Poland during World War II.
Copyright AFP 2008
Monday, April 20, 2009
TEAM OBAMA: ROCK STARS ARE NOT LEADERS
In the accompanying article, team Obama advisor David Axlerod calls the recent Tea Party activities across America "unhealthy".
English translation: team Obama should head immediately to their underground bunker. The American people are not as gullible as they had hoped.
Apparently Obama et al never understood the everyday practical meaning of the quote, "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time". The fact is, ever growing numbers of voters are no longer being mesmerized by the cool, hip, smart, well spoken, post-racial, theoretically post-partisan Barack Obama.
One thing team Obama has repeatedly illustrated in their very short time in office is their proclivity to cover their backsides (CYA) when public reaction catches them off guard. Given their level of governing experience and leadership expertise, that happens regularly.
It appears that Obama and his minions have come to believe their own hype, the fainting and swooning of the campaign season, the international adulation for the anti-Bush and the huge crowds, especially at the inauguration, as signs of unfettered support from devoted fans. They do indeed think of themselves as rock stars.
But rock stars are never asked or expected to govern and when team Obama acts like celebrities rather than leaders, the reaction on the part of the public has not been and will not be pleasant. The respectful dissent expressed across the nation on April 15th was proof positive, once again, that America is the home of the free and the brave. Not everyone is fooled.
Fact is, the only "unhealthy" aspect of that tax protest day was the reaction by team Obama and their obamedia lackeys like CNN. Civil dissent is an important American right and practice. It is a hallmark of a free people. Team Obama can expect to see much more should they stay on the same track they have pursued to date.
For Axlerod and his fellow hacks, protest and dissent is hazardous to their political health and well being.
His "unhealthy" comment was really more of a Freudian slip than a statement with application to others.
Axelrod suggests 'Tea Party' movement is 'unhealthy'
From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby
WASHINGTON (CNN) – Senior White House adviser David Axelrod on Sunday suggested the "Tea Party" movement is an "unhealthy" reaction to the tough economic climate facing the country.
Axelrod was asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" about the "spreading and very public disaffection" with the president's fiscal policies seen at the "Tea Party" rallies around the country last week.
"I think any time you have severe economic conditions there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that's unhealthy," Axelrod said.
Axelrod appeared to backtrack when pressed on whether the movement is unhealthy.
"Well, this is a country where we value our liberties and our ability to express ourselves, and so far these are expressions," he said.
"The thing that bewilders me is that this president just cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people," Axelrod argued. "I think the tea bags should be directed elsewhere because he certainly understands the burden that people face."
Democratic strategist James Carville disagreed with Axelrod on CNN's "State of the Union" when John King asked him if it's unhealthy for "an American to go out and hold a sign and say 'I think my taxes are too high.'"
Carville said, "No." He called the Tea Party movement "harmless and damaging to Republicans."
On CBS, Axelrod also responded to Texas Gov. Rick Perry's recent insinuation that his state could secede from the union in response to government overreach under President Obama.
"I don't think that really warrants a serious response," Axelrod said. "I don't think most Texans were all that enthused by the governor's suggestion."
Sunday, April 19, 2009
OBAMA'S LOOSE LIPS SINK MORE THAN SHIPS
Relative to President Obama releasing Bush administration memos about enemy interrogation, the following article asks the key question about Obama. Namely, "What was he thinking?".
The clear and obvious answer is Obama lacks the judgment, the common sense and the courage to do the right thing for the security of the nation and the safety of our fighting forces. The President is driven by a far leftist agenda on certain matters, making the claim of agonizing over a "weighty" decision nothing more than a pile of bovine scatology.
Obama is cutting back the military budget. He is moving detainee trials out from under the jurisdiction of military tribunals and putting them into the federal court system. He has ordered the closing of the Gitmo detention center. All this done during a time of war when American troops are in harm's way around the globe, protecting our national interests. This is pure leftist anti-military doctrine driven ideology.
The President is not exercising even a modicum of considered judgment. As the article points out, it would take any other former Commander In Chief about four minutes to decide not to release national secrets during a war. Not even James Earl Carter would do that. The well known and rather important phrase from WWII was, "Loose lips sink ships". Of all people, the POTUS should never be the one with the "loose lips".
The basic rule of thumb is simple: do not give away sensitive security information to your enemy that can be used to gain an advantage against you. For a President to be doing so is simply a matter of political doctrine, not the national interest.
This very dangerous decision will rank historically among the most foolish and maximally damaging ever taken by a wartime leader, of any nation.
It is wrong and Barack Obama must be held accountable for his action in this matter. Those of the far left are mostly anarchists and it is actions like this one that expose the United States and her people to the forces of destruction.
Doctrine is not a valid basis for determining national security. The President has failed to do the right thing.
Inexcusable Lapse
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
War On Terror: Imagine a president of the United States, within his first hundred days, revealing secrets that help terrorists kill. The secret memos on enhanced interrogation, now made public, do exactly that. Read More: Global War On Terror
We are told by President Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod that the president agonized for four weeks over the "weighty decision" to make public memoranda detailing the specifics of the CIA's tough interrogation of high-value terrorist detainees such as 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.
For most other presidents, it would have taken maybe four minutes, required little soul-searching and resulted in the opposite choice.
What on earth could the president have been thinking in revealing the nuts and bolts of how we extract information from al-Qaida operatives to prevent the success of their terrorist operations?
What could have possessed him to make public the steps our interrogators go through, the limits of pain and discomfort they (but not the prisoners) know they will not exceed, and the analytical classification and specific purpose of each of the various techniques?
These top secrets will arm Islamist jihadists with knowledge that will be invaluable to them. Future terrorist detainees will now know, for instance, that their interrogations are under continual video surveillance to make sure no lasting medical or psychological consequences result from the techniques used. Will they now teach themselves to fake such ill effects?
Terrorists will know that when they are placed in a tiny container in "cramped confinement" it will last only "up to two hours," as a declassified memo from the Justice Department to the CIA noted. They will know that "stress positions" are used "only to induce temporary muscle fatigue" not "severe physical pain."
They will now know that when subjected to "water dousing" they need not have the slightest fear of hypothermia, because every precaution is taken to keep the temperature of both the room and the water itself far above freezing.
They will know sleep deprivation inflicted by the interrogators seldom exceeds 96 hours, and they'll know the specifics and purposes behind the relatively mild technique of "dietary manipulation."
What the president has given to our enemies is a treasure chest of defensive weapons. Within the caves of the mountainous Pakistan/Afghanistan border, Islamofascist plotters must wonder how self-destructively corrupt their American adversaries have to be to allow such materials to land in their hands.
The piece of information that may be of most value to terrorists is the government's assessment that waterboarding was "the most traumatic of the enhanced interrogation techniques" and implicitly the most effective.
Terrorist groups around the world will now know that waterboarding was "authorized for, at most, one 30-day period, during which the technique can actually be applied on no more than five days" with "no more than two sessions in any 24-hour period."
Each session lasted no more than two hours, consisting of, at most, six applications of water for 10 seconds each time, for a total of no longer than 12 minutes per each 24-hour period. Presumably the issue is academic since the Obama administration has officially prohibited waterboarding.
There is no more valuable tool for subjects of interrogation than to know what they will be subjected to. How in good conscience could our president have given this gift to those trying to destroy us?
Saturday, April 18, 2009
LIBERALS HAVE NO COMMON SENSE
The article below speaks directly to one of the most important characteristics of the mind of political liberals. Simply put, they have no ability to comprehend human nature.
This instance is an obvious illustration. Anyone with a modicum of common sense understands that the more people are taxed, the less money those same people will want to pay in taxes. Thus when sales taxes are increased, people spend less money on goods and services that are subject to said sales tax.
It seems ever so simple but liberals cannot seem to get their arms around that reality. It has always been that way, it will always be that way. People will choose to spend less on taxable items, pure and simple. They will buy less. They will barter more. They will shop at tax free Internet sites or in places where there is no sales tax. They will make purchases in the black market where taxes are not collected. Human beings will always find alternatives when something they do not want or like is imposed upon them. We are nothing if not very creative.
When taxes are lower, people and business spend more and, in the case of a business, make more. The consequence of lower taxation is increased and often record setting revenues to government via taxes. The less people are taxed, the more they spend. The more they spend, the greater the income to government. We've seen that prior to the current recession. In a lower tax environment, government revenues soared to levels never seen before just in this decade.
Now that will all go away. Why? Simple. Liberals cannot comprehend the simple and obvious relationship between the cause and the effect of tax increases.
This is not rocket science, brain surgery or, as one liberal interviewed on the radio said, rocket surgery.
Here is the secret formula. Lower taxes drives up government revenues. High taxes drives down government revenues. Read the facts in the article.
Class dismissed.
Sales-Tax Revenue Falls at Fastest Pace in Years
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
State and local sales-tax revenue fell more sharply in the fourth quarter of 2008 than at any time in the past half century, and has continued to erode through the beginning of 2009, according to a report released Tuesday.
The report by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York underscores how swiftly the consumer slowdown has eaten into municipal budgets. The drop in tax revenue has forced cities and towns of all sizes to cut everything from police to summer pool hours, and has sent legislatures scrambling for federal economic-stimulus funds to help ease budget gaps.
"The sales tax has been absolutely hammered," said Don Boyd, senior fellow at the institute.
State and local sales taxes, among the largest sources of revenue for municipalities, fell 6.1% in the fourth quarter of last year, as consumers bought fewer clothes, ate out less and canceled vacations. Revenue from personal income taxes was down 1.1% in the fourth quarter; corporate income taxes dropped 15.5%, reflecting weaker profits.
The declines have continued through the beginning of this year. In the first two months of 2009, the 41 states that have reported tax revenue saw total receipts decline 12.8%, versus the same period a year ago.
States have so far been hit harder than towns and cities. Overall, states' taxes declined 4% in the final three months of 2008 versus the same period in 2007, the first decline in six years, according to the analysis of state data by the Rockefeller Institute. Local tax collections rose 3.2%, as gains in property taxes offset falling sales taxes.
While income and property taxes have generally fared better than sales taxes, those revenues are also under stress. Property taxes typically lag behind real-estate prices, because it takes municipalities a year or longer to reassess the home values on which those levies are calculated. With home prices still falling, property taxes are also set to grow more slowly or in some cases decrease.
Carnage in the stock market also is likely to substantially reduce income-tax collections. With tax day on Wednesday, this is the time of year when high-income earners start writing checks to cover capital gains and other investment-based income taxes that have accrued over the past year. "This time around, the checks will be much smaller, and some [people] may be seeking refunds," Mr. Boyd said.
Further declines in tax revenue could force legislatures -- which in many cases used heavy cuts to balance this year's budget -- to make further reductions later this year.
Write to Conor Dougherty at conor.dougherty@wsj.comPrinted in The Wall Street Journal, page A4
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
My StumbleUpon Page
