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Commentary

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'Largest Massacre of Christians in Syria' Ignored

One of the worst Christian massacres—complete with mass graves, tortured-to-death women and children, and destroyed churches—recently took place in Syria, at the hands of the U.S.-supported jihadi "rebels"; and the U.S. government and its "mainstream media" mouthpiece are, as usual, silent (that is, when not actively trying to minimize matters).

The massacre took place in Sadad, an ancient Syriac Orthodox Christian habitation, so old as to be mentioned in the Old Testament. Most of the region's inhabitants are poor, as Sadad is situated in the remote desert between Homs and Damascus (desert regions, till now, apparently the only places Syria's Christians could feel secure; 600 Christian families had earlier fled there for sanctuary from the jihad, only to be followed by it).

In late October, the U.S-supported "opposition" invaded and occupied Sadad for over a week, till ousted by the nation's military. Among other atrocities, 45 Christians—including women and children—were killed, several tortured to death; Sadat's 14 churches, some ancient, were ransacked and destroyed; the bodies of six people from one family, ranging from ages 16 to 90, were found at the bottom of a well (an increasingly common fate for "subhuman" Christians).

The jihadis even made a graphic video (with English subtitles) of those whom they massacred, while shouting Islam's victory-cry, "Allahu Akbar" (which John McCain equates to a Christian saying "thank God"). Another video, made after Sadad was liberated shows more graphic atrocities.

Here are the words of Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama (another detailed account, with pictures, appears here):

What happened in Sadad is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two years and a half… 45 innocent civilians were martyred for no reason, and among them several women and children, many thrown into mass graves. Other civilians were threatened and terrorized. 30 were wounded and 10 are still missing. For one week, 1,500 families were held as hostages and human shields. Among them children, the elderly, the young, men and women…. All the houses of Sadad were robbed and property looted. The churches are damaged and desecrated, deprived of old books and precious furniture… What happened in Sadad is the largest massacre of Christians in Syria and the second in the Middle East, after the one in the Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Iraq, in 2010.

In the Iraqi attack of 2010, al-Qaeda linked jihadis stormed the church during service killing some 60 Christian worshippers (see here for graphic images of the aftermath).

While the archbishop is correct that this is the "largest massacre of Christians in Syria," it is but the tip of the iceberg of the persecution the nation's Christian minority has suffered—including beheadings, church bombings, kidnappings, rapes, and dislocation of hundreds of thousands of Christians—since the war broke out (see Syria entries in monthly persecution series).

A month before Sadad, another ancient Christian region, Ma'loula, one of the world's very few regions that still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus, was besieged by the jihadis, its churches bombarded and plundered, its inhabitants forced to convert to Islam or die. The last words of one man who refused were: "I am a Christian, and if you want to kill me for this, I do not object to it."

The archbishop concluded his statement concerning Sadad by asking: "We have shouted aid to the world but no one has listened to us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where is human consciousness? Where are my brothers? I think of all those who are suffering today in mourning and discomfort: We ask everyone to pray for us."

Serge Trifkovic—who hails from a European region especially acquainted with Islamic jihad—responds to the archbishop as follows:

That no "human consciousness" is to be found in the White House, or in the editorial offices of the leading Western media, is now a matter of well-established record. Just try searching for "Sadad" (or alternatively "Saddad") on the websites of the Department of State or The New York Times. Ditto the leading European dailies, the CNN/BBC/RTF, the human-rights defending "NGOs" et al.

The problem, of which Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh appears unaware, is no longer in the Western elite's mere indifference to the impending demise of Christianity in the lands of its birth, but in its active, ongoing, and open contribution to that demise. Cyprus (1974) and the Balkans (1991-9) provided the test, Iraq (2003-today) the conclusive proof. In Syria the Obama administration remains committed to supporting the rebels—ah, yes, only the "moderate" ones, like the Christian-murdering "Free Syrian Army" (discretion advised again), not "even though" the result will be the same, but precisely because it will be.

In one of the Arabic videos documenting the aftermath of the Sadad massacre, as the mutilated bodies of one family are drawn from a well (around :30 second mark), a middle-aged male relative, in tears, says:

The most precious in the whole universe [his family], are now gone, leaving me alone, but thank God I am still surrounded by these loving people who remain. I want to say, let people [the jihadis] return to their minds. The problems of the world can only be solved by knowledge and brains. Enough insanity, the nerves of the people are shredded. Enough, enough—return to your minds; you people, you humans—return to your humanity, enough crimes.

As a sign of the times, here is a Syrian, an "easterner," evoking rationalism and humanity, products of the Christian West, at a time when the post-Christian West is governed by anything and everything—propaganda, emotionalism, mindless indoctrination—but the twain.

SOURCE

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A lot of People Won't Be Able to Keep Their Doctors Either

Senate Democrats' historic power-grab may have consumed the Beltway news cycle today, but out in the real world, the Obamacare reckoning continues. The Washington Post addresses the "access shock" issue that millions of Americans will begin confronting in 2014, with millions more waiting in the wings.

 As Americans have begun shopping for health plans on the insurance exchanges, they are discovering that insurers are restricting their choice of doctors and hospitals in order to keep costs low, and that many of the plans exclude top-rated hospitals. The Obama administration made it a priority to keep down the cost of insurance on the exchanges, the online marketplaces that are central to the Affordable Care Act. But one way that insurers have been able to offer lower rates is by creating networks that are far smaller than what most Americans are accustomed to. The decisions have provoked a backlash...The result, some argue, is a two-tiered system of health care: Many of the people who buy health plans on the exchanges have fewer hospitals and doctors to choose from than those with coverage through their employers. A number of the nation’s top hospitals — including the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, and children’s hospitals in Seattle, Houston and St. Louis — are cut out of most plans sold on the exchange.

The Obamacare exchanges don't include a function that allows consumers to check whether their doctors and hospitals of choice are covered under their new plans, so many of the unpleasant dropped-doctor discoveries will happen on the fly. "What do you mean I can't keep my doctor? I need her. Now". The harsh reality is that many doctors are taking a looking at their new, significantly lower reimbursement rates under Obamacare, and are heading for the exits. As mentioned above, this trend is fueling concerns that the president's healthcare law is creating a new underclass of Americans. These people may be "insured," but in many cases, their options for care will be severely limited -- an outcome that the White House might describe as "junk" or "substandard" coverage. As for the White House's "priority" of keeping rates low, how's that going?

 Many Americans browsing the Obamacare exchanges are finding the Affordable Care Act isn't living up to its name. It's not just premiums that are bringing up the costs. Consumers are finding high deductibles, co-payments and other expenses that make the Obamacare policies seem more like catastrophic plans than comprehensive insurance. Those picking a bronze plan, which carry the lowest monthly rates, may have to spend $5,000 or more before the insurance kicks in. The next highest level of coverage, the silver tier, can carry $2,000 deductibles. And once they hit their deductibles, policy holders still have to pay for doctor visits, lab tests and medication.

"All we ever heard about Obamacare is that it would lower our deductibles and premiums," said Jennifer Slafter, 40 of Mabel, Minn. "That's just not what's happened." Slafter and her husband, Steve, are scrambling to find affordable care for themselves and their two children. The exchange's Blue Cross Blue Shield plan was $1,087 a month with a $6,000 deductible, while a Medica plan was $877 a month with a $12,700 deductible. Both are steeper than their current plan. "Everything got higher," said Slafter, who is still waiting to hear whether they qualify for a premium subsidy. But even if they do, she said she'd still find it very tough to meet the deductibles.

These stories are ubiquitous. Here's one Florida family whose previous plan ($408 monthly premiums, $5,000 deductible) has been dropped and replaced with coverage that costs $671 per month in premiums with an eye-popping $12,500 deductible:

But the experience of Washington State resident Charlene Hopkins represents a different variety of human tragedy. Obamacare has robbed this self-sufficient, conscientious woman of her dignity by effectively forcing her to enroll in a state-run Medicaid program:

 Since she couldn't afford the new plan offered by her insurer, she told me she was eager to explore her new choices under the Affordable Care Act. Washington Healthplanfinder is one of the better health-exchange sites, and she was actually able to log on. She entered her personal and financial data. With efficiency uncommon to the ObamaCare process, the site quickly presented her with a health-care option. That is not a typo: There was just one option—at the very affordable monthly rate of zero. The exchange had determined that my mother was not eligible to choose to pay for a plan, and so she was slated immediately for Medicaid. She couldn't believe it was true and held off completing the application. "How has it come to this?" she asked in one of our several talks over the past few weeks about what was happening. When she was a working mother and I was young, she easily carried health insurance for our whole family. "How have I fallen this far?"

Leftists cannot understand how this is bad news. Hey, she's getting free insurance! She should stop whining. This attitude clearly ignores the empirical failure of Medicaid and the terrible coverage it offers (this applies to other programs as well), and it fails to grasp how being shoved onto the dole is a scarring and humiliating experience for many people. Read the whole piece. It's deeply sad, but it should remind conservatives why the struggle against statism is worth the frustration and effort.

SOURCE

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Obama loses Time magazine

Now that the Big Lie has been exposed for everyone to see, it’s going to take some time for it to sufficiently sink in. I imagine most low-information voters who don’t follow politics regularly -- the obvious exception being people who’ve already been negatively impacted by the Affordable Care Act -- aren’t too familiar with the president’s now-broken “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan” pledge. That will all change soon enough.

Now, of course, when Americans head to the grocery store -- or perhaps to their local pharmacy -- this cover will be staring them blankly in the face as they wait in the check-out line. Oof:



SOURCE

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A small revival

Over 90% of what appears on my blogs are words written by others that I find some merit in.  But I also write a great deal myself.  And I have been writing for a long time.  So sometimes when I want to refer back to something in my previous writings, I can't find it.  I have written too much to keep mental track of when and where I wrote it.

So in such circumstances I use good old Google to find my own writings.  I add the term "John Ray" to a subject search and I can usually find what I want.

An odd thing I notice however is that my discontinued blog "A Western Heart" seems to be in some way preferred by Google.  Quite often I have put up a post in more than one place and when that is so the post on Western Heart is the one that comes up first  -- with the other sites not mentioned at all or being given way down in the list.

I don't know why that is but I think I should take advantage of it.  So posts that I would not like to get "lost" I am going to put up on Western Heart  occasionally -- JR.

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Tell Me Their Names?

By Rich Kozlovich

Fox News has been running features on a growing problem in the black community called “knockout”.  According to black youths its 'just a game’.  Interesting game!  They pick out a person who is alone or seeming incapable of standing against a young violent thug…or thugs….and beat them senseless.

The goal is to do it with one punch, but often times they just beat them to death.  Men or women, it doesn’t matter, just so long as they are white.

 These punks are nothing but cowardly curs, but they’re all black cowardly curs, so the mainstream media says nothing.  Big mouths like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP leadership, and all the trash talking Hollywood crowd who just thought it was terrible that a thug like Trayvon Martin (whom idiots like Richard Dreyfus started calling ‘a child’) was killed are saying nothing.

They are just as silent now as they were when that 13 month old baby was murdered by two black ‘children’ aged 17 and 14.  Apparently black ‘children’ really are that dangerous.

By the way - without looking it up - what was that 13 month old child’s name?  You don’t know it do you?  You know Trayvon Martin’s name, why don’t you know that child’s name? Martin was a criminal and a thug, but you all know his name, and it was presented in such a way to generate sympathy for him.

That 13 month old baby really was innocent.  He never did one bit of harm to anyone.  He wasn’t a criminal, he wasn’t a thug, but most importantly, he was a white baby deliberately murdered by black ‘children’, so little was made of it by the media.  If it wasn’t for the internet no one would know about this tragedy.  For those who disagree with me, tell me, please – what was that poor child’s name?

Recently an article appeared, entitled, Three “Knockout” Attacks Reported In Philadelphia Area,  saying;  “knockout” attacks have been reported in several states around the country and now investigators believe three people have been attacked in our area. Police in Lower Merion are investigating two attacks in the area, and Philadelphia detectives are investigating an attack in Northeast Philadelphia. It’s a violent crime that in other parts of the country has proven fatal.”

This article demonstrates the pattern of cowardice displayed by these cowardly black youths.  One victim said; “Someone asked me for a cigarette and by the time I got my hands out my pocket I was getting hit by four kids.” He says, “It was hard seeing and I’m still having trouble breathing and swallowing.”

“On October 29th, two black ‘children’ beat “a 63-year-old man who was walking his dog.” “He punched him right in the mouth and knocked him to the ground.”

In another case “an elderly man was also attacked when he was mowing his lawn outside of his home.”  The victim said some “‘kid’ came up to him and just punching him in the mouth.  He ended up laying the street with his lawnmower.” It turns out this ’kid’ “did it on a dare. He said give me five dollars and I’ll knock that guy out.”  This elderly man “is now using a cane and a walker to get around. He has had to undergo multiple medical procedures”, and Jesse and his mob, which includes the main stream media, remain silent.

By the way, what was that old man’s name?

There was a recent article in FrontPage.com entitled, EricHolder, Hate Crimes and Double Standards, by Colin Flaherty, where-in he highlights this national violent out of control racism by blacks against whites, and in some cases against homosexuals.

1.       In Brooklyn ten black people surrounded a car, then beat the two white occupants, a husband and wife. They even called them racial names, as in “Get those crackers” and “get that white whore.” All in front of witnesses in the middle of the day.  The Brooklyn DA says he will not file hate crime charges.

2.      In New Haven, a few days before that, 500 black people attending a party called “An All Black Affair,” destroyed property and rioted in a downtown restaurant. Then outside. Then in two more restaurants. Not only are there no hate crime charges, New Haven police did not arrest anyone for anything during these rampages.  Race was the central organizing feature of the party — and the riot.

3.      A few days before that in St. Paul, a car full of black people robbed and assaulted a white woman. They called her a “white bitch” while holding her down so one of the assailants could urinate on her.

4.      A few days before that in Tacoma, a car full of black people shouted racial expletives at two white soldiers. Soon one soldier was dead from a knife. No hate crime charges have been filed.

5.      A few days before that in Pittsburgh, a group of black people pulled a white woman from her car, and while beating her, yelled “Shut up white [expletive].” The other said, “Get that white [expletive].”

6.      In Iowa – yes Iowa — hordes of black people beat white people in and out of the Iowa State Fair for three nights in a row in 2011. A police report says some of the people involved were chanting “Beat Whitey Night.” It only takes a few magic words to turn a vicious assault into a federal hate crime. And that seems to fit the bill.

Hate crimes?  Really?  Then why aren't we seeing the Justice Department going after these people under hate crime laws?  Holder is still trying to figure out some way to put Zimmerman in jail, so what's different here?   These thugs are black; Holder is a vile racist; and the members of the main stream media have sunken to the level of 'sewer trout', except that is an insult to sewers.

By the way.  What were all of these people’s names?

Thomas Sowell, on October 24, 2013, wrote an article entitled “Early Skirmishes in a Race War” noting that : “officials and media aren’t being honest about the violence.”  He first outlines the problem and what is going on and then ends the article with these paragraphs.

“books are emerging that are more clearly a white backlash, in the sense that they attack behavior patterns among contemporary blacks in general.  Perhaps the most clearly “backlash” books are those written by Paul Kersey, whose central theme is that whites have created thriving cities, which blacks subsequently took over and ruined. Examples include his books about Birmingham (The Tragic City) and Detroit (Escape from Detroit).”

“Kersey even takes a swing at Rush Limbaugh (and at yours truly) for saying that liberal policies destroyed these cities. He says that San Francisco and other cities with liberal policies, but without black demographic and political takeovers, have not been ruined. His books are poorly written, but they raise tough questions.”

“It would be easy to simply dismiss Kersey as a racist. But denouncing him or ignoring him is not refuting him. Refuting requires thought, which has largely been replaced by fashionable buzzwords and catchphrases when it comes to discussions of race.”
“Thought is long overdue. So is honesty.”

One more thing!  That 13 month old child’s name was Antonio Santiago.



 SOURCE

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"Knockout Game" Player Shot By Concealed Carry Permittee

Townhall reported on the "knockout" game last week, and now one participant is learning that trying to knock random people unconscious with a single punch could have dangerous consequences.

Marvell Weaver, a 17 year old from Michigan, attempted to "knock out" a man at a Lansing bus stop. Unbeknownst to Weaver, the man was a legal concealed carry permittee and was carrying a gun at the time.

After approaching the man and "shoving something" into his side, Weaver was shot twice and survived. He has been sentenced to a year in jail.

SOURCE

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APPLY HERE FOR OBAMACARE IF YOU CAN

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p.s. Let me know if you make it.

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Second wave of health plan cancellations looms

It's both pleasing and amusing that the Donks have tied this stupid thing around their own necks

A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall -- right before the mid-term elections.

The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader.

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.

"The impact I'm mostly worried about is on small young, entrepreneurial firms that will suddenly face much higher health insurance premiums if they want to offer health insurance to their employees," said AEI resident scholar Stan Veuger. "I think for a lot of other businesses ... they can just send their employees to the exchanges or offer them a fixed subsidy every month to buy health insurance themselves."

Under the health care law, businesses with fewer than 50 workers do not have to provide health coverage. But if they do, the policies will still have to meet the benefit standards set by ObamaCare.

As reported by AEI's Scott Gottlieb, some businesses got around this by renewing their policies before the end of 2013. But the relief is temporary, and they are expected to have to offer in-compliance plans for 2015. According to Gottlieb, that means beginning in October 2014 the cancellation notices will start to go out.

Then, businesses will have to either find a new plan -- which could be considerably more expensive -- or send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges.

For workers, their experience could mirror that of the 5 million or so on the individual market who already received cancellation notices because their plans did not meet new standards under the Affordable Care Act.

President Obama announced last week that insurance companies could offer out-of-compliance plans for another year. But that only means the cancellation notices will resume late next year.

Obama met Wednesday with state insurance commissioners about the change. In a statement afterward, National Association of Insurance Commissioners President Jim Donelon voiced concern with the change but said: “We will work with the insurance companies in our states to implement changes that make sense while following our mandate of consumer protection.”

The business community has already been hit with another side effect from ObamaCare. Because the law will require businesses with more than 50 full-time workers to offer health coverage, there are reports that companies are shifting employees to part-time status to avoid hitting the threshold.

A survey showed 31 percent of franchise businesses, and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses, have already reduced worker hours. It also showed 27 percent of franchise businesses, and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses, have replaced full-time workers with part-time employees.

SOURCE

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Typical Leftist short-sightedness

The filibuster rules ensured an element of moderation in judicial appointments.  But now it is "winner takes all". Under the new rules the Donks will now be powerless to block appointments under a future Republican President.  And it was mostly they who used filibusters.  The most amusing thing about this is that the way is now open to abolish Obamacare by a simple majority vote.  Maybe Reid accepts that Obamacare is already a lost cause

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) dropped a bomb on the Senate this week by “going nuclear” and changing the rules for filibustering Barack Obama's nominees. Appellate court and executive nominees now can be confirmed with an up or down majority vote. The surprise move is just another in a long line of Obama's rule-changing, cheating and lying to pass his agenda.

The Senate's nuclear option is the latest of Obama's autocratic power grabs – this time to stack the courts with far-Left judges before the 2014 election.

Now for some history. The filibuster was rarely used to block nominations until Democrats lost the Senate in 2002 and decided to torpedo as many of George W. Bush's nominations as they could. When Republicans considered ways to do something about that, Democrats threw a hissy fit about the “tradition of the Senate.” In 2005, then-Sen. Barack Obama argued, “The talk of the 'nuclear option' is more about power than about fairness.” Then-Sen. Joe Biden declared, “The nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.” Harry Reid warned that changing the rules was “un-American” and “illegal,” and in 2008 promised never to bring it up for a vote.

This week, however, Reid finally pulled the trigger and changed the rules.

More HERE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Myth Of JFK

Derek Hunter

The life of JFK is, perhaps, the most documented life ever lived. People alive in his time, whether they voted for him or not, or even whether they were old enough to vote for him or not, have a romanticized vision of him and his life that simply doesn’t comport with the reality of objective observation and knowledge gained over time.

Not everyone, certainly, shares this view, but it cuts a wide swath through all demographics and has the stamina of 50 years behind it.

This is where you lose me.

President Kennedy remains popular with journalists and historians, but was not a popular president with the American people at the time. His re-election in 1964 was not certain. It was, in fact, a long shot at the time of his murder.

His presidency was, for the most part, a non-event. The Bay of Pigs was a fiasco, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought us to the brink of nuclear war, cost us missiles in Turkey and doomed Cuba to the underside of the Fidel Castro’s boot to this day.

On civil rights, something for which President Kennedy receives much credit and praise, he did little more than pay lip service to the concept. My friend and a host of the C4 Show on WBAL right before my show, Clarence Mitchell IV, whose grandfather was Clarence Mitchell Jr., the chief lobbyist for the NAACP during the Kennedy years, tells me, “My grandfather always said President Kennedy, at the insistence of his brother Bobby, was not a champion of civil rights, that he was actually an obstacle. He kept things slow because he wanted the support of southern Democrats. It wasn’t about right and wrong with them, it was about what would get them the most votes.”

President Kennedy is given credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but he had little to do with it aside from having spoken on the subject a few times. In fact, C4 tells me that in August of 1963 there was a “big meeting” of civil rights leaders at the White House with the Kennedy brothers because there was talk that they might not endorse JFK’s reelection. They were promised what politicians always promise voting blocs they’re stringing along – action after the election. Tragedy intervened, so we’ll never know what he might have done, but we do know what he did do and that wasn’t much at all.

In fact, it seems nearly every positive development of that era is somehow credited to JFK – even those he had little to nothing to do with. It’s just been credited to him, or imposed on him, as part of the myth-making surrounding “Camelot.”

President Kennedy was a great orator and a master at public relations. He also had a press corps that adored him, thus insulating him from reality in the annals of history. (Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it?)

The “Camelot” legend was myth, constructed to obscure the reality of a despicable man elected through fraud and an unholy alliance with the mafia in Chicago. The real John F. Kennedy was a womanizing misogynist, a spoiled brat who ran for the U.S. Senate for lack of anything else to do and to feed his controlling father’s ego. Just eight years and very few accomplishments later, he sought the presidency for much the same reason.

He was a reckless man, sleeping with interns, girlfriends of mafia bosses, Russian spies and seemingly anyone else willing. He took his job seriously enough, but in perhaps the most blatant act of corruption since Teapot Dome, appointed his own brother Attorney General of the United States. Kennedys are loyal to Kennedys first; there is no second. The idea that Robert Kennedy could be trusted to, if called for, investigate possible corrupt actions of President Kennedy is laughable.

After his tragic assassination, the Kennedy myth-making started and hasn’t stopped. It started with the coaching of 3-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr. to salute his father’s coffin for the cameras as the procession passed, and it continues to this day. Even his gravesite is a testament to that myth.

President Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and rightfully so. He did serve our country with honor in World War II. But real estate at Arlington is at a premium, with our heroes buried in close proximity to each other to accommodate all who deserve it. Yet the JFK gravesite sits alone in a large otherwise-vacant plot. I don’t begrudge him the eternal flame – though that seems a bit much. But his wife is buried next to him in spite of remarrying, and his brother, Robert, is buried in the special "Kennedy only section" of the cemetery too.

This “devout Catholic” family exemplifies hypocrisy on every level – from their bootlegging beginnings to their philandering lifestyle, there is very little about their legend that stands up to even the most cursory of scrutiny. Despite this fact, hours of television time, gallons of ink and gigabytes of web-space will be dedicated to how extraordinary JFK was, how they all were.

It’s simply not true.

There’s something to be said for being an inspiration, and JFK was – though far more after his death than when he was alive. But there’s more to be said in favor of reality.

It’s conventional wisdom to say the nation lost its innocence 50 years ago at the hands of a left-wing assassin in Dallas, and in some ways that’s true. But given the continuing naïveté surrounding the presidency of John F. Kennedy and the entire Kennedy clan, it’s clear there’s still a lot of innocence, willful as it may be, around today.

SOURCE

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But he spoke well at times

In the wake of the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and in light of Ira Stoll’s new book JFK, Conservative, we decided to pull together 12 of JFK’s most conservative quotes.

1. The American character has been not only religious, idealistic, and patriotic, but because of these it has been essentially individual. -- Independence Day Oration, July 4th, 1946

2. Conceived in Grecian thought, strengthened by Christian morality, and stamped indelibly into American political philosophy, the right of the individual against the State is the keystone of our Constitution. Each man is free. --Independence Day Oration, July 4th, 1946

3. In Revolutionary times, the cry “No taxation without representation” was not an economic complaint. Rather, it was directly traceable to the eminently fair and just principle that no sovereign power has the right to govern without the consent of the governed. Anything short of that was tyranny. It was against this tyranny that the colonists “fired the shot heard ’round the world.” -- Independence Day Oration, July 4th, 1946

4. The ever expanding power of the federal government, the absorption of many of the functions that states and cities once considered to be responsibilities of their own, must now be a source of concern to all those who believe as did the great patriot, Henry Grattan that: “Control over local affairs is the essence of liberty.” -- Commencement Address, University of Notre Dame, January 29, 1950

5. I’d be very happy to tell them I’m not a liberal at all…I’m not comfortable with those people. -- Saturday Evening Post, June 1953

6. I say this not because I believe Christianity is a weapon in the present world struggle, but because I believe religion itself is at the root of the struggle, not in terms of the physical organizations of Christianity versus those of Atheism, but in terms of Good versus Evil, right versus wrong… Our minds, like the headlines of our newspapers, are intent upon the present and future conflicts of armed might, and upon the brutal, physical side of that ominous war upon which we have bestowed the strange epithet “cold”. We tend to forget the moral and spiritual issues which inhere in the fateful encounter of which the physical war is but one manifestation. We tend to forget those ideals and faiths and philosophical needs which drive men far more intensively than military and economic objectives. -- Commencement Address, Assumption College, June 3, 1955

7. But in “the stern encounter”, in the moral struggle, religion is not simply a weapon- it is the essence of the struggle itself. The Communist rulers do not fear the phraseology of religion, or the ceremonies and churches and denomination organizations. On the contrary, they leave no stone unturned in seeking to turn these aspects of religion to their own advantage and to use the trappings of religion in order to cement the obedience of their people. What they fear is the profound consequences of a religion that is lived and not merely acknowledged. They fear especially man’s response to spiritual and ethical stimuli, not merely material. A society which seeks to make the worship of the State the ultimate objective of life cannot permit a higher loyalty, a faith in God, a belief in a religion that elevates the individual, acknowledges his true value and teaches him devotion and responsibility to something beyond the here and now [Emphasis ours]. The communist fear Christianity more as a way of life than as a weapon. In short, there is room in a totalitarian system for churches- but there is no room for God. The claim of the State most be total, and no other loyalty, and no other philosophy of life can be tolerated. -- Commencement Address, Assumption College, June 3, 1955

8. This administration is pledged to a Federal revenue system that balances the budget over the years of the economic cycle – yielding surpluses for debt retirement in times of high employment that more than offset the deficits which accompany – and indeed help overcome – low levels of economic activity in poor years…Debt retirement at high employment contributes to economic growth by releasing savings for productive investment by private enterprise and State and local governments.” -- Special Message to the Congress: Program for Economic Recovery and Growth, February 2, 1961

9. If it is in the public interest to maintain an industry, it is clearly not in the public interest by the impact of regulatory authority to destroy its otherwise viable way of life. -- Special Message to the Congress on Regulatory Agencies, April 13, 1961

10. While government economists can point out the necessity of increasing the rates of investment, of modernizing plant and productivity, while Washington officials may urge responsible collective bargaining and responsible wage-price decisions, we also recognize that beneath all the laws and guidelines and tax policies and stimulants we can provide, these matters all come down, quite properly in the last analysis, to private decisions by private individuals. -- Address Before the United States Chamber of Commerce on Its 50th Anniversary, April 30, 1962

11. We want prosperity and in a free enterprise system there can be no prosperity with profit. We want a growing economy and there can be no growth without the investment that is inspired and financed by profit. We want to maintain our natural security and other essential programs and we will have little revenue to finance them unless there is profit. We want to improve our balance of payments without reducing our commitments abroad, and we cannot increase our export surplus, which we must, without modernizing our plants through profit…In short, our primary challenge is not how to divide the economic pie, but how to enlarge it. -- Address Before the United States Chamber of Commerce on Its 50th Anniversary, April 30, 1962

12. This administration intends to cut taxes in order to build the fundamental strength of our economy, to remove a serious barrier to long-term growth, to increase incentives by routing out inequities and complexities and to prevent the even greater budget deficit that a lagging economy would otherwise surely produce. The worst deficit comes from a recession, and if we can take the proper action in the proper time, this can be the most important step we could take to prevent another recession. That is the right kind of tax cut both for your family budget and the national budget…Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary. And these new jobs and new salaries can create other jobs and other salaries and more customers and more growth for an expanding American economy. -- Radio and Television Report to the American People on the State of the National Economy, August 13, 1962

SOURCE

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Public dissent from the JFK story not allowed

A fast-moving wall of law enforcement officers assaulted a group of protesters and journalists led by Alex Jones of Infowars inside the perimeter of Dealey Plaza in Dallas shortly after the city’s official memorial of the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

The mêlée began around 1:45 p.m., shortly after Jones, with the assistance of a bullhorn, spoke out against the mainstream media and the government’s official story about the assassination of JFK.

“It was definitely the Feds” leading the Dallas County sheriffs, said Jones after the chaos subsided, “We’re going to get lawyers, we are going to sue them.”

Jones said he was punched in the stomach during the police assault.

Initial witness accounts suggest that the Dallas County Sherriff’s Department, and not the Dallas Police Department, was the agency directly involved in the scuffle. Jones maintains that Dallas Police allowed the group to move into the area.

Some officers pushed and shoved the protesters and journalists, while other officers behind them brought in movable metal barricades.

Infowars and Storyleak correspondent Anthony Gucciardi stated during the continuing internet livestream of the event that the sheriff’s department deputies came from the direction of homeland security fusion center command vehicle.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The War Against Achievement

Thomas Sowell

A friend recently sent me a link to an inspiring video about an upbeat young black man who was born without arms. It showed him going to work -- unlike the record number of people living on government payments for "disabilities" that are far less serious, if not fictitious.

How is this young man getting to work? He gets into his car and drives there -- using controls set up so that he can operate the car with his feet.

What kind of work does he do, and how does he do it? He is involved in the design of racing cars. He sits at his computer, looking at the screen, with the keyboard on the floor, where he uses his toes as others use their fingers.

His story recalls the story of Helen Keller, who went to an elite college and on to a career, despite being both deaf and blind. Her story was celebrated in books, in television documentaries and in an inspiring movie, "The Miracle Worker."

But our culture has changed so much over the years that the young man with no arms is unlikely to get comparable publicity. Helen Keller's achievement was seen as an inspiration for others, but this young man's achievement is more like a threat to the prevailing ideology of our times.

The vision on which the all-encompassing and all-controlling welfare state was built is a vision of widespread helplessness, requiring ever more expanding big government. Our "compassionate" statists would probably have wanted to take this young man without arms, early on, and put him in some government institution.

But to celebrate him in the mainstream media today would undermine a whole ideological vision of the world -- and of the vast government bureaucracies built on that vision. It might even cause people to think twice about giving money to able-bodied men who are standing on street corners, begging.

The last thing the political left needs, or can even afford, are self-reliant individuals. If such people became the norm, that would destroy not only the agenda and the careers of those on the left, but even their flattering image of themselves as saviors of the less fortunate.

Victimhood is where it's at. If there are not enough real victims, then fictitious victims must be created -- as with the claim that there is "a war on women." Why anyone would have an incentive or a motivation to create a war on women in the first place is just one of the questions that should be asked of those who promote this political slogan, obviously designed for the gullible.

The real war -- which is being waged in our schools, in the media and among the intelligentsia -- is the war on achievement. When President Obama told business owners, "You didn't build that!" this was just one passing skirmish in the war on achievement.

The very word "achievement" has been replaced by the word "privilege" in many writings of our times. Individuals or groups that have achieved more than others are called "privileged" individuals or groups, who are to be resented rather than emulated.

The length to which this kind of thinking -- or lack of thinking -- can be carried was shown in a report on various ethnic groups in Toronto. It said that people of Japanese ancestry in that city were the most "privileged" group there, because they had the highest average income.

What made this claim of "privilege" grotesque was a history of anti-Japanese discrimination in Canada, climaxed by people of Japanese ancestry being interned during World War II longer than Japanese Americans.

If the concept of achievement threatens the prevailing ideology, the reality of achievement despite having obstacles to overcome is a deadly threat. That is why the achievements of Asians in general -- and of people like the young black man with no arms -- make those on the left uneasy. And why the achievements of people who created their own businesses have to be undermined by the President of the United States.

What would happen if Americans in general, or blacks in particular, started celebrating people like this armless young man, instead of trying to make heroes out of hoodlums? Many of us would find that promising and inspiring. But it would be a political disaster for the left -- which is why it is not likely to happen.

SOURCE

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DC Walmart More Selective than Harvard

The District of Columbia's first Walmart store has received over 23,000 job applications for only 600 jobs, Business Insider reported on Tuesday. That means that one out of every 38 applicants will be offered a position with the store, or about 2.6 percent. Harvard University, one of the most selective colleges in the United States, has an acceptance rate of 6.1 percent.

DC's first Walmart almost didn't happen. The D.C. Council had proposed a "living wage" bill that would require a minimum wage of $12.50 per hour for all "large" retailers with annual corporate sales that exceed $1 billion. This would have effectively shut out Walmart from the city. The bill was vetoed by D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and minimum wage in the city remains at $8.50.

While Walmart is maligned by critics, many fail to realize that for many associates, Walmart is the only place they would be able to actually be employed. Having a job—any job—is better than having no job, which 23,000 DC residents were quick to realize. While your average D.C. Council member may sneer at the thought of working at a Walmart, it may in fact be the best option for someone with a very limited skill set. The vast majority of Walmart associates aren't exactly turning down jobs left and right to work at Walmart.

While it's a sad reminder of how disastrous employment statistics are today to see over 23,000 people apply for 600 jobs, it's fortunate overall that these jobs were even able to come to DC in the first place.

SOURCE

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War on the Little Guy

John Stossel

Marty the Magician performed magic tricks for kids, including the traditional rabbit-out-of-a-hat. Then one day: "I was signing autographs and taking pictures with children and their parents," he told me. "Suddenly, a badge was thrown into the mix, and an inspector said, 'Let me see your license.'"

In "Harry Potter" books, a creepy Ministry of Magic controls young wizards. Now in the USA, government regulates stage magicians -- one of the countless ways it makes life harder for the little guy.

Marty's torment didn't end with a demand for his license. "She said, from now on, you cannot use your rabbit until you fill out paperwork, pay the $40 license fee. We'll have to inspect your home."

Ten times since, regulators showed up unannounced at Marty's house. At one point, an inspector he hadn't seen before appeared. He hoped things had changed for the better.

"I got a new inspector and I said, oh, did my first one retire? She said, 'No, good news! We've increased our budget and we have more inspectors now. So we'll be able to visit you more often.'"

Here are your tax dollars at work.

The inspectors told Marty that the Animal Welfare Act required him to file paperwork demonstrating that he had "a comprehensive written disaster plan detailing everything I would do with my rabbit in the event of a fire, a flood, a tornado, an ice storm."

The federal forms list "common emergencies likely to happen to your facility ... not necessarily limited to: structural fire, electrical outage, disruption in clean water or feed supply, disruption in access to facility (e.g., road closures), intentional attack on the facilities ... earthquake, landslide/mudslide/avalanche ... "

Sadly, this Kafkaesque enforcement of petty rules is not a bizarre exception.

Some regulation is useful. But when we passively accept government regulation of everything, thinking we're protecting people from evil corporations run amok, we're really making life harder for ordinary people. Every profession, from cab driving to floral arrangement, is now burdened with complex rules.

You can't even give tours of Washington, D.C., the city that produces most of these insane rules, without getting a special license. Tour guides must pay about $200 for criminal background checks, provide four personal references, show passport photos and pass a written test -- a difficult one.

People who reflexively defend government may feel no pity for businesses that face extra costs: Let businesses pay fees and take tests -- we don't want unlicensed tour guides describing famous statues incorrectly! But these costs add up. Often, they make a small, barely profitable business impossible to operate. These rules also violate Americans' right to free speech. They are unnecessary. If tour guides are no good, people can patronize others. The government doesn't need to be gatekeeper.

These rules generally prevail because existing businesses are politically connected. They capture licensing boards and use license rules to crush competition from businesses just getting started.

In some places, you can't open a business like a limo service or moving van company unless you can prove that your business is needed and won't undermine existing businesses in the same field.

But undermining competition is the whole idea. If Starbucks or Home Depot had to prove new coffee shops and hardware stores were "needed," we wouldn't have those companies. Apparently they were needed, since these companies thrived, but no one could have "proven" that beforehand.

Jeff Rowes, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties group that defends many people caught up in regulatory cases, says, "America was conceived as a sea of liberty with islands of government power. We're now a sea of government power with ever-shrinking islands of liberty."

The little guys don't have an army of lawyers to defend those islands of liberty one regulatory battle at a time. We should get rid of most of these regulations -- and sail back, together, to a free country

SOURCE

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The Writing Is on the Wall

It has been obvious for some time that ObamaCare is full of lies, and that one of the primary lies was this: "You can keep your plan. Period." Barack Obama "apologized" for this "misstatement," while other Democrats are torn between arguing Obama said nothing wrong and asserting that they knew all along that you couldn't keep your plan.

The latter group is far closer to the truth. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy unearthed a brief filed by the Justice Department in Priests for Life v HHS that acknowledges and argues for regulations that would cancel millions of insurance plans: "Even under the grandfathering provision, it is projected that more group health plans will transition to the requirements under the regulations as time goes on. Defendants [the government] have estimated that a majority of group health plans will have lost their grandfather status by the end of 2013."

As for Obama's "fix" -- allowing state insurance commissioners to decide whether insurance companies in their state can extend cancelled policies through next year's elections -- it quickly turned from illegal farce to unwanted flop. Insurance commissioners in Washington, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont and Minnesota (all blue states) have already declined to participate; more will undoubtedly follow. Georgia's commissioner called it a "political stunt," but promised to do everything he can to help Georgians kicked off their plans.

Meanwhile, user data at Healthcare.gov remains at "critical risk," according to congressional testimony from an IT expert Tuesday. An inspector general report warned over the summer about the lack of security testing, and, in August, 14 attorneys general demanded a delay of the launch in order to address security issues. Evidently the site is no better seven weeks after its launch, but the administration continues to offer nothing but Jedi mind tricks: "This is not the security vulnerability you're looking for."

Worse, Henry Chao, the deputy chief information officer for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), estimates that 30% of the website still hasn't been built. And that includes the payment system, which brings up another question: If people can't pay, is anyone actually enrolled? Political considerations alone pushed HHS to proceed with the Oct. 1 rollout, but they badly miscalculated because ObamaCare will continue to fail and it will continue to bring Democrats down.

It wasn't long ago that Obama was bragging that when opponents saw how well the "Affordable" Care Act worked, they'd quit calling it "ObamaCare." After its calamitous rollout, however, it's Democrats who are quietly dropping the term. The word is disappearing from Healthcare.gov and Democrats' websites, as well as from TV talking points and speeches. Nancy Pelosi even corrected David Gregory for using the term on NBC. But Democrats can't erase the term "ObamaCare" completely; it is the writing on the wall.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Moral, Emotional and Intellectual Bankruptcy of Progressivism

By Arnold Ahlert

Last Thursday, President Obama did the nation a profound favor, albeit unintentionally. He revealed the utter fraud of a progressive ideology that is about nothing more than the accumulation of power – by any means necessary. It is an ideology where there are no values, save those that apply to a given moment, right here, right now. If and when the moment changes, progressives like the president are entirely comfortable with taking positions that are completely the opposite of those they previously embraced, even as they remain immune to their own hypocrisy.

Up through last Wednesday, the president and his minions in government and the media waged an unrelenting campaign against “bad apple” insurance companies and their “substandard” policies. Policies for which millions of “unwitting” Americans had developed a thoroughly misguided sense of satisfaction, undoubtedly buttressed by assurances from the president himself that, irrespective of the Democrats and their social utopian impulses, if they liked what they had, they could keep it – period.

Then that lie unraveled. And make no mistake: other than for those equally corrupted by the same ideology, it was indeed a bald-faced lie. It was not, as some have asserted, an utterance made by a somewhat misinformed president. The Wall Street Journal blew that nonsense out of the water when it exposed the bankrupt machinations of Obama's advisors. Two quotes from that article are invaluable with regard to understanding the progressive mindset. “Simplification and ease of explanation were a premium, and that was true throughout the process,” said Jon Favreau, who served as Mr. Obama's top speech writer. Translation: Americans are too stupid to understand anything told to them, unless it's reduced to the simplest of terms. “You try to talk about health care in broad, intelligible points that cut through, and you inevitably lose some accuracy when you do that,” said a former unnamed official.

Translation: it's OK to lie in order to advance the progressive agenda.

Which is precisely what the equally contemptible and corrupted New York Times did when they asserted that Obama “clearly misspoke,” rather than lied. Unfortunately for the Times and other true believers, Obama “clearly misspoke” on 30 separate occasions.  Nonetheless the Times' editorial continues. “By law, insurers cannot continue to sell policies that don't provide the minimum benefits and consumer protections required as of next year. So they've sent cancellation notices to hundreds of thousands of people who hold these substandard policies.”

Yet as of last Thursday, they can sell those “substandard” policies once again. The moment has changed, and that which was contemptible for at least three years prior to that moment has been re-defined as acceptable.

The “by law” part? Once again, when you embrace a bankrupt ideology, the law becomes as malleable as anything else – even as one professes allegiance to it, much as Democrats endlessly repeated that Americans must accept ObamaCare because it is the “law of the land.”

Really? Which part? Certainly not the employer mandate, which the president imperiously postponed, absent any input from the apparently superfluous legislative branch of government. Ditto for the 75 percent insurance premium subsidies for Congress and their staffs. And now, in a grandiose assertion that would make any dictator proud, the president has broken the law's backbone, namely the requirement that all insurance policies must comply with the ObamaCare mandates.

Hopefully, by the time you are reading this, many Americans will have figured out that the president's “fix” is as big a lie as his original assertion. Most Americans whose insurance has been cancelled won't be able to get their old policies back, for two very good reasons. One, they no longer exist. Two, with a big hat tip to National Review's Andrew McCarthy, insurance companies are not going to put themselves in the position of being held legally liable for issuing polices based on a presidential “waiver,” as opposed to legally enforceable law. McCarthy illuminates the details:

“The health-insurance companies … would be deluged with lawsuits by insureds who claimed that the policies were illegal and wrongly denied coverage for this or that treatment. The insurance companies themselves would get into the act, filing suits to be compensated for payouts they'd made based on the illegal policies. The Obama 'waiver' would avail them of nothing in a court, where a judge would be obliged to follow the law, not Dear Leader's enforcement preferences.”

It is useful to reveal that the aforementioned contempt for the average American's intelligence is once again in play here. Don't think for a nanosecond that the president isn't fully aware of the reality that the proverbial toothpaste cannot be shoved back into the tube. This particular lie is all about shifting the onus of blame back onto the same “bad apple” turned “good apple” soon-to-be “bad apple” again insurance companies, rather than where it truly belongs.

As in, they don't call it ObamaCare for no reason.

A remarkable quote from president's speech last week further underscores the bankruptcy of progressivism. After once again blaming everyone else for the debacle of the website's rollout, he said something that should stun every American. “What we're also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.” Obama and Democrats concoct a 2000 page healthcare bill and another 11,000 pages of regulations that apply to it, and the president is just now discovering that buying insurance is complicated?

A gargantuan case of hubris, coupled with stunning level of ignorance about how the real world works, is the essence of progressivism.

Unfortunately in this particular case, that hubris and ignorance only serves to advance the progressive agenda. While I refuse to believe dim-bulbs like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or even Obama himself had the foresight to know how bad the ObamaCare rollout would be, there is little question they are more than willing to use the misery of millions of Americans to advance their ultimate healthcare agenda, as in moving to a single-payer, government-controlled system. And I am certainly willing to believe that an inveterate liar like the president is fully aware that his half-in, half-out hybrid insurance purchasing scheme will facilitate that transformation.

And then what? Let me reduce that reality to its simplest terms. Before ObamaCare, many Americans were doubtlessly dealing with “heartless” insurance companies. But here's the thing: if they got too heartless, one could sue them and/or switch to another company. When a government bureaucrat makes the same decision – much like Kathleen Sebelius already did when she was willing to allow a 10-year-old girl in need of lung transplant to die, rather than bend the rules to save her – Americans will have no recourse. As for litigation, good luck suing the federal government. Even if ObamaCare survives in its current incarnation, Americans will be beholden to a new level of heartlessness known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The IPAB will be comprised of a group of appointed “experts” tasked with deciding whether the “greater good” is served by giving Grandma a new hip – or a new cane.

Thus, the ultimate question arises. Have you had enough yet? Have you had your fill of a naked lust for total control being promoted as caring and compassion? Are you sick and tired of seeing the outright destruction of dignity and integrity that serving one's government masters demands? Are you aware of that fact that even if this disaster comes to full flower, the Congressional Budget Office projects that 32 million people will still be uninsured ten years from now, even as an additional $1.8 trillion will be spent by the federal government to achieve that result?

How come our progressive champions never mention that reality?

Because, in the end, what's going on isn't really about healthcare. It's about control. And if 32 million people are left out in the cold? So what. Remember when this whole thing blew up, Press Secretary Jay Carney noted that “only” 5 percent of the country would be losing their health insurance coverage. That number represents 14 million Americans whose lives have been turned upside down. But that was when insurance companies were still “bad apples” offering Americans “substandard” plans.

Now they're not bad apples, and those plans are OK. At least until they're not again.

That's vintage progressivism – in all it's moral, emotional and intellectual bankruptcy. With any luck it will be consigned to the ash heap of history, as Americans continue to get shafted, one dropped doctor from their new policy after another, one policy cancelation after another – and most importantly, one unsustainable lie after another unsustainable lie.

 SOURCE

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Crisis of Political Authority? I Wish!

By Robert Higgs

I have often received unsolicited copies of recently published books from the publishers, who hope to obtain reviews that will help them drum up sales. Today’s mail delivery brought me such an unrequested volume, a book titled The End of Authority: How a Loss of Legitimacy and Broken Trust Are Endangering Our Future, by Douglas E. Schoen.

Skimming quickly, I found that the book deals with what the author calls “a crisis of governance, a crisis of legitimacy, and, indeed, a crisis of authority.” “All around the world,” he declares, citizens “have lost confidence in those charged with the responsibility of governing them.” (Notice the language, “those charged with the responsibility,” rather than “those who, by hook and by crook, have impudently imposed themselves on their exploited subjects.”) In this dire situation, Schoen intends his book “to offer clear, unambiguous solutions” to this allegedly urgent problem (p. 245).

My first reaction was, “Crisis of Authority? I wish.” Although ruling elites may be distressed by the various expressions of discontent and even outrage being expressed by particular groups of (what they surely take to be) troublemakers, they are accustomed to a certain amount of discontent and rebellion. Suppressing such outbreaks and pounding, tricking, or soothing people back into line are all in a day’s work for the rulers. Given the ruling elites’ disproportionate possession of wealth, connections, and firepower, they usually succeed, and I expect that in most cases those who are feeling pressed today will, sooner or later, succeed in reining in their restive populations. The Arab Spring will turn to Arab Summer, Arab Fall, and Arab Winter. The Tea Partiers will lose interest and drift away—many have already been coopted or politically disarmed by the established major parties. The little bands of libertarians will squander their energies, feuding with their fellows and arguing about not-so-pressing issues in lifeboat ethics. The European rioters will be tear-gassed, sprayed with fire hoses, and beaten about the head and shoulders until they find better uses for their time and energy.

Douglas Schoen clearly writes as a friend of the international elite, for whom he has worked in the past as a pollster, consultant, and strategist. One has only to consider what he takes as a given, namely, that existing Establishment institutions deserve to occupy their powerful positions in social and economic life and ought to be reconfigured to exercise their powers more effectively—that is, in a way that gives rise to fewer troublesome reactions from the peasantry.

Well, one man’s treasure is another man’s trash. I have a different view of the situation. I perceive that the existing institutions—above all, the various nation states—have highly problematic legitimacy. To speak more bluntly, the state in particular has none at all, aside from the somnolent or distracted acquiescence of the mass of its subjects. If there really were a crisis of authority for the state per se, I could only say, thank God, it’s about time; bring it on! A few thousand years of people’s being bullied, plundered, humiliated, and even killed by their loving masters is more than enough, and the subjects can scarcely move fast enough to suit me in challenging this immoral domination.

Even before I opened the book, I had a strong premonition that I would find its message impossible to swallow. Four blurbs on the dust jacket express high praise for the author and the book. The blurbs are signed by former U.S. president Bill Clinton, former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski, and publisher Steve Forbes. If such persons actually approved of what Schoen has to say, I knew with almost complete certainty that I would not approve. Call me an incurable skeptic, but I simply cannot imagine that anything good could come from the current masters of the world, the very people who have contributed so magnificently to the world’s present horrors.

 SOURCE

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Obamacare "Success Story" is Actually Unable to Afford Insurance

On October 21st, President Obama spoke about Jessica Sanford, a woman in Washington state who had previously been unable to buy insurance and was able to buy an affordable, decent plan using Washington's health insurance exchange (Washington Healthplanfinder).

Except she wasn't.

Shortly after being told she was eligible for a subsidy to purchase a "gold" plan for $198 a month, she was informed that there was an error on the website in calculating her tax credit amount, and that her plan actually cost $280 a month. That was also a mistake—it turns out Sanford, who is self-employed single mother, was not actually eligible for any subsidy and has to pay the full cost of the plan. Sanford, who makes around $50,000 a year, is unable to afford the plan and will instead pay the $95 penalty.

Sanford's son has attention deficit disorder and has medications that cost $250 per month, and Sanford has been uninsured for the past 15 years. While she had thought that the Affordable Care Act was going to help her and her son, it in fact made their situation worse.

I feel for this woman. She was lied to by multiple parties, and simply wanted to get insurance for herself and her son. It is not her fault that she was deceived, and now she's being fined for being unable to afford something. This is absolutely ridiculous and a total embarrassment for the Obama administration.

 SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The genetics of politics

People on both the Left and the Right are usually quite firm in their view that their political choices are reasonable and the product of thought.  But what if they are not?  It would tend to explain the vast gulf in views betweeen the Left and the Right in America today.  And I have for some years been pointing out the various studies that have found that there is a substantial element of genetic inheritance behind our political preferences.  We are to a degree born to be Leftists or Rightists.

This sits comfortably with just about no-one so it behooves us to check and recheck the research concerned.  That has recently been done, looking at many of the bodies of data that enable us to research the matter.  The result is a remarkable degree of agreement that genetics IS a major factor influencing our political opinions.  The abstract of the paper concerned is given below.

The paper also tried to identify specific genes behind the effect but was unsuccessful.  Investigations of that sort are still at an early stage.  The paper also did not try to ascertain if there were any personality variables that mediated the genetic connection.  My deduction is that the correlation indicates that Leftists are just born miserable.  All the research certainly shows that conservatives are happier.

The paper below was concerened with detailed political questions  such as abortion, gay marriage etc.  It did not deal with actual vote at election time.  Is Democrat or Republican loyalty inherited too?  We do have some data on that from elsewhere which points to a somewhat qualified conclusion.  Hatemi et al (2007) found that vote was substantially inherited but only because many of the things influencing vote were inherited -- church attendance, specific attitudes etc.  Vote does not have its own set of genes behind it.

REFERENCE: Hatemi (2007) "The Genetics of Voting: An Australian Twin Study" Behav. Genet., 37:435–448

Genetic Influences on Political Ideologies: Genome - Wide Findings on Three Populations, and a Mega - Twin Analysis of 19 Measures of Political Ideologies from Five Western Democracies

Forthcoming in Behavior Genetics – Lindon Eaves Festschrift

By Peter K. Hatemi et al.

 Abstract:

 Almost forty years ago evidence from large studies of adult twins and their relatives suggested that between 30 - 60% of the variance in Liberal and Conservative attitudes can be explained by genetic influences. However, these findings have not been widely accepted or incorporated into the dominant paradigms that explain the etiology of political ideology. This has been attributed in part to measurement and sample limitations as well the inability to identify specific genetic markers related to political ideology

Here we present results from original analys es of a combined sample of over 12,000 twins pairs, ascertained from nine different studies conducted in five western democracies (Australia, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, and the U.S.A.), sampled over the course of four decades. We provide definitive evidence that heritability plays a role in the formation of political ideology, regardless of how ideology is measured, the time period or population sampled. The only exception s are questions that explicitly use the phrase “Left - Right”.

We then present results from one of the first genome - wide association studies on political ideology using data from three samples : a 1990 Australian sample involving 6,894 individuals from 3,516 families; a 2008 Australian sample of 1,160 related individua ls from 635 families and a 2010 Swedish sample involving 3,334 individuals from 2,607 families . Several polymorphisms related to olfaction reached genome - wide significance in the 2008 Australian sample, but did not replicate across samples and remained suggestive in the meta - analysis. The combined evidence suggests that political ideology constitutes a fundamental aspect of one’s genetically informed psychological disposition, but as Fisher proposed long ago, genetic influences on complex traits will be composed of thousands of markers of very small effects

SOURCE

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Obamacare Schadenfreudarama

It feels pretty good to watch the whole thing fail

Jonah Goldberg

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the unraveling of Obamacare.

First, the obligatory caveats. It is no laughing matter that millions of Americans’ lives have been thrown into anxious chaos as they lose their health insurance, their doctors, their money, or all three. Nor is it particularly amusing to think of the incredible waste of time and tax dollars that has gone into Obamacare’s construction. And the still-unfolding violence that this misbegotten legislation will visit on the economy and our liberties is not funny either. This very magazine has been downright funereal about the brazen and unconstitutional seizure of one-sixth of the economy, and rightly so.

But come on, people.

If you can’t take some joy, some modicum of relief and mirth, in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, his administration, its enablers, and, to no small degree, liberalism itself, then you need to ask yourself why you’re following politics in the first place. Because, frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more.

Alas, the English language is not well equipped to capture the sensation I’m describing, which is why we must all thank the Germans for giving us the term “schadenfreude” — the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.


The hubris of our ocean-commanding commander-in-chief surely isn’t news to readers of this website. He’s said that he’s smarter and better than everyone who works for him. His wife informed us that he has “brought us out of the dark and into the light” and that he would fix our broken souls. The man defined sin itself as “being out of alignment with my values.” We may be the ones we’ve been waiting for, but at the same time, everyone has been waiting for him. Or as he put it in 2007, “Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama’s been there.”

In every tale of hubris, the transgressor is eventually slapped across the face with the semi-frozen flounder of reality. The Greeks had a god, Nemesis, whose scythe performed the same function. It was Nemesis who lured Narcissus to the pool where he fell in love with his own reflection. Admittedly, most of Nemesis’s walk-on roles were in the Greek tragedies, but in the modern era, comeuppance-for-the-arrogant is more often found in comedies, and the “rollout” of Healthcare.gov has been downright hilarious. (I put quotation marks around “rollout” because the term implies actual rolling, and this thing has moved as gracefully as a grand piano in a peat bog.) But, as the president says, “it’s more than a website.” Indeed, the whole law is coming apart like a papier-mâché yacht in rough waters. The media feeding frenzy it has triggered from so many journalistic lapdogs has been both so funny and so poignant, it reminds me of nothing more than the climax of the classic film Air Bud, when the lovable basketball-playing golden retriever finally decides to maul the dog-abusing clown.

During the government shutdown, Barack Obama held fast, heroically refusing to give an inch to the hostage-taking, barbaric orcs of the Tea Party who insisted on delaying Obamacare. It was a triumph for the master strategist in the White House, who finally maneuvered the Republicans into revealing their extremism. But we didn’t know something back then: Obama desperately needed a delay of Healthcare.gov. In his arrogance, though, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. The other possibility is that he is such an incompetent manager, who has cultivated such a culture of yes-men, that he was completely in the dark about the problems. That’s the reigning storyline right now from the White House. Obama was betrayed. “If I had known,” he told his staff, “we could have delayed the website.”

This is how you know we’re in the political sweet spot: when the only plausible excuses for the administration are equally disastrous indictments.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it took about five minutes for liberals to cast the chaos and confusion of the disaster as a searing indictment of not just the Bush administration but of conservatism itself. Whatever the merits of that argument (and there are not many), Katrina was at least a surprise. The October 1 deadline for Obamacare was set by Obama’s own administration years ago — and it caught them completely off guard. The president may now claim that he knew nothing, but he must have wondered why Henry Chao, Healthcare.gov’s chief project manager, set the bar of success at sea level last March: “Let’s just make sure it’s not a Third World experience.” At this point, it could only be more of a Third World experience if Healthcare.gov required enrollees to pay with chickens

SOURCE

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Obama's War On America's Standard of Living

Some quotes to remember

When Barack Obama was campaigning for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President in Oregon, he made some very revealing comments about his plans to "fundamentally transform the United States." On January 17, 2008, he told the San Francisco Chronicle that he would put an aggressive cap and trade system in place, "more aggressive than anybody else's out there," and that he is willing to let the coal industry go bankrupt. Obama said: "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, and other alternative energy approaches. ... We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times -- and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."

SOURCE

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Democrats Panic Over ObamaCare



On Friday, the House of Representatives voted 261-157 in favor of the “Keep Your Health Plan Act,” authored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI). Some 39 Democrats joined all Republicans in voting yes just a day after Barack Obama announced his own unilateral and illegal “fix” for his ailing law.

The Wall Street Journal summarized Upton's bill:“The one-page bill would allow insurers to continue offering for sale in 2014 the policies that ObamaCare terminated, exempting them from federal regulatory edicts.” However, because insurance companies have spent the last three and a half years working to comply with ObamaCare regulations, Upton's bill is unlikely to actually save many plans. Such is the nature of Obama's “you can keep your plan” lie.

By contrast, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) offered her own version of a “keep your plan” bill in the Senate. In this case, the Journal writes, Landrieu's bill “would order insurers to continue to offer the dumped plans that in many cases no longer exist. This is also a substantive due process violation for business and unconstitutional commandeering of state regulators.” That would be par for the course.

Unfortunately, but predictably, the House vote didn't come close to a veto-proof majority as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) did the necessary nagging to prevent a caucus-wide jackass stampede. Furthermore, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) vowed that he won't take up the House bill. Either way, Obama would never let Congress compromise his legacy when he can come to the rescue himself.

But the House vote does indicate that, thanks to the disastrous rollout of ObamaCare, at least 39 Democrats are in near-total panic over their election prospects in 2014. Nearly all of them barely won their 2012 elections, and many are in Republican-leaning districts. Their short-sighted scrambling is quite a shift from 2010, when Democrats gleefully used their Washington hegemony to realize the 100-year-old progressive dream of “universal” health care. Recall that Democrats lost a near-record 63 seats in 2010 after passing the law.

It's also clear that ObamaCare will hang like an albatross around Democrats' necks. They'll never admit it – in fact, DNC chair Debbie Wassermann Schultz swears Democrats will run on ObamaCare next year – but they all know it's true.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Obama Refuses to Speak to Netanyahu

US President Barack Obama has refused to answer phone calls from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu "more than once," according to Kuwaiti news source Al-Jarida.

In a deliberate snub, Netanyahu's calls have instead been forwarded to US Secretary of State John Kerry.

An American source told Al-Jarida that Jewish American politicians have been keen to fix the situation, which has steadily been deteriorating over the past month, and are attempting to set up a meeting between the two world leaders at the White House.

The news is the latest in a series of public spats between the two nations, whose differences about the handling of a nuclear Iran threaten the traditional US-Israel alliance.

Obama, issued a direct warning to Congress against further sanctions on Iran last Thursday, saying that a deal in the works could prevent the "unintended consequences" of war.

"If we're serious about pursuing diplomacy, there's no need for us to add new sanctions on top of the sanctions that are already very effective and that brought them to the table in the first place," Obama said.

Obama has also reportedly been in the process of lifting the sanctions for over 5 months - without a deal with Iran or express Congressional approval.

The statements follow controversial remarks by Kerry last Wednesday, who told Republican senators who were briefed about recent talks with Iran to “ignore anything the Israelis say” about the issue.

Kerry's visit to Israel this past month to facilitate peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority was something of a diplomatic disaster, after he reportedly threatened a third intifada and then pledged over $75 million in financial support to the Palestinian Arabs.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has been urging world leaders to avoid the deal, in a bid for both Israel's national security and international safety from a nuclear Iran. "Israel prefers the diplomatic option over any other option. But we want a genuine diplomatic solution that dismantles Iran's military nuclear capabilities,” Netanyahu said in remarks at the Bloomberg Fuel Choices Summit.

“The proposal that was put on the table, the details of which we are familiar with, is a bad deal. It leaves Iran with nuclear capabilities for military objectives, and provides it with a significant easing of sanctions. The additional danger is that it gives Iran legitimacy to be a nuclear threshold state. That goes against the interest of the international community,” he stressed.

The war of words has trickled down the political ladder this weekend; Naftali Bennett and Jewish Home members continue to rally US support for the Israeli stance on the issue, while US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro has reportedly approached the Israeli media in attempts to win over Israeli public support.

Shapiro's words may fall on deaf ears, however; a poll recently revealed that most Israelis believe that the IDF could and should strike Iran on its own

SOURCE

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Israel said to be working with Saudi Arabia on Iran strike

Israel is working on coordinating plans for a possible military strike with Saudi Arabia, with Riyadh prepared to provide tactical support to Jerusalem, a British newspaper reported early Sunday.

The two countries have both united in worry that the West may come to terms with Iran, easing sanctions and allowing the Islamic Republic to continue its nuclear program.

According to the Sunday Times, Riyadh has agreed to let Israel use its airspace in a military strike on Iran and cooperate over the use of rescue helicopters, tanker planes and drones.

“The Saudis are furious and are willing to give Israel all the help it needs,” an unnamed diplomatic source told the paper.

The report comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the midst of a blitz to lobby against a deal and cobble together an international alliance opposed to an agreement that allows Iran to continue enriching uranium.

On Sunday, Israel will welcome French President Francois Hollande, who a week earlier put the kibosh on a deal between six world powers and Iran that would ease sanctions in return for initial steps toward curbing enrichment.

Netanyahu on Friday urged France to remain firm in its pressure on Iran ahead of a new round of talks on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in Geneva, kicking off Wednesday.

After meeting Hollande, Netanyahu will head to Moscow on Wednesday to meet with President Vladimir Putin and lobby against the deal.

Iran’s bid for the bomb “threatens directly the future of the Jewish state,” Netanyahu told CNN recently, in a short preview clip of an interview broadcast on Saturday. As the prime minister of Israel, he stressed, he had to care for “the survival of my country.”

CNN reported that Netanyahu also said in the interview that he would do whatever it was necessary to do in order to protect Israel. The full interview will air Sunday morning.

Should a deal be reached at talks set to resume in Geneva on Wednesday, according to the diplomatic source, a military option would be back on the table. Saudi tactical support, in lieu of backup from the Pentagon, would be vital for a long-range mission targeting Iran’s nuclear program.

Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim country across the Persian Gulf from Iran has long been at odds with Tehran, and fears a nuclear weapon would threaten Riyadh and set off a nuclear arms race in the region.

SOURCE

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When the translator has more sense than the politicians

A United Nations interpreter translating the proceedings of the General Assembly on Thursday was caught – not realizing her microphone was still piping her voice into the chamber – expressing her dismay that the world body is so focused on condemning Israel while ignoring every other country in the world.

Following votes at the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee which includes all 193 UN member states, nine resolutions were adopted condemning Israel. Not one resolution was adopted targeting any other country, not even Syria where more than 100,000 have been killed in just two-and-a-half years.

The unnamed interpreter, unaware she was still being heard both by delegates and online via a live webcast, said, “I mean, I think when you have five statements, not five, like a total of ten resolutions on Israel and Palestine, there’s gotta be something, c’est un peu trop, non? [It’s a bit much, no?] I mean I know… There’s other really bad sh** happening, but no one says anything, about the other stuff.”

After the translator spoke, the delegate chairing the meeting could be seen trying to suppress his laughter. This as other delegates laughed audibly after hearing the interpreter’s candid opinion about their work, including her use of an expletive.

Once she realized what was happening, the translator said, “apologies” after which the Secretary of the meeting commented, “I understand there was a problem with interpretation?”  The translator could then be heard saying “The interpreter apologizes.”

UN Watch, a non-governmental organization which monitors events at the United Nations, first caught the gaffe and posted a recording of it on YouTube.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday played the clip of the interpreter’s candid assessment at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Should her job be threatened, Netanyahu said she would have a place to work in Israel, Ynet reported.

“I would like to tell this translator that she has a job waiting for her in the State of Israel. There are moments that tear the hypocrisy off the unending attacks against us and this brave translator did so,” he said according to a translation of the text posted by the Prime Minister’s Office website.

SOURCE

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Desperation:  Bush resurrected

The NYT acknowledges Obama's in trouble by reminding us that Bush was really, really bad. Remember?!!

At the website front page the teaser headline  — which is also the headline in the paper version — is:  "As Troubles Pile Up, a Crisis of Confidence for Obama." But if you click to the article, the headline becomes "Health Law Rollout’s Stumbles Draw Parallels to Bush’s Hurricane Response."

I can think of a whole bunch of non-parallels:

1. Bush's political party didn't design and enact Hurricane Katrina.

2. Bush didn't have 5 years to craft his response to the hurricane.

3. Bush didn't have the power to redesign the hurricane as he designed his response to it.

4. The Republican Bush believed he could not simply bully past the Democratic Mayor of New Orleans and the Democratic Governor of Louisiana and impose a federal solution, but the Democrat Obama and his party in Congress aggressively and voluntarily took over an area of policy that might have been left to the states.

5. The media were ready to slam Bush long and hard for everything — making big scandals out of things that, done by Obama, would have been forgotten a week later (what are the Valerie Plame-level screwups of Obama's?) — but the media have bent over backwards for years to help make Obama look good and to bury or never even uncover all of his lies and misdeeds.

6. If Bush experienced a disaster like the rollout of Obamacare, the NYT wouldn't use its front page to remind us of something Bill Clinton did that looked bad.

But let's check out the asserted parallels in that NYT article by Michael D. Shear:

"The disastrous rollout of his health care law not only threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency.  But unlike Mr. Bush, who faced confrontational but occasionally cooperative Democrats, Mr. Obama is battling a Republican opposition that has refused to open the door to any legislative fixes to the health care law and has blocked him at virtually every turn."

Oh, well, that's another nonparallel. Republicans oppose Obama, unlike those Democrats who sometimes helped Bush. And the NYT reinforces my point #5 (above).

But think about it this way, NYT. What if Bush and the Republicans had created the hurricane, and the Democrats adamantly believed it would be better not to have a hurricane? Would the Democrats have been "occasionally cooperative" to Republicans who smugly announced that they won the election and they've been wanting this hurricane for 100 years and canceling the hurricane was not an option?

"Republicans readily made the Hurricane Katrina comparison."

Oh? Note the wording. It doesn't say that important Republicans were bringing up Katrina on their own. I suspect that the journalist, Shear, asked various Republicans to talk about Bush and Katrina and some of them did.

“The echoes to the fall of 2005 are really eerie,” said Peter D. Feaver, a top national security official in Mr. Bush’s second term. “Katrina, which is shorthand for bungled administration policy, matches to the rollout of the website.”

Okay, so Shear got Feaver to put a name on the assertion that Republicans made the comparison. No other Republican is named. Shear moves on to Obama's "top aides" and tells us — here's my point #5 again —  that they stressed how unlike Katrina it is, since "Mr. Obama is struggling to extend health care to millions of people who do not have it. Those are very different issues."

I agree. The health care screwup isn't a natural disaster. Obama and the Democrats made their own disaster, stepping up to do something they should have known they weren't going to be able to do well, and they lied about what they were doing to get it passed.

And yet they meant well. They wanted to help people. Unlike Bush, who — what? — asked for that hurricane?

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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