Views on the News
May
8, 2010
Views on the News*
Democrats have become “suicide
legislators,” ramming unpopular legislation down America’s throats since
they are already as good as dead politically with “virgin” payback in liberal think tanks after their death in office.
Washington
has never been held in lower esteem by Americans than it is today. Those in control of Washington, President
Obama and Congressional Democrats, are bent on enacting a series of sweeping
domestic policy changes this year that have one thing in common: They are
unpopular, in whole or in part. The
presence of big majorities now and the likelihood they'll vanish in the midterm
election in November have spurred Mr. Obama and Democrats to pursue their
entire agenda in 2010. Republicans are
expected to cut deeply into the Democratic majorities, possibly capturing one
or both houses, making it extremely difficult to gain approval of their very
liberal agenda in the next Congress. Obama
and Democrats in Congress refused to give up. Instead, they relied on their one irreducible
source of power in Washington: overwhelming Democratic majorities in the House
and Senate. Energy and climate
legislation dubbed "cap and tax,"
immigration reform, a value-added tax (VAT) to narrow the budget deficit, and
the financial reform bill all are unpopular in one way or another, and Obama
and the Democrats are determined to pass them anyway. Democrats have made a quite rational
calculation about the election. The
question is how many more Congressional seats might they lose if they pass a
series of unpopular bills? Once again
putting politics ahead of the nation’s needs, why not go “all in” this year, which is exactly what they're doing. The Republican
response is clear to call this bluff, and vote “No” on the entire agenda of
unpopular, unaffordable, and sometimes unconstitutional set of bills until next
session when a majority can once again propose
positive and productive solutions to America’s real problems.
(“Democrats at Ramming Speed” by Fred Barnes dated May 4, 2010 published
by The Wall Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212150317543616.html
)
Voters are ready and eager to deliver a powerful rebuke to
President Obama’s hard left lurch and the politics of hyper-partisanship and
contrast with the failed socialist policies of this administration. If
Republicans stay on message, they will sweep the elections in November, reclaim
the House for fiscally responsible policies and rebalance the Senate so more
left-wing jam downs are foreclosed. The
“If” is a big one, but the message isn’t hard to remember. The mnemonic device is the phrase ODDS of 2 to
1:
·
“O” is for ObamaCare,
the slowly spreading killer legislative virus that Democrats jammed down the
throats of America in the face of overwhelming opposition. Republican candidates have to campaign not
just against the terrible substance of ObamaCare, but
also the Chicago-style politics it represents.
·
“D” is for deficit –this year is going
to come in at least $1.4 trillion and could reach as high as $1.6 trillion, ten
times the deficit of 2007, and powered not by a TARP or a “stimulus” plan but
by give-aways to all the favored constituencies of
Congressional Democrats.
·
“D” is for debt, as in the exploding
federal debt which is approaching $14 trillion and rising at a wild rate
because of the president and the Congress.
·
“S” is for schools which are in many
places failing and in others beset by massive cutbacks brought about because of
high unemployment and a stagnant economy. The schools are burdened by the
entrenched interests of the teachers’ unions which dictate much of the
Democratic agenda on schools and which block the obvious reforms. Republicans
must be able to talk articulately about what works and what doesn’t and why he
or she will support movements like KIPP and needed reforms that can rescue a
generation of urban youth.
·
The
“2” in ODDS of 2 to 1 are the two
international crises that every candidate should be ready to call the president
to account on: 1) stop bullying and blaming Israel, our closest ally in the
Middle East and a democracy beset by fascist enemies intent not on achieving
peace with the Jewish State but with its destruction; and 2) stop “reaching
out” to Iran and its fanatical leaders and support the Democracy Movement and
prepare to stand with the Free World to stop the Iranian government’s nuclear
ambitions.
·
The
“1” refers to the one response to
the hundreds of questions that will come on the topic of immigration. The
Arizona law underscores the massive failure of the Congressional Democrats to
take border security seriously.
“ODDS of 2 to 1” is just
a device to keep priorities in focus and campaigns on message.
(“ODDS of 2 to 1: Keys to 2010
Victory” by Hugh Hewitt dated April 28, 2010 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/HughHewitt/2010/04/28/odds_of_2_to_1_keys_to_2010_victory
)
“Mainstream Media” has lost touch with mainstream America and have become contemptuous of the lifestyle and motivations of
the people they are trying to serve. The media's march to its present
role as chief cheerleader for the Obama administration is the culmination of
the good-versus-evil narrative of modern journalism. The annual Pew Research Center survey on
trust in government found "a perfect
storm of conditions associated with distrust of government - a dismal economy,
an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash and epic discontent with
Congress and elected officials." The details are sobering: 56% of Americans are
frustrated with government, and an additional 21% are "angry;" The
Obama administration has the lowest average trust rating of any administration
in the 50 years of the survey; Discontent with Congress is also at record
levels; and The percentage of Americans desiring smaller government with fewer
services has risen from 42% to 50% since Barack Obama was elected. In another survey, the Rasmussen organization
reported that two-thirds of Americans think they are overtaxed, a belief
surprisingly more prevalent among lower-income voters. Complaining about taxes is an American custom,
but now there is a serious disconnect between the people and Washington power
brokers. 81% of mainstream Americans
think the country is overtaxed, but three-quarters of the political class think
tax levels are just fine. After
Watergate, the press began to look upon themselves not as neutral reporters of
the news, but rather as crusaders out to right the wrongs of the United States.
Journalism, as taught in the university
and promoted by those who had been active in the 1960s, came to be viewed not
as an independent watchdog of government regardless of who is in charge, but
rather as a vehicle for partisan social and economic change. Journalism viewed itself as a noble calling
to transform the United States, became a vital part of the metamorphosis of
journalism from news-gathering to news manipulation and the naïve promotion of
a radical leftist ideology. The coverage
of news stories concerning conservative issues or politicians became notable
for vitriol and deliberate slanting or omission of facts. Polls, commissioned by the media and easily
manipulated, were substituted for news and real reporting. To hear the media tell it, the TEA Party
movement is one of the most mysterious forces ever to surface in national life. The left responded first by trying to prove
that Tea Partiers weren't The People; they were “astroturfers,” paid agents of the
insurance companies. When that didn't
stick, progressives began throwing everything at the wall. The Tea Partiers were racists, Fox News
drones, “teabaggers,”
morons -- anything to drown out the truth that these were the same middle-class
Americans that the left had been trying to marshal against the insurance
companies. TEA Partiers were described
as an ignorant rabble until polls showed that they were a rabble that was
better off and better informed than the public in general, and they became a
selfish and privileged rabble: a privileged rabble parading as populists. The plainly stated, published principles of
the Tea Party movement are simple and finite: fiscal responsibility,
constitutionally limited government and free markets. This threefold purpose is the only solid
foundation for grasping the Tea Party movement, and is the source of the
movement's ever-growing expansion and power.
Politicians ignore growing public dissatisfaction at their professional
peril. This 45-year evolution of the
mainstream media culminated in the election of Barack Obama, who on the surface
fulfilled all the requirements of an ideal presidential candidate for the
chattering class. The Mainstream Media
willingly became, to use a phrase often attributed to Lenin, “useful idiots.” Yet after a year and a
half of the Obama administration, the media who so prostituted themselves are
being treated with outright disdain by their Idol, and they will be among those
to suffer the most under his policies.
(“Big-government extremism”
dated April 23, 2010 published by The Washington Times at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/23/big-government-extremism/
“Media still clueless about Tea
Parties” by Naomie Emery dated April 28, 2010
published by The Washington Examiner at http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Media-still-clueless-about-Tea-Parties-92211359.html
“The Origins of the Lapdog Media”
by Steve McCann dated May 1, 2010 published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/the_origins_of_the_lapdog_medi.html
“Defined by principle, not just
protest” by Doug Mainwaring dated May 3, 2010 published by The Washington
Times at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/03/defined-by-principle-not-just-protest/
)
Democrats are offering a new 21st-century definition
of freedom based on a culture of
dependence lowering expectations and lowering any chance of success. The
Democrats' political endgame requires citizens to accept subsistence as the new
definition of freedom. Democrats created
a political and socioeconomic system where citizens are divided into racial,
social, and economic classes. Democrats
concoct government programs, sold under the guise of compassion and equality,
to an unwitting but fully complicit populace addicted to handouts, freebies,
and benefits paid for by the sweat and equity of others. The United States was founded upon an ideal
that each person is free to pursue his dreams to the best of his abilities
without coercion from the government. What
each person chooses to do with his or her time, physical or intellectual
abilities, etc. was solely determined by the individual. Nobody expected the federal government to bail
him out; provide welfare, retirement, or health care; or intrude upon his
individual rights and liberties. The
United States of America was known throughout the world as the land of freedom
in which to prosper, where immigrants came to worship and speak freely,
assemble and congregate with people of their own choosing, to choose their
course in life and enjoy the fruits of their labor. The freedom to achieve prosperity is the
reason why immigrants came to the United States. To overcome religious or political persecution
and to overcome intrusive government regulations and laws, immigrants risked
their lives and possessions to escape to the land of prosperity. Immigrants were not assured anything more than
a chance to
prosper. Freedom and liberty require
individual sacrifice and responsibility. As government increases power and control over
the citizenry, there is a corresponding decrease in personal responsibility
resulting in less liberty, freedom, and variety. Democrats, led by Obama are compartmentalizing
Americans by race, gender, and age. President
Obama's demagoguery does not unite Americans -- it divides them.
Democrats create government programs to provide the appearance of being
compassionate towards some disenfranchised group. Democrats and their lapdog media continue to
promote the idea that government-provided "benefits" are a right and that government goodies are free. The recipient is dependent on the government
for the basic life necessities, just as a heroin addict is dependent on a
pusher for a fix. A person relieved of
all personal responsibility and willing to submit to the government for basic
necessities will never prosper and forever be stuck in mediocrity; with no
chance at success; no chance at failure; just subsistence as a ward of the
government. The trade-off proposed by Democrats
requires a person to give up liberty for security, prosperity for subservience,
opportunity for mediocrity, and personal responsibility for government
benevolence which by all appearances, getting something for nothing is a Good
Deal, but be forewarned: The Democrats are offering a Raw Deal.
(“Subsistence as Freedom” by
Scott Strzelczvk dated April 29, 2010 published by
American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/subsistence_as_freedom.html
)
Whenever liberals want to pass legislation intended to solve a
particular problem that increases the size and scope of the federal government,
they revise history and create imaginary villains which their bill is intended
to combat, and they never admit that it is they and their previous polices who
are at fault. The recession is a lesson in
unintended consequences. In the
government's attempt to increase homeownership, it created an enormous housing
bubble. The bubble inevitably burst, leading to the largest financial crisis
since the Great Depression. In 1993,
President Clinton significantly broadened the Community Reinvestment Act,
originally signed in 1977, which required all FDIC-insured banks to give more
loans to lower-income households (or less creditworthy borrowers). This move received broad political support. As a result of these changes, homeownership
and inflation soared. Furthermore, the
government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac enthusiastically
purchased high-risk mortgages from lenders on the secondary mortgage market. Encouraged by the knowledge that high-risk
mortgages would be swallowed up by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, lenders had
incentive to extend as many mortgages as possible, regardless of the
creditworthiness of borrowers. Finally,
in 2006, the Fed raised interest rates from 1% to 5.25% to avoid high
inflation. Suddenly mortgage payments
shot up, the demand for housing dried up, foreclosures multiplied, the credit
crunch ensued, and heavily leveraged firms collapsed. According to the left, none of the above
matters, and instead history was rewritten to blame the cause of the recession on
deregulation, which allowed for the creation of huge systemic risk throughout
the entire financial system. When this
risk was coupled with unbridled greed, it created a housing bubble. When the housing bubble inevitably burst, it
took down the entire American economy. The
great villain in the deregulation myth is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed
into law by Bill Clinton in 1999, which repealed some restrictions of the
Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, namely those
preventing bank holding companies from owning other kinds of financial firms. The left claims that this act broke down walls
between banks and other kinds of financial institutions, thereby allowing
enormous systemic risk to filter through the financial world. However, investment banks such as Lehman
Brothers, who were at the center of the crisis, would have been able to make
the same bad investments if Gramm-Leach-Bliley had never been passed. Other often-cited causes of the crisis are
derivatives such as mortgage-backed securities that were left unregulated by
the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. However, tighter regulation of these agents
would not have made the actual bad loans and mortgage-backed securities any
less likely to go bad when the bubble finally burst. Essentially, the left's argument boils down
to this: The government needs to regulate bad investment and decrease systemic
risk. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and in
this case, the bad investment was in the government-fueled housing market. The investment vehicles were only outgrowths
of the housing bubble, and had the housing market continued its upward
trajectory, these derivatives and mortgage-backed securities would have turned
out to be great investments. Perhaps the
worst part of the left's regulatory-reform plan is that it conceals the main
cause of the crisis, for it does nothing to address the Fed's cheap-money
policy or the unsustainable subsidies that the government is still providing to
homeowners and mortgage-purchasers like Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac. It also doesn't guarantee that taxpayers won't
have to pay for more bailouts in the future.
It is an oxymoron to think the government would
be capable of decreasing risk when they were incapable of foreseeing the
inevitable bursting of the huge bubble their policies created in the first
place.
(“Fixing What Ain’t
Broke, Hiding What Is” by Andrew Foy dated May 5, 2010 published by American
Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/fixing_what_aint_broke_hiding.html
)
The United States has gone from the greatest economy the world
has ever seen to being a creditor nation whose currency is in danger of being
devalued. In the United States the total federal debt,
including debt held by government agencies like the Social Security fund, has
ballooned by 50% since 2006 to $12.3 trillion. The U.S. government debt-to-GDP ratio is 84%. A tipping point into default is generally
believed to be 90%. On September 15,
2008 there was a suspicious, coordinated withdrawal of $550 billion from
American banks just before the end of the 2008 election campaigns. It forced the Federal Reserve to shut down the
drain of funds leaving the nation. At
what point do Americans begin to ask why the Obama administration:
·
Has
imposed a very expensive overhaul of the nation's health system setting the
stage for eventual nationalization,
·
Is
opposing the development of traditional sources of electrical power and for
transportation,
·
Is
attempting to impose the biggest tax on energy use (Cap-and-Tax) in the
nation's history.
·
Is
attempting to implement a VAT (value added) tax that will affect every purchase
of everything.
At what point will the economy of the United States of America no
longer be considered “too big to fail”
and be propped up by other nations buying our treasury notes?
(“Is the USA Too Big to Fail?”
by Alan Caruba dated May 3, 2010 published by
Intellectual Conservative at http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2010/05/03/is-the-usa-too-big-to-fail/
)
Contrary to the impression that the Mainstream Media is selling,
Wall Street financiers are really not the targets of this Financial Reform
bill, but really they are the beneficiaries. Bailouts
are the most unpopular topic in the country, so the quickest way to pass another
big-government bill is to label it “anti-bailout,”
even when it’s the opposite. Obama says
this bill will end bailouts; opponents say it will perpetuate bailouts; and then
they call each other liars. The key is
that they use different definitions. Obama
claims that so long as taxpayer money doesn’t go directly to a company or to
its shareholders, it’s not a bailout, but he considers it okay to send billions
to pay off that company’s creditors—who typically are big companies and Wall
Street firms. To the rest of us, paying
a company’s debts is
the bailout, as we’ve already seen happen multiple times. Obama also pretends that it’s not government
money. Bankers would be ordered by the
new law to create a $50-billion fund; but since Obama won’t agree that it’s a
tax, he claims it’s not taxpayer money. Of
course, the banks will charge higher fees to us customers to recoup this
amount. Obama’s tough talk against Wall
Street draws headlines, but they are frequently misleading. When whipping boy Goldman Sachs says they like
the proposed punishment, they’re not being masochists. They know that they’re getting a government
guarantee that they and their friends, as creditors, won’t suffer losses when a
business partner goes under. Plus anyone
doing business with the Wall Street big boys knows they won’t take a loss
thanks to the proposed law. They’ll get
more business thanks to that assurance and protection. The financial reform bill has plenty of other
dangerous flaws, but the bailout issue attracts the most attention. Many people do not realize that
the hedge funds are responsible for 75-90% of all trading activities on
Wall Street. These people are the
financial hedge fund short-selling operators who make money by betting on
company collapse, economic calamities and catastrophes. The Dodd bill does not
mention anything about regulating the hedge fund short sellers. In fact, the bill represents the biggest
effort so far by the hedge fund short sellers to have the government seal
of approval, to cover their role in engineering the economic collapse. Wall Street is about money, not adoration. They benefited from the original bailouts,
which means more to them than the criticism. Wall Street invested $15 million in Obama’s
campaign, and plenty more in congressional campaigns. Now they’re willing to
take a public bashing from their friends so long as they’re rewarded with what
counts, and that’s the bottom line.
(“Obama plan blows secret kisses
to Wall Street” by Ernest Istook dated April 29, 2010 published by The
Daily Caller at http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/29/obama-plan-blows-secret-kisses-to-wall-street/
“The Fraudulent ‘Financial Reform’
Bill” by Zubi Diamond dated May 6, 2010 published
by Accuracy in Media at http://www.aim.org/aim-report/the-fraudulent-financial-reform-bill/
)
Yuval Levin calls ObamaCare an "unmitigated disaster -- for our health care
system, for our fiscal future, and for any notion of limited government,
" and the more we learn about the specific provisions, the more we
discover that the bill does not reflect our values: faith, family and freedom,
nor does it strengthen those principles that are the foundation of a great
nation. Americans are learning that ObamaCare
will pile on insurmountable debt and cause government to encroach on every area
of our lives. Each day while Democrats are crisscrossing the country to
declare that ObamaCare is not a government takeover
of health care, a new government expert releases figures indicating that ObamaCare is going to be outrageously expensive and won't
do what the president promised it would. Many Americans were outraged
after ObamaCare passed when a report from the Office
of the Actuary of Medicare indicated that the costs of the bill would increase
rather than cut the costs of health care in the United States. In
addition to questions about cost, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll reveals that
over half of Americans are confused about what the law means (55%) and what
impact it will have on them (56%). Numerous polls indicate that the
public's trust in government is at an "historic low." The Pew Research Center reported that only 22%
of Americans trust government today. A Quinnipiac poll notes that the
President's approval rating is down to 44%, and Congress's approval is 25%.
Daniel Henninger, of the Wall Street Journal,
said, "The American people have issued a no-confidence vote in
government." ObamaCare contains $670
billion in tax increases. For the middle class, there are at least 14
different tax increases signed into law that target taxpayers making less than
$250,000 per year. ObamaCare means higher costs and lower quality; ObamaCare means rationing and higher taxes - including a
Value Added Tax (VAT). It means mandating and penalties. Making matters worse is the Community Living
Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) program, embedded in ObamaCare, which is an under-funded voluntary (for now)
entitlement programs that covers the cost of long-term care and assisted living
that will only further inflate the cost of this legislation. Now, in
addition to figuring out how to pay for the trillion dollar government takeover
of health care, we have to untangle the budgetary gimmicks, bureaucratic mess,
and disastrous financial crisis that the nation faces as a result. President Obama and
his liberal colleagues on the Hill jettisoned the world's best health care
system for the dubious honor of having achieved "health care reform" at twice the price, three times the cost,
rationed care and lower quality of service.
(“ObamaCare: An Unmitigated Disaster” by Janice Shaw Crouse dated May 1, 2010 published
by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/obamacare_an_unmitigated_disas.html
“CLASS(less)” by Limis Ward dated May 2, 2010 published by American Thinker
at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/classless.html
)
Most Americans support continued and controlled legal
immigration but the controversy we face isn't about immigration at all, but
really about the systematic failure of federal government to enforce the law or
offer rational policy. Gallup polls taken over the
past decade find that about 60% of Americans, when asked whether immigration is
generally a good thing or a bad thing for the country, believe it to be a
positive. Rasmussen polling found that
64% of Arizonans overwhelmingly support their new immigration law. There is a great deal of misinformation about
the Arizona law, SB 1070:
·
This
law empowers local police officers to check the immigration status of
individuals whom they have encountered during a “lawful contact,” if an officer reasonably suspects the person
stopped of being in the country illegally, and if an inquiry into the person’s
status is “practicable.”
·
The
officer may not base his suspicion of illegality “solely [on] race, color or national origin.”
·
The
law also requires aliens to carry their immigration documents, mirroring an
identical federal requirement.
·
Failure
to comply with the federal law on carrying immigration papers becomes a state
misdemeanor under the Arizona law.
·
The
law gives an officer the discretion, when practicable, to determine someone’s
immigration status only after the officer has otherwise made a lawful stop,
detention, or arrest.
·
An
officer must have a lawful, independent basis for a stop; he can only ask to
see papers if he has “reasonable
suspicion” to believe that the person is in the country illegally.
Obama
criticizes this Arizona law, yet fails to mention the current program that
trains local law enforcement officials in relevant aspects of immigration law
deputizing them to act as full-fledged immigration agents, acting as a “force
multiplier” - just as Arizona’s SB 1070 does. To turn a blind eye to America's porous
southern border makes a mockery of Obama's constitutional oath to protect and
defend the United States. His partisan
agenda to legalize illegals and harvest their votes
is undermining American national security interests. It flouts the nation's immigration laws,
thereby undermining respect for law generally. What is lost in this discussion is how much
and what type of legal immigration should this country allow, since that is the
ultimate goal of rejuvenating this nation’s resources. President Obama is failing his oath of office, putting
politics ahead of national security. The
charge of dereliction of duty against Obama needs to be made over and over
again until it sticks like superglue. The Arizona law is not about race; it’s not an attack on
Latinos or legal immigrants. It’s about one thing and one thing only: making
immigration enforcement a reality.
(“Praising Arizona” by Heather
MacDonald dated April 30, 2010 published by City Journal at http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon0430hm.html
“’Immigration’ Isn’t the Problem”
by David Harsanyi dated April 30, 2010 published by
Real Clear Politics at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/04/30/immigration_isnt_the_problem_105381.html
“Retaking the Offensive in the Illegals Fight” by J. Robert Smith dated April 30, 2010
published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/retaking_the_offensive_in_the.html
)
President Obama has once again tried to cover his administration
incompetence with flowery rhetoric and very little concrete action to address
the environmental accident in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. The
ferocious oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening President Barack Obama’s
reputation for competence, just as surely as it endangers the Gulf ecosystem. The oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico threatens to do as much damage to U.S. energy policy as it has
to the environment. Obama’s weeks-old
executive order allowing for limited coastal exploration has been stayed and
will probably be rescinded. The safety record of shallow-water drilling
remains very impressive, and this deep-water calamity neither tarnishes that
record nor indicates that it couldn’t be duplicated if Obama opened more of the
coastline to exploration. The White
House was particularly alarmed by the rash of stories comparing the Obama
administration’s initial response with Bush’s response in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina in 2005. As usual the Obama administration
used hyperbole and exaggeration to distract from the slow and ineffective response.
Obama’s claim that the administration
has been “all-hands-on-deck ... from day
one” is laughable. One has to wonder
why team Obama monitored the situation from afar for nine days, dithered in his
decision-making, and moved so slowly in responding to this situation. His administration relied on BP to respond
instead of swinging into action with every asset available to insure a rapid,
necessary and proper response. The
administration's immediate response was to state that this was BP's problem and
that they would be held accountable for any and all damages that flowed from
their accident. The President waited
more than a week after the explosion to send his Homeland Security Secretary
Janet Napolitano, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and EPA Administrator Lisa
Jackson to the region to coordinate a federal response. Unlike Katrina the federal government has
absolute and superior jurisdiction in this incident. In the nine days that elapsed, precious time
was lost and a containment problem became a clean-up nightmare. Now we discover that if U.S. officials had
followed up on a federal Gulf oil cleanup plan crafted in 1994, it is possible
that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land. However, the feds did not have a single cleanup
boom on hand. Certainly
their gross inaction allowed the leak to grow into a full-blown disaster. We must not let environmental
activists of all stripes seize this crisis as a greasy, golden opportunity and
use it to shut off access to America's natural resources for decades to come,
when blame can be clearly placed on inept administration officials.
(“White House in P.R. ‘panic’ over spill” by Glenn Thrush and Mike
Allen dated May 4, 2010 published by Politico at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36722.html
“Taking
Advantage of an Oil Crisis” by Brian Sussman
dated May 4, 2010 published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/taking_advantage_of_an_oil_cri.html
“Yes, Keep
Drilling” dated May 4, 2010 published by National Review Online at http://article.nationalreview.com/433349/yes-keep-drilling/the-editors
“Oil Spill
Proves It’s Obama Who is All Hat and No Cattle” by Bradley Blakeman dated May 5, 2010 published by Fox News at http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/05/05/bradley-blakeman-oil-spill-obama-day-hurricane-katrina-bush/
)
Once again this country receives a wake-up call that the Global
War on Terror is aIive and well, and the strategy has
changed to one of frequent smaller terrorist attacks on Americans. On
Sunday morning, Janet Napolitano was quick to suggest that the attempted attack
in Times Square was a "one-off"
event, as a political tactic to downplay its seriousness and give a false sense
of security. Faisal Shahzad's
has admitted to training for five months in terrorist camps in Waziristan,
Pakistan, a Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold.
Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen from
Pakistan, went on to confess to planning the attack, building the bomb,
targeting civilians, and trying to flee to Kuwait. The Pakistani Taliban claimed credit for the
attack in a video that was uploaded one day before the attempted bombing on an
internet video channel also set up one day before the attack. We were lucky Shahzad’s
bomb fizzled, but next time we might not be as lucky. Three failed attacks in six months in a “War That Will Not Be Named” is a
disturbing trend that must be addressed and uncovered proactively prior to any
future attacks. How
many more terrorist attacks must we surprised with before
we fire Janet “Incompetano?”
(“Not a ‘One-Off” Event” by Stephen F. Hayes
and Thomas Joscelyn dated May 4, 2010 published by
The Weekly Standard at http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/not-one-event
)
* There is so much published each week that unless
you search for it, you will miss important breaking news. I try to package the best of this information
into my “Views on the News”
each Saturday morning. Updates have been
made to the following issue sections:
·
Civil
Rights at http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/civilrights.php
·
Homeland
Security at http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/homelandsecurity.php
·
Immigration
at http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/immigration.php
David Coughlin
Hawthorne, NY