Obama brings back terrorism to NYC

I try hard to stay away from the topics of law and foreign policy. A wise man knows his strengths and weaknesses. I’ve been through several law classes in my endless collegiate career and my grades in those classes never revealed legal genius. Despite my better judgment, I’m going to jump right into both subjects in the same post. With all the analysis and discussion over KSM being tried in NYC, I couldn’t let the subject pass without a few sage words. In short, many are missing the most important paradigm being established in the White House’s recent move (you can read the foolishness here and here)

The arguments for a civilian trial has been regurgitating from the left for years. I believe the following letter to the editor in a NJ paper sums up the standard leftist argument:

“Dismiss any of the hogwash people are spewing that bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the horrific 9/11 attacks, and four other Guantánamo detainees to trial in New York is foolish. The overdue legal proceedings are an opportunity to showcase America at its best.

Our justice system is built on the bedrocks of due process and rule of law, which sadly have been put aside for terrorist suspects languishing for years in Gitmo. It’s time to bring those principles front and center again.”

Doesn’t it just fill you with warm, fuzzy feelings of America? There is always some meany to cut down to size or some victim to be saved, but this kind of rhetoric from the leftist machinery is a charade for the simple. I have always enjoyed how arguments from the left come rapped in pretty, pink bows, while inside the box is a totally different beast. So let’s open the box and take a look at the monster we have been regifted.

The cold, hard reality is that the upcoming KSM trial will be an exhausting mockery of our constitution and the whole world will be watching it. Are we going to throw out evidence, because KSM was not read Miranda Rights? Are we going to allow evidence not obtained through the specific due processes established over 200 years of case law? What would be the appropriate jury of peers, certainly not 12 US citizens? Was a warrant issued for KSM’s detention? How could a judge even consider hearing the case of a man who was not indicted timely? These are the procedures and rights provided by the constitution in civil trials. Is the left now demanding that these rights be subverted?

The hypocrisy of the left can be exposed in a simple question. Under what circumstances, do we exonerate KSM? If we are going to subvert all the procedural rights granted under the constitution, then you are making a mockery of yourself and the constitution. Many in Obama’s administration have all but assured that these procedural constitutional land mines would not be countenanced by the judge hearing the trial. What we are guaranteed is a show trial, which by definition is both unconstitutional and a horrific example of America at its worst (not best as the author above has opined).

I have no doubt that there are many well intentioned people that buy into the argument presented by the left above. That is why the Obama administration has wrapped the constitution wrecking ball KSM trail in flowery wrapping paper for the masses, a clever ruse indeed. The lapdog media is sure to follow suit. You on the other hand, shouldn’t.

Read More on this Topic @

And So it Goes in Shreveport: "It is a presidential decision—one about the hard, ever-present trade-off between civil liberties and national security."

What will be the Jobs Summit’s proposed solution? I know the answer.

I am baffled by the predictability of the Obama Administration. Many are weighing in on what the administration plans to accomplish with the upcoming Jobs Summit and many are incorrect in their assumptions that this is merely a media, PR stunt. Yes, it is a media stunt, but it will also be a signal that the gears of the leftward moving political machine are about to jumpstart in a new direction and away from health care (ATTENTION EVERYONE! This is a sign that the administration is confident about passing health care soon, not that it is throwing in the towel).


The media is already signaling the change in focus. Just look at all the recent interest in unemployment and the budget. Wouldn’t it have been nice to get all this discussion in relation to health care legislation? Progressive politicians gave away the ball game a long time ago. Remember…, “We need to pass health care so that we can focus on the economy.” With health care nearly behind them, it’s time to shore up that pesky economy problem. The only question left to ask is what will be the strategy coming down from the White House in regards to the Jobs Summit? I believe I can provide you with some insight on this.


Luckily, I have a long memory. Does anyone else remember the last summit? You know the fiscal responsibility summit? The solution to all our fiscal responsibility problems was Pay-Go and…HEALTH CARE. For the next eight months, the left has been ramming their health care legislation monstrosities down American’s throats.


So what will be the result of the Jobs Summit? Haven’t you guessed it? It will be green jobs and Cap and Trade right behind it. The solution is retraining, green infrastructure, and green jobs. Why are we holding onto TARP funds? Why have we barely spent any stimulus funds? There is a little red answer painted in green and it is as the President promised, transformational.


I have some ideas on how Obama plans on playing this game out and I’ll share them with you should my prediction come to fruition. You may think this strategy seems obvious and that few are likely to fall for it. You underestimate the mind numbing power of Democrats backed fully by the media.


CBO director Doug Elmendorf told the Politico that he believes Obama will need to nix his Cap and Trade plans. This is because Mr. Elmendorf has integrity and understands the nature of the legislation. The leftists behind the levers of power in Washington are not in the same mindset. They are concerned about legislating ideology, creating a permanent leftward shift in America and the problems be damned.


Few leftists in congress seemed concerned about fiscal responsibility when they passed the congressional health care bill last week, despite the fact that eight months ago, health care was offered as a budget solution. Just to give you an idea of how unconcerned the left is with fiscal responsibility, the Senate health care plan collects taxes for ten years to cover seven years of benefits. Now does that sound like a plan that will pay for itself in the years to come? Yet the media, politicians, and supporters all act as though the ten year deficit scoring from the CBO is transparent and legit. If they can pull this off, just imagine what they will do with green jobs.

Has anyone noticed that the Party of “No” is accomplishing more than the Obama?

The media and Democrats might want to stop labeling the Republican Party as the “Party of No.” One the surface, the label “Party of No” seems like good political strategy. It is a creative attempt to define and brand the opposition party negatively as the party opposed to all progressive ideas of hope and change. So what’s the problem with a little strategic branding? The problem is that saying “No” to Obama policies as a platform is starting to prove successful in producing tangible benefits for Americans.

Here are just a few successes we’ve seen by simply saying “No” to the Obama agenda:

The Republican Party strongly opposed Obama’s Cap and Tax legislation in July and is currently working to hold the bill up in the Senate. Democrats contend that by holding up the bill, Republicans are harming the world’s efforts to abate global warming. However, a newly released report by NOAA regarding October’s temperatures is telling us a different story. According to the report, October 2009 was the third coldest month on record. The average temperatures in October were 4 degrees Fahrenheit below average for the last century. Of course global warming scientists cannot reasonably explain the shocking drop, but one thing is evident, not passing Cap and Tax into law seems to be having a powerful effect on lowering average temperatures at a dramatic rate.

Republican opposition held up health care legislation in August. Despite claims from Democrats that the Republicans are intentionally killing off the sick as a result of their opposition, Obama touted a dramatic decrease in the number of uninsured from 47 million to 30 million. The drop occurred in less than of month after just saying “No” was congressional drumbeat. Saying no proved cheaper for Americans and dramatically effective.

Let’s also take a look at Obama’s stimulus. Sadly in this case, the “Yes” votes prevailed in February. However, if you look at Obama’s projections below, you will see that following the call of “No” would have put us at 9% unemployment. A dramatic improvement over the 10.2% unemployment we currently have under the stimulus. Only a fool would overlook the obvious wisdom of the “No” strategy.



All kidding aside, (I love writing about paradoxes) it is unfortunate that most liberal media and politicians push the idea that something is better than nothing. The truth is that there are good ideas and bad ideas. We can actually come out of legislation worse then when we came in. Many of Obama’s policies fall under the category of bad ideas. Nearly all of the current administrations big agenda items are crafted and rooted in accomplishing political goals as opposed to solving problems.

For example via The American Spectator:

Liberal John Cassidy explains of the progressive agenda:

"[W]e will be dealing with its consequences for decades to come, and I think it’s important to be clear about what the reform amounts to," Cassidy wrote. He goes on to confess that, "The future cost savings that the Administration and its congressional allies are promising to deliver are based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand. Over time, the reform, as proposed, would almost certainly add substantially to the budget deficit, thereby worsening the long-term fiscal crisis that the country faces."

After explaining many of the accounting tricks the Democrats have used to obtain a passing grade from the Congressional Budget Office, which I have detailed on numerous occasions, Cassidy concludes:

So what does it all add up to? The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment to help provide health coverage for the vast majority of its citizens. I support this commitment, and I think the federal government’s spending priorities should be altered to make it happen. But let’s not pretend that it isn’t a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won’t.

The reason “No” has been so successful to date is that the “Yes” solutions aren’t intended to address any particular problem. It's easy to say "No" to solutions that don't fix problems. The health care bill will cut the spiraling costs of health care, the answer is no so just say "No." Cap and trade will reduce global temperatures, the answer is no so just say "No." The stimulus is jolting the economy back to life, the answer is no so just say "No" more spending. When the leaders in congress and the White House are not bringing viable options to the table, the productive response is "No."

AMA, AARP, SEIU WHAT'S IN FOR THEM

So what was so important about passage of this bill on this particular weekend? It is the one year anniversary of the election of BHO as president. I like using his initials. It reminds me of a syndrome that I do not particularly want to contract.
As BHOC (Obamacare) moves a step closer to reality despite the objections of a majority of the American public, the Washington demigod's continue their march to power and control of the United States Health Care System, they are being aided in their effort by three vary powerful lobbing groups. The American Medical Association (AMA), the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), have added their collective stamps of approval.

I see this as one of the largest games of "Texas Hold Em" ever played.
For the demigod's, a chance to consolidate their power into a one party socialist system by rendering the Republican party as impotent (sorry I digress). Fortunately there is a cure called the Independents which the BHO supporters seem to have forgotten about.

The question is what do these three lobby groups get in return?
Let me try to explain how this works since they don't teach this in public schools anymore.

I wonder why!!

Once a bill is passed by both houses of Congress and is signed into law by the President, the executive branch then kicks into gear. Remember that the Congress makes the laws and the executive branch then has the power to implement the law. That goal is accomplished through the "Code of Federal Regulations" (CFR). The CFR is broken down into 50 fifty separate Titles (possibly 51 if that portion of the House & Hose Bill survives) is published in the Federal Resister. The bill now law is administered by the Administrative Branch that is assigned to enforce it.
For example Title 26 Section 7805 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) gives the US Secretary of Treasury the power to create the necessary rules and regulations for enforcing the IRC. These regulations, also known as the “Income Tax Regulations,” are located in Title 26 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The regulations are organized according to the IRC section that a regulation interprets. Citations to the Treasury Regulations may appear in different formats. For instance, the definition of gross income in the regulations may be cited to as “26 C.F.R. 1.61-1” or as “Treas. Reg. 1.61-1.” Both citations refer to the same regulation, which interprets the IRC Section 61, "Gross income defined."

Boiled down, Congress grants very broad authority to executive branch agencies to interpret the statutes in the US Code (and in uncodified statutes) which the agencies are entrusted with enforcing. This is where the Czars come into play their hands. They can determine who gets be heard during the public hearings and meetings with interested third parties (IE..Lobby Groups). To give you an example CFR Title 49 covers the "Transportation of Hazardous Chemical for Commerce". It was written almost entirely by input from the Chemical Manufacturer's Association which lobbied heavily. Title 49 contains one book of regulations and 3 books of exceptions to the regulations.

Point being those that support the bill can gain favorable status in writing the statutes. So you have 3 eager beavers that are vying for the power of drafting the regulations. My guess is that since BHO is partial to unions the SEIU has the inside track meaning that the AMA and the AARP are holding their cards a little bit closer to the chest in case they don't have the winning hand.

And so the game continues with the next hand will be dealt in the US Senate.

How do you kill a monster?

What’s more interesting than the passing of Saturday’s historic congressional health care legislation? How about, why is the legislation still alive? Read the monster stories and you will see that a silver bullet kills a werewolf, a wooden stake through the heart will kill a vampire, but there seems to be no stopping the government take over of health care. Here are a few things that should have killed this Obamanation and yet the beast lives on.

1. Bipartisanship

After nearly a decade of the left extolling the positive virtues of bipartisanship and its ability to solve all problems, bipartisanship proved ineffective in stopping health care unreform on Saturday. Despite the heavy bipartisan effort to kill the monster, it proved ineffective. In fact, the press has been working hard to show that bipartisanship was directly responsible for resurrecting the creature.

2. The monster’s true image

I’m reminded of the story of Dorian Grey who would have been immortal had he not looked upon the reality of his true image. That wasn’t the case with health care. Even today, the left continues to pontificate that private insurance companies are needlessly and immorally denying patient’s access to health care for money. AMA released a report showing that government run Medicare rejects more patients than private insurance, thus showing the monster the monster’s true image and yet the evidence proved unsuccessful in abating the bills passage.

3. Medical science’s magic bullet

Obama has been adamant that by releasing this monstrous bill, the monster will in turn fight off the pending health care doom on the horizon. The strategy was that the bill focused on prevention and as a result, preventative measures would lower costs of treatment. Medical research took its best shot at besting the health care menace by showing that preventative medicine does not lower health care costs. The shot was well aimed and timed, but I think it’s safe to say at this point that rational arguments will not fell this ghoul.

4. The villager’s with their fire and pitchforks

The villagers have been out in force to protest this monster’s creation. However, Dr Frankenstein congressional members seem to be reluctant to end their evil creation. There was a time where fire and pitchforks were a reality, as was the practice of tar and feathering and riding politicians on rails. Despite the claims from congress that villager violence is at an all time high in this country, so far the peasants have not progressed beyond peacefully insistent. I’m not advocating a change in strategy. Instead, I’m pointing out that the mad scientists in congress are feeling very confident that their lordly, castle walls will restrain the peasants.

5. Dr Jekyll will take the potion even if it means death

Despite the fact that congress has removed the doctor fix, both the AARP and AMA have pledged their undying support. What’s the doctor fix? According to current legislation, Medicare is set to dramatically slash the amount that the government will reimburse doctors for services. As a result, many doctors are threatening to either close up shop or flat out refuse Medicare patients. This is one of those “the government fails at everything” examples you are supposed to ignore. The doctor fix would have corrected this issue. However, the doctor fix also would have made the government monster health care bill look a little too frightening for Democrats as deficits in the 10 year window would have popped up in the CBO report, so it had to go. As a result, many Medicare users may face losing their doctors and doctors face bankruptcy. Please take note as to whom the left chooses to through under the bus first.

Congress also decided to impose a tax on health care equipment like pace makers and still no peep from AARP and AMA. When it comes to the left, ideology trumps even your constituents.

6. Don’t expect the zombies to become less zombie-like

As in all evil rituals, those that desire to summon evil must provide a sacrifice. The left chose to sacrifice human sacrifice. The house bill added a last minute amendment guaranteeing that the public option will not cover abortions. However, as is the case when you are dealing with zombies, you cannot expect zombies to start becoming less zombie-like. This health care bill was unacceptable to most zombies long before the abortion sacrifice and still they follow their master.

7. King Kong versus Godzilla or King Kong and Godzilla

We are at 10.2% unemployment and many analysts are concerned about a double dip recession. In short, Godzilla is destroying Tokyo. For some reason, many on the left believe that letting loose their King Kong health care plan will bring about Godzilla’s destruction (or was it that people would be too worried about King Kong that they wouldn’t notice Godzilla?). In watching the old Japanese horror films, have you ever wondered why King Kong and Godzilla bothered fighting each other? That’s my puzzlement with this strategy.

Today, the media is busy talking about how the health care bill is dead on arrival at the Senate. I don’t believe it for a second. If the things I listed above can’t kill this monster, I doubt that moderate senators will be up to the task. If you know how to best this beast, now’s the time to speak up before the left let’s loose this monster on the innocent.

Saturday Stands for Links and the bipartisan thing to do is to vote against the health care bill

It’s Saturday and although I’m about to go to bed, congress is still debating on the health care bill. However, despite all the claims at Republican partisanship, Eric Cantor correctly points out that opposition is actually bipartisan. So in the interest of bipartisanship, this post is dedicated to those that are voicing dissent for the health care bill.

1. And so it goes in Shreveport is doing a great job live blogging the congressional debate. Also, check out her run up story here.

2. KOOK’s cartoon find is featured at the top.

3. The Lonely Conservative has the news on Barney Frank's dig at health care protesters.

4. Track’s post may not be related to health care, but anything related to Michelle Obamais instantly more important.

5. Left Coast Rebel has picks of Thursday’s health care protest.

6. Health care bill to lose women vote? Teresamerica has the story.

Blogs to keep your eye on:

1. I love being right has an excellent blog as evidenced by his expose on the health care bill. Well written and very well laid out. Make sure you visit often.

2. Disinformation you deserve has an exhaustive list of the new boards and bureaucracies hidden within the pages of the health bill. She also has a top notch blog.

What does unemployment data mean for health care bill?

H/T Legal Insurrection
H/T Reaganite Republican

The support has been bought, congress member’s arms twisted, and now Pelosi has declared that a health care vote will occur tomorrow. Congress works on Saturday? No, this will be a “special session.” Let’s not forget that this wouldn’t be the political left if they weren’t foremost concerned with leftist politics. Connolly, a Democrat from VA, titled the Democrats cards indicating why the vote is being pushed. He said of Tuesday’s elections:

"What I saw was a depressed Democratic base. And what that told me is, Democrats are going to have to deliver for that base if they want to excite that base…"

Somebody hand these people a pair of glasses, because clearly they are not seeing the writing on the wall. It was written on the pages of newspapers today with big print reading, “Unemployment hits 10.2%!” Yet where are the special congressional sessions to discuss the economy?

What is more interesting is the complete lack of respect from congressional democrats for their base of supporters. According to Connolly, you are to overlook their failures in dealing with the economy in exchange for a health care bill only a politician would love (here and here), but never use. I pity the sheeple on the left that are not revolting with disgust at this slight.



Since Tuesday’s exit polls showed that all voters are concerned about the economy, let me show you the way to reality (Big Hat Tip to Regeanite Republican for the amazing graph (I still love graphs)). If unemployment data mirrored the White House’s projections for the stimulus, would the left be saying the stimulus is working? Would it not be reasonable to say that the stimulus is causing the problem since we are doing worse than the “do nothing” scenario?

I am well aware that unemployment is a lagging, not leading, economic indicator. This means that the economy needs to improve before unemployment improves. However, this doesn’t mean that nothing about the future of the economy can be extrapolated from unemployment numbers. By all means, the figures we are looking at today regarding unemployment points to a very serious problem with last quarter’s GDP figures.

Over the last few months, economists had been forecasting a slowing in the recession and unemployment. Today’s numbers do not show a slowing in unemployment, but stagnation. If unemployment is stagnate and not tapering off towards positive employment growth as predicted, what does this mean about our recession assumptions? It raises the possibility that the recession is also stagnate and not easing as forecasted.

That’s not all that is stagnating. The Obama administration is dithering on all fronts be it the economy, Iran or Afghanistan. Yet this Saturday, it is absolutely imperative that we pass a health care plan that won’t be implemented until 2013.

Other related posts:




Left Coast Rebel