Monday, December 28, 2009
It's almost the end of the year, and the pundits are beginning to tally up the list of accomplishments and failures of the Obama administration's first year in office. Just making it under the wire for 2009, another attack on the U.S. was carried out by an Islamic terrorist. A radicalized Nigerian attempted to blow up a Delta/Northwest airline flight as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day. The fact that he was unsuccessful was due far more to Providence than it was due to the government, which failed the American public for a third time this year.
The other two attacks were an Islamic terrorist attack on a military recruiting office in Little Rock, AR, killing two soldiers, and the Islamic radical Army psychologist who murdered 13 soldiers and wounded dozens of others at Fort Hood, TX.
Predictably, this latest attacker will be treated as a common U.S. criminal (although Canada may claim jurisdiction since the inbound aircraft may have been in Canadian airspace an hour out from Detroit). As such, he's already receiving free medical care for his self-inflicted injuries, despite our failure to enact health care reform in time for his attack on us.
But now he'll be entitled to all the rights of a U.S. citizen: a free Koran and a prayer mat, a comfortable cell with a TV, three meals a day of specially prepared food that conforms to the dictates of his religion, a jury trial with an opportunity to grandstand to the world about the evil United States, unlimited access to free defense counsel and a complete law library, appeal after appeal, and perhaps even a civil damages trial with a monetary verdict against the doctors who treated his injuries. Maybe John Edwards would be available for that!
Despite the World Apology Tour, despite the elimination of the word "terrorist" from the government lexicon, despite the promise to close Gitmo, despite the change in status from illegal combatants to political prisoners, despite the cozying up to Hamas and anti-Semitic remarks from liberal former presidents, despite the willingness to sit down and try to talk with Iran, North Korea, and even the Taliban, it seems that al-Qaeda still hates us and they're still trying to kill us.
So the score for the Obama administration is one foreign policy failure and three attacks on the U.S. in their first year.
Put another way, that's three more breaches of homeland security than occurred in the seven years since 9/11 under the Bush administration.
Perhaps that's being too harsh. They've had apparent success at preventing other attacks.
During the Obama administration's first year, there were NO reports of American citizens blowing up United Nations offices to express concern over the perceived threat to U.S. power and sovereignty by other foreign powers.
American citizens concerned with the outsourcing of jobs, or the perceived loss of U.S. jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and home foreclosures did NOT attempt to crash general aviation airplanes into the Capitol or the White House.
There were NO reported attacks on U.S. citizens (a few politicians got yelled at) by other Americans favoring state or local authority to massive federal expansion, although some American citizens were assaulted by union thugs favoring massive federal expansion.
NO citizens or government employees were shot at or blown up by other American citizens unhappy with Attorney General Holder's proposed imposition of firearms restrictions and weapons bans to placate Mexico's demands, or his suggested misuse of the No-Fly list to deny rights to Americans.
NO returning American veterans possessing combat skills and experience blew up any government offices, attacked police stations, or assassinated politicians.
American citizens holding views antagonistic toward this administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use, did NOT undertake assaults on military bases, airlines, border crossing points, ACORN offices or Mexican consular offices.
Law-abiding American citizens who believe that rising crime rates attributed to a slumping economy make the purchase of legitimate firearms a wise move at this time, did NOT shoot police officers.
So we have to give the Obama administration credit. After all, these were the people that the Department of Homeland Security had their eye on. DHS even published a document targeting them and profiling their political views as dangerous. DHS had cautioned federal, state, and local police officials to be on the watch for them. So while a few Islamic terrorists got through, and a couple of White House party-crashers, there wasn't a single attack by "Right Wing Extremists" during Mr. Obama's first year in office!
I feel so much safer!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Dear Senator Nelson,
You're receiving national name recognition as THE Senator who will make or break the Health Care Reform bill now being debated in the Senate. You are being portrayed as being the ONE person who will save the "deal" or who will forever be remembered as having ignored the will of the people. It's being reported that your consent rests on the language regarding abortion funding.
The pressure on you must be tremendous!
But surely you're not so naïve as to think that no matter what is being offered, it may not end up in conference as being what "they" promised after "they" get your support. Surely you're not unaware that regardless of the will of the people as expressed by your vote, there's a judge out there willing to overturn your carefully crafted language -- just as one did with regard to the legislation eliminating funding of ACORN. Surely you know that some activist judge will "find" discrimination being done against women if their abortions don't receive federal funding.
Are empty promises on that sole issue worth the astronomical cost to tens of millions of people who will be forced to pay the high premiums and increased taxes in a tradeoff to prevent the few who will benefit regardless from asymmetrically funded abortion? Is it worth the loss of tens of thousands of doctors who have announced they will close their practices and eliminate their services if this bill becomes law? Is it worth the massive reduction in Medicare coverage for Nebraska's senior citizens that this bill mandates? Is it worth the lost jobs and the lost economic growth opportunities that this bill will cost, especially during a recession or a tepid jobless recovery? Is it worth the loss of freedom to choose by citizens who will be FORCED by GOVERNMENT to purchase something they neither want nor need? Is it worth the massive diversion of state government funds from critical infrastructure and education programs which will be required to support this huge federal mandate? Is it worth the increase in the crushing national debt burden that will be imposed on our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren -- IF our economy survives it?
We need health care reform, but we need REAL health care reform -- not a "deal" that has to be done before an artificial Christmas deadline. Real reform is not contained in an unread 2,000 page piece of legislation, developed in secretive midnight and weekend closed door meetings, with debate cut off in blatant violation of 200 year-old Senate rules, and votes cast in the dark of night. Is that what you voted for when you voted to bring this bill to the floor? You know, and so do we, that this bill is a gimmick for including mischief on a massive scale -- the "camel's-nose-under-the-tent" for a single-payer national socialist health plan that can only end up in health rationing. Real reform is done a step at a time, with open debate on the merits of the particular issue.
I know you have the intestinal fortitude to place the will and the well-being of your Nebraska constituents above the sleight-of-hand "deal" that your party's leadership is so desperate to consummate. I strongly urge you to reject the empty promises and hollow threats, and to vote against cloture and against passage of this terrible bill.
Sincerely,
Well, that was the message sent to Senator Nelson yesterday. It didn't get through. Apparently Senator Nelson wasn't interested in hearing from his constituents on this one, because his mailbox was "full" and his phone lines were shut off. Sounds like he's also scared to death of Nebraska's Right to Life chairwoman, since he's not returning her calls either. After supporting him in all his campaigns against Republican opponents, she put out a public repudiation of him today.
Instead of standing tall on the language he insisted must be in the bill, he reportedly let himself be bought off by an exclusion that Nebraska state government will never, ever pay Medicaid costs again (that's the government help you get to pay your medical bills AFTER you have to sell off everything, including your home) because federal taxpayers will foot the entire bill.
I'm curious on several counts: 1) how many Nebraskans pay only state taxes and not federal taxes, 2) are there more Nebraska voters on Medicaid than there are opposed (63%) to this bill, or 3) are there more Nebraska voters on Medicaid than there are who belong to Nebraska's Right to Life, which he's needed in the past?
But that was it? That was the best he could come up with? For a moment, he was the most powerful man in the Senate, and he ended up being bought off for far less than the $300 million bribe to Senator Landrieu of Louisiana. At least, Senator Landrieu can point to the largesse being expended by the administration on her constituents as the cost of their freedoms. What can Senator Ben show for the price of his treachery?
This "permanent" Medicaid exclusion will last at least until Congress reconvenes, and inserts its repeal somewhere deep in another unread 2,000 page piece of legislation. Even his colleague Senator Conrad of North Dakota said as much on a nationally broadcast Sunday TV talking heads show!
His party's Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sibelius, commented publicly that the anti-abortion federal funding language for which he was "holding the line" is circumvented elsewhere in the same bill!
When the Obama administration reportedly threatened to close Offutt Air Force Base if Nelson didn't fall into line and support the bill, his fellow Nebraska Senator, Republican Mike Johanns demanded an investigation. Never mind, said Ben, it never happened. Now he can't even use that fig-leaf for an excuse to Nebraska voters.
In other words, he was slow-rolled by his party's leadership. Instead of being seen as Senator Ben from McCook, courageous defender of Nebraskan freedoms and values -- inheritor of the mantle of McCook's other son, the revered Senator George W. Norris who championed rural electrification -- he's being laughed at by his own party as some kind of rube who got took!
I'm willing to bet that investigative reporters, if there still are any, might also uncover a promise to fully fund the Senator's fight against his apparent onset of dementia, so he could quietly retire to his tax-dodge turkey-hunting ranch on the banks of the . . . oh, you know, the river that runs through his home state of . . . of . . . oh, what's its name? Oh, you know, he used to live there. Before he moved to Washington, Democrat Charnelhouse.
If he can ever find his way home again.
