Contraceptive Bill of Rights

What’s new Today

Our #1 story is an interesting analogy to what Obama did with birth control and the Catholic Church.  #2 Jonah Goldberg looks at the Catholic church vs Obama issue.  And in #3 Rasmussen shows how Obama’s support among Catholics has dived.  #4 travels to the Daily Kos for a good example of Liberal Racism.  #5 is an interesting look at what is happening to the social fabric of America.  #6 looks at what would happen if the Republican Majority in the House was allowed to do what they have passed bills to do without the Democratic Senate stopping them or Obama vetoing their legislation (dreams of 2013).  Finally #7 is an interesting look at the Navy’s program to develop a railgun (a gun that fires with gunpowder at over twice the speed of convention armaments).

1.  Healthcare Overreach

…Let's see whether I can make the consternation over the HHS mandate a little clearer to our liberal friends. Let's say that, by a strange quirk of fate, I'm now the president of the United States. I'm president of the United States, and I have a great idea. I've decided that, because of their well-documented benefits to women's health, all health care plans in the United States shall henceforth be required to cover, without co-pay charges, instruction in the Creighton Method of Natural Family Planning. In fact, I got together a group of scientists and doctors, and they produced a report raving about the benefits of the Creighton Method of Natural Family Planning. (No, not the Billings Method -- all the doctors on my "high-level panel" specialized in Creighton, so you Billings people are getting nothing.) It helps women avoid unwanted pregnancies better than any other method and allows them to space their births with more certainty. It doesn't depend on the infusion of high amounts of unnatural drugs or steroids into a woman's body that will upset her natural cycles, making future pregnancies more difficult.

Indeed, teaching women the Creighton Method of Natural Family Planning will, in fact, save us a lot of money. Taking contraceptives is a continual expense, as women must continue to "pop pills" for as long as they wish to prevent pregnancy. Teaching women the Creighton Method of Natural Family Planning, on the other hand, involves a one-time charge (or perhaps two or three, if women wish to brush up their knowledge and skills), after which there would be no need for expensive drugs. Plus, the Creighton Method of Natural Family Planning would help women to understand their own bodies better and allow them to notice subtle changes in their bodies and cycles, making it more likely that they will detect early signs of various dangerous cancers or other pathologies. The medical and social benefits are clear and without question.

And now, because of my great idea, every hospital and school and business in the country -- including, of course, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and NOW -- are all going to be required by the federal government, on pain of imprisonment or severe fines, to pay out their scarce health-care resources to support education in the Creighton Method of Natural Family Planning. They might be just a tad upset at that sort of requirement, and with some justification. "Why are we being required to cover services for a procedure we don't believe in and that we in fact find overly burdensome to women and not really beneficial to women's health in the circumstances that we think are most important: namely, when they're sexually active but want to avoid unwanted pregnancies?" …

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/health_care_overreach_federalism_and_federal_mandates.html#ixzz1mM0192cL

Actually studies have shown the Creighton Method to be effective 98% of the time.  But that isn’t the real point.  The real point is that this would be an intrusion that Planned Parenthood and many leftist organizations would absolutely go crazy about.  What’s sauce for the goose so to speak….

2.  Keep your rosaries off my Ovaries

 

… Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius claims that the move will save money — an ounce of prevention saves a pound of "cure" — so religious institutions will incur no additional costs. If that's true, why haven't those greedy insurance companies been doing it all along?

If anything, President Obama has made the situation worse. The White House fact sheet seems to offer no exemption at all for religious institutions: "Under the new policy … women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she [sic] works." That sounds like a complete win for the "Get Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries" crowd to me.

Of course, if religious institutions don't want to violate their consciences, they can simply stop offering health insurance altogether (providing yet another example of how Obama misled voters when he promised that the Affordable Care Act wouldn't cause anyone to lose their current coverage). That would at least allow religious organizations to uphold their principles. The result, however, would be to force taxpayers to subsidize practices many find morally abhorrent.

I think Santorum's argument is entirely right: This is about freedom, full stop. When we empower bureaucrats and politicians to make such huge personal decisions for us, it becomes impossible to avoid trampling on liberty. The Roman Catholic Church was simply the first in the leviathan's path….

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0214-goldberg-contraception-20120214,0,6151054.column

The loss of Catholic Hospitals from providing health insurance would actually violate two Obama promises.  The first “if you like your health insurance you can keep it” and the second the cost of the program to the taxpayer will go up significantly. 

 

 

3.  Catholics Disapprove of Obama

 

Catholics strongly disapprove of the job President Obama is doing as the debate continues over his administration’s new policy forcing Catholic institutions to pay for contraception they morally oppose. While the president’s overall job approval ratings have improved over the past couple of months, they have remained steady among Catholics.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 59% of likely Catholic voters nationwide at least somewhat disapprove of the president’s job performance, while 40% at least somewhat approve. But the passion’s on the side of those who don’t like the job he’s doing: 44% Strongly Disapprove versus 19% who Strongly Approve.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of Catholics voted for Obama in November 2008. However, Republican hopeful Mitt Romney currently leads the president among Catholic voters by a 52% to 35% margin.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/february_2012/59_of_catholics_disapprove_of_obama_s_job_performance

 

 

 

4.  Liberal Racism

 

Today, Daily Kos published an article on redistricting in Utah, and how they hope (comically enough, given Utah’s heavy Republican majority) that the Democrats and “Team Blue” can pick up a Congressional seat.

That’s not the offensive part.

In describing Utah’s new 4th district, the author says the following:

This gives one district for a liberal Democrat and preserves a second one for Matheson. Both the GOP districts went over 70% for McCain. I actually managed to pack the 3rd over 80% McCain, just to see how high I could get it, but it was a little uglier, so I opted for this. It’s not like we were winning the 1st anyway. Plus, this will keep Saratoga Springs mayor Mia Love out of Congress. She is one of only two African-Americans living in Utah not currently playing for the Jazz. (Even they are scarce now, with Boozer and D-Will skipping town. Have you seen Gordon Heyward recently?) The GOP is clearly desperate for a new token black Republican, after Herman Cain and Michael Steele didn’t pan out, and I find it hilarious how much trouble they have doing so, so I’d love to prolong it even further.

Token black. Basketball players. Blacks can’t be conservatives.

It SHOULD go without saying, but sadly it bears repeating:

The Left is the source of the vast majority of racism in America, and the Democratic Party is the party of the Ku Klux Klan and resistance to ending slavery.

http://5440fight.com/2012/02/13/exhibit-3587239-in-the-long-list-of-liberal-democrat-racism/

Mia Love is running for the newly created 4th Congressional District in Utah. Mia was the talk of the CPAC conference, inspiring comparisons to Marco Rubio and Allen West.  Mia currently serves as the Mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, and if elected, would be the first ever black Republican woman in Congress.  But look at the hate in the article from The Daily Kos.  A conservative woman or a conservative black is a heretic and will be pilloried like one, but a conservative black woman is akin to  the Devil himself if you are a liberal.

 

 

5.  The Materialist Fallacy

The half-century between 1912 and 1962 was a period of great wars and economic tumult but also of impressive social cohesion. Marriage rates were high. Community groups connected people across class.

In the half-century between 1962 and the present, America has become more prosperous, peaceful and fair, but the social fabric has deteriorated. Social trust has plummeted. Society has segmented. The share of Americans born out of wedlock is now at 40 percent and rising.

As early as the 1970s, three large theories had emerged to explain the weakening of the social fabric. Liberals congregated around an economically determinist theory. The loss of good working-class jobs undermined communities and led to the social deterioration.

Libertarians congregated around a government-centric theory. Great Society programs enabled people to avoid work and gave young women an incentive to have children without marrying.

Neo-conservatives had a more culturally deterministic theory. Many of them had been poor during the Depression. Economic stress had not undermined the family then. Moreover, social breakdown began in the 1960s, a time of unprecedented prosperity. They argued that the abandonment of traditional bourgeois norms led to social disruption, especially for those in fragile circumstances.

Over the past 25 years, though, a new body of research has emerged, which should lead to new theories. This research tends to support a few common themes. First, no matter how social disorganization got started, once it starts, it takes on a momentum of its own. People who grow up in disrupted communities are more likely to lead disrupted lives as adults, magnifying disorder from one generation to the next. …

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/opinion/brooks-the-materialist-fallacy.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

These kinds of article are normally a worthwhile read and this one definitely is.  I think we will hear more about this in the 2012 campaign. 

6.  What if?

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment. Imagine that the Republican majority in the House of Representatives ran things in Washington. Unilaterally. No need to negotiate with the Senate or assemble two-thirds majorities to overturn those pesky presidential vetoes.

Imagine that legislation commanding majority support in the current House would become law immediately upon passage. What might our nation and our world look like?

This is not an altogether quixotic exercise. A thorough review of roll-call votes cast since the 2010 electoral upheaval allows us to approximate the world view that guides the 243-member House Republican caucus.

Such a review reveals a conception of America — and America’s role in the world — as ambitious, and conservative, as that of any previous congressional majority.

Indeed, from a political perspective many of these votes qualify as truly heroic (or, for those hewing to a leftist viewpoint, truly demonic). Viewed in its entirety, the agenda overwhelms. It would: repeal Obamacare; place a firm limit on how much in taxes Washington can take from our paychecks; require federal bureaucracies to think before they regulate; restore considerable authority and decision-making power to state governments; and alter the structural DNA of two of the Big Three entitlement programs — Medicare and Medicaid. (Fundamental overhaul of Social Security, it seems, will have to wait.).

In a nutshell, the GOP House agenda would place the federal government on a fiscally sustainable path without eviscerating national security. America would reclaim its status as one of the freest and most opportunity-laden economies in the world. There would be real and enforceable limits on the power of the federal government. And our ability to defend America’s interests around the world would be robust and enduring.

If you think this sounds like the equivalent of a second American Revolution, you’re right.

So, what exactly happened in our thought experiment?

First, the 112th Congress repealed every jot and tittle of Obamacare on its first day of business…

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/290992/if-house-gop-ruled-michael-g-franc

This is what the Democrats are afraid of and what they are trying to use as a boogey man to scare voters.  The screed, “Do you want to go back to the failed policies of the past” really is meant to avoid this.  The problem the Democrats have now is that the fail policies of the recent past are theirs. 

7.  The Navy’s Railgun

After years of testing a lab model at the Navy surface warfare center in Dahlgren, Virginia, the railgun — a gun without moving parts that fires a round through a big burst of electricity — is finally moving into a prototype phase. Next week, BAE System’s version of the railgun shoud arrive at Dahlgren for tests, followed in April by General Atomics’ version.

Meanwhile, Raytheon is developing the central nervous system of the railgun — the battery package that stores and then blasts the energy to send a bullet through the barrel. A shipboard demonstration should be ready, tentatively, by 2019.

That came very close not to happening at all. In June, the Senate Armed Services Committee put the railgun on the chopping block. That was barely six months after the railgun broke a world record at Dahlgren, firing a 23 pount bullet at Mach 8 speeds thans to 33 magajoules of energy.   But “the committee felt the technical challenges to developing and fielding the weapon would be daunting,” staff director Richard DeBobes told Danger Room back then, “particularly [related to] the power required and the barrel of the gun having limited life.”…

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/02/rail-gun/

As an old Navy man I found this very interesting.  Mach 8 for those who are interested is 5280 mph.  Perhaps Superman is no longer “faster than a speeding bullet.”

Freedom?

What’s new Today

Our #1 story explains how the birth control mandate in Obamacare is not simply an assault on the Catholic Church by on liberty itself.  #2 tells us of how the MSM reacted to the Komen Planned Parenthood story vs the Obamacare and the Catholic Church story.  No doubt who is in the bag for whom.  #3 looks at the Progressive movement and how they are undermining the essential things we need for happiness.  #4 looks at fairness in the tax system.  #5 explains the Sarah Palin story in Newsweek. 

1.  Obamacare exposed

The political furor over President Obama's birth-control mandate continues to grow, even among those for whom contraception poses no moral qualms, and one needn't be a theologian to understand why. The country is being exposed to the raw political control that is the core of the Obama health-care plan, and Americans are seeing clearly for the first time how this will violate pluralism and liberty….

… What the law does cement is the principle that the government will decide for everyone what "health care" must mean. The entire thrust of ObamaCare is to standardize benefits and how they must be paid for and provided, regardless of individual choices or ethical convictions….

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577209112780407698.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

So “Catholic” politician Nancy Pelosi finally gets to see what’s in the bill that she so adroitly told here troops that they needed to pass in order to find out what’s in it.  This is an assault on freedom and individual liberty.  It’s not just the mandate that violates the Constitution.  Obama has rewritten the First Amendment with Obamacare.  It cannot be allowed to stand and I think this decision by the Obama Administration may give SCOTUS pause when they consider the mandate this term.  I look for it to the entire law to be struck down. 

2.  MSM in the tank for the left

When the abortion giant's funding was in jeopardy, the media provided 24/7 coverage with a decidedly liberal slant. When the feds assaulted First Amendment religious freedom, you could hear the crickets chirp.

Secular progressive bias in the media was never more evident than in the past few weeks with the difference in coverage of two major news stories — the temporary cutoff of funds from the Susan G. Komen Foundation to Planned Parenthood and the ultimatum from the Obama administration that the Catholic Church and its institutions had a year to find a way to violate their consciences and beliefs and provide contraceptive services as mandated by ObamaCare.

A study by the Media Research Center (MRC) shows that in the first 60 hours after the Feb. 1 announcement that Komen was cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood, no fewer than 13 major stories appeared on CBS, NBC and ABC morning and evening news shows with 35 clips and quotes coming from supporters or representatives of Planned Parenthood and only 11 from Komen representatives or supporters.

By contrast, MRC notes, when the Obama administration announced on Jan. 20 that it was giving religious institutions one year to comply with a mandate for coverage of sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and contraception in their health plans without a co-pay, it took CBS 10 days to air one news brief on the controversy while NBC and ABC said nothing for two weeks.

http://news.investors.com/Article/600445/201202071903/planned-parenthood-defended-not-catholic-church.htm

Nothing surprising here, but the statistics are damning for the MSM. 

3.  Coming Apart:  How Progressives are destroying America

…And Coming Apart shows, if anything can, how Barack Obama is a poster boy for everything that's wrong with America -- everything that got it started Obam-ing apart.

About a century ago and more, the educated elite decided that America needed to be governed by people like them: clever, educated, creative, and expert. Progressives, they called themselves. The rest of America wasn't so smart, so it needed to be supervised by this educated elite. The result, a century later, is that life is great for the educated top 20 percent, liberal and conservative -- living ordered, fulfilling lives in SuperZip enclaves -- while life for the bottom 30 percent is falling apart.

Why? Well, it couldn't possibly be that when people don't have to work, don't get married, don't engage in civic groups, and don't attend church, they end up miserable, could it? Of course not -- not when liberals are running things in accordance with the strict principles of progressive politics. What could go wrong?

Everything. There are four things wrong in the lower-class enclaves of America, according to Charles Murray. No work, as men hang around sleeping and watching TV. No marriage, as women give up on the arduous task of civilizing lower-class men and take easy money from the state instead. There's no civic engagement, as people bowl alone. And there's a collapse of religion.

The core of Murray's book is that if you want to be happy, in the full sense of "eudaimonia" in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics -- that is, full human flourishing over a lifetime doing the right things in the right way at the right time -- you need to check in on four basic qualities. You need satisfying work, you need to be married, you need to engage in civil society, and you need to attend church once a week. Look at a community without the Big Four, and you will likely find only 10 percent of people "very happy." Look at folks with all four, and you will find almost 80 percent of people reporting themselves "very happy." Call it the American project: family, vocation, faith, and community. Rush Limbaugh talks about it every day: American exceptionalism.…

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/lets_stop_obama-ing_apart.html#ixzz1lmoVw8gP

It really isn’t rocket science.  We know what you need to be happy and fulfilled in life, but it seems the left has other ideas.  Ann Coulter said it well when she said, “the history of liberalism consists of replacing things that work with things that sounded good on paper.”

4.  Obama, the Democrats and Fairness

…In fact, the very rich pay far more in taxes than the relatively low nominal numbers they report on their tax returns. Many very wealthy people obtain most of their income from dividends, capital gains and interest on tax-free state and municipal bonds. The actual tax rate Mitt Romney, Warren Buffet and most other wealthy people pay on dividends, when correctly calculated, is about 52 percent, as reported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which includes the federal and state corporate-level-profits tax burden, plus federal and state taxes on dividends. ... Just about every industrial country provides relief for the double taxation of corporate equity, either by having a lower personal rate on dividends, a personal tax credit for dividends or a lower corporate-level tax. Despite the 2003 dividend tax cut, the overall U.S. rate of dividends ... is still the fourth-highest among the 34 high-income nations of the OECD. Mr. Obama seems to think it is "fair" to tax the same income multiple times, at a total effective rate of more than 50 percent…

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/30/obamas-odd-sense-of-fairness/

Progressive love to imitate all things European except when it would cut taxes.

5.  Palin publishes in Newsweek

After tweeting angrily about how Newsweek had run an article about "dumb" critics of Barack Obama by Andrew Sullivan,  a "Trig Truther," Sarah Palin has published her own piece in the same magazine about her special-needs son.

It is a juxtaposition that is not quite as ironic as some people think. Sullivan's conspiracy theory, that Palin did not actually give birth to her own son, should have caused him not to be taken seriously about anything by any serious media outlet. Newsweek was making amends by running Palin's article about the joys and challenges of raising a child with Down syndrome. What was Palin supposed to do? Refuse the offer to publish? …

… Palin's article would not be considered controversial except for the fact everything she does or says causes the heads of certain people to explode. Her story is touching and sometimes sad. It humanizes a woman who has become, in her own way, the most powerful female politician in the world, beloved by many, reviled by some….

…The irony is not Palin has published an article in a magazine she had recently condemned. It is that a woman whose merest word can shake the corridors of power and spill gallons of ink and untold bandwidth is, in the end, also a mom who loves her children, just like any other in this world.

http://news.yahoo.com/sarah-palin-writes-her-son-newsweek-heads-explode-183500543.html

I like Sarah Palin.  I think she’s real and she’s actually got principles.  And I think it is these two factors that drive the left nuts. Not aborting a handicapped child to the left is unfathomable.    

Culture Wars and Is it Fair?

Obama tramples the Constitution

What’s new Today

 #1 tells us that the culture wars exist, but contrary to what the left says they are the aggressors.  #2 is one of the battle lines in the culture war in California over the issue of gay marriage.  #3 talks about another front in the culture war, that being the Roman Catholic Church and Obamacare.  #4 tells the story of voter ID and the use by the Conservatives of Rhode Island.  The left accuses the right of looking to disenfranchise blacks and Hispanics.  It seems the liberal state of Rhode Island just passed a voter ID law.  #5 is a great list of question to which you can ask “Is it fair?”  #6 tells of a devastating attack on AGW in Germany. 

1.  The Culture Wars

If you're not with us, you're against us. President Bush popularized this expression after 9/11 to describe his foreign policy doctrine: Countries couldn't support or indulge terrorists and be our friends at the same time. But his detractors quickly turned it into a fairly paranoid vision of domestic political life, as if Bush had been talking about domestic opponents and dissenters.

The irony is that few worldviews better describe the general liberal orientation to public policy and the culture war. The left often complains about the culture war as if it's a war they don't want to fight. They insist they just want to follow "sound science" or "what works" when it comes to public policy, but those crazy knuckle-dragging right-wingers constantly want to talk about gays and abortion and other hot-button issues.

It's all a farce. Liberals are the aggressors in the culture war (and not always for the worse, as the civil rights movement demonstrates). What they object to isn't so much the government imposing its values on people — heck, they love that. They see nothing wrong with imposing their views about diet, exercise, sex, race and the environment on Americans. What outrages them is resistance, or even non-compliance with their agenda. "Why are you making such a scene?" progressives complain. "Just do what we want and there will be no fuss."

Consider President Obama's decision to require most religious institutions — including Catholic hospitals, schools, etc. — to pay for contraception, sterilizations and the "morning after" pill. When "ObamaCare" was still being debated, the White House had all but promised Catholic leaders that it would find a compromise to spare the church from the untenable position of paying for services that directly violate their faith. Now that ObamaCare is the law, the administration says the church, like everyone else, must fall in line….

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-02-07/komen-planned-parenthood-contraception-catholic/52992232/1?loc=interstitialskip

Once again Jonah Goldberg hits the nail on the head.  When the left moans about the lack of bi-partisan cooperation what they mean is the right needs to bend to their wishes. 

2.  Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional says California appeals court

A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage as early as next year.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that limited marriage to one man and one woman, violated the U.S. Constitution. The architects of Prop. 8 have vowed to appeal.

The ruling was narrow and likely to be limited to California….

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/gay-marriage-prop-8s-ban-ruled-unconstitutional.html

What is interesting is the timing of this.  Just as the Obama Administration appears to be attacking freedom of religious beliefs, a liberal court is expanding a freedom to marry(with all the unintended consequences this will bring).  If anyone doesn’t think liberalism is a form of a religion you only have to look at how they are trying to impose their beliefs on others.  It appears the left is saying “We are thy Lord and Savior.  Thou shall not have strange or politically incorrect beliefs before us.”

3.  Bishops say White House not entirely honest

As to Carney’s repeated claim of churches are “exempted from this policy,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops shot back: “This is not entirely true. To be eligible, even churches and houses of worship must show the government that they hire and serve primarily people of their own faith and have the inculcation of religious values as their purpose. Some churches may have service to the broader community as a major focus, for example, by providing direct service to the poor regardless of faith. Such churches would be denied an exemption precisely because their service to the common good is so great. More importantly, the vast array of other religious organizations – schools, hospitals, universities, charitable institutions – will clearly not be exempt [emphasis added].”

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=49362

It appears to me that the White House is calling on the Catholic Church to discriminate against non-Catholics.  It they refuse to discriminate, they will be punished. 

4.   Voter Fraud

At a Senate hearing on voting rights last fall, Democrat Dick Durbin pointed out that voter ID laws were nothing more than a coordinated Republican effort to block poor and minority voters from the ballot. It’s a familiar charge, and Hans Von Spakovsky—Heritage Foundation fellow and leading voter ID proponent—squirmed briefly, before finding an out: “I don’t believe that the Democrats in Rhode Island who control...the state legislature would agree with that.”

There’s a reason voter ID supporters have turned Rhode Island into a talking point: Of the eight states to pass photo ID laws in 2011, only Rhode Island had a fully Democratic legislature and a liberal governor. What’s more, black and Latino lawmakers were among the most vocal supporters of the July bill. Since then, Republicans have been happily invoking the law to rebut liberal accusations that voter ID laws are reviving Jim Crow-era tactics to disenfranchise minorities. If voter fraud is indeed taking place in Rhode Island, it would lend some credence to GOP talking points. But does the Rhode Island law actually represent good faith electoral reform?

Voter ID bills are nominally designed to safeguard against voter impersonation, but this argument is generally considered dubious, since there is scant evidence of such fraud. (Ari Berman in Rolling Stone and Ryan Reilly in TPM have done an admirable job outlining the problems with voter ID justifications.) Rhode Island, where voter impersonation has never been proven, is no exception. But anxiety over voter fraud carries particular weight in the Ocean State, which has a long legacy of political corruption. The author of the bill, Rhode Island Secretary of State Ralph Mollis (a Democrat), told me he introduced it not in response to specific charges of impersonation, but to “address the perception of voter fraud.” Local journalist Ted Nesi echoed the sentiment, telling me, “People in Rhode Island assume everyone’s on the take.”…

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/100429/rhode-island-voter-id-laws-hispanic

This is an interesting article because what it basically does is to find that in this case it is the Democrats who are paranoid.  It assumes that because no one is looking for this type of voter fraud that it doesn’t exist.  Quite frankly there is more proof of voter fraud than there is of global warming due to CO2 releasing into the atmosphere and what is being proposed is a lot less expensive or intrusive as a solution to a perceived problem.

5.  Is it Fair?

Is it fair that the richest 1% of Americans pay nearly 40% of all federal income taxes, and the richest 10% pay two-thirds of the tax?

Is it fair that the richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country's income-tax burden than do the richest 10% in every other industrialized nation, including socialist Sweden?...

…Is it fair that President Obama sends his two daughters to elite private schools that are safer, better-run, and produce higher test scores than public schools in Washington, D.C.—but millions of other families across America are denied that free choice and forced to send their kids to rotten schools?...

…Is it fair that after the first three years of Obamanomics, the poor are poorer, the poverty rate is rising, the middle class is losing income, and some 5.5 million fewer Americans have jobs today than in 2007?...

…Is it fair that wind, solar and ethanol producers get billions of dollars of subsidies each year and pay virtually no taxes, while the oil and gas industry—which provides at least 10 times as much energy—pays tens of billions of dollars of taxes while the president complains that it is "subsidized"?...

…Is it fair that thousands of workers won't have jobs because the president sided with environmentalists and blocked the shovel-ready Keystone XL oil pipeline?...

…Is it fair that federal employees receive benefits that are nearly 50% higher than those of private-sector workers whose taxes pay their salaries, according to the Congressional Budget Office?...

…Is it fair that in 27 states workers can be compelled to join a union in order to keep their jobs?...

…Is it fair that our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids—who never voted for Mr. Obama—will have to pay off the $5 trillion of debt accumulated over the past four years, without any benefits to them?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206980068367936.html?mod=ITP_opinion_0

I don’t think it is fair.  Do you? 

6.  German body blow to AGW

Today, not one, but two of Germany’s most widely read news media published comprehensive skeptical climate science articles in their print and online editions, coinciding with the release of a major climate skeptical book, Die kalte Sonne (The Cold Sun).

Germany has now plunged into raucus discord on the heated topic of climate change

What has set it all off? One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, “Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?”

Vahrenholt decided to do some digging. His colleague Dr. Lüning also gave him a copy of Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. He was horrified by the sloppiness and deception he found. Persuaded by Hoffmann & Campe, he and Lüning decided to write the book. Die kalte Sonne cites 800 sources and has over 80 charts and figures. It examines and summarizes the latest science.

http://notrickszone.com/2012/02/06/body-blow-to-german-global-warming-movement-major-media-outlets-unload-on-co2-lies/

AGW apparently is going down for the count.  The lies, exaggerations, and inaccuracy of the AGW hypothesis is becoming more and more evident. 

Should Obama and the Democrats be Hopeful? Today's answer: NO

What’s new Today

Story #1 is a look at Romney and Obama as executives.  Needless to say if Obama was the head of a private company he would have been fired by now.  #2 goes contrary from the Democrat script that the Republican field is weak and states actually it is very strong.  #3 give the Democrats the reasons they shouldn’t be gaining hope.  The numbers still are horrible.  #4 talks about the poll of Obama’s approval on the economy.  It’s at 36%.  #5 is one of the crusades by Hollywood for a killer.  The timing makes me wonder if these people think Obama will lose in November so this would be a good time for him to pardon a cop killer.  #6 is a column by a leftwing columnist about why Obama is right to attack the Catholic Church.  I guess stupidity is epidemic among the left.  #7 is another story pointing out some of the weaknesses in China.  #8 has a number of pictures of the cold in Eastern Europe.  #9 is another attempt by warmists to counter the creaming they are taking in the press. 

1.  Romney vs Obama

…Romney and Bain Capital were successful. Otherwise, investors would have stopped supplying them with millions of dollars to invest in various businesses.

Unlike tax dollars, which are paid to the federal government regardless of the desire of the taxpayer, the amount of investment given to a company such as Bain Capital is the result of free choice and is reflective of the investors' expectation that their investment will grow in value.

In other words, those who were supplying Bain Capital with investment dollars had confidence in the decisions and actions of Mitt Romney while he was leading Bain Capital.

Now let's consider Obama's fiscal job performance. Like Romney, who worked to turn around businesses that were struggling to grow, Obama, as he often reminds us, inherited a struggling economy. With three years as the "chief executive officer" of the largest economy, let's evaluate Obama's performance in the same way in which we evaluate a corporate executive such as Romney.

What about corporate debt? While corporate debt has its place in a business, such as to finance the expansion of a business unit, too much debt can quickly become detrimental to the corporation. President Barack Obama has overseen U.S. debt growth from  $10.6 trillion to $15.2 trillion. That represents a 43% increase in the total debt under the leadership of America's CEO. For the first time in history, the United States has received a downgrade of its sovereign debt rating, something thought nearly impossible prior to the Obama presidency.

Worse yet, total debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has risen from 57% in 2000 to 94% in 2010 and now has passed 100%. We as a nation, under President Barack Obama, are nearly to the point in which we are borrowing more than we're producing.

Any CEO with these types of performance figures would, to say the least, have great difficulty in keeping his job. The shareholders of the company would want him ousted and would seek a new CEO with a proven track record of success. It would be inconceivable for the company to sign the CEO to a new four-year contract after his dismal performance….

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/fiscal_skills_romney_vs_obama.html#ixzz1lE0NCk2P

In fact, it is Obama’s record that dooms his reelection chances. 

2.  The Republican Presidential Field

For the first time in my life, and I have been following Republican primaries closely since before I was old enough to vote, I have found myself vacillating among candidates.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, this is not from a lack of viable candidates, but from an excess. In November, I will gladly support whoever prevails. That includes Ron Paul, who, to the media's shock, already polls in a statistical dead heat with Barack Obama.

The man responsible for sharpening this year's field is Newt Gingrich. Were he not running, the other candidates would likely have contented themselves with wrapping pre-packaged platitudes around debate questions, much as candidates of both parties have done in every election post-Reagan. To get a sense of the unusual quality of this year's Republican field, watch a debate among the Democratic "dream" candidates of 2008 -- a bonfire of banalities if there ever was one.

Gingrich actually answers the questions. When asked by CNN's Jon King if he would like to address the allegations made by his ex-wife, Gingrich uttered four words that likely won him the South Carolina primary: "No. But I will." His sharpness exposed the relative dullness of early drop-outs like Pawlenty, Bachmann, Huntsman, and Perry. It also forced the survivors to hone their own speaking and debating skills. As Mitt Romney accurately argued in his Florida acceptance speech, "[a] competitive primary does not divide us. It prepares us."…

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/underestimating_mitt_and_newt.html#ixzz1lEA14kXp

It is fun to watch the left get hopeful.  Right now you have the Republicans fighting among themselves while Obama sits on the sidelines.  Do they really think the slight upturn in Obama’s fortunes will stand when the Republicans start actually bringing him, his record, and his scandals into focus? 

3.  Why the Democrats should be worried

To hear Democrats (and much of the media) tell it, President Obama is a man on the rebound. The president turned in a strong State of the Union speech, picked a smart political fight over taxing the rich and authorized another heroic Navy SEAL mission in terrorist territory. Sounds like a recipe for reelection, they say.

There is a big problem with this Pollyanna punditry: There are a bunch of real-time numbers coming in that tell a much different tale.

In short, there’s a new CBO report that shows unemployment likely to climb to nearly 9 percent by the election, there’s polling data showing Obama tied or trailing Mitt Romney in the most important swing states (and doing only marginally better against Ron Paul), and there is mounting evidence that the assumption of a decisive Obama fundraising advantage for the fall might be flat wrong. All of this is happening while Republicans are at their worst, with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich spending millions of dollars and using all of their air time explaining why the other is untrustworthy, deeply flawed and eminently beatable by Obama.

Let’s look at each:…

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72329.html#ixzz1lEC7Xs2D

Obama is in trouble.  The current leftwing spin is the equivalent of whistling in the graveyard. 

4.   Obama economic approval at 36%

In another indication of the difficulty President Obama's reelection campaign faces, only 36 percent of likely voters grade the administration's handling of the economy at good or excellent, according to a new Rasmussen poll.

In a national survey of 1,000 likely voters January 31-February 1, a whopping 62 percent grade the president at fair to poor, with poor collecting the largest number: 45 percent.

Still, Democratic officials say that they see a positive trend built on slightly better unemployment and housing numbers that could end up helping Obama in his reelection….

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obamas-economic-approval-just-36-percent/355126

From those numbers we see only 2% seem undecided.  And once again I say the Democrats are whistling in the graveyard. 

5.  Hollywood Urges Pardon for Cop Killer

On top of the campaign to pressure New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to release terrorist killer Judith Clark from prison, the far-left is asking President Obama to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, an American Indian activist who was convicted of the execution-style murders of FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams.

February 4 has been declared “International Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier,” who was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment.

A group working for Peltier’s release, in an email to its supporters, says, “Several high-level meetings (some with Administration officials) are expected to occur in Washington, D.C., in early 2012.” No officials were named, however.

The campaign has the support of actor Danny Glover, whose film company, Louverture Films, has taken up the cause of freeing the convicted killer. The Glover company, which has received over $19.7 million from the Marxist regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, is involved in the publicity campaign for “Wind Chases the Sun,” a film that glamorizes Peltier…

… The FBI has officially opposed any form of release or clemency for Peltier. In 2009, Thomas J. Harrington, FBI Executive Assistant Director in the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, testified in opposition to parole for Peltier, saying, “The intentional and vicious attack by Mr. Peltier was not simply a blatant attack on two FBI special agents; it was an attack on law enforcement as a whole—an attack on the rule of law. The inevitable haziness brought on by the passage of time does not diminish the brutality of the crimes or the lifelong torment to the surviving families”….

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/44345

Now these kinds of celebrity causes happen frequently enough, but the timing of this one may indicate that the left is looking to an Obama defeat in November and they want to get him to act while he still can. 

6.   The Left Wing Empire Tries to Strike Back

Last Sunday, the Catholic Church declared war on President Obama. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida quickly took up the cause, signaling the outlines of a serious religious rumble to come in 2012.

The president should be ready for the fight, knowing that on this one he is right.

At Sunday Mass, Catholic parishioners across the country were read letters denouncing the Obama administration’s recent decision to require religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges, and charities to offer health insurance coverage to employees for contraception and the “morning-after pill.’’ On Monday, Rubio, a Republican star who is often mentioned as a VP candidate, introduced a bill that would override the Obama policy by allowing religious institutions that morally oppose contraception to refuse to cover it.

But not all employees of Catholic institutions are Catholics. Why should their employers impose their religious beliefs on them and deny coverage for birth control and other medical care? As long as those Catholic institutions are getting taxpayer money, they should follow secular rules. That’s the Obama administration’s argument, and it makes sense….

http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/02/02/catholic-church-unfair-attack-against-obama/Qn99IhKZGNBGMA7ZPCxziO/story.html

What absolute nonsense.  A vegetarian could work at a steak restaurant and might be eligible for ½ price meals.  Should we force the steak restaurant to have a vegetarian menu?  In this case, if the employee is unhappy with their benefits, they can get a job somewhere else.  As for getting taxpayer money, they are also performing services for those taxpayers which saves lives.  This is the most stupid argument the left could come up with, but it is in fact about the only argument they could come up with, at least if you’ve read the first amendment. 

7.  The Economic Crisis Slowly Spreads to China

Although indicators showed the Chinese economy faltered only at the end of September, there had been a growing sense of pessimism inside the country for months before then. Beijing, after all, could build only so many “ghost cities” before citizens began to notice. As Joseph Sternberg of the Wall Street Journal Asia said on the John Batchelor Show last Wednesday, “people inside China seem to be losing faith in the Chinese growth story that we’ve been hearing so much about for the past few years.” Estimates of capital flight are sketchy, but it appears there was $34 billion of it in the third quarter of last year and a $100 billion in the fourth.

Not every Chinese citizen is in the position to export cash, so the next best tactic for the nervous is to buy gold, a refuge from plunging property prices and declining stock markets as well as an anticipated depreciation of their currency. “Within China,” notes  Michael Pettis of Peking University, “many are going to argue that the rapid decline in the trade surplus, coupled with unmistakable evidence of flight capital, means that the PBOC should devalue the RMB.” And the fact that China’s leaders in public are talking about the adverse impact of the European crisis on China weighs heavily on sentiment.

The worst thing about capital flight and gold purchases is that they drain liquidity out of the Chinese economy just when it is needed most. Beijing can continue to work its magic as long as strict capital controls keep money inside the country. Once they fail to do so, however, all bets are off. The purchasing of gold, of course, results in the exporting of cash….

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2012/01/29/why-are-the-chinese-buying-record-quantities-of-gold/2/

China is a fascinating subject.  It is a coming power, but the underlying  shortcomings of its system certainly restrict where it can end up. 

8.  Baby its cold outside

We’ve had a mild winter in the USA so far.  But that doesn’t mean it is mild everywhere.  Some gorgeous pictures from around Europe of a harsh winter. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095052/Think-cold-HERE-Beautiful-pictures-globe-world-freezing.html#ixzz1lDekjZn7

9.  AGW:  Response to Trenberth letter

Trenberth argue:

Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

Wrong answer!!

If you need surgery you DON’T want “a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.” What you want is “a highly experienced expert in the field who has CONVINCING EVIDENCE THAT HIS OR HER OPERATIONS HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL!”

And if before I go to a dentist, I would like evidence that the dentist does not pull the wrong teeth (even on occasion).

Unfortunately, there is no convincing evidence that climate models can successfully predict future climate — and I mean “climate” not just “temperature.” [The latter is just one aspect of the climate and for many impacts it may not even be the most relevant.]

Climate models, which are the source of the apocalyptic vision of global warming, have not been validated using data that were not used in their development. Even the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) and the IPCC acknowledge as much. Specifically, the IPCC does not say that “all” features of current climate or past climate changes can be reproduced, as a reliable model of climate change ought to be able to do endogenously. In fact, it notes:

“… models still show significant errors. Although these are generally greater at smaller scales, important large scale problems also remain. For example, deficiencies remain in the simulation of tropical precipitation, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (an observed variation in tropical winds and rainfall with a time scale of 30 to 90 days).” (AR4WG1, p. 601).

And the CCSP has this to say in its 2008 publication, Climate Models: An Assessment of Strengths and Limitations. A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research:

“Climate model simulation of precipitation has improved over time but is still problematic. Correlation between models and observations is 50 to 60% for seasonal means on scales of a few hundred kilometers.” (CCSP 2008:3)….

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/31/on-dentists-cardiologists-climatologists-and-evidence-based-remedies/

The use of ARGUMENTUM AD VERECUNDIAM or the appeal to authority is not scientific; it is a refuge of scoundrels.