Tough Curriculum -Challenge The Mind's Potential!

More specious science on the part of those with a 'green' agenda. Gore has made hundreds of millions scaring everyone and stands to make billions more if current Cap and Trade legislation is passed. Liberals see 'global warming' as another opportunity to intrude government into the free market and control virtually all production. The legislation's thrust is anti-Capitalism.

I am no scientist and understand logic dictates if you foul the air as we have water (rivers, streams etc.) with plant discharge there will be severe consequences.

However, if you discharge polluted science you destroy any legitimate argument. Have ideologues reached the point where honesty cannot prevail and stand on its own merit? Is nothing sacred? (See 1 below.)

Israel's Barak tells Lebanon to put a collar on Hezbollah. (See 2 below.)

Next week Obama will announce his strategy in Afghanistan. Let's hope, whatever his decision, he will carry it through with steadfast determination no matter the cacophony from those opposed. That would be a refreshing 'change.' (See 3 and
3a below.)

Commentary regarding differences between a military tribunal and a civilian proceeding and the lawyer the defendant has chosen. (See 4 below.)

If Obama truly gives a damn about the economic future of his own race and American children in general, he will stand up and be counted when it comes to supporting tough education standards. If not, then once again reality will have taken his measure and he will be found wanting.

We must challenge minds with tough curriculum to open them to their potential
The problem is not the level of funding. (See 5 below.)

Dismantling America - one newspaper at a time. Silence citizens, curtail free speech and you got em! Control and stifling dissent is the method of demagogues.(See 6 below.)

Stossel, suggests we pay to be lied to and thus lie to ourselves. Congress are trustees and if a trustee acted as irresponsibly as politicians do they would be jailed. (See 7 below.)

Turning off the young at every turn! (See 8 below.)

Dick




1)Global Warming With the Lid Off: The e-mails that reveal an effort to hide the truth about climate science

'The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. . . . We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind."

So apparently wrote Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) and one of the world's leading climate scientists, in a 2005 email to "Mike." Judging by the email thread, this refers to Michael Mann, director of the Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center. We found this nugget among the more than 3,000 emails and documents released last week after CRU's servers were hacked and messages among some of the world's most influential climatologists were published on the Internet.

The "two MMs" are almost certainly Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, two Canadians who have devoted years to seeking the raw data and codes used in climate graphs and models, then fact-checking the published conclusions—a painstaking task that strikes us as a public and scientific service. Mr. Jones did not return requests for comment and the university said it could not confirm that all the emails were authentic, though it acknowledged its servers were hacked.

Yet even a partial review of the emails is highly illuminating. In them, scientists appear to urge each other to present a "unified" view on the theory of man-made climate change while discussing the importance of the "common cause"; to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to compromise the favored hypothesis; to discuss ways to keep opposing views out of leading journals; and to give tips on how to "hide the decline" of temperature in certain inconvenient data.

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Associated Press A satellite image of Tropical Storm Ida. Some climate researchers claim that an increase in tropical storms is proof of anthropogenic climate change.
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Some of those mentioned in the emails have responded to our requests for comment by saying they must first chat with their lawyers. Others have offered legal threats and personal invective. Still others have said nothing at all. Those who have responded have insisted that the emails reveal nothing more than trivial data discrepancies and procedural debates.

Yet all of these nonresponses manage to underscore what may be the most revealing truth: That these scientists feel the public doesn't have a right to know the basis for their climate-change predictions, even as their governments prepare staggeringly expensive legislation in response to them.

Consider the following note that appears to have been sent by Mr. Jones to Mr. Mann in May 2008: "Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. . . . Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same?" AR4 is shorthand for the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, presented in 2007 as the consensus view on how bad man-made climate change has supposedly become.

Read a Selection of the EmailsClimate Science and Candor
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In another email that seems to have been sent in September 2007 to Eugene Wahl of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Paleoclimatology Program and to Caspar Ammann of the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Climate and Global Dynamics Division, Mr. Jones writes: "[T]ry and change the Received date! Don't give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with."

When deleting, doctoring or withholding information didn't work, Mr. Jones suggested an alternative in an August 2008 email to Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, copied to Mr. Mann. "The FOI [Freedom of Information] line we're all using is this," he wrote. "IPCC is exempt from any countries FOI—the skeptics have been told this. Even though we . . . possibly hold relevant info the IPCC is not part of our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we don't have an obligation to pass it on."

It also seems Mr. Mann and his friends weren't averse to blacklisting scientists who disputed some of their contentions, or journals that published their work. "I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal," goes one email, apparently written by Mr. Mann to several recipients in March 2003. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

Mr. Mann's main beef was that the journal had published several articles challenging aspects of the anthropogenic theory of global warming.

For the record, when we've asked Mr. Mann in the past about the charge that he and his colleagues suppress opposing views, he has said he "won't dignify that question with a response." Regarding our most recent queries about the hacked emails, he says he "did not manipulate any data in any conceivable way," but he otherwise refuses to answer specific questions. For the record, too, our purpose isn't to gainsay the probity of Mr. Mann's work, much less his right to remain silent.

However, we do now have hundreds of emails that give every appearance of testifying to concerted and coordinated efforts by leading climatologists to fit the data to their conclusions while attempting to silence and discredit their critics. In the department of inconvenient truths, this one surely deserves a closer look by the media, the U.S. Congress and other investigative bodies.


2)Barak: Israel to target Lebanon if Hezbollah escalates tension
By Fadi Eyadat



Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday warned Lebanon that it, not Hezbollah, would be the target of retaliatory attacks should the militant group escalate tension along Israel's northern border.

"Lebanon grants Hezbollah permission to operate on its soil," said Barak. "We must clarify for the international community that we do not accept that a militia like Hezbollah exists in Lebanon, a sovereign country, and even sits in its parliament."

Barak added that it holds Lebanon responsible for any conflict with Hezbollah. "Hezbollah is not our target," in such a case, said Barak. "Our target will be the state of Lebanon."


Barak made his comments at a meeting with regional leaders in the north, where he stressed that he holds the Lebanese government responsible for any conflict along the border with Lebanon.

The defense minister added that Israel's deterrence power will last some time.

Barak also addressed peace talks with the Palestinians, saying that a two-state solution is the best formula for resolving the conflict, but stressed that a regional peace involving Syria is of utmost importance to Israel.

Earlier this month, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said Hezbollah guerrillas now possess tens of thousands of rockets, some capable of reaching up to 300 kilometers within Israel.

These capabilities would put Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as well cities much further south, into rocket range.

"There is a war in the Middle East between two camps, the extreme and the moderate, which is pushing Iran to take radical steps. Without Iran's support to finance weapons and terror groups they would be lacking the means available to them today," said Ashkenazi.

Israel, the United Nations and Hezbollah itself have all said that the militia is stronger today than it was during the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

3)Afghan Strategy Will Contain Messages to Several Audiences
By DAVID E. SANGER


In declaring Tuesday that he would “finish the job” in Afghanistan, President Obama used a phrase clearly meant to imply that even as he deploys an additional 30,000 or so troops, he has finally figured out how to bring the eight-year-long conflict to an end.

But offering that reassuring if somewhat contradictory signal — that by adding troops he can speed the United States toward an exit — is just the first of a set of tricky messages Mr. Obama will have to deliver as he rolls out his strategy publicly.

Over the next week, he will deliver multiple messages to multiple audiences: voters at home, allies, the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the extremists who are the enemy. And as Mr. Obama’s own aides concede, the messages directed at some may undercut the messages sent to others.

He must convince Democrats, especially the antiwar base that helped elect him, and the slim majority of the country that tells pollsters the conflict is no longer worth the sacrifice, that in sending more troops he is not escalating the war L.B.J.-style. In fact, some of those involved in the deliberations on an Afghanistan strategy say Mr. Obama will argue that providing the additional numbers is the fastest way to assure that the United States will be able to “finish the job,” because it will speed the training of the Afghan national army.

But at the same moment, he must persuade Republicans that he is giving the military what it needs to beat back the Taliban and keep Al Qaeda from threatening the United States.

That would be a difficult task even if Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s strategic assessments and troop requests had not been paraded across front pages, including his contention that the task will require 40,000 or more troops if Mr. Obama wants to create true security in the country’s major population centers.

At a time when Mr. Obama is vowing to reduce sky-high deficits, he must make the case that the price tag — roughly $1 million per soldier — is justified. He already faced pre-emptive resistance on Tuesday from the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

So it is no surprise that one of Mr. Obama’s senior aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged Tuesday that the forthcoming speech was a “potential minefield.” One of his national security strategists put Mr. Obama’s challenge this way: The trick, he said, will be “signaling resolve to the allies while not signaling open-ended commitment to the American people.”

Both sides of that equation are complicated.

Mr. Obama must signal resolve — and staying power — because the Dutch and the Canadians are both scheduled to be pulling their troops out of Afghanistan just as Mr. Obama is putting more forces in. In quiet meetings over the past month, American defense and national security officials have been trying to forestall those departures, while obtaining commitments of increasing numbers of troops from NATO allies.

So far, the administration has been successful only with the British, who have pledged an additional 500 troops. Germany, Italy and other NATO contributors have been silent, explaining to their American visitors that the war has become so unpopular at home that they can barely sustain the troop levels now in place.

“I think we’ll get there,” said an official who has been sent for those conversations. “But not in time for the president’s announcement.” Others said it may be early next year before Mr. Obama can extract any additional commitments.

Pakistan poses a particularly difficult problem. Mr. Obama has been highly attuned to the need to declare that the United States is not in what he recently called “an open-ended commitment” in Afghanistan.

But for years, throughout the Bush administration and into the Obama administration, American officials have been making trips to Pakistan to reassure its government that the United States has no intention of pulling out of Afghanistan as it did 20 years ago, after the Soviets retreated from the country. Inside the Pakistani Army and the intelligence service, which is known as the ISI, it is an article of faith among some officers that the United States is deceiving them, and that it will replay 1989.

If that happens, some Pakistanis argue, India will fill the void in southern Afghanistan, leaving Pakistan surrounded by its longtime enemy. So any talk of exit strategies is bound to reaffirm the belief of some Pakistani officials that they have to maintain their contacts with the Taliban — their hedge against Indian encroachment.

So the United States is stuck, one official said, between not wanting to suggest it will be a military presence in the region forever and showing enough commitment to encourage Pakistan to change its behavior.

Mr. Obama has a similar signaling problem with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. A parade of Washington officials, most recently Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, have traveled to Kabul to warn that continuing American help is dependent on the Afghan government’s meeting benchmarks in tackling corruption and building up credible security forces. But Mr. Obama is not likely to say what will happen if Mr. Karzai fails to deliver, for fear of further alienating the mercurial Afghan president.

At home, the more urgent issues are troop numbers and the cost of the escalation. Here, Mr. Obama will have more room to maneuver. Over the past two weeks, military officials have been expecting a decision that will give them roughly 34,000 additional troops, not far from what was sought by General McChrystal, the commander in Afghanistan. At the White House and among the allies, the figure most commonly heard is just under 30,000.

Both figures, and anything in between, could prove right. Counting support troops and “trainers” is an art form in the military. The troops will be dispatched in phases, and Mr. Obama is likely to declare that he will review the deployment next year, to evaluate its progress.

That gives him the flexibility to tell the Democrats that his commitment is limited, and to tell the Republicans that he will do whatever it takes to win what, only three months ago, he called a “war of necessity.”

3a)President Obama stuck in muck with pledge to 'finish the job' in Afghanistan
BY James Gordon Meek


President Obama hinted Tuesday that the cavalry is coming when he boldly stated he intends to "finish the job" in Afghanistan's eight-year war.

But he may live to regret setting such a high bar with his mystery war plan, much like his predecessor George W. Bush did by pledging to nail Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive."

It's almost impossible to imagine any Afghan strategy this President could unveil next week, short of an immediate withdrawal, that will bring peace before he faces American voters again in 2012.

It might even prove impossible to "finish the job" by 2016 if he wins reelection.

"The idea we can wave a magic wand over the place and fix it quickly is not realistic," said Afghanistan analyst Peter Bergen.

It's worrisome that Obama might be ready to spring yet another quick-fix plan.

Since 2001, the problem hasn't just been that the Afghan fight was shamefully shortchanged of resources as the Iraq war's ugly stepchild. It also has suffered from arrogant military and civilian leaders who fought every year of the war as if it was the last.

In 2003, ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the U.S. had "moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and reconstruction."

His top commander, Army Lt. Gen. Dan McNeill, even predicted withdrawing some of his 8,000 U.S. troops by 2004.

Instead, the Taliban rallied with cash from opium-producing poppy crops and Al Qaeda expertise - and the American body count rose.

Obama is likely to add at least 30,000 to a force that will total 100,000 in Afghanistan. An equal number will remain in Iraq, meaning last year's anti-war candidate will ironically have more soldiers in harm's way - 200,000 - than Bush did at the height of the Iraq "surge."

And don't call this boost a "surge" because insiders know that's a misnomer.

It will be an escalation without any plan on the horizon to draw down the additional forces, like in Iraq.

Bergen says the extra troops can secure more roads and pockets thick with Taliban in the next two years, but ending the war "is a long-term project."

It's not just how many boots are on the ground, it's how they're used.

That's why many strategists are embracing the idea of hiring Pashtun tribal militias or embedding Special Forces to "go native" for years and win tribal allies by spilling blood with them side by side.

But the wisest ideas all involve facing the hard truth that we will be in the fight for many more years amid polls that show the public - American and Afghan - losing patience.

That hard dose of reality required to win gives the enemy plenty of ammo in the meantime for their propaganda denouncing Americans as occupiers who refuse to leave.


4)For the Defense
By Jennifer Rubin

One big difference between a civilian trial and a military tribunal is that in the latter, the government can exercise some control over who is selected to represent the accused. In an Article III trial, the defendant can choose anyone he wants. And KSM chose Scott Fenstermaker. Others are beginning to dig and have found that Fernstermaker was “ booted from the military commissions civilian defense counsel pool in 2008 for ‘counterproductive’ interactions with the staff, and not representing himself in a ‘forthright’ manner to the chief defense counsel for the Gitmo detainees.” And that isn’t the only instance of Fernstermaker’s questionable lawyering.

A colleague provides a copy of this decision in which Fenstermaker litigated against a school district in Westchester County and sought documents from the school district in the applicable freedom of information law. But it seems he went over board there, too. In seeking reams of documents, Fenstermaker accused the school district ”of having created a situation ‘rife with bribes and kickbacks;’ that he was certain that respondents had already altered or destroyed certain of the requested records; that counsel was operating under a conflict of interest in that he was responsible as counsel for respondents’ malfeasance; and that he was therefore demanding that the records be sent to a copy service designated by him.’”

Much wrangling ensued, and the matter wound up in court. There, the court held that each of the school district’s actions that Fenstermaker challenged was “supported by statute and administrative rulings” and that Fenstermaker ”cited no authority to the contrary.” It deemed the matter frivolous, and the court not only awarded statutory costs to the school district but also ordered Fenstermaker to pay costs “for the actual expenses reasonably incurred and reasonable attorney’s fees incurred in defending this proceeding.”

And that was against a school district in a case with no national implications or coverage. So buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy show trial, I have a feeling.

5)Race to the Top in Education:We can get real reform if the president resists pressure to dilute standards
By HAROLD E. FORD JR., LOUIS V. GERSTNER JR. AND ELI BROAD


For decades, policy makers have talked about significantly improving public education. The problem has been clear: one-third of public school children fail to graduate, there are embarrassing achievement gaps between middle-class children and poor and minority children, and the gap between our students and those in other countries threatens to undermine our economic competitiveness. Yet for the better part of a quarter century, urgent calls for change have seldom translated into improved public schools.

Now, however, President Barack Obama has launched "Race to the Top," a competition that is parceling out $4.35 billion in new education funding to states that are committed to real reform. This program offers us an opportunity to finally move the ball forward.

To that end Mr. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are pushing states toward meaningful change. Mr. Duncan has even stumped for reform alongside former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Yet the administration must continue to hang tough on two critical issues: performance standards and competition.

Already the administration is being pressured to dilute the program's requirement that states adopt performance pay for teachers and to weaken its support for charter schools. If the president does not remain firm on standards, the whole endeavor will be just another example of great rhetoric and poor reform.

Competition among the states is also vital to reform. The administration is resisting the temptation to award funds to as many states as possible. And that's good. To be effective, Race to the Top funds cannot become a democratic handout. Competition brings out the best performance. That's true in athletics and in business, and it's true in education.

Race to the Top funds will not serve their purpose if they are awarded based on good intentions and promises. Instead, the administration is right to look at results. Has a state embraced rigorous standards? Has it welcomed charter schools? Has it turned around low-performing schools and held teachers accountable?

Grants from the National Institutes of Health are awarded to scientists who have advanced their research to a stage where there are promising returns. By setting a high qualifying bar and requiring a record of past performance, the president is instituting a similar system for allocating education dollars.

The first wave of education stimulus funding, allocated earlier this year, was intended to tide over states facing budget shortfalls. This next tranche of dollars have a different purpose—to be a stimulus for positive change.

If the administration were to simply spread the funds around, Race to the Top would end up supporting incremental, not transformational, change. The time is right for bold, comprehensive reform—even if only in a handful of states. This is why it is important to consider a state's record. Is the governor a true change agent, someone who is willing to withstand pressure in order to implement difficult reforms? If so, it may be right to award funding to his state.

The old way of doing business would be to spread around the money so no one could be held accountable. The new approach is to give governors authority and responsibility, and then hold them accountable for results.

For decades, adult interests have been at the forefront of public education. Reform has been derailed by adults who wanted to protect the status quo and enjoy lifelong benefits. This time the focus will be on learning in the classroom. What's important is that the administration is demanding that every child receive an education that prepares him or her for college or for work. Without that we will continue to be sidetracked by insignificant issues.

States that have the track record and leadership in place to implement Mr. Obama's aggressive reform menu—of enforcing rigorous academic standards, creating data systems that track individual student performance, ensuring teacher quality and effectiveness, and turning around failing schools—deserve the funds to show that our public schools can again lead the world.

We have yet to prove, on a systemic basis, that we can dramatically improve America's public schools. Race to the Top is a chance to start small, hold states accountable, and expand proven reforms to the rest of the country.

Mr. Ford is chairman of the Democratic National Leadership Council. Mr. Gerstner is former chairman of IBM and former chairman of the Teaching Commission. Mr. Broad is founder of The Broad Foundations.

6)Dismantling America
By Thomas Sowell

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.

How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.

Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "G0d damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.

Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government — people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year — each bill more than a thousand pages long — too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question — and the biggest question for this generation.



Dismantling America: Part II

Many years ago, at a certain academic institution, there was an
experimental program that the faculty had to vote on as to whether or
not it should be made permanent.

I rose at the faculty meeting to say that I knew practically nothing about whether the program was good or bad, and that the information that had been supplied to us was too vague for us to have any basis for voting, one way or the other. My suggestion was that we get more concrete information before having a vote.

The director of that program rose immediately and responded indignantly and sarcastically to what I had just said — and the faculty gave him a standing ovation.

After the faculty meeting was over, I told a colleague that I was stunned and baffled by the faculty's fierce response to my simply saying that we needed more information before voting.

"Tom, you don't understand," he said. "Those people need to believe in that man. They have invested so much hope and trust in him that they cannot let you stir up any doubts."

Years later, and hundreds of miles away, I learned that my worst misgivings about that program did not begin to approach the reality, which included organized criminal activity.

The memory of that long-ago episode has come back more than once while observing both the actions of the Obama administration and the fierce reactions of its supporters to any questioning or criticism.

Almost never do these reactions include factual or logical arguments against the administration's critics. Instead, there is indignation, accusations of bad faith and even charges of racism.

Here too, it seems as if so many people have invested so much hope and trust in Barack Obama that it is intolerable that anyone should come along and stir up any doubts that could threaten their house of cards.

Among the most pathetic letters and e-mails I receive are those from people who ask why I don't write more "positively" about Obama or "give him the benefit of the doubt."

No one — not even the President of the United States — has an entitlement to a "positive" response to his actions. The entitlement mentality has eroded the once common belief that you earned things, including respect, instead of being given them.

As for the benefit of the doubt, no one — especially not the President of the United States — is entitled to that, when his actions can jeopardize the rights of 300 million Americans domestically and the security of the nation in an international jungle, where nuclear weapons may soon be in the hands of people with suicidal fanaticism. Will it take a mushroom cloud over an American city to make that clear? Was 9/11 not enough?

When a President of the United States has begun the process of dismantling America from within, and exposing us to dangerous enemies outside, the time is long past for being concerned about his public image. He has his own press agents for that.

Internationally, Barack Obama has made every mistake that was made by the Western democracies in the 1930s, mistakes that put Hitler in a position to start World War II — and come dangerously close to winning it.

At the heart of those mistakes was trying to mollify your enemies by throwing your friends to the wolves. The Obama administration has already done that by reneging on this country's commitment to put a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and by its lackadaisical foot-dragging on doing anything serious to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That means, for all practical purposes, throwing Israel to the wolves as well.

Countries around the world that have to look out for their own national survival, above all, are not going to ignore how much Obama has downgraded the reliability of America's commitments.

Iraq, for example, knows that Iran is going to be next door forever while Americans may be gone in a few years. South Korea likewise knows that North Korea is permanently next door but who knows when the Obama administration will get a bright idea to pull out? Countries in South America know that Hugo Chavez is allying Venezuela with Iran. Dare they ally themselves with an unreliable U.S.A.? Or should they join our enemies to work against us?

This issue is too serious for squeamish silence.

7)We Pay Them to Lie to Us
By John Stossel

When you knowingly pay someone to lie to you, we call the deceiver an illusionist or a magician. When you unwittingly pay someone to do the same thing, I call him a politician.

President Obama insists that health care "reform" not "add a dime" to the budget deficit, which daily grows to ever more frightening levels. So the House-passed bill and the one the Senate now deliberates both claim to cost less than $900 billion. Somehow "$900 billion over 10 years" has been decreed to be a magical figure that will not increase the deficit.


It's amazing how precise government gets when estimating the cost of 10 years of subsidized medical care. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill was scored not at $850 billion, but $849 billion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her bill would cost $871 billion.

How do they do that?

The key to magic is misdirection, fooling the audience into looking in the wrong direction.

I happily suspend disbelief when a magician says he'll saw a woman in half. That's entertainment. But when Harry Reid says he'll give 30 million additional people health coverage while cutting the deficit, improving health care and reducing its cost, it's not entertaining. It's incredible.

The politicians have a hat full of tricks to make their schemes look cheaper than they are. The new revenues will pour in during Year One, but health care spending won't begin until Year Three or Four. To this the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner asks, "Wouldn't it be great if you could count a whole month's income, but only two weeks' expenditures in your household budget?"
To be deficit-reducers, the health care bills depend on a $200 billion cut in Medicare. Current law requires cuts in payments to doctors, but let's get real: Those cuts will never happen. The idea that Congress will "save $200 billion" by reducing payments for groups as influential as doctors and retirees is laughable. Since 2003, Congress has suspended those "required" cuts each year.

Our pandering congressmen rarely cut. They just spend. Even as the deficit grows, they vomit up our money onto new pet "green" projects, bailouts for irresponsible industries, gifts for special interests and guarantees to everyone.

Originally, this year's suspension, "the doc fix," was included in the health care bills, but when it clearly pushed the cost of "reform" over Obama's limit and threatened to hike the deficit, the politicians moved the "doc fix" to a separate bill and pretended it was unrelated to their health care work.

Megan McArdle of The Atlantic reports that Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin asked the Congressional Budget Office what the total price would be if the "doc fix" and House health care overhaul were passed together. "The answer, according to the CBO, is that together they'd increase the deficit by $89 billion over 10 years." McArdle explains why the "doc fix" should be included: "They're passing a bill that increases the deficit by $200 billion in order to pass another bill that hopefully reduces it, but by substantially less than $200 billion. That means that passage of this bill is going to increase the deficit."

From the start, Obama has promised to pay for half the "reform" cost by cutting Medicare by half a trillion over 10 years. But, Tanner asks, "how likely is it that those cuts will take place? After all, this is an administration that will pay seniors $250 to make up for the fact that they didn't get a Social Security cost-of-living increase this year (because the cost of living didn't increase). And Congress is in the process of repealing a scheduled increase in Medicare premiums."

Older people vote in great numbers. AARP is the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. Like the cut in doctor's pay, the other cuts will never happen.

I will chew on razor blades when Congress cuts Medicare to keep the deficit from growing.

Medicare is already $37 trillion in the hole. Yet the Democrats proudly cite Medicare when they demand support for the health care overhaul. If a business pulled the accounting tricks the politicians get away with, the owners would be in prison.

8)Generation Obama Gets Shafted
By Zac Morgan

President Barack Obama swept into office with a Steve Nash assist from my generation. The 2 to 1 advantage that the President enjoyed over Senator John McCain among 18 to 29 year-old voters sent the pundits a-chatter with memories of Ronald Reagan’s similar margin in 1984. Reagan’s young voters served as the backbone for a quarter-century of conservative dominance in America, and those in the White House remain convinced that the group of Americans they’ve labelled “Generation Obama” will do the same for liberalism.

This cumulonimbus cloud of demographics contained a silver lining for conservatives. One out of every five votes under-35s cast was for Barack Obama, but nobody else down-ticket. In order to transform youth support for the President into a rabble-rousing crowd of determined Democrats, the administration would have to work assiduously to keep young voters engaged and supportive.

That’s why it is so surprising how quickly the President turned on the base of a hypothetical permanent Democratic majority. In the past year, the Administration has constantly supported efforts to redistribute money from younger Americans to older Americans; all the while exploding deficits to practically insure that “Generation Obama” will become “Generation No Benefits for Us”.

Rather than slashing payroll taxes in the stimulus package (a boon to lower-income Americans, particularly the young), the administration shepherded through a bill which will ultimately end up bulking up the states’ Medicaid rolls in a temporary-but-actually-permanent way, and charged it on a credit card billed to my generation. Now Medicaid is ostensibly a healthcare plan for those who are financially among the least of these, but the reality is much more… well, grayer. According to former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich, half of all nursing home costs in America are paid for by Medicaid. Middle-class seniors sell off their assets to others and become poor on paper in order to qualify for Medicaid’s generous nursing home care subsidy.

Then the President anted up on the $250 in stimulus checks already shipped out to seniors as part of the deficit-busting stimulus. Since 2009 was a deflationary year, Social Security recipients were not scheduled to get any increases in their payments. Eager to court seniors for their support in his Medicare-slashing health reform, the President asked for another $250 check to be sent out to seniors at a total expense of $13 billion.

And on his signature initiative of the year, healthcare, the President has paid little heed to the realities of younger Americans. The House version of healthcare reform would actually increase premiums for younger Americans using the health exchange system to between $600-$1,100 more. In his effort to please the elderly, the President has run up young America’s credit card bill and garnished our wages. (And let’s not forget that the actual cost of healthcare reform looks more like $1.8 trillion, not $800 billion.)

Meanwhile, youth unemployment is 19 percent, double the national average.

It seems like the Iranian 18 to 29 demographic isn’t the only group of young folks with cause to be weary about this President.