Archive for November, 2009

I can only echo what our firends at Newsbuster.org have found.

Please go to this link and watch this video editorial from Savannah.

Savannah, Georgia CBS Affiliate Takes Political Correctness to Task in On-Air Editorial – You’ll Never See This on National TV | NewsBusters.org

Savannah, Georgia CBS Affiliate Takes Political Correctness to Task in On-Air Editorial – You’ll Never See This on National TV

Photo of Seton Motley.
NewsBusters.org | Media Research Center
Bill Cathcart, Clearing Away the PC Clutter

Bill Cathcart, Vice President and General Manager of News for CBS affiliate WTOC in Savannah, Georgia, took to the airwaves on November 9th with a blistering video editorial excoriating the hold political correctness (PC) has on our society

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Hey, Boomers!

If you’re not keeping up with this, you need to be. Michelle Malkin has the absoutely best history and indepth analysis on the web, so you need to read this:

Michelle Malkin » The Demcare bribe list

The Most Transparent Administration Ever won’t keep this list.

The Most Ethical Congress ever won’t keep it either.

So we’ll do the list ourselves and shine the light on the payoffs and last-minute backroom deals being made as Demcare heads for the first test vote tomorrow. (On a procedural note, Hill folks note that “Senate Republicans started floor debate today at 11:00 a.m. and will continue until 11:00 p.m. to discuss the $2.5 trillion, 2,074-page health care bill drafted in Senator Harry Reid’s office” ahead of the Saturday cloture vote. C-SPAN’s covering.)

Go to the article for updates.

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Roger Hedgecock is a recovering politician and has filled in for Rush many times.

His insight is telling:

Fraud Nation – HUMAN EVENTS

Fraud Nation
by Roger Hedgecock (more by this author)

Though private fraud gets the bigger headline (think Bernie Madoff), fraud in federal government programs is now so pervasive that even the Obama press is taking notice. The scope of fraud in all federal programs dwarfs the corruption in the private sector the media loves to sensationalize.

Consider the fraud in the Wall Street bailout. Here’s just one example.

This past week, the Inspector General for the TARP $700 billion bailout reported that taxpayers will “almost certainly” lose money on their investments in the “too big to fail” financial institutions. One reason, it’s safe to say, is contained in Neil Barofsky’s revelation that he is conducting 65 separate investigations of possible fraud involving TARP funds.

Barofsky criticized then-President of the New York Federal Reserve (and now Treasury Secretary) Tim Geithner specifically for the bailout of one of those institutions, AIG (American International Group), the largest insurance conglomerate in the world. Barofsky says that the initial $85 billion credit line given AIG came with a bailout plan designed by Geithner the terms of which “were unworkable”.

That’s being polite. The Barofsky report documents that credit default swaps worth 40 cents on the dollar were bought at 100 cents on the dollar under the Federal bailout terms, funneling “tens of billions of dollars of government money…inexorably and directly to AIG’s counterparties”–including Goldman Sachs.

According to Bloomberg news this week, Geithner arranged for Goldman Sachs to receive full payment on credit default swaps they had purchased rather than 40 cents on the dollar AIG proposed. A Fed-run entity called Maiden Lane III was used to sell these CDSs, which cost American tax payers at least $13 billion dollars at the time. It is currently estimated that due to a continuing decline in value, this bank favoritism case could cost the American tax payer $35.6 billion.

To quote Bloomberg: “The deal contributed to the more than $14 billion that over 18 months was handed to Goldman Sachs, whose former chairman, Stephen Friedman, was chairman of the board of directors of the New York Fed when the decision was made.”

Consider the fraud in the “American Recovery and Re-Investment Act of 2009″–the infamous “Stimulus Bill”

With about half of the $787 billion authorized in this bill now spent, the president is desperate to show jobs “created or saved” since over 3 million jobs have disappeared in the ten months of the Obama Presidency.

Last week, the president proudly proclaimed that 650,000 jobs had been “created or saved” and that the Great Recession would have been much worse had it not been for his leadership.

Sadly, fraud again. The Recovery Act set up the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board ($84 million annual budget) which spent another $18 million to launch the recovery.gov website to “foster greater accountability and transparency” by tracking the “created or saved” jobs.

This is the site proudly documenting the “650,000″ jobs figure and backing it up with state by state breakdowns of the projects and the jobs.

Heritage Foundation and ABC News (among others) were quick to report that thousands of jobs and millions of dollars were reported in Congressional Districts that did not exist.

New Mexico Watchdog was the first to report that the listing at recovery.gov of $26 million spent on New Mexico’s 13 Congressional Districts must be a mistake–New Mexico has just 3 Congressional Districts.

Similar reports soon followed from Virginia, West Virginia, Kansas, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Minnesota.

Then an avalanche of ridicule. South Carolina’s 7th District is listed as receiving $27 million in stimulus funds–that District was eliminated in 1930. Virginia’s 12th District got $2 million–there hasn’t been a 12th Virginia since the start of the Civil War.

So, was this near doubling of the House Districts a clerical error, or a fraudulent puffing of the figures, or what? Ed Pound, “Communications Director” for the Board said the site merely reported “what the recipients submit to us” and unless “an egregious error is noted” the site posts the information exactly as submitted.

Ed didn’t define “egregious error” but reporting that the “99th District” of North Dakota received $2 million should have qualified since that state has only one Representative. For North Dakota to have 99 Representatives, it would need a population over 60 million or 24 million more than California.

Calling even more attention to this fiasco, recovery.gov abruptly reduced without explanation the “created or saved” number by 60,000 while stating that no further corrections would be made until January.

As the Senate considers the Health “Reform” bill, consider the fraud in the health programs already administered by the Feds.

According to a report this week from Obama’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (a program of the Federal HHS), Medicare fraud costs American taxpayers $47-60 billion per year!

Example: In Houston, Medicare paid $5000 each (total $1 million) for wheelchairs for a clinic where every order was a fraud.

Recent press reports from around the country tell of organized crime rings bilking Medicare and Medicaid. The total numbers are staggering.

Example: 12.4% or $47 Billion was paid by Medicare in FY 2009 in fraudulent fee for service claims.

Example: The same report states that 9.6% or $18.1 Billion in fraudulent Medicaid claims was paid in FY 2009

No wonder many Americans wonder why the President doesn’t clean up existing federal health programs before claiming it would save money to have the feds run the rest of the health care system.

This week’s report on hunger in America set off yet another call in the Obama Administration and the Congress to expand the food stamp program. Congress should first look at the fraud in that program.

A 57-count indictment handed down in Federal Court in Louisiana this week accuses fourteen people, mostly state health workers, of diverting emergency food stamp money meant for hurricane victims to themselves and their families.

A bloated nanny state federal government is injury enough to the Constitution that once limited government and bestowed the blessings of liberty. Pervasive fraud in our federal government adds an insult that should cause every American to oppose the Obama expansion of every one of these fraud ridden programs.

Roger Hedgecock is a nationally-syndicated radio talk host. Visit rogerhedgecock.com. The Roger Hedgecock Show is syndicated on the Radio America network.

Copyright © 2009 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.

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Coca-Cola Does What? Backs a One World Tax?

So, I’m browsing my Sunday morning reading list today, and lo and behold what do I find but this article. Now, a lot of you may not pay attention, but here in Atlanta, we pay attention to anything Coke does. Actually, my question is how many Coca-Cola stock holders are even aware of this situation?

Frankly, this is crazy! But, read the article for yourself. Here’s a link to the original over at World Net Daily, as well as the article itself.

Look who’s drinking 1-world Kool-Aid

HEAT OF THE MOMENT
Coca-Cola spearheads 1-world climate tax
100 companies push ’16 days left to seal deal’ on $10 trillion treaty
Posted: November 17, 2009
2:36 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Hopenhagen Passport
Coca-Cola is spearheading a coalition of more than 100 companies pushing a United Nations climate treaty to bind the U.S. to cap-and-trade emissions regulation, commit the world’s wealthiest nations to a potential $10 trillion in foreign aid and, possibly, form a proposed international “super-grid” for regulating and distributing electric power worldwide.

Together with the SAP and Siemens corporations, Coca-Cola launched a website called Hopenhagen, leading up to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, which opens on Dec. 7. The website invites the citizens of the world to sign a petition demanding world leaders draft binding agreements on climate change and advertises, as of today, “16 days left to seal the deal.”

Other “friends” of Hopenhagen include media outlets Newsweek, Discovery Channel, Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, The Wall Street Journal and Clear Channel, among others, Internet giants Yahoo, Google and AOL and dozens of other companies and organizations.

As WND reported, however, Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, asserts the real purpose of the U.N.’s meeting in Copenhagen is to use concern over “global warming” as a pretext to lay the foundation for a one-world government.

He has warned the proposed Copenhagen agreement would cede U.S. sovereignty, mandate a massive wealth transfer from the United States to pay reparations for “climate debt” to Third World countries and create a new “world government” to enforce the treaty’s provisions.

And even if Monckton is merely fanning the flames of fear in those suspicious of the U.N., Coca-Cola’s “Hopenhagen” project isn’t doing anything to put out the fire:

“We’re all citizens of Hopenhagen,” boasts the website, adding, “Hopenhagen: Population 6.8 billion.”

“Sign the Climate Petition and become a citizen of Hopenhagen,” the website encourages.

Specifically, the petition states:

“We the peoples of the world urge political leaders to:

* “Seal the Deal at COP 15 on a climate agreement that is definitive, equitable and effective

* “Set binding targets to cut greenhouse gases by 2020

* “Establish a framework that will bolster the climate resilience of vulnerable countries and protect lives and livelihoods

* “Support developing countries’ adaptation efforts and secure climate justice for all.”

“We also believe that anything is possible if we work together,” states Coca-Cola on the Hopenhagen site. “That’s why we’re collaborating with governments, NGOs, other businesses and our consumers, to help tackle global challenges like climate change.”

A closer look at the “deal” Hopenhagen is hoping to “seal,” however, reveals a call to unprecedented levels of international regulation and wealth redistribution and includes many of the measures Monckton decries as an effort to “impose a communist world government on the world.”

Seal the deal

“The world needs a Green New Deal,” declares a pocket guide to Hopenhagen’s “new climate deal.”

The guide is produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature, or WWF. It argues that the current economic crisis pales in comparison to our “climate debt” crisis and that the consequences are dire:

“The world is on course to see entire island nations disappear as sea levels rise,” it warns. “Unchecked climate change will cut global food production by up to 40 percent by 2100.”

Indeed, unless something is done soon, the guide predicts, we could all be facing “the collapse of planetary life support systems.”

Get “The Sky’s Not Falling! Why it’s OK to chill on global warming”

The guide praises the last major international attempt at combating climate change, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, touting the “legal force” behind requiring industrialized countries to reduce emissions and the establishment of a cap-and-trade system of selling “carbon credits.”

At the same time, the WWF laments, “The protocol’s sanctions against backsliders have had little effect.”

The guide warns that Kyoto expires at the end of 2012 and that we must now create “something more ambitious and broader in scope” for the future.

That broader scope of the Green New Deal includes not only additional and more stringent emissions reduction standards, agreed upon and binding on member nations, but also a host of new cap-and-trade measures.

“We create a system in which you need a permit to emit [carbon dioxide] or other greenhouse gases,” the guide explains.

Governments could then grant permits to various industries or sell them at auction, either to raise funds or to punish polluters within their borders.

The Green New Deal also includes a similar, international system that issues “emissions rights to nations according to their population.” Poor nations would have spare permits, so they could profit by selling to “rich industrialized nations that needed more.”

The WWF further suggests creation of an international “super-grid” connecting the nations of the world to one, common electricity supply. It argues the super-grid would enable nations with unique abilities to produce power – such as France’s prolific nuclear program or Saudi Arabia’s potential for solar energy – to ship and trade electricity abroad.

The WWF does warn, however, “Such a grid requires strong and harmonized cross-border management to tap and deliver the right amount of renewable power at the right time to those who need it.”

Finally, the Green New Deal includes a new, global climate change fund that manages monies paid by wealthy nations for “green” improvements in poorer nations. The WWF proposes a couple of possible plans for exacting payment, either an international tax on all carbon emissions or “a simple charge on rich countries,” estimated at up to 1 percent of gross domestic product.

“The problem lies with rich countries such as the United States of America and Germany,” the guide explains, “who stick with coal-power projects when they have many other options.”

Of the poorer nations, the guide states, “They will simply – and not unreasonably – say to the rich world, ‘You created this problem; YOU solve it.’”

Who pays to make the world “green”

One of the most contentious points in U.N. climate change negotiations has been the question of who will pay to switch the world’s energy use from fossil fuels and other carbon-intensive power sources to means deemed more environmentally friendly.

To that end, the guide to the Green New Deal argues the “polluter-pays principle” should decide.

“The planetary imperative can be reconciled with basic fairness if rich nations pay for the extra costs,” it states. “It is, after all, only necessary because developed countries have warmed the planet and taken up most of the atmospheric ‘space’ for greenhouse gases.”

The guide continues, “Developed countries have an obligation to fund adaptation among poor nations that are victims of climate change. International law, based on the well-established ‘polluter-pays’ principle, suggests there is a legal duty on major carbon dioxide emitters to protect such countries.”

But how much will the rich nations pay?

“Notwithstanding the cost of necessary lifestyle changes and some more expensive technologies,” the guide estimates, “the total worldwide cost for most of the technologies and actions investigated would be in the region of 200-350 billion Euros annually for the next two decades.”

At today’s exchange rate, that amounts to a total bill over the next 20 years of between $6 trillion and roughly $10.5 trillion.

Additionally, the WWF insists industrialized countries should quickly – this year – release $2 billion into a fund to help developing nations as a good-faith gesture to the international community meeting in Copenhagen.

However, it was reported earlier this week that a treaty may not be ready by December’s U.N. meeting in Copenhagen, as some leaders – including President Obama – are favoring political agreements only, delaying a legally binding treaty.

Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, is still pushing for agreements on emissions cuts by each developed country and has said he favors at most a six-month delay before making a new climate deal binding, until a meeting in Bonn in mid-2010. That would give time for the U.S. Senate to pass carbon-capping laws, he said.

“It’s like metal, you’ve got to beat it when it’s hot,” he told Reuters. “If we get clarity on (emission) targets, developing country engagement and finance in Copenhagen, which I’m confident we will, then you can nail that down in a treaty form six months later.”

Then, too, came revelations that some e-mails from a prominent climate change research center indicate that the global warming campaign may even be largely a fraud.

According to the Australian Investigate magazine, a file of documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit was hacked into, and revealed that scientists discussed a “trick” that would “hide the decline” of global temperatures.

Author James Delingpole wrote in a London Telegraph column the most damaging revelations indicate climate-change scientists may have “manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.”

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate,” said one e-mail.

Further, an e-mail exchange suggested the suppression of information: “Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.”

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So sayeth that great Arkansas writer from Washington, Mr. Wesley Pruden. Just when it looked like no one could come up with a good column on The Won’s O-bow-wow, Mr. Pruden fulfills my dream.

The farther down you read the better it gets.

PRUDEN: Obama bows, the nation cringes – Washington Times

PRUDEN: Obama bows, the nation cringes

By Wesley Pruden

OPINION/ANALYSIS

A little traveling, like a little learning, can be a dangerous thing. Barack Obama on the loose in a foreign land is enough to frighten protocol officers and embarrass the rest of us.

He went off to Asia to tell the Chinese a thing or two about world trade, to prepare the world for a treaty to make the sun change its spots, and of course to pay his respects to assorted heads of state, with particular attention to any royal head (perhaps even including Miss Universe) who crosses his path.

So far it’s a memorable trip. He established a new precedent for how American presidents should pay obeisance to kings, emperors, monarchs, sovereigns and assorted other authentic man-made masters of the universe. He stopped just this side of the full grovel to the emperor of Japan, risking a painful genuflection if his forehead had hit the floor with a nasty bump, which it almost did. No president before him so abused custom, traditions, protocol (and the country he represents). Several Internet sites published a rogue’s gallery showing how other national leaders – the prime ministers of Israel, India, Slovenia, South Korea, Russia and Dick Cheney among them – have greeted Emperor Akihito with a friendly handshake and an ever-so-slight but respectful nod (and sometimes not even that).

Now we know why Mr. Obama stunned everyone with an earlier similar bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, only the bow to the Japanese emperor was far more flamboyant, a sign of a really deep sense of inferiority. He was only practicing his bow in Riyadh. Sometimes rituals are learned with difficulty. It took Bill Clinton months to learn how to return a military salute worthy of a commander in chief; like any draft dodger, he kept poking a thumb in his eye until he finally got it. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, seems right at home now giving a wow of a bow. This is not the way an American president impresses evildoers that he’s strong, tough and decisive, that America is not to be trifled with.

Some of the president’s critics are giving him a hard time, and it’s true that this president seems never to have studied much American history. Not bowing to foreign potentates was what 1776 was all about. His predecessors learned with no difficulty that the essence of America is that all men stand equal and are entitled to look even a king, maybe particularly a king, straight in the eye. Can anyone imagine George Washington, John Adams or Thomas Jefferson making a similar gesture of servile submission? Or Harry Truman? Or FDR, who famously served the lowly hot dog, with ballpark mustard, to the king and queen of England? John F. Kennedy, on the eve of a trip to London, sharply warned Jackie not to curtsy to the queen.

Douglas MacArthur, who ranked above mere heads of state in his own mind, once invented his own protocol on greeting Emperor Hirohito. The emperor, the father of Akihito, wanted to meet MacArthur soon after he arrived to become the military regent of Japan in 1945, perhaps to thank him for saving the throne at the end of World War II. When the emperor invited MacArthur to call on him, the general sent word that the emperor should call on him – speaking of breaches of custom – and the two men were photographed together, astonishing the Japanese. The emperor arrived in full formal dress, cutaway coat and all, and MacArthur received him in summer khakis, sans tie, with his hands stuffed casually in his back pockets. Further astonishing the Japanese, he towered over the diminutive emperor.

But Mr. Obama, unlike his predecessors, likely knows no better, and many of those around him, true children of the grungy ’60s, are contemptuous of custom. Cutting America down to size is what attracts them to “hope” for “change.” It’s no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of “the 57 states” is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.

He no doubt wants to “do the right thing” by his lights, but the lights that illumine the Obama path are not necessarily the lights that illuminate the way for most of the rest of us. This is good news only for Jimmy Carter, who may yet have to give up his distinction as our most ineffective and embarrassing president.

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