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November 20, 2009
Exclusive: Oval Office Watch – Friday, November 20
Walpin-gate opens wider: Three new hinges for the case of the fired IG - HERE.
Obama: The Woody Boyd Candidate - CLICK HERE.
'Diversity' in the age of Obama - SEE HERE.
Nonpartisan agency says House bill would reduce senior care - HERE.
America in Twilight Again Stands Alone
The Sultan, Ruthfully Yours.com
The Chinese were not particularly interested in the public option or universal care for all Americans.
“They wanted to know, in painstaking detail, how the health care plan would affect the deficit,” one participant in the conversation recalled. Chinese officials expect that they will help finance whatever Congress and the White House settle on, mostly through buying Treasury debt, and like any banker, they wanted evidence that the United States had a plan to pay them back.
It is a long way from the days when President George W. Bush hectored China about currency manipulation, or when President Bill Clinton exhorted the Chinese to improve human rights.
Obama’s socialist spending spree does not simply come at the expense of America freedoms, it explicitly puts China in charge of American policy. The price for universal health care will not simply be paid by Americans, it will be paid for by American allies in Asia.
Furthermore as the United States continues to borrow from China in order to fund Obama’s deficit spending, much of the interest paid back will in turn go to fund China’s military machine.
Unfortunately, that is not the reality in Asia. Contrary to optimistic predictions just a decade ago, China is behaving exactly as one would expect a great power to behave. As it has grown richer, China has used its wealth to build a stronger and more capable military. As its military power has grown, so have its ambitions…
Yet the new head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Robert Willard, noted last month that “in the past decade or so, China has exceeded most of our intelligence estimates of their military capability. . . . They’ve grown at an unprecedented rate.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently warned that China’s military modernization program could undermine U.S. military power in the Pacific.
Which means that the next naval war in the Pacific will see the US Navy coping with a Chinese Navy paid for by US tax dollars used to pay off Obama’s debts and made of US scrap metal resold to China. Read article.
Anti-Obama, Pro-America: What is the loyal opposition to do?
William Kristol, Weekly Standard.com
One year after his election victory, the wheels are coming off the Obama presidency. The first attempt in three decades unambiguously to govern America from the left is failing quickly and decisively. Our task is to minimize the damage to the country, and then to be ready to set things right--to use the next three years to lay the groundwork, intellectual and political, for a new era of a governing conservatism that can restore American prosperity, revitalize American strength, and restore the foundations for American greatness.
President Obama chose not to travel to Germany for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead, he graced the occasion with a video address. He didn't have time in his two-and-a-half minutes to mention Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher or Pope John Paul II. But somehow he did find time to mention ........ Barack Obama:
Few would have foreseen on that day that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.
Obama tried (unconvincingly) to disguise his remarkable self-absorption, by adding Angela Merkel to himself as a culmination of the world-historical events of the last 20 years. But what do the victories of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel have to do with the character of human destiny anyway? If the recent German and American elections had gone the other way, and a united Germany were now led by a man from North-Rhine Westphalia, and their American ally by a man of Scots-Irish descent, wouldn't human destiny still be what human beings make of it?
Obama's claim does, however, invite the question: Just what is Barack Obama as president making of our American destiny? The answer, increasingly obvious, is a hash. It's worse than most of us expected. His dithering on Afghanistan is deplorable, his appeasing of Iran disgraceful, his trying to heap new burdens on a struggling economy destructive. Add to this his sending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a circus-like court trial. The next three years are going to be long and difficult ones for our economy, our military, and our country.
What is the loyal opposition to do?
Oppose Obama's destructive proposals (health care, cap and trade) and try to defeat them. Expose the foolishness of Obama's ineffective policies (the stimulus, cash for clunkers) and show the American people their failure. And try to influence Obama's policy choices by persuasion (Afghanistan), embarrassment (political correctness in the fight against Jihadists), or legislation (Guantánamo), so as to minimize the damage done to the country on his watch. Read article.
Obama’s Malpractice: Why the health-care bill isn't reform.
Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek.com
There is an air of absurdity to what is mistakenly called "health-care reform." Everyone knows that the United States faces massive governmental budget deficits as far as calculators can project, driven heavily by an aging population and uncontrolled health costs. Recovering slowly from a devastating recession, it's widely agreed that, though deficits should not be cut abruptly (lest the economy resume its slump), a prudent society would embark on long-term policies to control health costs, reduce government spending, and curb massive future deficits. The president and his top economic advisers all say this. (Click here to follow Robert J. Samuelson ).
So, what do they do? Just the opposite. Their sweeping overhaul of the health-care system—which Congress is halfway toward enacting—would almost certainly make matters worse. It would create new, open-ended medical entitlements that would probably expand deficits and do little to suppress surging health costs. The disconnect between what Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president and his allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both.
The campaign to pass Obama's health-care plan has assumed a false, though understandable, cloak of moral superiority. It's understandable because almost everyone thinks that people in need of essential medical care should get it; ideally, everyone would have health insurance. The pursuit of these worthy goals can easily be projected as a high-minded exercise in the public good.
It is false for two reasons. Read article.
ObamaCare Is Not Pro-Choice – for Anyone
Michael F. Cannon, Townhall.com
“This is a health care bill, not an abortion bill,” says President Obama. Au contraire, mon frère.
Whatever your views on abortion, the fight over abortion in the Obama health plan illustrates perfectly why government should stay out of health care.
When the government subsidizes health care, anything you do with that money becomes the voters’ business. And rather than allow for choice between different ways of doing things, the government typically imposes the preferences of the majority – or sometimes, a vocal minority – on everybody. Read article.
The U.S. House of Presumptuous Meddlers
John Stossel, Townhall.com
As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries.
I'm embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice.
It's a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience. The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by "experts" means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many tradeoffs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs.
Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly. They give subsidized loans to "homeowners" who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance. Read article.
The Nuclear Strategy To Neuter The U.S.
Bruce Kesler, Maggie's Farm.com
Neither Russia nor China, nor Iran, nor other hostile countries are comfortable with the dominance of world power held by the United States. They are independently and together working assiduously to neuter the US’ sway in the world. President Obama is helping them.
Russia is reasserting its influence over Eastern Europe, and over Western Europe via controlling its gas supplies. China is vigorously exercising mercantilist capitalism to rapidly build its economy and impoverish the West’s, locking up supplies of vital raw materials resources around the world, while racing ahead to build an ocean navy that includes aircraft carrier extensions of power throughout the globe. Iran is steadfast on attaining nuclear power and weaponry, which can reach Europe and will reach farther. Nuclear knowhow and development aid is shared with and by North Korea and Pakistan, purveyors to other countries. Venezuela, launch pad for subversion in Latin America, is to obtain nuclear assistance from Iran that will increase its sway and threat. Russia and China have used their veto seats on the UN Security Council to hamstring strong measures to slow or stop Iran’s imminent step into the nuclear power ring.
Arab states never really worried about Israel’s nuclear deterrence because Israel may be a convenient whipping boy but is not an aggressive power, so there was no need to build Arab nuclear counters. But, now, Arab states are seeing a need tor build their own nuclear deterrence to Iran’s aggressive policies toward them. Nuclear proliferation within unstable nations that themselves may proliferate or where their technologies may fall into the hands of murderous extremists is spreading dangerously and rapidly. The ones to benefit are Russia, China and Iran, as the US deterrence is weakened and the US political and economic strength directly and relatively reduced. Read article.
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