HEADLINES OF OCTOBER 12, 2010

All in one day.

New York Times
“Soros: I Can’t Stop a Republican Avalanche”
Soros knows a bad investment when he sees one.

NY Daily News
“Terror threat to restaurants as Al Qaeda calls for attacks on government workers in D.C.”
Then would Obama use the word terrorist?

NY Daily News
“Board of Elections may nullify New York soldiers’ overseas absentee ballots”
Supporting the troops, New York style.

The Hill
“Biden: GOP could challenge Social Security in court”
Every election the Democrats pull out this same scare tactic.

Drudge
“GE Gets $25M in ‘Stimulus,’ Cuts 18,000 Jobs”
They must have spent the 25M shoring up MSNBC, nothing left for new jobs.

Politico
“Poll: Women see Barack Obama administration as a failure”
One hard core constituency down, two to go.

NJ.COM
[New Jersey] “Talk of Gov. Christie as presidential contender grows after latest campaign stop in Pennsylvania”
So far we have Bolton, Romney, Christie, Huckabee, Palin, Gingrich, Thune, Ryan and surely more to come.

OBAMACARE IS WORKING AS PLANNED

In Connecticut, Aetna Insurance petitioned the State regulators to allow a 24.7% rate increase to cover the increased cost of providing coverage under Obamacare. They were granted a 14.2% increase for large group plans and an 18% increase for small group plans. Similar rate hikes are being granted in other states. Facing this magnitude of cost increase several companies have announced they will no longer be providing health coverage for their workers. These employees will end up on the government plan by default. This is Obamacare working as planned.

The squeeze is on. Insurers need to raise prices for survival, employers need to control costs to remain internationally competitive. The pragmatic solution for business is to default to single payer government coverage. For insurance companies the path to survival is to diversify away from providing health care coverage. In time, at the end of the struggle the government plan will be the only man left standing. Pelosi, et al, knew this consequence was built into the bill. Whatever else was there didn’t much matter.

FOOD STAMPS

“The lessons of history … show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”

That sounds like Ronald Reagan, doesn’t it? But they are not his words. The quote is from a State of the Union address by another President, one whom you would least expect, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In his day, acceptance of welfare from the government was a source of embarrassment for most recipients. Pride and self-respect were motivations enough for people to work their way off the dole. Time has brought change. When a woman cries with joy on public television because she believes under the new President the government will pay her mortgage, you know Roosevelt’s observation has come to pass.

Food stamps are now distributed to 41.8 million people, about 14% of the population. That’s a lot of destruction of the national fiber. That’s a significant bloc of voters on the narcotic of welfare who will be voting for another fix. That’s yet another reason why we must make our voices heard.

MORTGAGE FORECLOSURES

The Washington Post reports the Obama administration was aware of widespread irregularities at the banks but chose to allow it to continue in order not to hamper implementation of their plan to give a break to people who had gotten in over their heads and were in default on their mortgages. The program goes by the ungainly name of The House Affordable Modification Plan.

With the banks already understaffed for handling the avalanche of mortgages needing workout or foreclosure, a nearly impossible task was made utterly impossible to be properly processed.

It is another case of making a bad situation worse by interfering with the free market process. What follows is the parties responsible for the problem blame it on the free market system which neither the government nor large segments of the population understand very well.

The dot com bubble and burst was pure free market in both the wealth created that caused the surplus for which the Democrats credit Clinton and in the collapse of the bubble that led to a brief recession. The mortgage crisis, on the other hand was entirely government sponsored, albeit with some help from the private sector, the Federal Reserve and of course the Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA aka Ginnie Mae) and the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA aka Fannie Mae).

Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem.

POST AMERICAN PRESIDENCY

Pamella Geller’s book The Post-American Presidency begins Chapter 2 with the question, “How did Barack Obama become the leader of a nation whose power he seemed determined to diminish?” An even more pertinent question would not be how, but – why? For the answer we look back to his formative years.

When an immigrant family comes to settle on our shores and embraces our values they are immediately accepted as Americans. Nothing like this can be said of any other nation on earth.  Ethnicity does not define us, values do. Barack Obama does not share those values. He was not taught them in the home nor did he see them in his surroundings in his childhood.

From age six to ten, the heart of one’s formative years, he was Barry Soetoro, a public elementary school student in Jakarta, the capital of the most populous Muslim country on earth. His father and his stepfather were Muslims for Kenya and Indonesia. Life with his mother was immersion in Communism. All her friends and many in her family were dedicated Communists. She attended a special high school run by a self-proclaimed Communist. In his formative years Barry had no exposure to the values we hold dear. He was surrounded by people who despised them. Geller quotes Obama as having said of his mother, she was “the dominant figure in my formative years…. The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics.”

There is more, but for that you will need to read the book.

A PROFESSIONAL RADICAL

Obama is not a professional politician. He shows no concern for the damage he has done to his party. He has alienated Left, Right and Center. He doesn’t respond to circumstances and events like a professional politician. He neither thinks nor acts like a professional politician because he isn’t a professional politician. Obama is a professional radical.

Barack Obama has led the life of an organizer, an agitator, a revolutionary fighting for a cause. This has been his life. This is what he sees as his calling. He knows how to develop a following, how to work a crowd. Obama is a professional radical. He doesn’t know how to govern. He doesn’t care much about governing. He cares about change. His goal is nothing less than radical transformation of America.

Saul Alinsky gave barely a sentence about governing in his book Rules for Radicals. All he said was that governing was for someone else to do. The radical’s role is not to build, but to destroy. Not to lead, but to bring down the status quo paving the way for new leadership, radical transformational leadership that will emerge. Obama is well versed in radical activism. His associations with Ayers, Dorn, Rev. Wright, ACORN and the teachings of Saul Alinsky vouch for that. Now he’s learning that running a country is not as easy as manipulating an angry crowd.

WHAT IS JIHAD? A PROMINENT IMAM RESPONDS.

IMAM ABUL ALA MAUDUDI

Imam Abul Ala Maududi is defined in Wikipedia as a “Muslim revivalist leader and political philosopher, and a major 20th century Islamist thinker”. Here we examine his teaching about Jihad, what it is and how all Muslims have a role.

The sentences are awkward in places because it is a direct translation of Maududi’s writings. We find his teachings to be consistent with that of other Islamic scholars. The emphasis is ours.

Islam is all-encompassing, the Islamic state should not be limited to just the “homeland of Islam”. It is for all the world. ‘Jihad’ should be used to eliminate un-Islamic rule and establish this Islamic state: Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it.

The purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of its own ideology. and programme, regardless of which nation assumes the role of the standard-bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State. Towards this end, Islam wishes to press into service all forces which can bring about a revolution. Jihad is the term for the use of all these forces. The objective of Jihād’ is to eliminate all un-Islamic states and replace them with an Islamic system of state rule.

Active combat is not the only role in the battle. Not everyone can fight on the front line Jihad is a combination of combat for God and support for those waging combat (Qita’al). Just for one single battle preparations have often to be made for decades on end and the plans deeply laid, and while only some thousands fight in the front line there are behind them millions engaged in various tasks which, though small themselves, contribute directly to the supreme effort.”

According to Islamic belief, all nations will eventually become Muslim lands. Then, and not before, is the time when the world will finally be at peace. It’s a noble goal and the basis upon which an Islamic Muslim makes the claim that Islam is a religion of peace. Some choose a militant role to bring it about; the rest are commanded by Allah to serve in support of them. And that is the reason why moderate Muslims do not stand up in condemnation of terrorist acts the way we in the West expect them to.

Our hope lies not with moderate Muslims but with the reformists. They are there, but they’re a very small minority within the Muslim world. Reformists are considered to be apostates, former Islamists who have left the religion and turned against it, often more reviled than infidels who never were believers in the first place.

In researching for this post I came across the following, which is a very good explanation of the difference between a moderate and a reformist Muslim.

Moderates = most likely a Taqiyya* driven individual who may not commit acts of terror themselves, but will surely defend Islam and deny the problem within.

Reformists = Those who will honestly see the problem within their own, do not defend Islam but attack the evil within and don’t condemn anti-jihadists for pointing out the obvious.

* “Taqiyya” literally means: “Concealing, precaution, guarding.” It is employed in disguising one’s beliefs, intentions or convictions and is allowed by the Koran when dealing with kuffar (non-believers).

References

Wikipedia on Maududi
Al-Serat, Tehran University
The virtue of deceit

 

JOHN BOLTON’S HAT

JOHN BOLTON

Caricature artists, get ready, here comes John Bolton and his mustache. John has been seen reading maps of Iowa and practicing with a Frisbie. That tells us that, if he deems he has any chance at all, he will be throwing his hat into the 2012 ring. To borrow a phrase from Rowan and Martin’s Arte Johnson, that could be …”verrry eenteresting.”

A Bolton run would be more fun than a human being should be allowed to have. John is already a certified target of the liberal press so we know he is a bona fide conservative. He knows his way around Washington but without the tarnish of ever having been an elected politician. He is a no-nonsense guy who goes right to the point. The greatest scandal in his background was relieving an incompetent bureaucrat from his duties. Somehow I don’t think that will hurt him. And best of all, he can speak with no teleprompter at all.

A LIBERAL? WHO, ME?

DID GALLOP UNCOVER RACISM?

Obama’s approval rating – Whites 36%, Blacks 91%

Do these numbers reflect racism? In a word – No. Although there can be no doubt there is some degree of racism involved, it is more a matter of pride. For the 91% to be racist it would need to be anti-white. It is not. It is pro-black. It is a happy feeling not an angry one. ‘We finally have one of our own, a “brother” in the White House’.

Republicans freed the slaves. Democrats stole the credit. Now they keep them on the metaphorical plantation. As long as the Democrats feed and cloth them, they will get their votes. But the extreme numbers we are seeing now are a one time phenomenon. There will never be another first black president.