OBAMA is a prisoner of the cult of neoliberalism

Can Obama be deprogrammed?
The president is a prisoner of the cult of neoliberalism









Aug. 4, 2009 In my first foray into political life in the 1970s, I worked during college on the staff of a liberal Democrat in the Texas state Senate. Only a few years earlier, Patty Hearst had been kidnapped and brainwashed by the Symbionese Liberation Army, and a moral panic about cults seducing college kids was sweeping the nation. One result was the rise of a new, thankfully ephemeral profession: "deprogrammers" who for pay would kidnap a young person from a cult and break the spell, by means of isolation, interrogation and maybe reruns of "The Waltons."

A reactionary Republican state senator from the Houston area, who was heartily despised by my senator, introduced a bill granting parents the right to hire deprogrammers to kidnap adult children who belonged to what the parents regarded as cults and then confine them in motels for several weeks, subject to psychological coercion, without notifying the authorities. Needless to say, this deprogramming law was the greatest threat to the tradition of habeas corpus until another reactionary Texan was installed in the White House in 2001. The bill was laughed to death, when, during a hearing, the sponsor was asked if it could be used to deprogram young people who had joined a certain well-known cult. "Why, yes, Senator," the Republican replied, "it would apply to cults like the Unitarians."

Boy, do we need deprogrammers now, to liberate Barack Obama from the cult of neoliberalism.

By neoliberalism I mean the ideology that replaced New Deal liberalism as the dominant force in the Democratic Party between the Carter and Clinton presidencies. In the Clinton years, this was called the "Third Way." The term was misleading, because New Deal liberalism between 1932 and 1968 and its equivalents in social democratic Europe were considered the original "third way" between democratic socialism and libertarian capitalism, whose failure had caused the Depression. According to New Deal liberals, the United States was not a "capitalist society" or a "market democracy" but rather a democratic republic with a "mixed economy," in which the state provided both social insurance and infrastructure like electric grids, hydropower and highways, while the private sector engaged in mass production.

When it came to the private sector, the New Dealers, with some exceptions, approved of Big Business, Big Unions and Big Government, which formed the system of checks and balances that John Kenneth Galbraith called "countervailing power." But most New Dealers dreaded and distrusted bankers. They thought that finance should be strictly regulated and subordinated to the real economy of factories and home ownership. They were economic internationalists because they wanted to open foreign markets to U.S. factory products, not because they hoped that the Asian masses some day would pay high overdraft fees to U.S. multinational banks.

New Dealers approved of social insurance systems like Social Security and Medicare, which were rights (entitlements) not charity and which mostly redistributed income within the middle class, from workers to nonworkers (the retired and the temporarily unemployed). But contrary to conservative propaganda, New Deal liberals disliked means-tested antipoverty programs and despised what Franklin Roosevelt called "the dole." Roosevelt and his most important protégé, Lyndon Johnson, preferred workfare to welfare. They preferred a high-wage, low-welfare society to a low-wage, high-welfare society. To maintain the high-wage system that would minimize welfare payments to able-bodied adults, New Deal liberals did not hesitate to regulate the labor market, by means of pro-union legislation, a high minimum wage, and low levels of immigration (which were raised only at the end of the New Deal period, beginning in 1965). It was only in the 1960s that Democrats became identified with redistributionist welfarism -- and then only because of the influence of the New Left, which denounced the New Deal as "corporate liberalism."

Between the 1940s and the 1970s, the New Deal system -- large-scale public investment and R&D, regulated monopolies and oligopolies, the subordination of banking to productive industry, high wages and universal social insurance -- created the world's first mass middle class. The system was far from perfect. Southern segregationist Democrats crippled many of its progressive features and the industrial unions were afflicted by complacency and corruption. But for all its flaws, the New Deal era is still remembered as the Golden Age of the American economy.

And then America went downhill.

The "stagflation" of the 1970s had multiple sources, including the oil price shock following the Arab oil embargo in 1973 and the revival of German and Japanese industrial competition (China was still recovering from the damage done by Mao). During the previous generation, libertarian conservatives like Milton Friedman had been marginalized. But in the 1970s they gained a wider audience, blaming the New Deal model and claiming that the answer to every question (before the question was even asked) was "the market."

The free-market fundamentalists found an audience among Democrats as well as Republicans. A growing number of Democratic economists and economic policymakers were attracted to the revival of free-market economics, among them Obama's chief economic advisor Larry Summers, a professed admirer of Milton Friedman. These center-right Democrats agreed with the libertarians that the New Deal approach to the economy had been too interventionist. At the same time, they thought that government had a role in providing a safety net. The result was what came to be called "neoliberalism" in the 1980s and 1990s -- a synthesis of conservative free-market economics with "progressive" welfare-state redistribution for the losers. Its institutional base was the Democratic Leadership Council, headed by Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and the affiliated Progressive Policy Institute.

Beginning in the Carter years, the Democrats later called neoliberals supported the deregulation of infrastructure industries that the New Deal had regulated, like airlines, trucking and electricity, a sector in which deregulation resulted in California blackouts and the Enron scandal. Neoliberals teamed up with conservatives to persuade Bill Clinton to go along with the Republican Congress's dismantling of New Deal-era financial regulations, a move that contributed to the cancerous growth of Wall Street and the resulting global economic collapse. As Asian mercantilist nations like Japan and then China rigged their domestic markets while enjoying free access to the U.S. market, neoliberal Democrats either turned a blind eye to the foreign mercantilist assault on American manufacturing or claimed that it marked the beneficial transition from an industrial economy to a "knowledge economy." While Congress allowed inflation to slash the minimum wage and while corporations smashed unions, neoliberals chattered about sending everybody to college so they could work in the high-wage "knowledge jobs" of the future. Finally, many (not all) neoliberals agreed with conservatives that entitlements like Social Security were too expensive, and that it was more efficient to cut benefits for the middle class in order to expand benefits for the very poor.

The fact that Robert Rubin's son James helped select Obama's economic team may not be irrelevant.

The transition from New Deal liberalism to neoliberalism began with Carter, but it was not complete until the Clinton years. Clinton, like Carter, ran as a populist and was elected on the basis of his New Deal-ish "Putting People First" program, which emphasized public investment and a tough policy toward Japanese industrial mercantilism. But early in the first term, the Clinton administration was captured by neoliberals, of whom the most important was Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Under Rubin's influence, Clinton sacrificed public investment to the misguided goal of balancing the budget, a dubious accomplishment made possible only by the short-lived tech bubble. And Rubin helped to wreck American manufacturing, by pursuing a strong dollar policy that helped Wall Street but hurt American exporters and encouraged American companies to transfer production for the U.S. domestic market to China and other Asian countries that deliberately undervalued their currencies to help their exports.

By the time Barack Obama was inaugurated, the neoliberal capture of the presidential branch of the Democratic Party was complete. Instead of presiding over an administration with diverse economic views, Obama froze out progressives, except for Jared Bernstein in the vice-president's office, and surrounded himself with neoliberal protégés of Robert Rubin like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. The fact that Robert Rubin's son James helped select Obama's economic team may not be irrelevant.

Instead of the updated Rooseveltonomics that America needs, Obama's team offers warmed-over Rubinomics from the 1990s. Consider the priorities of the Obama administration: the environment, healthcare and education. Why these priorities, as opposed to others, like employment, high wages and manufacturing? The answer is that these three goals co-opt the activist left while fitting neatly into a neoliberal narrative that could as easily have been told in 1999 as in 2009. The story is this: New Dealers and Keynesians are wrong to think that industrial capitalism is permanently and inherently prone to self-destruction, if left to itself. Except in hundred-year disasters, the market economy is basically sound and self-correcting. Government can, however, help the market indirectly, by providing these three public goods, which, thanks to "market failures," the private sector will not provide.

Healthcare? New Deal liberals favored a single-payer system like Social Security and Medicare. Obama, however, says that single payer is out of the question because the U.S. is not Canada. (Evidently the New Deal America of FDR and LBJ was too "Canadian.") The goal is not to provide universal healthcare, rather it is to provide universal health insurance, by means that, even if they include a shriveled "public option," don't upset the bloated American private health insurance industry.

Education? In the 1990s, the conventional wisdom of the neoliberal Democrats held that the "jobs of the future" were "knowledge jobs." America's workers would sit in offices with diplomas on the wall and design new products that would be made in third-world sweatshops. We could cede the brawn work and keep the brain work. Since then, we've learned that brain work follows brawn work overseas. R&D, finance and insurance jobs tend to follow the factories to Asia.

Education is also used by neoliberals to explain stagnant wages in the U.S. By claiming that American workers are insufficiently educated for the "knowledge economy," neoliberal Democrats divert attention from the real reasons for stagnant and declining wages -- the offshoring of manufacturing, the decline of labor unions, and, at the bottom of the labor market, a declining minimum wage and mass unskilled immigration. One study after another since the 1990s has refuted the theory that wage inequality results from skill-biased technical change. But the neoliberal cultists around Obama who write his economic speeches either don't know or don't care. Like Bill Clinton before him, Barack Obama continues to tell Americans that to get higher wages they need to go to college and improve their skills, as though there weren't a surplus of underemployed college grads already.

Environment? Here the differences between the New Deal Democrats and the Obama Democrats could not be wider. Their pro-industrial program did not prevent New Deal Democrats from being passionate about resource conservation and wilderness preservation. They did not hesitate to use regulations to shut down pollution. And their approach to energy was based on direct government R&D (the Manhattan Project) and direct public deployment (the TVA).

Contrast the straightforward New Deal approaches with the energy and environment policies of Obama and the Democratic leadership, which are at once too conservative and too radical. They are too conservative, because cap and trade relies on a system of market incentives that are not only indirect and feeble but likely to create a subprime market in carbon, enriching a few green profiteers. At the same time, they are too radical, because any serious attempt to shift the U.S. economy in a green direction by hiking the costs of non-renewable energy would accelerate the transfer of U.S. industry to Asia -- and with it not only industry-related "knowledge jobs" but also the manufacture of those overhyped icons of the "green economy," solar panels and windmills.

While we can't go back to the New Deal of the mid-20th century in its details, we need to re-create its spirit. But short of confining them in motel rooms and making them watch newsreels about the Hoover Dam, Glass-Steagall, the TVA and the Manhattan Project, is it possible to liberate President Obama and the Democratic leadership from the cult of neoliberalism?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/08/04/neoliberalism/index.html

CORRUPTION IN WASHINGTON ! THIS IS A VERY SICK GROUP !

OBAMA AND DEAD FISH EMANUEL'S BROTHER DR. DEATH HATES OLD PEOPLE

Emanuel: Believes in withholding care from elderly for greater good.


DEADLY DOCTORS
OBAMA ADVISERS WANT TO RATION CARE


THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.

Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power.

Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.

Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.

Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.

Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96).

Translation: Don't give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy.

He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).

The bills being rushed through Congress will be paid for largely by a $500 billion-plus cut in Medicare over 10 years. Knowing how unpopular the cuts will be, the president's budget director, Peter Orszag, urged Congress this week to delegate its own authority over Medicare to a new, presidentially-appointed bureaucracy that wouldn't be accountable to the public.

Since Medicare was founded in 1965, seniors' lives have been transformed by new medical treatments such as angioplasty, bypass surgery and hip and knee replacements. These innovations allow the elderly to lead active lives. But Emanuel criticizes Americans for being too "enamored with technology" and is determined to reduce access to it.

Dr. David Blumenthal, another key Obama adviser, agrees. He recommends slowing medical innovation to control health spending.

Blumenthal has long advocated government health-spending controls, though he concedes they're "associated with longer waits" and "reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices" (New England Journal of Medicine, March 8, 2001). But he calls it "debatable" whether the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. (Ask a cancer patient, and you'll get a different answer. Delay lowers your chances of survival.)

Obama appointed Blumenthal as national coordinator of health-information technology, a job that involves making sure doctors obey electronically deivered guidelines about what care the government deems appropriate and cost effective.

In the April 9 New England Journal of Medicine, Blumenthal predicted that many doctors would resist "embedded clinical decision support" -- a euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do.

Americans need to know what the president's health advisers have in mind for them. Emanuel sees even basic amenities as luxuries and says Americans expect too much: "Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy . . . physicians' offices are typically more conveniently located and have parking nearby and more attractive waiting rooms" (JAMA, June 18, 2008).

No one has leveled with the public about these dangerous views. Nor have most people heard about the arm-twisting, Chicago-style tactics being used to force support. In a Nov. 16, 2008, Health Care Watch column, Emanuel explained how business should be done: "Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration's health-reform effort."

Do we want a "reform" that empowers people like this to decide for us?

Betsy McCaughey is founder of the Committee to Reduce Infec tion Deaths and a former New York lieutenant governor.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/deadly_doctors_180941.htm?page=0
By BETSY MCCAUGHEY

RAY LAHOOD IS A LIAR !! ANOTHER OBAMA CROONIE !

Did Secretary LaHood lie to Congress? (Updated with better audio)
By: David Freddoso
Commentary Staff Writer
08/05/09 8:08 AM EDT

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking member on the Government Oversight Committee, has written White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel requesting information about whether Emanuel coordinated a political multi-agency response to Republican criticisms of the stimulus.

Specifically, the question is whether he put four cabinet secretaries up to writing bullying letters to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, R. The letters asked whether Arizona wanted its stimulus funds cut off, shortly after Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., suggested repealing the stimulus package. In this Politico story by Jonathan Martin, two administration officials have confirmed Emanuel's involvement in demanding that the secretaries write the letters.

[A]fter seeing [Sen. Jon] Kyl [R-Ariz.] and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) again paint the legislation as a failure on Sunday talk shows, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel directed that the letters from the Cabinet secretaries be sent to Brewer, according to two administration officials.

If this is true, then Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood lied to Congress two weeks ago, during testimony before the House Budget Committee. LaHood, who wrote one of the letters to Brewer, had to be asked seven times in a July 24 budget hearing whether anyone in the White House had encouraged him or put him up to writing Brewer.

Unsatisfied with LaHood's evasive and repeated answer that he "needed no encouragement" to write the letter, Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., finally complained to the chairman: "Mr. Chairman, would the witness please answer the question?" (The committee's audio and video are of poor quality, but you can hear the whole exchange between Garrett and LaHood here.

LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, finally answered "No." But if Martin's reporting is correct, then LaHood was lying.

OBAMA AND HIS TIES WITH AARP..CROOKS AND CROONIES~AARP SUX !

Mark Tapscott: Tripping up AARP's dance with Pelosi and the Democrats
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
August 6, 2009 Washington Wink-Winks were flying fast Monday when a memo surfaced from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi describing the Democrats' plan to "partner" with AARP, SEIU and others in an August recess PR blitz for Obamacare and against Republicans who oppose it.

Triple Ws are the lame excuses Washington elitists like Pelosi and AARP activists hide behind whenever they are caught red-handed. Then they deny what is obvious to everybody else while winking reassurance to their momentarily puzzled supporters that they don't really mean the denials.

Here's how it came down Monday. Connie Hair of Human Events reported on the Pelosi memo, including this key graph:

"The Leadership is working in close coordination with the White House and outside groups (including but not limited to HCAN, Families USA, AFSCME, SEIU, AARP, etc.) to ensure complementary efforts during August. The President, Secretary Sebelius and other principals in the reform debate will be working throughout the month to hold events, promote the message in the press and move the reform effort forward."

Nothing unusual there. Congressional leaders always launch PR blitzes at opponents during the August recess, right? Working with activist allies is part of the game: They ask the leaders' planted questions at constituent forums and town halls, help generate favorable home-town press from like-minded journalists, and issue "reports" full of glowing praise for favored lawmakers.

But Hair's story caught my eye because it flatly contradicted a Friday declaration in The Washington Examiner by AARP CEO Barry Rand that "AARP has not endorsed any of the bills currently being debated in the Congress."

The WWWs started coming thick and fast as soon as I asked AARP about the Pelosi memo. The 40 million-member group's vice president, Drew Nannis, immediately got on the phone with Pelosi's staff, and within a few minutes came back with the claim that the memo Hair published was just a "draft" composed by an "over-zealous staffer."

Nannis also said AARP would just be "answering our members questions" and - here's the clever clincher - "AARP is participating in AARP's campaign." He even kindly secured a copy of the "final" Pelosi memo, from which the offending paragraph magically disappeared.

It was all I could do not to ROFL at this display by multiple specimens of the rapidly proliferating breed constantly seen and heard going to and fro in the nation's capitol, the Boobus Liberal Extremis Elitum Politico (BLEEP).

Washington BLEEPs come with either brilliant blue or fading red markings, but all of them think gullible tax-paying Joe Six Packs believe them when they toss out lines like the "over-zealous staffer" bit to explain away a memo describing what everybody else in town with a pulse and brain waves already knows.

Of course AARP is helping Democrats confront hordes of outraged constituents. Many of those shouting the loudest are seniors who now see that they've been had by politicians and organizations they once trusted.

Remember, AARP has more than a billion dollars in assets and nearly a billion in annual revenues from membership dues, profits on insurance sales and endorsements, seminars, and other money-making ventures tirelessly aimed at every American age 50 or older. And it spends more lobbying than any other non-corporate Washington special interest.

Most seniors oppose Obamacare, yet the Washington AARP staff is a major employment center for Democratic activists, policy wonks, campaign contributors, and propagandists. The group's lavish Washington headquarters is a BLEEP hot house.

That's why I doubt that anybody reading this column can name one bill in Congress that AARP has supported in the past decade to freeze or cap any federal entitlement. To the contrary, more than 50 pages are needed on its official disclosure report to list all the issues on which AARP lobbies to keep government growing.

The AARP guys weren't the only BLEEPs rolling out the Triple Ws Monday. When I asked Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman, why the "over-zealous staffer" included the graph mentioning AARP in the memo in the first place, his response was: "It shouldn't have been."

Shrewd BLEEPS know some questions from Joe Sixpack are best ignored, no matter how foolish it makes the Washington guy look.


Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott's Copy Desk blog on Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott's Copy Desk blog on washingtonexaminer.com.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Tripping-up-AARP_s-dance-with-Pelosi-and-the-Democrats-8068565-52520252.html

OBAMA THE LAME DUCK PRESIDENT AFTER ONLY 6 MONTHS IN OFFICE~BOOT HIM OUT NOW, WHY WAIT ?

Is the American public getting steamrolled by a lame duck president?
By: J.P. Freire
Associate Commentary Editor
08/04/09 12:57 PM EDT
While every president gets a honeymoon in his first hundred days to push legislation he deems important, no one told that to President Obama who's been pushing a wide variety of unpopular measures in the hopes he can get away with it. It seems that every initiative he's taken up has either soured in the public's mind or meets with public indifference. At this rate, Obama may become a lame duck mere months into his presidency.

Here are a few examples:

Just today a new Rasmussen poll finds that 54 percent of Americans oppose giving more money for the "Cash for Clunkers" program, while only 33 percent support it. The additional funding was approved by Congress on Friday.

In June, Gallup found that the majority of Americans did not want to shut down Guantanamo Bay, despite it being one of Obama's main campaign promises.

In mid-July, most Americans felt that cap-and-trade would hurt the economy, contrary to a fierce push by Obama and Democrats in Congress. In fact, Democrats needed to grease the wheel among their own party to get support for the bill. In an all-too-weird coincidence, yes-voters wound up getting a nice bit of campaign cash in the days prior to the vote.

Gallup's Frank Newport writes that Obama's efforts to push a health care fix are met with skepticism by most voters because they don't see it as that great a crisis, though they do recognize that costs are a problem. Part of the problem? The American public is very concerned with fiscal restraint. "The push for healthcare reform is occurring in an environment characterized by high levels of concern about fiscal responsibility, government spending, and the growing federal deficit. Americans are being asked to approve major new healthcare expenditures at a time when they are not yet convinced that the last massive outlay of government money -- the stimulus -- has made an impact."

Another poll shows that 41 percent of Americans expect their taxes to go up under Obama, despite Obama's consistent promises not to hike them. That may be because Obama has already raised taxes -- on cigarettes -- and just this past weekend, both his own Treasury Secretary and economic adviser refused to go on record ruling out a tax hike.

People are so frustrated with bailouts that 46 percent of Americans said they'd be more likely to buy Ford because it didn't get a bailout.

Public support for the stimulus is tepid, given that, according to Rasmussen, 25 percent say it has helped the economy while 31 percent think it has hurt. Gallup finds a similar problem, though it chalks many of these issues up to partisanship: "Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say the stimulus has made and will make both the economy and their family's financial situation worse, and Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say the opposite. Independents are evenly divided about the economic stimulus' effect on the economy, for better or for worse, to date or in the future. They are slightly more negative than positive about its effect on their own families." So much for the post-partisan presidency.
How is it that every item on the President's agenda has met either strong disapproval or sheer indifference from the American public, when this was the presidency glorified as a realigning moment? Heck, when Obama came into office, CBS/NYTimes ran a poll showing that most Americans were happy to see government grow. Now, even the rabidly Pro-Obama bloggers at FireDogLake are wondering what went wrong:

President Obama is not very new anymore. We have all seen him operate, and he has so far not produced legislation that is “change we can believe in." But, rather, legislation that seems to reinforce the trend away from democracy and towards plutocracy. So, how can folks trust him to deliver this kind of change with health care reform?

Better question: How can folks trust him to deliver any kind of change whatsoever?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-the-American-public-getting-steamrolled-by-a-lame-duck-president-52442432.html

OBAMA & HIS SCUMMY CRONKIES ARE SPYING ON US ALL NOW. FISHY ???? OUTRAGEOUS !

REPORT THIS...FISHY ????!! OBAMA AND HIS CROONIES ARE SPYING ON US ALL NOW THAT DO NOT AGREE WITH HIM ON HIS HEALTHCARE BS.....MAKE MY DAY...REPORT THIS. LOL

Imagine telling an old person that they are not worthy of life and their treatment is too expensive. Go home and take a pain pill. What a frigging idiot jerk off creep.

Obama's dissident database could be secret -- and permanent
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
08/06/09 4:47 AM EDT
The White House request that members of the public report anyone who is spreading "disinformation" about the proposed national health care makeover could lead to a White House database of political opponents that will be both secret and permanent, according to Republican lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are examining the plan's possible implementation.

On Monday, White House director of new media Macon Phillips posted a note on the White House web site complaining of "disinformation about health insurance reform." "These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation," Phillips wrote. "Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

In a letter to Obama Tuesday, Republican Sen. John Cornyn wrote that, given Phillips' request, "it is inevitable that the names, email address, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House." Cornyn warned the president that "these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program."

"I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward emails critical of his policies to the White House," Cornyn continued. "I urge you to cease this program immediately."

Senate Judiciary Committee lawyers studying the proposal say that although there is no absolutely settled law on the matter, the White House plan is likely not covered by the Privacy Act, which prohibits government agencies from keeping any records "describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained." Therefore, it appears the White House can legally keep records of the emails and other communications it receives in response to Phillips' request.

Those lawyers also point out that the White House is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, which means it would not have to release any information on the plan to members of the public who make a request.

In addition, the lawyers say the collected emails likely will be covered by the Presidential Records Act, which requires the White House to preserve and maintain its records for permanent storage in a government database. Phillips' request suggests that whatever information the White House receives on health-care reform "disinformation" will be used to further the goal of passing a national health-care makeover, which is, of course, one of the president's main policy initiatives. Such material, and whatever the White House does with it, would qualify as presidential records. Only after more than a decade would such records be publicly available.

"So the White House, whether by design or accident, has requested information from the public that will become 'records' under the Presidential Records Act, yet would be impermissible for any government to otherwise collect under the Privacy Act," writes one Judiciary Committee source. "Where were the lawyers in all of this? What is their legal basis for authorizing the collection of these records?"

Linda Douglass, head of communications for the White House Office of Health Reform, says the White House is "not compiling lists or sources of information" on opponents of health care reform. But if "fishy" information is indeed collected, as Phillips' request suggested, the laws involved mean that the information obtained by the White House could not only be secret but permanent. A dissident database, in whatever precise form it ultimately takes, could be around for a long time to come.

-Byron York

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obamas-dissident-database-could-be-secret----and-permanent-52571822.html

OBAMA HATES OLD PEOPLE~WE WILL ALL BE OLD ONE DAY !

Obama Says We Shouldn't Treat Old Folks to Save Money And the Media Goes Deaf

I am wondering when the euthanasia folks are going to start touting this one? I mean, it sure seemed to me as if the most caring, most civil, most intelligent president evah just said that healthcare could be cheaper if we don't give old folks and the infirm the full measure of care they now get. It appeared that Obama said we should just let them die or suffer because they aren't worth the effort. Imagine if Bush had said something like this? The left wouldn't have hesitated to call him any manner of names. Oddly, though, the Old Media have not had so much as a raised eyebrow over his statements on Wednesday.

Obama said during the ABC Special on Wednesday night that a way to save healthcare costs is to abandon the sort of care that "evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve" the patient's health. He went on to say that he had personal familiarity with such a situation when his grandmother broke her hip after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Obama offered a question on the efficacy of further care for his grandmother saying, "and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?"

But who is it that will present the "evidence" that will "show" that further care is futile? Are we to believe that Obama expects individual doctors will make that decision in his bold new government controlled healthcare future? If he is trying to make that claim it is a flat out untruth and he knows it.

Does your homebuilder negotiate with your city hall over whether you get a building permit, or does the permit get levied no matter what? Does a cop decide if you really broke the law, or does he simply arrest you and let the courts hash it out? Does your tax preparer negotiate with the IRS or is he supposed to just calculate your tax bill on their terms and have you pay the required amount?

Government does not work by negotiation. Government does not work from the bottom up. It works from the top down. This singular fact means that no doctor will be deciding if you are too old or infirm to get medical care. It will be a medically untrained bureaucrat that sets a national rule that everyone will have to obey. There won't be any room for your grandma to have a different outcome than anyone else's.

So, what will it be then? Who will decide when medical care is just too expensive to bother with? Who will be left to perish because they just aren't worth the lifesaving effort? Well, for sure it won't be any members of Congress or anyone that works for the federal government because they won't be expected to suffer under the nationally socialized plan. It also won't be Obama's buddies in the unions who are about to be similarly exempted from the national plan, at least if Senator Max Baucus has his way.

Ah, but we are told that Obama's ideas on healthcare are "evolving," dontcha know? During the recent campaign for president (that was only 7 months ago, if you'll recall) Obama insisted that he would never tax your healthcare benefits from work. He even ridiculed McCain for proposing such a plan. Lately, however, he's "evolved" toward saying that such a new tax is on the table. What about his stance against fining people and businesses that don't join his UberPlan? He was against that sort of coerciveness before. Now he's "evolved."

Originally, he said it was "healthcare for all," but as of Wednesday night, it seems he's "evolved" to say that only those worth the bother should get healthcare. The rest should be left to died and/or suffer. If he does any more "evolving" we'll all be finding just who is "worth" what as far as he and his Democrats are concerned. Somehow I'd guess that many of you reading this today won't quite be worth as much as certain others!

Let's hope none of us are ever in a position to find out if Obamacare deems our grandmothers worth saving.

And what ever happened to the left's mantra that healthcare is a "right" and that money should never enter into a life or death decision? Now The One is saying it's just too darn expensive to save the old and infirm? Will our friends on the left now disown Obama the "murderer"?

Even worse, why has the media remained mum on the possibility that President Spock, Doctor of life, just said that old folks are too expensive to treat? Hello, CNN, NBC, New York Times... anyone?

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2009/06/26/obama-says-we-shouldnt-treat-old-folks-save-money-media-goes-dea

Health Care ‘Change’ You Shouldn’t Believe In

Health Care ‘Change’ You Shouldn’t Believe In

While running for President, Barack Obama used the word “change” as his mantra. A lot of people thought he meant that in a good way.

They’re finding out they were wrong.

To put it in Hollywood terms, Obama campaigned like he was the Music Man, and he’s turned out to be Kaiser Soze. Recently, President Obama said one of the ways we (aka: the government) can cut back on health care costs is by denying medical care to old people. If you think that was heartless, check out the thoughts of Obama’s science czar. Apparently he’s for “forced abortions, mass sterilization, and a ‘Planetary Regime’ with the power of life and death over American citizens.”

Sounds like he fits right in.

This administration made a lot of promises it has broken. But it’s determined to force socialized medicine on us through the false promise of a government insurance plan that would effectively kill off all private medical insurance companies, leaving Americans with a single-payer system that will be insanely costly and inefficient. It will also effectively kill off medical innovations in America because there will be no more incentive to develop them.

When the government health care plans we already have are set to run out of money in a few years, there is no reason to assume this one would be any more efficient. Especially considering what a spendthrift Obama has been already.

When the government has people dependent on a medical system it starts to treat them like property and tells them how to live. It also makes decisions on whether they live or die by telling them whether or not they will get an operation.

The change Obama wants for America is fundamentally inhumane and dangerous. Real change begins next November when we clean house and start sending politicians home. Take away those who vote for his bills and he becomes a paper tiger with the words “One-Termer” on his forehead.

OBAMA IS AN ARROGANT JERK OFF ! SAY NO TO HIS HEALTH CARE BS

IF OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE PLAN IS PASSED WE ARE ALL DOOMED.
He wants to play God now and his cronies in the WHITEHOUSE AND CONGRESS will decide who lives and who dies and who gets care and who does not. SCREW THESE PEOPLE. WHO THE HELL DO THEY THINK THEY ARE ??? THEY CAN ALL GO TO HELL FOR ALL I CARE.

Care Versus Control on Healthcare ~Contact your Representative~say Hell no!

August 5, 2009 12:00 AM

Care Versus Control
If this new medical scheme is so wonderful, why can’t it stand the light of day?

By Thomas Sowell

As someone who was once rushed to a hospital in the middle of the night, because of taking a medication that millions of people take every day without the slightest problem, I have a special horror of life-and-death medical decisions being made by bureaucrats in Washington about patients they have never laid eyes on.

On another occasion, I was told by a doctor that I would have died if I had not gotten to him in time, after an allergic reaction to eating one of the most healthful foods around. On still another occasion, I was treated with a medication that causes many people big problems and was urged to come back to the hospital immediately if I had a really bad reaction. But I had no reaction at all, went home, felt fine, and slept soundly through the night.

My point is that everybody is different. Millions of children eat peanut-butter sandwiches every day but some children can die from eating peanut butter. Some vaccines and medications that save many lives can also kill some people.

Are decisions made by doctors who have treated the same patient for years to be overruled by bureaucrats sitting in front of computer screens in Washington, following guidelines drawn up with the idea of “bringing down the cost of medical care”?

The idea is even more absurd than the idea that you can add millions of people to a government medical-care plan without increasing the costs. It is also more dangerous.

What is both dangerous and mindless is rushing a massive new medical-care scheme through Congress so fast that lawmakers do not even have time to read it before voting on it. Legislation that is far less sweeping in its effects can get months of hearings before congressional committees, followed by debates in the Senate and the House of Representatives, with all sorts of people voicing their views in the media and in letters to Congress, while ads from people on both sides of the issue appear in newspapers and on television.

If this new medical scheme is so wonderful, why can’t it stand the light of day or a little time to think about it?

The obvious answer is that the administration doesn’t want us to know what it is all about or else we would not go along with it. Far better to say that we can’t wait, that things are just too urgent. This tactic worked with whizzing the “stimulus” package through Congress, even though the stimulus package itself has not worked.

Any serious discussion of government-run medical care would have to look at other countries where there is government-run medical care. As someone who has done some research on this for my book, Applied Economics, I can tell you that the actual consequences of government-controlled medical care are not a pretty picture, however inspiring the rhetoric that accompanies it.

Thirty-thousand Canadians are passing up free medical care at home to go to some other country where they have to pay for it. People don’t do that without a reason.

But Canadians are better off than people in some other countries with government-controlled medical care, because they have the United States right next door, in case their medical problems get too serious to rely on their own system.

But where are Americans to turn if we become like Canada? Where are we to go when we need better medical treatment than Washington bureaucrats will let us have? Mexico? The Caribbean?

Many people do not understand that it is not just a question of whether government bureaucrats will agree to pay for particular medical treatments. The same government-control mindset that decides what should and should not be paid for can also decide that the medical technology or pharmaceutical drugs that they control should not be for sale to those who are willing to pay their own money.

Right now, medications or treatments that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration are medications or treatments that you are not allowed to buy with your own money, no matter how desperate your medical condition, and no matter how many years these medications or treatments may have been used without dire effects in other countries.

The crucial word is not “care” but “control.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDM3YmQ3OTMyZWQyNmMxNTM4Y2I5ZjM3NTMxZTI1YWY=

The Obama Resistance Grows and grows and grows~JUST SAY NO~HELL NO

The Obama Resistance Grows

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The Obama Resistance Grows
By Lee Cary
Spontaneous, uncoordinated, passionate -- citizen resistance to Obama socialism grows by the day.

America is no stranger to resistance. The nation was born from citizen resistance that had mixed support among the colonists. About one in five was loyal to the King. Some of the bitterest fighting in the American Revolution was between Loyalists and Patriots. And all of it was between Americans in the Civil War. We know how to resist.

There was a spontaneous resistance after December 7, 1941. It shook America out of its flirtation with isolationism. In that case, it was largely Republican politicians who were slow to see the danger from international tyrants. Edwin Bodley of East Chicago, Indiana was a junior in engineering at Purdue University when he joined the students who, upon hearing the news of Pearl Harbor, spilled out of their dormitories in a spontaneous demonstration of resistance. The next day Edwin enlisted in the Air Force. After flying 56 missions over the "Hump," he volunteered to go back to the war and rescue downed flyers in the Pacific. Lieutenant Bodley died on August 13, 1945, hours before the war ended, the navigator on the last US crew aircraft lost to hostile action in World War II. The resistance never died in him. His name was Legion for there were many like him in those days.

So we Americans understand resistance. We don't hunger to engage in it. We can be slow to respond to the non-violent circumstances that provoke it. But once it begins, it takes its own course among us. Like water pulled by gravity seeking its own level. It's happening now.

The internet has shortened the gestation period for resistance. Nearly every day a new video surfaces on the web showing an angry crowd of ordinary citizens talking back to their member of Congress, or to some Cabinet person, as the pol morphs from confident and officious to stunned and stupefied. (Obama's czars, on the other hand, like their Russian predecessors, never face public scrutiny. They butterfly float in an ether world of inbreed wonkishness in search of purpose, doing who knows what. Hopefully, little.)

The April 15th Tea Parties, belittled by the legacy media, were collectively the coming-out event of a new American resistance. The cause then was out-of-control government spending. Today, it's shifted to a wider focus on Obama's brand of socialism for America. When the cover of the February 16, 2009 issue of Newsweek proclaimed "We Are All Socialists Now," it was a barely visible comet streaking across a news cycle. Not now. "Like hell we are!" is the rising antiphonal response today as a litany of proposed socialist legislation lines up in Congress.

Barack, Nancy, Harry, Rahm, Barney, Waxman et al have been cattle-driving a legislative cramdown since the TARP bill passed in George W. Bush's final days. They mistook victory against a tepid Republican presidential candidate for a mandate to reconstitute the United States of America. Slow to awaken, her citizens now grow angrier. It's not the loss of land and lives they fear, but of freedoms. Accustomed to trusting any new president, they're quickly losing confidence in this one. Seduced by his artful use of the spoken word, they're growing attuned to the nuances within his words. When he begins a sentence with "Let me be clear about this," our listening becomes acute, for it's not clarity that often follows, but evasiveness through circuitous parsing.

As members of Congress go home for recess it won't be to playground games. Some will hide from their constituents, not wanting to face them. Why bother? They plan to vote as Rahm and their party leaders tell them anyway, for their only ideology is to remain in power. Others will think, "The people have short memories; soon they'll be back watching reruns of Law & Order." They'll underestimate the resistance. Meanwhile, the legacy media will attribute it to right-wingers and belligerent extremists incited by their demonized arch enemies, conservative talk show hosts. They don't get it either.

Others, the bolder pols, will face their constituents and be so foolish as to presume to tell them what they, the voters, should think. Tell them what's good for them, whether they know it or not. This will be a mistake. Unless they represent the uniformly like-minded, these members of Congress will face spirited resistance. More of it than most will have encountered in their political careers. When it comes, their faces will assume fault lines of shock-and-awe in the face of citizen audacity. Some will paper over it with thin smiles and louder talk. That won't work.

Vocal opposition from their constituents differs from what they're accustomed to hearing from colleagues on the floor of the House or Senate. There it's, "I respectfully take exception to the position expressed by the honorable member from the state of bla bla bla." The ruling class speaks the language of the ruling class when citizens might be watching on C-SPAN. But in the public forum, people speak plainly, in a language with which some members of Congress are not used to being addressed. The resistance doesn't speak Beltway.

Regardless of the decibel-level of the opposition to Obamacare and Cap & Tax that Congress hears back home, many will return to their Safe Zone inside the Capital and vote against the wishes of their constituents. They are, after all, wiser and more knowledgeable in these matters than the voters. They may chose not to give us the government we want, but the government they think we should want. And would want, if we knew what was good for us. Such is the timeless arrogance of power.







If that happens, stand-by. For the American resistance will continue to mount, and soon begin to register on the Richter scale.

Illustrations by Big Fur Hat. No actual Obama posters were harmed in the preparation of these graphics.

HEALTHCARE ? Harry and Louise SUX !! WHAT IDIOTS IN THE TANK WITH OBAMA !

TALK ABOUT BEING IN THE TANK WITH OBAMA....
WHO THE HELL IS WE ?
If you think for one damn minute that people in this country are going to sit back and let the 535 crooks and liars and scumbags decide in thier bills they write who will live and who will die in their healthcare bill they have another thought coming.
We will all be old someday. Is this what you want ?? Take a pain pill you don't need that hip replacement or knee replacement, you are too old. You don't have long left anyway and you are retired and don't pay taxes anymore so you are DENIED !!
SCREW THAT ! SCREW OBAMA AND HIS CRONIES IN THE WHITEHOUSE AND CONGRESS. WHO THE HELL DO THESE SCUM THINK THEY ARE ? "GOD" ?

Citizen Informants wanted by Obama to show and tell~GASP !

Citizen Informants

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TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS....

In 1930's Germany, the new socialist government of Adolf Hitler (NAZI National Socialist Workers' Party) began indoctrinating children in the quasi-military organization, the Hitler Youth, to inform on their parents should they overhear discussions subversive to the policies of the Leader. As the noose was tightened, local community organizers were appointed to watch their neighbors and were told to report subversive comments to the bureaucrats above them. Neighbors informed on neighbors, some for reasons of patriotism or loyalty, some from fear. A modern inquisition ensued; a terror to free thought and expression. Increasingly harsh penalties were meted out to those who dared to dissent.


The socialist governments of the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, N. Korea, Cuba, Yugoslavia, and the People's Republic of China employed the same citizen informer techniques. Citizens of those societies were reduced to either silence or whispered discussion only among those they trusted the most. Of course none of those things would ever occur here in the land of the free. But wait...


Now on the White House website posted by Macon Phillips comes an eerily similar request for citizens to inform on their neighbors. It states,


"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to the end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."


Read this again carefully. The government of the United States is openly asking citizens to report rumors, the contents of casual conversation, and the contents of emails. They decry the fact that they are unable to "keep track" of the communication between citizens effectively and are asking for help from informers. Of course forwarded emails would contain the electronic addresses of the sender.


Does this sound like the country you know (knew)? Are these the words of people who think of themselves as public servants, or is this something darker? Does a constitutional government tasked with protecting the rights of its citizens ask them to inform on each other to the White House?


Are we now like one of those totalitarian states? No. But we have become more collectivist. Is the move toward appointing unaccountable Czars with enormous authority, the takeover of multiple industries (corporatism), the restructuring of the economy on a socialist-command model, and the request for citizens to inform on their fellows a step closer to that ugly place? Unquestionably, the answer has to be yes. We must be concerned with the direction in which we are headed as well as the breathtaking speed.


Forty years ago, a philosopher named Leonard Peikoff wrote a book (still in print) called The Ominous Parallels. In it he shows the parallels (then scarcely noticeable) between the rise of Hitler's socialism and the trends in the United States. At the time, the book could have been dismissed as the ranting of an over-zealous, though erudite and articulate, conspiracy nut. In retrospect, Peikoff appears to have been quite prescient. Reading it today, it appears like a roadmap of the last half century and how we got to this point. The implications are clear. If the direction of the nation and the philosophic perspective of the populace isn't brought back to the founding principles, the end point is predetermined. Unfortunately, the premises underlying the agenda are shared by both major parties. The opposition party is neutered in that it has accepted the premises of the socialists, a strategy doomed to failure.


My father and several uncles risked their lives in World War II to bring down the socialist threat of the German and Italian Axis powers. They survived. Many of their buddies were maimed or killed in that struggle. That generation successfully destroyed the military threat, but their efforts were blunted by the persistence of the altruist-collectivist philosophical virus which animated those socialists and which has infected the USA. Aside from the anti-Semitism of that time, both Western Europe and the USA are thoroughly imbued with the language and programs of the National Socialist program including its major platforms of National Health care, National Retirement benefits, National business plans, National agricultural plans, social safety nets, politically correct expression expectations, national ministers or Czars who answer only to the Leader, and the endless "we" talk so characteristic of collectivist societies.


Our forebears sacrificed so much to pass on the blessings of liberty. The least that we can do in the shadow of those heroes is to exercise our right to speak, and to do so out loud, not in whispers fearing that someone will forward our thoughts to the Watchers. These intimidating tactics must end.

Time to Inform on Ourselves That Obama & company sux !

Time to Inform on Ourselves

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August 05, 2009
Time to Inform on Ourselves
Lee Cary

The White House wants us to inform on those who are disseminating (what they consider as) misinformation about Obamacare. Let's accommodate them.


Many of us have, no doubt, spoken with friends and neighbors about it the healthcare bill pending in the House. Invariably, some of those conversations have assumed a negative tone concerning the proposal to nationalize healthcare.


So, in the spirit of civic responsibility and patriotism, let's inform on ourselves. We'll feel better if we do - I know I did.


All one need do is send an email to flag@whitehouse.gov (I don't know what flag that refers to but am pretty sure it's not the Stars & Stripes) and turn oneself in. Confession is good for the soul, it's been said. (Did Obama say that?)

Erin Bonsteel has captured the mood:

OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST AND HATES OLD PEOPLE

GOD BLESS DICK CHENEY~Obama is an Idiot~FOOL IN THE WHITE HOUSE

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY IS RIGHT ! GOD BLESS THIS MAN ALWAYS FOR STICKING TO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR AMERICA !















Obama declared defiantly Thursday that the U.S. "went off course" in fighting terrorism over the past eight years, and said his policies will "better protect" the country against al Qaeda.
















In a remarkable split-screen presentation of opposing worldviews, former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke across town moments later, saying he supported the controversial policies "when they were made, and without hesitation would do so again in the same circumstances."

"The point is not to look backward," Vice President Cheney said. "A lot rides on our President’s understanding of the security policies that preceded him. And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history."

Obama, in a major address at the National Archives, argued that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods "did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them."

Obama unblinkingly, methodically confronted a string of national-security decisions that have drawn criticism from the political left or right. He called the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay an inherited "mess" that "has weakened American national security" by providing a rallying cry for enemies.

Seeking to defuse one of Republican's most potent arguments, the president added: "Let me begin by disposing of one argument as plainly as I can: we are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people."

Obama rejected calls for a "truth commission" about the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror, saying he has "no interest in spending our time re-litigating the policies of the last eight years."

"I want to solve these problems, and I want to solve them together as Americans," he said. "In all of the areas that I have discussed today, the policies that I have proposed represent a new direction from the last eight years. ... If we cannot stand for those core values, then we are not keeping faith with the documents that are enshrined in this hall."

"Decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable – a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions; that failed to use our values as a compass," Obama said. "And that is why I took several steps upon taking office to better protect the American people."

In a stark warning, he said: "We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again. We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it."

"I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more," Obama continued. "As commander-in-chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all."

Obama repeated his pledge to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security," Obama said. "It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it. That is why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign. And that is why I ordered it closed within one year."

Cheney appeared at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, where the audience watched the president on large TV screens.

"When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support," Cheney said. "And when he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer."

Cheney continued: “Though I'm not here to speak for President George W. Bush, I am certain that no one wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do. ... What I want to do today is set forth the strategic thinking that drove our policies.”

"Watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities," Cheney said. "To make certain our nation country never again faced such a day of horror, we developed a comprehensive strategy.

On the domestic eavesdropping program, Cheney said: "The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn’t serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people."

Both Obama and Vice President Cheney rested a good part of their case on effectiveness, with the president saying the last administration’s approach to fighting terror was not effective, and Cheney arguing that those programs are the reason there has been no second Sept. 11

"We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and keeps us safe," Obama said. "Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset – in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval."

Obama said that while the nation must ensure that its security measures and our justice system are ready to address the threats of the 21st century, the Obama administration will uphold America’s laws and its values that are the reason we have become the strongest nation in the world and persisted through crises that have threatened our core.

Obama said that the paramount responsibility of any president is to keep the American people safe. That is what he thinks about every morning when he wakes up and every night when he goes to sleep. The president believes with every fiber of his being that we cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values.

Obama referred to the setting, saying that the documents in the National Archives — including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — "are not simply words written into aging parchment.

"They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality and dignity in the world," he said. "I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values."

Obama said he had tried to "strike the right balance between transparency and national security," including in his decision withhold of an inflammatory series of detainee photos.

"There is a clear and compelling reason to not release these particular photos," he said. "There are nearly 200,000 Americans who are serving in harm’s way, and I have a solemn responsibility for their safety as Commander-in-Chief. Nothing would be gained by the release of these photos that matters more than the lives of our young men and women serving in harm’s way. "

Obama pointed out that he is providing the resources to take the fight to the extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan who attacked us on Sept. 11; investing in the 21st-century military and intelligence capabilities; re-energizing a global nonproliferation regime and locking down loose nuclear material to deny the world’s most dangerous people access to the world’s deadliest weapons; protecting our borders and increasing our preparedness for any future attack or natural disaster; building new partnerships around the world to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda and its affiliates; and renewing American diplomacy.

Referring back to the opening week of his rule, Obama pointed out that he ordered the closing of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. For over seven years, the U.S. has detained hundreds of people at Guantanamo. During that time, the system of Military Commissions at Guantanamo succeeded in convicting only three suspected terrorists.

"In dealing with this situation, we do not have the luxury of starting from scratch," he said. "We are cleaning up something that is – quite simply – a mess; a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my Administration is forced to deal with on a constant basis, and that consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country."

Obama contended that the record is clear: Rather than keep Americans safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. Turning to detainees who remain, the president will announce this framework:

--When feasible, try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts.

--When necessary, try those who violate the rules of war through Military Commissions.

--When possible, transfer to third countries those detainees who can be safely transferred.

OBAMA, LIKE FATHER LIKE SON~A SOCIALIST AGENDA

Like Father, Like Son

Election '08: Barack Obama's economic blueprint sounds like one his communist father tried to foist on Kenya 40 years ago, with massive taxes and succor shrouded as "investments."

IBD Series: The Audacity Of Socialism

Barack Obama Sr., who died in 1982 at age 46 in a Kenya car crash

As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. advised the pro-Western Kenyan government there to "redistribute" income through higher taxes. He also demonized corporations and called for massive government "investment" in social programs.

Barack Obama Sr., who died in 1982 at age 46 in a Kenya car crash.
Writing in a 1965 scholarly paper, Obama's late father slammed the administration of then-President Jomo Kenyatta for moving the Third World country away from socialism toward capitalism. He chafed at the idea of relying on private investors — who earn "dividends" on their venture capital — to develop the country's fledgling economy.

"What is more important is to find means by which we can redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all," said the senior Obama, a Harvard-educated economist. "This is the government's obligation." The "means" he had in mind were confiscatory taxes on a scale that redefines the term "progressive taxation."

"Theoretically," he wrote, "there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed."

Therefore, he added, "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."

As Obama's father saw it, taxes couldn't be high enough, so long as the collective benefited. "Certainly there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay," he said. "It is a fallacy to say that there is this limit, and it is a fallacy to rely mainly on individual free enterprise to get the savings."

His son is also pushing massive taxes and "investments" in social programs — at the expense of free enterprise. Sen. Obama wants to raise the top marginal income-tax rate to at least 39%, while increasing Social Security taxes on those with higher incomes by completely removing the payroll cap. That means many entrepreneurs would be paying 12.4% (6.2% on employer and 6.2% on employee) on Social Security payroll taxes alone, plus the 2.9% on Medicare taxes, for a total federal tax rate of 54%.

In addition, Obama wants to jack up the capital-gains tax rate and reinstate the death tax.

Echoing his father, he argues that the government should impose "tax laws that restore some balance to the distribution of the nation's wealth."

And likewise, he asserts that the nation's wealth ought to be rechanneled by government into "investments" in the economy and welfare programs that create "a new American social compact."

"We can only compete if our government makes the investments that give us a fighting chance" in the global economy, the Democrat presidential hopeful said in his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope." "And if we know that our families have some net beneath which they cannot fall."

"Training must be expanded," his father proposed as one of his government "investments." Likewise, Sen. Obama wants to "invest" billions more in federal jobs retraining.

His father's critique of Kenya's economic policy was published in the East Africa Journal under the title "Problems Facing Our Socialism." One discovers — after reading just a few pages into his eight-page tract, where he waxes quixotic about "communal ownership of major means of production" — that he wasn't criticizing the government for being too socialistic, but not socialistic enough.

Obama Sr. described his own economic plan, his counterproposal, as it were, as "scientific socialism — inter alia — communism." Yes, Obama's father was a communist who wanted to put socialist theory into action — by "force."

He trusted the collective over the individual, a theme he successfully instilled in his son, also Harvard-educated, with whom he visited once for a full month in Hawaii, even speaking to his prep school class. He kept up correspondence with his son through his college years.

(Media accounts portray Obama's father as being completely out of his life after leaving his mother and him at age 2. But Obama's first book, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that he remained an influential force in his life. Obama's first autobiography was devoted to "my father.")

Listen to what "the Old Man," as Obama and his siblings called him, wrote in proposing government-run farms: "If left to the individual, consolidation will take a long time to come. We have to look at priorities in terms of what is good for society, and on this basis we may find it necessary to force people to do things they would not do otherwise."

He explained that "the government should restrict the size of farms that can be owned by one individual throughout the country."

More evil than individuals, Obama's father believed, are heads of corporations. More evil still are the bankers and investors, who conspire to control the world through their evil capitalist system.

"One who has read Marx cannot fail to see that corporations are not only what Marx referred to as the advanced stage of capitalism," he wrote. "But Marx even called it finance capitalism by which a few would control the finances of so many, and through this, have not only economic power but political power as well."

It's clear from Sen. Obama's own writings and speeches that he too is no fan of business or our system of "chaotic and unforgiving capitalism," as he wrote in "Audacity." He's fond of bashing Wall Street "greed" and the post-Reagan rise of individual investing over government investing. He wants to roll back the "Ownership Society." He resents the profit motive and individuals "on the make."

"Rather than vilify the rich," he laments, "we hold them up as role models, and our mythology is steeped in stories of men on the make."

This is no small point. The man who wants to be the nation's CEO actually believes we're living in a feudal society where the rich plunder the poor. And he thinks they should not only be vilified but punished.

"The problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed are rooted in the desire among those at the top of the social ladder to maintain their wealth and status whatever the cost," he wrote. "Solving these problems will require changes in government policy."

That is, massive taxation, among other things (or "inter alia," as his "brilliant" father would say).

Obama wrote in "Dreams From My Father" that he was trying to impress his father by taking a low-paying job organizing and agitating in the Chicago ghetto right out of college. "I did feel that there was something to prove to my father," he said.

Yet, suspiciously, he does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory. No doubt he wanted to keep that hidden. All he tells readers is that his father was pushed out of the Kenyatta administration. He does not explain why.

"Word got back to Kenyatta that the Old Man was a troublemaker and he was called in to see the president," Obama wrote, quoting his half-sister, "because he could not keep his mouth shut." About what, we aren't told.

However, Obama writes sympathetically of a comrade of his father, Oginga Odinga, who stepped down as vice president and tried to start his own party. He too was angry that President Kenyatta was letting private investors buy up businesses and land "that should be redistributed to the people," Obama said.

By 1967, two years after Obama Sr. penned his paper, Odinga had been placed under house arrest for holding a rally that turned into a riot.

Like Obama's father, Odinga was a member of the Luo tribe of Kenya. His son, Raila Odinga, ran for president in 2006. That year, Obama traveled to Kenya and appeared with Odinga at rallies where he criticized the pro-U.S. government Odinga wanted to oust.

When he lost the election the next year, despite Obama's tacit endorsement, angry Odinga supporters crying fraud sparked riots that resulted in some 1,500 deaths. Amid his ancestral country's civil unrest, Obama took time out from the campaign trail to phone Odinga to voice his support.

After weeks of violence, Odinga was granted a power-sharing deal. He's now acting prime minister.

He's also a something of a communist like his father. An East German-trained engineer, he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro. Paralleling him, Sen. Obama wants to open dialogue with Cuba and once proposed lifting the trade embargo.

The two sons have much in common. However, the son who would lead the U.S. learned from his father's mistakes and keeps his "mouth shut." Obama learned that revealing his real beliefs can jeopardize his quest for the power needed to put his "redistribution" plans into action.