NQ First Responders: Dem donations drop; Netanyahu’s moment; Steyn on anti-BO racism; Greenwald reads between the lines; and dogfighting daycare
By LisaB on September 25, 2009 at 9:30 PM in Current Affairs
1) Today’s WaPo reports that Democratic political committees are having trouble with fundraising. Wonder why?
The trend is a marked reversal from recent history, in which Democrats have erased the GOP’s long-standing fundraising advantage. In the first six months of 2009, Democratic campaign committees’ receipts have dropped compared with the same period two years earlier.
————-
As the battle over President Obama’s effort to overhaul the health-care system reached a fever pitch this summer, the three national Republican committees combined to bring in $1.7 million more than their Democratic counterparts in August. The pair of Democratic committees tasked with raising money for House and Senate candidates — and doing so at a time when the party holds its strongest position on Capitol Hill in a generation — have watched their receipts plummet by a combined 20 percent with little more than a year to go before the November 2010 midterm elections.
Some Democrats say complacency is the problem, according to WaPo. Others say it’s the administration’s rhetoric toward rich people and firms causing the drop.
Some Democrats characterized the fundraising bonanza they experienced during the 2008 election cycle as an anomaly, saying Obama’s campaign — which shattered records by raising more than $700 million — brought so many new donors to the party fold that some contributors have understandably drifted away without the charismatic candidate at the top of the ticket in 2010. They also said a busy fall fundraising season for the president and vice president began in earnest last week with Obama’s trip to Philadelphia, which raised $2.5 million split between Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and the DSCC, and Biden’s fundraising work for House members.
I say, “follow the money.” If a politician is an effective “rainmaker,” lots of people and lots of money continue to pile on. Couldn’t this drop in donations reflect BO’s drop in the polls?
2) PM Netanyahu caused a sensation with his “have you no shame” speech. You may have seen the clip already. The NYP has the transcript.
Here’s the WSJ clip:
Whatever you may think about his speech, it was certainly more impassioned than BO’s.
3) Mark Steyn weighs in on the opposition-to-BO = racism equation. During the campaign, Steyn talked to many voters about whom they hoped would win. Steyn would say he hoped McCain would win (although he was a reluctant supporter).
And at that point the worldly liberal Democrat who had sought my views would nod thoughtfully and agree: yes, McCain would win. Not because of Sarah Palin. But because Americans were too racist to stomach the thought of a black man in the White House.
I never reckoned much to this argument. If you spent 20 minutes on the campaign trail almost anywhere, it seemed clear that many voters felt the first 43 chief executives did not reflect the rich tapestry of the American community and were panting to cross “Vote for a black president” off their to-do list. On the morning of Nov. 5, I thought about all those Democrats so convinced of their fellow Americans’ ingrained racism. As my comrade Victor Davis Hanson put it, we conservatives were wrong about the election results, but those liberals were wrong about their country. Which you would think might prove chastening.But apparently not. We are now eight months into the 44th presidency. The Obamessiah has come down to earth. He’s now just another 50/50 president, his approval ratings having fallen further faster (according to some polls) than any occupant of the Oval Office since Truman. The obvious explanation for this would seem to be his ambitious, expensive, transformative and radical agenda: the governmentalization of health care, cap-and-trade environmental legislation, the federal takeover of the automobile industry, the gazillion-dollar flopperoo of the non-stimulating “stimulus,” more debt, more deficits, more taxes, more regulation, more government, everywhere you turn. This would be a tough sell for even the smoothest pitchman.
But sometimes the obvious explanation is too obvious. Those “tea party” protests? “This is about hating a black man in the White House,” explained the eminent thinker Janeane Garofalo. “The only thing missing is a noose,” huffed L.A. Weekly about a poster showing Obama as the Joker. It turned out to be the work of a left-wing Palestinian from Chicago, but why get hung up on details? If you oppose the massive expansion of government and multi-trillion-dollar expenditures, you’re a racist.
———–
I suppose it’s possible that opposition to the federal government’s annexation of one-sixth of the U.S. economy is being driven by nostalgia for segregated lunch counters. And no doubt, if you write for the New York Times or teach race and gender studies at American colleges for long enough, it seems entirely reasonable, listening to a patient profess satisfaction with her present health insurance arrangements, to respond, “You know, if you re-sewed the back of that hospital gown so your ass wasn’t showing, your Klan sheet would be as good as new.”
————
After being interviewed on TV about my own antipathy to the Democrats’ reforms, I received an email from a (white) lady in New York who said that, if only I were to agree to a course of treatment, I’d soon realize that my opposition to Obamacare stemmed from submerged racial paranoia rooted in “fear of the Other.” Actually, I’ve been opposed to government health care my entire adult life, and wherever I’ve been on the receiving end of it: in Canada, medicare was introduced by a bunch of pasty white guys; in Britain, by a bunch of pasty white blokes; in Bulgaria (where I had the misfortune to be treated for a torn ligament), by a bunch of Commie monobrowed Slavs. Okay, that last one is racist. But you get my point: no black males were involved in my deep-seated racial paranoia about government health care.
———–The surest sign you’re suffering from “fear of the Other” is the reflexive urge to attribute it to anyone who disagrees with you: indeed, the people who most seem to fear “the Other” are those ever more fevered in their insistence that opposition to Democrat policies is nothing to do with the policies. The tea party protesters are not merely “racists” and “Nazis” but also “teabaggers,” a designation applied to them by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the voice of the people and Gloria Vanderbilt’s son. “Teabagging” is apparently a sexual term for dunking the scrotum hither and yon as if it were a sachet of Lapsang Souchong. Not being as expert in this field of study as CNN anchormen, I am unclear as to whether the teabagger is the chap dangling the scrotal sac or the lucky recipient. But, in considering the ease with which its political application spread through the media, one is struck by the strangely fierce need of Mr. Cooper and his fellow journalists not merely to report on the protesters but to sneer at them.
Very entertaining. Do go read the entire piece.
4) Abe Greenwald at Commentary has a brief, but interesting take on some of BO’s UN remarks.
Barack Obama’s address to the UN General Assembly was much more than some feel-good, can’t-we-all-get-along pep rally for the multi-culti set. It was a straightforward explication of a worldview that seeks to redefine international relations along frighteningly utopian lines. It is a glimpse into the ideological stew that has produced the dangerous real-world policies toward our one-time allies that we now see unfolding everywhere, from Israel to Poland and the Czech Republic to Honduras.
Greenwald quotes BO and then gives his interpretation:
“No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed.” There is no exceptionalism, American or otherwise. And no nations are to play favorites. That means, among other things, the U.S. will not extend special privileges to democracies or other free societies.
Worth a look. It’s a brief article.
5) Lastly, looking for high quality daycare? Think daycare and dogfighting don’t go together? Well, for someone it’s a natural combination. Check out the Chicago Tribune.
A Maywood house in which a child day-care facility was operating also was the base of a dogfighting ring, officials said Wednesday.
Cook County sheriff’s police arrested three people and recovered nine dogs from three homes as part of a raid Tuesday, authorities said. Officers found one dog with its eye ripped out, another with a leg twisted backward and yet another with its lower extremities nearly ripped off its body, Sheriff Tom Dart said. Other dogs had various other injuries that required medical treatment.
Dart said a swing set on which the children played was 10 feet from a garage where “a vicious fighting dog” was kept. The garage had bloodstained floors, Dart said.
Dogs bred to fight are often very vicious and children should never be around them. Of course, dogs shouldn’t be bred to fight in the first place. Overall, I’d say these people show a wanton disregard for everything and everyone but themselves. Those weaker than themselves, whether animals or children, are not to be guarded and cared for but to be exploited.
Child endangerment + animal abuse = quality daycare?????
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Great round up, LisaB.
Mark Steyn’s piece is particularly hilarious. The fools who see “racial paranoia” behind every disagreement with these wacky policies really need to look at their own bias — which they are clearly projecting onto others.
A friend told me he listened to Michael Medved’s radio show the other day. Medved was discussing his problems with the health care bill(s) — mess that they are. A caller was very heated and said that “any opposition to Pres. Obama’s health care plan was racist.”
Medved responded by asking the gentleman a question. He inquired: “Are you telling me that there would be no protest to Obama’s health care plans whatsoever if he were a white President?”
No answer was forthcoming.
The caller’s silence spoke volumes.
Game. Set. Match.
Periodically a group of us ’senior citizens’ meet for lunch. In the past we have heartily discussed the campaign, the election and the aftermath…until a late pre-election get together tore the right to dissent apart.
Formerly a lifelong Democrat, my views changed during the race (pardon my use of the word), and even as I stated the reasons for my dissatisfactions with Obama, and more disappointingly, the Democratic party, with emphasis on the DNC’s shenanigans with the delegates and the treatment of Hillary, I was surprised at the response from my friends. They had no tolerance for opposing views, indeed, some rose from their seats to emphasize their displeasure at my non support of Obama. I was actually asked by one of the party, whom I know to be a highly intelligent gentleman, and who knew I have been born and raised in the South, if my opinions were the result of racism! Neatly boiled down, I’d say!
Imagine my surprise at our most recent meeting this past week, where not one word of politics or Obama came from any of my friends. I know that one of these gentlemen meets for coffee and discussion with some highly respected retired business leaders each week. He said that they discuss economics and avoid politics. This was quite telling to me, as clearly he knew he was in the minority among this group.
It would seem that they are chagrined for being taken in by Obama and are no longer vociforous in defending him and his policies.
There is hope for us, after all!
Sorry. That was supposed to be ‘ the possible aftermath’.
I had that slur thrown at me as well…born and raised (in formative years anyway) Southern. My so-called friend of 40 years wondered whether I wouldn’t support 0zer0 due to my “antebellum background”. Said in a highly insulting way as well. This election certainly separated the wheat from the chaff. I have a few who criticized me but just stopped talking politics…so I don’t know whether they’ve come out of their stupor. Too much of that wacky tobacky, I’d say.
Yes, elizabethrc & Martha, there is an extra burden on those of us who are Southern bred. Since my Jr High School days, I have stood out like a sore thumb with my liberal leanings – often shocking even family members. Then to be accused of latent racism is infuriating. Even as angry as I’ve been for the last 18 months, I have 0 tolerance for racial slurs or people who think I have finally seen the conservative light. No way!
I know what you mean about not being able to discuss this subject with certain people. Even my liberal daughters who have me to thank for their own baby feminism and being liberal democrats have made some horrendous suggestions as to why their mother did such an about face. Even after taking pains to explain my views, they continue to think I have a loose screw. That is very unsettling.
Thank you Lisa. We are still living in the twilight zone, but I’m a little more hopeful every day that this this painful period will pass. I always thought that the eight years of George Bush were a dark time, but the past two years have been even darker for this former Dem. The party I had loved took a turn for the worse. I think they went down the rabbit hole. Doesn’t Nancy Pelosi remind you of the Queen of Hearts, shouting off with their heads, for anyone who dares to disagree? I loved the articles you referenced in your piece, but what I loved the most, was the fact that the Dems are not taking in the money from donations that they thought they would. Revenge will be sweet.
I am also glad the donations have dropped. I just knew when I stopped my monthly donation, albeit small, others would do so too and eventually the loss would be felt. Maybe, just maybe, the so called leaders of my old party will get the hint.
There was a huge difference between the usual fundraising by the DNC, the 0bama campaign, and the Dem Congressional Campaign war chest.
- People stopped contributing to the DNC
the summer of 2008. Howard Dean didn’t have
enough money for the convention and had to
call on 0bama’s campaign to raise the money.
- The 0bama Fundraising and the Dem Congressional Campaign Fundraising – were on the same scale because Nancy Pelosi was the one to hook 0 up with the San Francisco venture capital firm of Hummer Winblad at least by 2006. This company is in her district. The firm raised his $750M – plus the bulk of the congressional money for selected races. This company used the latest technology in massive fundraising that sent out emails, text messages, etc. to millions with the push of a button in a nano second.
The 0bama campaign of Plough, Axelrod & Gibbs took the credit, lying to the American people that it was raised from $5 and $10 contributions. This Chicago threesome had never raised over a $100K for 0bama and would not have known where to begin.
Well, the final campaign finance reports showed only 24% of the funds raised for 0bama came from $200 or less. A whopping 76% was from contributions of $1,000 or more.
Unless other candidates use these same methods, especially if 0 or another dem who has been let in on this secret ‘nuclear’ fundraising trick, 0bama may, in fact, be our lifetime POTUS. **God bless America**
We need to add to the picture massive donation fraud–donations under false names, donations from overseas. Illegal and so far they have gotten away with it.
Obama’s is a bought presidency, and the campaign went very far towards destroying free elections in this country.
To which I would add that election cycle saw the rise of the lowest-common denominator to a position of prominence in American politics.
Yep. And the elevation of Chicago political thuggery, while The One plays “above it all.”
Witness the way Bill & Hillary Clinton were trashed as “racists” in the primary by Obama surrogates, with Obama playing plausible deniability.
The day the Democratic Party literally cheated at the RBC, with Donna Brazille stroking the members hypocritically, to give Obama the nomination, is the VERY day many lifetime Democrats said “F*ck you” and became Independents.
They no longer represent “working people.”
They represent monied liberal elitists.
Choices have consequences.
Amen, foxx!! Not only did his campaign potentially destroy free elections, it absolutely destroyed our fundamental constitutional right of one person, one vote (at least for 2008). That was rampant in states that didn’t even have caucus fraud, but instead, like SC had county and state convention 0bama takeovers.
I even believe there was election night fraud in NC. NC is an entrenched red state that went for 0bama. Yes, it has a high AA voter registry, but it also has a powerful republican onslaught every election day. I think it had to do with the Boards of Election and the electronic voting machines. I believe there is a half-hearted investigation about that. Those decks were stacked to the hilt with 0bama zealots.
This is very interesting to me. Where did you find the information about the firm that raised so much for Obama. And *sigh* why isn’t anyone exposing the myth of Obama’s ‘grassroots’ fundraising??? (OK–that last question was rhetorical.)
My source for that was the Atlantic.Com article written June 2008 by Joshua Green, called “The Amazing Money Machine” (subtitled, “How Silicon Valley made Barack 0bama this year’s hottest start-up”). The interviews were conducted in Feb 2008, then published in June 2008.
It is a lengthy piece that is divided into three sections. It is important to read the whole thing. It is favorable toward 0bama, but unwittingly reveals a lot of things like the Pelosi connection to the firm. Here is the link to it – remember there are 3 sections. At the end of the first and second sections you click NEXT to get to them.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-finance
How can these boobs expect to get in again? They show no respect for the American people whom they call Traitors, Nazis, Domestic Terrorists etc. Sen. John Ensign received a handwritten letter stating that the Dems want a provision in the Healthcare bill which states if you refuse to buy Healthcare you can be fined $25,000 and jailed for one year. Insanity rules–its almost as if they want to throw the election to the Republicans.
Power corrupts — absolute power corrupts absolutely. Change 10
It sure feels like insanity rules the day, but if you consider that Obama is Phase II of the corporatist take-over of this country (GWB = Phase I), then “insanity” has nothing to do with it. The dismantling of America has been in the works by the corporate powers that be for a while now, but most notably since 2000. After a disastrous GWB presidency it was inevitable that the Dems would win in 2008. It’s just as predictable that the Repubs will experience their ascendancy in the elections to come. This is why we need a third Party or at least a large voting coalition of independents and centrists to stop this predictable pendulum swing between the self-serving Right and Left.
correct. it’s time to “throw the bums out,” and put independents in.
Yep. I am also happy to hear that their donations are in the commode.
I just received an email from David Patterson’s office alerting me to his appearance on Meet the Press tomorrow. Since I’ve removed my name from all the Dem lists, I can only surmise that his campaign has me, a CA resident, on their database because I had written to him asking him not to appoint Caroline.
DITTO!
However, the O could just call up those secret sources as before and money will just materialize again. I will feel better once they finally craft a bill in Congress that nobody wants; cap and trade stays put where it is right now; and finally Obama announces that he is not running for reelection after Nancy Pelosi loses enough votes to get her off the speaker’s dais.
exactly; there was so much untraceable money flowing into to Zero’s presidential campaign. possibly they are acting under stricter rules now that the campaign is over and thus the true level of (financial) support for the dems is showing.
Don’t get your hopes up too high for ’stricter rules’ on political fundraising. The democrats have absolutely no insentive to change anything about collecting big money fast and massively. It worked like a charm for them in 2008 and they still have to get through 2012. The republicans won’t be able to do one thing about it either with a 60 vote majority.
They may be willing to pass some new laws once the republicans catch onto how this is now done in the age of technology.
Considering the toothless campaign finance law (when dealing with those inclined to circumvent any law) it is really quite easy to “LAUNDER” large contributions. All they need to do is pay it in cash. Then all those mega-attendance “fundraisers” could be reported as “Under $100 cash contributions” which do not need to be itemized. If they get a stadium full of people (such as 50,000 capacity or more) all they have to do is bus in the bodies (without having to pay any entrace fees) via groups like ACORN and such. 50,000 @ $99 = $4,990,000! It’s not exactly rocket science.
Just look back at 2008 and recall how many of those mega rallies/fundraisers were held by Obama.
And I might add, those mega rallies were organized by MoveOn.org, the George Soros funded arm of 0bama’s campaign. George Soros put up the $40M used by MoveOn.org. This was separate from and in addition to the $750M raised by the big gun fundraiser, Hummer Winblad in San Francisco.
definitely; i was just wondering if different rules apply to donating to presidential campaigns vs. to the DNC, and how exactly these numbers are figured.
Netanyahu is full of shit. But playing the victim always works for Israel, so why not.
Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie?
Good question.
He tells enough of them, so why not?
Which part? Did you actually listen to his speech or read the transcript? Probably not. You’re merely here to parade your invincible ignorance around. But do continue as you make your foolish head bot appear even more foolish.
Netanyahu’s speech was full of factual information and real emotion and not merely empty rhetoric and pedestrian passion of those read by That One.
No, BlueX, it is you who is full of s h i t.
Amen Ferd Netanyahu spoke from the heart about a country he leads and loves. These trolls are used to Obama’s empty words and apologies to Dictators all over the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/09/13/world/20090913SETTLERS_6.html
I read the transcript of Bibi’s speech. Basically, he was playing by the strategy of “a good defense is a strong offense.” Bibi’s entire speech was about the Goldstone Report. Have you read it? Have you read B’tselem’s report on Operation Cast Lead? Before you go around calling everyone else “full of shit,” you might want to check out the facts. Bibi’s shameless lying to protect his own culpability in war crimes and crimes against humanity is clear in his speech.
http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20090909.asp
http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/9B63490FFCBE44E5C1257632004EA67B?opendocument
Administrator:
My comment was caught in the perpetual rinse cycle. Can you please extricate it for me?
Ferd, My dishwasher started doing that recently…odd
What I considered important in this speech is the complicity of all those gathered by looking the other way, contrary to the UN Charter.
It is an insult to humanity to deny what took millions of live to correct. I have seen with my own eyes the branding of a Nazi concentration camp upon the arm of women. It haunts me to this day.
(you ever stand next to a perfect stranger and “get” they have paid dues you can never fathom?; a sense of “gravity”?) These people were WHOLE families and communities in rail cars no better than livestock. What religion in a human heart would permit truth deinied?
Israel can stand on her on merits or not. I applaud the Prime Minister for raising the point and wish it were so that the land of the three faiths were at peace. Better a two state, than a final solution. Those humans beings that perished should not be denied or forgotten.
I agree, Teak.
When I was stationed in Germany in the 70s, I had occasion to visit Dachau. I will never forget.
“…[T]o seek to justify Israel’s actions by always referring back to the Holocaust is to demean the memory of the worst disaster in Jewish history and the lessons we, and the rest of the world, should learn from it.” ~ Rabbi David Goldberg
Can Israeli actions in Gaza be justified on the basis of Jewish scripture?:
Geoffrey Alderman v David Goldberg
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/12/judaism-gaza-israel-halachah
BlueX is just upset that the Jews defend themselves at all.
Obviously the Death Cult barbarian, offering-their-children-as-blood-sacrifices-to-their-angry-moon-god-of-war vanguard of modern Islamic Jihad aka the “Palestinians” are blameless.
Netanyahu is full of shit:
“…Israeli security forces killed 1,387 Palestinians during the course of the three-week operation. Of these, 773 did not take part in the hostilities, including 320 minors and 109 women over the age of 18. Of those killed, 330 took part in the hostilities, and 248 were Palestinian police officers, most of whom were killed in aerial bombings of police stations on the first day of the operation. For 36 people, B’Tselem could not determine whether they participated in the hostilities or not.
Palestinians killed 9 Israelis during the operation: 3 civilians and one member of the security forces by rockets fired into southern Israel, and 5 soldiers in the Gaza Strip. Another 4 soldiers were killed by friendly fire.”
http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20090909.asp
There you go.
Oh, and did I say that “Bibi” is full of shit?
funny thing bluex i was thinking the same thing about you.
Blue X, I wouldn’t say Netanyahu is full of shit if I were you. I suppose you think that Israel delibertly killed all those people. You people never seem to blame Hamas and Hezbollah for putting their rockets in neighborhoods and schools!
BlueX is apparently one of those types who isn’t indignant over the fact that That One used both the victim card and the race card to advance himself only and did not do it for the good of the country. If Netanyahu is using the victim card (which he isn’t), at least he has a valid point to make and he is speaking for a country surrounded by what one could consider religious bigots of the first order.
Fascism Needs an Enemy
http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2009/07/19/fascism-needs-an-enemy/
Leading Israeli Scholar Avi Shlaim: Israel Committing “State Terror” in Gaza Attack, Preventing Peace
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/14/leading_israeli_scholar_avi_shlaim_israel
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
Settlements Turned Israel into Apartheid State
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1039411.html
Avi Shlaim: The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Wall-Israel-Arab-World/dp/0393321126
Oh, I don’t think it’s so much Obama’s proposed programs that have angered people; I think it’s his persistent LYING.
The man seems to be incapable of telling the truth about what he did, is doing or will do.
Netanyahu was only trying to protect himself. The Goldstone Report isn’t the only report out on his war crimes. You really can’t blame Bibi; the Nazis did the same thing during the Nuremburg Trial.
http://www.btselem.org:80/English/Press_Releases/20090909.asp
I read this morning that Rathke, of ACORN, and SEIU are planning to unionize home-health care workers. Ah Ha! Obama don’t know much about ACORN and federal funding!
Guess they know the next big opportunity for graft and corruption will be in hospice care. Home health workers often are obtained through hospice. What with those death panels and all, they see a golden opportunity. Wonder if they’ll be trained in giving the Cocktail?
Good. The Dems keep calling and mailing me (goes straight into the trash) asking for money. I told them I’d give money when they bailed me out like the banksters and when they started to listen and stopped calling their fellow Americans racists.
Netanyahu is right about the holocaust denial (see river in Egypt) and the Imans that really run Iran need to shut up Amahandjob.
I really trust a government that keeps yapping about a jobless recovery. Same stuff we heard from GWB and crew.
This is hope and change? I’m not feeling very hopeful and I’m saving change so I don’t starve. Whooppee!
Candymarl-ditto everything you said. LOL. It must be a prerequisite to be able to lie with a straight face in order to be President these days.
Poor Bibi. He was only defending the right of Israel to slaughter thousands of Palestinians, among them hundreds of innocent women and children. What’s that you say? Well, yes, there were Israeli IDF slaughtered, many of them by Israelis. Well, yes, many of the IDF testified to their war crimes. But, we all know even that is the fault of sub-human Palestinians, who don’t love their children because they are, well, sub-human and they’re all TERRORISTS! And, besides–it’s all about the Holocaust! Never mind that Israel is now committing its own crimes against humanity; we suffered and were slaughtered during WWII. Britain bombed Dresden to ashes! Churchill is a war criminal too, just like those NAZIS!
Fight the Terrorists by reading the Goldstone and B’tselem Reports!
B’tselem, Israeli Human Rights Org
http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20090909.asp
Goldstone Report
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15308
Press Release on Goldstone Report
http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/9B63490FFCBE44E5C1257632004EA67B?opendocument
think about this! pelosi has her position in part because she is supposed to be a financial rainmaker for fellow democrats in the house. if their monies are dropping then so is nancy’s power and ability to maintain her position. there is a little more positive than just less money for the dims!
bibi has never been my favorite pol in israel but he is starting to grow on me. i find his use of “have you no shame” both historical and apt. keep it up bibi! you now have a new fan.
There was this interesting comment from Zbig the other day that suggested the US should shoot down Israel planes if they fly over Iraq on the way to Iran.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/09/brezinski_calls_for_obama_to_s.asp
Could something like this be the test Biden was foretelling some months ago. It is past six months, but nonetheless this would meet the requirements of Biden’s warning. It would certainly makes folks say whoa. Plus, Obama seems to almost be taunting Israel to try this.
Zbig is an idiot.
Let me try this again since the Spam In-Sink-Erator wants to eat my comment.
Zbig is an i d i o t.
Have you no shame?!
http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20090909.asp
Israeli War Crimes: Fact-finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
By Justice Richard Goldstone
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15308
Firing missiles from civilian positions (Gaza, purportedly a civilian area) at civilian positions (Sderot) is a double war crime.
HAMAS provoked Israel into bombing civilian areas (after Israel sent TXTs, emails, fliers,etc to the to-be-bombed areas so that the barbarian civilians can leave without dying) by staging their weapons in those areas.
That is a war crime. Any actions Israel is forced to take that results in war fighting in civilian areas is the responsibility of HAMAS.
VinceP
Don’t be stupid. No one–NOT ONE PERSON–has made any argument defending Hamas. Read Avi Shlaim, an eminent Israeli historian:
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions
Avi Shlaim The Guardian, Wednesday 7 January 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
For everyone who has not read it, I highly recomment Avi Shlaim’s book, The Iron Wall.
VinceP,
Clearly, you don’t have a grasp of the political history of the Middle East, nor does Ferd, even though he’s been to Dachau.
So, do yourselves a favor and inform yourself. Read Avi Shlaim’s brilliant history, The Iron Wall.
But start informing yourself here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
FYI:
In CANADA, national Healthcare was introduced back in the mid 60s by a Liberal Prime Minister who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his ‘best diplomatic efforts’ for resolving the Suez crisis in ‘56. Lester Pearson was persuaded by TOMMY DOUGLAS a non-pasty guy head of the Third Party in Canada (CCF now the New Democratic).
In a minority government, when you have 3 parties, it’s a much healthier environment and progressive legislation gets passed easier! Guess what? Prime Minister Pearson was son of Methodists and the Father of Canadian Healthcare, Tommy Douglas just voted last year as the Most Famous Canadian(!)
In Canada no one files Bankruptcy as is the case in the U.S. with 63% of Bankruptcies filed by people who can’t pay their….Medical bills.
It costs only 9% of Canada’s Gross Domestic product and it consumes all of 18%+ of the U.S. It is a far more efficient, egalitarian system and the doctors are still in private practice but get paid by the BIGGEST INSURER–THE GOVERNMENT! Nothing wrong with that. Why?
Cause Canada has much fewer cases of infant mortality and Canadians outlive Americans by 3 years. Also administrative costs are at 3% whereas in the States it takes 33% of each dollar. And the insurance vultures make the profit.
No, pasty white guys have not much to do with civilized Developed World countries’ choosing national public Helathcare! But WOMEN politicians in countries like Canada have pushed mightily for this reform. So Canada in the
’60s looked a lot like the U.S. being taken advantage of by big insurance interests in 2009!
Survey results in May 2009 in Canada:
86% of Canadians are more than satisfied with their medicare!
92% of Canadian doctors feel it’s better and more humane and less costly than the private syste.
But I guess being #37 on the World Health ranking is okay? U.S. is just one rank below COSTA RICA’S! But, mercifully, one ABOVE SLOVANIA….
Give me pasty Canadian women any time, sweetie!
mary: how many hours a week are you going to force me to work, as a slave essentially, so that you can establish a Federal tyranny?
What I don’t understand about totalitarians like you…. if your ideas are so damn noble.. why don’t you and all your ilk just form your own national insurance company and provide health care to the people you seek to make dependent on me.
Your compassion consists of coercion.. a very despicable dis-ingeniousness.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” –
— C.S. Lewis
A Republic is a nation of Law. That means policies must be legitimate. Legitimacy flows from the Constitution not stare decisis.
It’s bad enough with what has been erected in the past 100 years.. and it does not justify creating more illegal abusive government programs.
We are not a damn Democracy.
VinceP, Why do you love your corporate tyranny, even as you argue against a “federal tyranny.”
Do you ever count how many hours you’re forced to work as a slave under the current corporate tyranny in health care, only to discover–when its too late–that they won’t cover the care you need when you actually do get sick? They deny claims at a rate of 30% to people who have paid for insurance; that’s a tyranny if ever there was one. So, RATIONING is occurring, while corporate insurance makes profit off of it. That’s slavery.
Don’t be daft. Your costs are going up. Period. Whether we stay in the current system, or whether we change. Obama will create a system even WORSE than the one we’ve got now, and it will cost you more. Single-payer, like the Canadian, British systems of health care, is really the only answer. They pay virtually production costs for medication, we pay 5 times that price, because Big Pharma likes it that way. Get real, we cannot afford to continue providing obscene profits to these corporate suits so we can live under the illusion that we’re not slaves to a “federal tyranny!”
If presented the option between corporate tyranny and government tyranny, I’ll live with the former. We can’t survive with the latter. What you are suggesting is that we substitute a government bureaucrat for an insurance-company bureaucrat. No thanks. When Congress can come up with a plan that is based upon a thorough review of all existing systems, taking parts of each that will work and eliminating those that won’t, I will be against any bill on the subject.
Replacing one s h i t t y program with another s h i t t y program is no answer.
“A careful review of the literature at this time,” he said, “shows single-payer systems, as evidenced by their adoption around the world, are the most cost-effective means of providing insurance.
“That’s what the evidence shows,” he said.
Even in Indiana, Doctors Support National Health Insurance
By STEVEN HIGGS
***
Full article is a must read for anyone hoping to make an INFORMED decision on this issue:
http://www.counterpunch.org/higgs09242009.html
mary, go home!
I’m with you, Mary. So, ignore Stodgie’s thuggish comment and stick around.
People arguing to continue their own medical misery and slavery so that BIG INSURANCE and BIG PHARMA can make obscene profits is really an amazing thing! They like being slaves to corporate suits, who literally determine whether or not they live or die. It’s mind-boggling.
They like their health care plan, they say. Of course they do. Until of course, they have to use it. Then 30% of the time, their insurance provider will DENY THEIR CLAIMS, and then, of course, it’s too late to come back and change their mind.
And, then, if they lose their job, they have none at all. And, then they discover too late that they can’t afford to buy individual health care insurance. Or they have a condition which precludes them. Or whatever other argument BIG PHARMA and BIG INSURANCE decide to use for their profits.
I have had Government-run health care in my life through the military. I’ve never been rationed, had whatever tests I needed to prevent or detect serious diseases like cancer, and given a choice, I’d take government-run healthcare ANY DAY. We’d save money with a single-payer government run system. The costs might be more, but companies would save money, patients would save money, and the system would not disappear when you lose your job. Big Insurance and Big Pharma would not have control over our lives, which they do–literally–under our current system.
How about this? The ‘Bride’s March’ against Domestic Violence. Wish I’d been there to cheer.
Lately every time they busted a major fraud the Dems lost a major donor. They were donating stolen money.
Chalk it up to Yom Kippur and its concomitant spirit of forgiveness… I’ll not address the impulse of those who cannot help but malign Israel or the abject ignorance from whence this impulse is wrought.
Say what you will of Netanyahu’s speech – personally, I applaud his emphatic and UNAPOLOGETIC assertion that Israel has the right to defend herself. As the democratically elected agent of the Israeli people, Netanyahu exhibited the honor and courage which have sustained the Jewish State for more than six decades. When being on the right side of history comes down to pure, unadulterated facts, Israel need not and will not apologize.
If nothing else, there’s a valuable lesson in this for BO.
I’ll not address the impulse of those who cannot help but malign Israel or the abject ignorance from whence this impulse is wrought.
The abject ignorance is yours, unfortunately. This isn’t about Israel “defending” itself; it’s about Israel getting away with slaughter, military occupation, land theft, and apartheid by invoking the Holocaust to play the victim. It’s the most craven and depraved exploitation of The Holocaust imaginable! No one should support such depravity in the first place; but to support it to defend Jews is truly sick.
Israelis themselves are beginning to reject the lies of Bibi and his ilk. IDF troops told their stories of the war crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead publicly. Some are refusing to serve. Others are fighting back in other ways, and the more the State of Israel tries to maintain its victim status, the more people in Israel and the world are seeing the truth and rejecting Israeli policies.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6851624.ece#
http://original.antiwar.com/neve-gordon/2009/09/27/palestinians-and-israelis-follow-thoreau-but-is-anyone-watching/
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116923.html
More from Rabbi Rosen on this day of atonement:
mondoweiss