This aired on Glenn Beck's program last night, very inspiring.
In the clip, he said this was based on a clip he rec'd from a mother and son, I think this may be the one he was talking about. Also well worth watching, this was done by a high school student:
What the @%&#?!?
I respect our police officers and the fact that they have difficult jobs. I believe the vast majority of officers are hard-working people who strive to do the right thing.
That being said, I find this encounter disturbing. The officer in question can't offer an actual reason for his request to remove the sign, except to finally say it's because it has a picture on it (huh?). Then he threatens to "charge you with whatever I wanna charge you with." And when the person videotaping says, "this used to be America" the officer answers with "It ain't no more, ok?"
Again, what the @%&#?!?
"Some of the things you're about to hear are both shocking and hilarious."
H/T kHat43 and RightKlik
Disturbing views from Obama's diversity czar, Mark Lloyd.
From CNS News:
Mark Lloyd, chief diversity officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), called for a “confrontational movement” to combat what he claimed was control of the media by international corporations and to re-establish the regulatory power of government through robust public broadcasting and a more powerful FCC.
...
“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press,” he said. “This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.”
“[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance,” said Lloyd. “[T]he problem is not only the warp to our public philosophy of free speech, but that the government has abandoned its role of advancing the communications capabilities of real people.”
Insightful.
From 10000Pennies
"In 2006, Massachusetts passed health care reform that implemented a number of policies that are now being mirrored in the Obama health reform plan. The president has repeatedly claimed that his plan will lower health care costs but not decrease health care quality. This visualization looks at how the Massachusetts plan has panned out in terms of cost and wait times."
From the Project 2,996 website:
Project 2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
On September 11, 2006, more than 3,000 bloggers joined together to remember the victims of 9/11.
Each year we will honor them by remembering their lives, and not by remembering their murderers.
If you would like to help out, by pledging to post a tribute on your own blog on 9/11 of this year, click the button at the top of the sidebar. Then, use the web to learn something about the life of the name you are given, and on 9/11, post your tribute your blog or website.
But, and this is critical, the tributes should celebrate the lives of these people–kind of like a wake. Over the last 5 years we’ve heard the names of the killers, and all about the victim’s deaths. This is a chance to learn about and celebrate those who died. Forget the murderers, they don’t deserve to be remembered. But some people who died that day deserve to be remembered––2,996 people.
It's bad enough that many do not consider unborn children to be persons with human rights (and in fact our current law holds that view). But Obama's science czar, John Holdren, believes that children are not "human beings" until many years after birth.
From CNS News, via John Lott:
President Obama’s top science adviser said in a book he co-authored in 1973 that a newborn child "will ultimately develop into a human being" if he or she is properly fed and socialized.
"The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being." (emphasis added)
"[K]illing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."
"No infant - disabled or not - has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time."
"Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all."
"During the next 35 years, the traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological, and demographic developments. By 2040, it may be that only a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists will defend the view that every human life, from conception to death, is sacrosanct."
Sources: Princeton University
Practical Ethics, 2nd edition, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 175-217
The Sanctity of Life, Foreign Policy, Sept/Oct 2005
"un-American"
"angry mobs" of "right-wing extremists"
"brown-shirts" ... "carrying swastikas" (aka Nazi's)
"KKK"
"political terrorists"
"reminiscent of... Timothy McVeigh"
and when the existing lexicon just wasn't enough to convey their contempt, they made up a new term: "evil-mongers"
Wow. These mobsters that members of the United States House and Senate, along with the Obama administration, and the MSM keep warning us about sound truly terrifying don't they?
Dana Loesch shared some pictures of them on her blog.
*** Warning - GRAPHIC photos ***
You've been warned. I am not responsible for any nightmares that result from witnessing these frightening photos of mobs in action.
You can see more photos here.
It's more than a little ridiculous, isn't it? The disproportionate response from the left only underscores how desperate they must be to ram this monstrosity of Obamacare down our throats. But now that people have seen what is in the bill they aren't happy with it, and are being denigrated and maligned for nothing more - and nothing less - than exercising their right of free speech under the Constitution.
And as much as they'd like us to believe this is a "fringe" response, not indicative of the country at large - the polls say otherwise. The latest Rasmussen polls show that 53% of Americans are opposed to the healthcare bill. And really, this is about a lot more than healthcare - it's about freedom. It's about not having to worry about a government-induced scarcity of care in which the opinions of Ezekiel Emanuel or John Holdren may influence decisions on whether our families are "worth" getting medical care.
Interestingly enough (though hardly surprising), the response of the left to Americans voicing concerns about healthcare is fraught with blatant hypocrisy.
For example, Nancy Pelosi only thinks you're "un-American" if you disagree with her. She's "a fan of disruptors" if she agrees with them:
More here, here, and here. (Warning - for real this time - some of the pictures in that last link contain offensive language and nudity but hopefully won't give you nightmares).
This is a very well-done video about being a voice for the unborn, by 12-yr-old Anthony Matzke. This video is the 12-and-under winner of Lia's Challenge: Pro-Life video contest.
Please take a moment to watch:
H/T: Mommy
"Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views." -- William F. Buckley, Jr.
"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say, we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration." ~Hillary Clinton
From CatholicVote.org:
H/T: Mommy
Another great tribute from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) and Drowning Pool. Visit http://thisisforthesoldiers.org/ to read and sign the petition.
Earlier I wrote about the dangers of the "public option" in Obama's plan. Even without a so-called "public option," Obama's Plan B isn't much better, as it would still bring about massive government control - essentially still a gov't takeover of the health insurance industry but with the facade of a free-market system.
From The Weekly Standard:
Plan B is no day at the beach for health insurers. By imposing an exhaustive array of regulations and installing a powerful national health commissioner, it would turn health insurers into public utilities. They'd be assured a small profit, but competition among insurers would be gone and bureaucrats would be in charge.
...
As you might expect, there are many, many problems with Plan B. Its first impact would be on health insurers. All but the largest five or six of 1,300 insurers across the country would be out of luck. Since Plan B would reduce the profits for insurance companies, and those with smaller margins--namely, regional, state, and local insurers--probably wouldn't be able to compete.
"It's another chapter in the book on crony capitalism," says Republican representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who first described Obamacare 2.0 as "Plan B." "The government erects barriers to entry against the smaller and most innovative insurance companies and leaves the big, established firms in place."
Insurers would be allowed to offer new policies after 2013 only if they joined a government-operated "exchange." And the policies would have to include a minimum--and more extensive and expensive--set of benefits. This would deny smaller firms their competitive advantage of offering insurance packages with fewer benefits, specially tailored for a client's needs.
Ryan raised this point recently during a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee, asking about a small Milwaukee insurer. The answer he got was unequivocal. The firm couldn't offer new policies outside the exchange.
The biggest impact of Plan B would be on all of us, assuming it retains most or all of the regulatory requirements and details of Obamacare. There would be victims and beneficiaries. As insurers go out of business, people would lose the coverage they've chosen. Young people, the healthy ones, would suffer even more. They'd have to pay far more for their coverage. Cheap catastrophic plans and cost-saving health savings accounts would be unavailable. By paying more, those in their 20s and 30s would subsidize the old and sick.
With all the new benefits--for mental health treatment and "professional services" and "well baby/child" services--the total cost of health insurance is bound to soar. The poor and uninsured will need a subsidy. Caps on out-of-pocket expenses will increase the cost of insurance. And so on. The price will have to be paid through higher premiums and tax hikes.
One of the saddest parts is at the end when they reveal who does have access to top-notch medical care in Canada...
"I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process." - Barack Obama, 2007
"I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare plan... That's what I'd like to see." - Barack Obama, 2003
"If we get a good public option, it could lead to single-payer and that's the best way to reach single-payer." - Barney Frank, 7/27/09
"... a guy from the insurance company who then argued against the public health insurance option, saying it wouldn't let private insurance compete, that a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single payer... He was right. The man was right." - Jan Schakowsky, 4/18/09
And yet Obama has the audacity to say:
"Let me also address an illegitimate concern that's being put forward by those who are claiming that a public option is somehow a trojan horse for a single-payer system." - Barack Obama, 6/15/09
"Illegitimate" concern? Seems pretty clear to me that the so-called "public option" is, in fact, intended to be a gateway to a single-payer system.
Although I suppose based on the video below, perhaps the term "trojan horse" is inaccurate, since the intention is not exactly hidden, but out in plain sight for anyone who cares to see it:
"Someone once said to me this is a trojan horse for single-payer and I said, 'well, it's not a 'trojan horse,' right? It's just right there! I'm telling you. We're going to get there, over time, slowly, but we'll move away from reliance on employer-based health insurance, as we should. But we'll do it in a way that we're not going to frighten people into thinking they're going to lose their private insurance. We're going to give them a choice of public and private insurance when they're in the pool and we're going to let them keep their private employment-based insurance if their employer continues to provide it. - Dr. Jacob Hacker, 7/21/08 (emphasis added)
This is absolutely beautiful. Watch it, share it.
Visit Operation Gratitude at http://www.opgratitude.com/ for ways to support our troops.
I came across this via @Mom4Freedom on Twitter and Carpe Diem. Milton Friedman on why capitalism and free markets are far better than any other system:
If you've been listening to or watching Glenn Beck lately you've already heard about this, but in case you haven't (where have you been? hehe), thought I'd post this to spread the word.
Personally I love the idea because there is so much going on, everyday it's something else. It's easy to feel overwhelmed, almost to the point of wanting to just shut it all out and go hide under the bed or something, but we can't do that because we owe it to our children to STAND UP and fight back to preserve freedom.
From Glenn Beck:
be a constitutional watchdog because we need to stop these people in their tracks, and the one thing I learned is while there is one thing about one watchdog, there's something more than twice as powerful in two watchdogs. Now imagine with the radio audience and the television audience, imagine ten million watchdogs. I need you in the next couple of days to help me. This is like a 100 front war. He is overwhelming the system. It is right out of the playbook from Saul Alinsky. It is what a community organizer does: Overwhelm the system.
...
We don't need the mainstream media anymore. The paradigm is about to shift. Don't worry about the media. The media will find themselves in the dustbin of history. We have each other.
...
help me define what the fronts are. What are the lines that they are moving in and pushing on. For instance, healthcare cannot be passed. No form of universal healthcare. Because it is not about the healthcare. It is about the structure, and I will outline this in the next few days. Structure is what matters. Nothing else matters. Structure is what matters. We need to watch the czars. We need to watch cap and trade, structure on cap and trade. We need to watch ‑‑ quite honestly we need to guard, as much as I hate every member of congress, we need to guard congress because the executive branch is devouring all other branches. They are devouring it, and the people in congress are so stupid, so insipid or so in on the game, they are going to find themselves irrelevant wildly fast [ed note: I blogged about this recently in reference to the czars]. We must guard all three branches of government. It is a shell game. It is a transformation. And what I said to you over a year ago, you will wake up someday and your country will not be the same. It's happening, and it's happening right now. But one person can't watch it all. No media source can even do it.
...
here's the great thing. You don't have to watch them on all fronts. There are 10 million listeners. Pick the thing that interests you. Are you into guns? Are you into healthcare? Do you know it? Do you feel it? Do you watch something on TV and say, "I know this, I know what they're doing!" Follow it! Don't pay attention to all of it. You'll get lost. That's what they want us to do. So don't follow all of it. Follow the thing that your gut says "This is important and I understand this and I get this." Just follow that one thing and alert me. We will put the gears into at least neutral. Eventually we will jam that back into reverse. And if we don't, we'll strip all the damn gears because it will be time to get out of the car and rebuild it the American way. So I ask you, will you be a constitutional watchdog. The time has come to bark and to bark loudly. Understand what this means. What this means is you may be called a racist, a homophobe, a hate monger, you want to starve children. Whatever it is, whatever your category is, they will find a way to ridicule you because that's what Saul Alinsky taught them to do: Have no fear. No fear no more! Stand up! You know the truth. Stand for the truth because only the truth will set us free.
More on rationing from the ever-creepy Ezekiel Emanuel (BO health policy advisor). H/T Gateway Pundit
The New York Post writes:
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.
