News Snippets From All Beats

The majority of wind turbines used to build a Texas wind energy project are scheduled to be manufactured in China.  The $1.4 billion project is made possible by stimulus money which is U.S. taxpayer money that was supposed to go towards stimulating the U.S. economy, and not the Chinese economy.   Upon learning of this misappropriation of U.S. tax dollars, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat, New York, has requested a moratorium on spending the money until legislation can be written to stop the flow of stimulus money to foreign countries.  Schumer wrote to Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, that “The idea that stimulus funds would be used to create jobs overseas is quite troubling.”¹  In a lame attempt to mollify the Senator, Chu wrote back that the “installation jobs” would be created in America.²  Those American jobs, however, compared to high-skilled manufacturing positions and training, are of far less value in terms of worth and future careers.  Obama routinely claims that green jobs are America’s economic future, but any expenditure of American tax dollars to bolster Chinese manufacturing capabilities which at the same time reduces American manufacturing infrastructure to little more than an army of cable installers is un-American.

^{1 - 2.}  “Senators Seek to Block Stimulus Money for Overseas,” FOXNew.com, March 3, 2010. http://newsmax.com/Politics/US-Stimulus-Foreign-Jobs/2010/03/03/id/351459

The Obamacare system currently in use in England shows patients routinely go without food and drink and bathing in hospitals due to budget constraints. Care Quality Commission and Health Department regulators report that as many as 1200 patients who died exceeded those expected from 2005 to 2008.  This figure is probably based on records indicating the reasons for admissions, and what the probable outcomes should have been after treating those aliments in a hospital with reasonable standards of care.  Obviously, those standards were far from met in a hospital where “some lay in soiled sheets that relatives had to take home to wash, others developed infections or had falls, occasionally fatal,” and where “the attitude of some nurses ‘left a lot to be desired’.”¹  Thus far, 400 deaths as Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation have been attributed to substandard treatment described as “appalling” in the TimesOnline.²  Well, bad news first, now the good news. Everyone has access to Obamacare in England.  Ready America?

^{1 - 2.} “Stafford Hospital caused ‘unimaginable suffering‘,” TheTimesOnline, February 25, 2010.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7039285.ece

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), working closely with the Obama administration, declared last December that green house gases, including carbon dioxide, are dangerous to human health.  This gives the EPA the ability to act alone in setting emission standards that would begin to strangle industry and send America’s economic downturn into a complete nose-dive.  Obama is threatening to turn the EPA lose to do just that if he doesn’t get his cap-and-tread legislation from congress which will virtually do the same thing.  This ‘damned if you do, and damned if you don’t’ alternative, coupled with the exposure of the global warming hoax still unraveling in the press, has finally prompted states to take action in court.  Texas has filed a petition in federal court to challenge the EPA’s authority, and the state of Virginia has done the same.  Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli noted that the anticipated action of the EPA would put a “staggering burden” on Virginians.¹  He’s right.  That’s what the EPA wants to do, and that is what Obama wants to do, and they need to be fought until they stagger out of the ring and retire.

^1. Molly Henneberg, “EPA, Countering Criics of Greenhouse Gas Findings, Says ‘Science Is Settled’,” Fox News.com, February 19, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/19/epa-countering-critics-greenhouse-gas-findings-says-science-settled/

The Dalia Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, was received by President Obama at the White House on February 18, but accommodations were made to appease the Chinese government.  They don’t like the spiritual leader of Tibet.   That is because they don’t like Tibet being called Tibet, but would rather it be referred to as more of China.  Nevertheless, if the President of the United States is going to see the guy, see the guy in a manner that upholds the dignity of the Presidency,  and the White House.  The president should not cave in to the Chinese government’s pressure not to recognize the Dalia Lama, and therefore see him on the down-low, and then slip the poor old guy out the back door of the White House in his bath robe and slippers (uh, strike that, he always dresses that way).  Very unPresidential, but maybe Obama bowed really extra low to the Lama to make up for it.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images http://www.gettyimages.co.nz/detail/96834730/AFP

The Air Force Academy in Colorado is about to dedicate a Wiccan prayer circle made of boulders.  Finally “Earth-centered cadets,” as the pagans on the base refer to themselves, will have a place to worship.¹  If they only realized how theologically accurate the term that they have chosen for themselves really is.

 

 ^1. Fox News, “Neo-Pagans Get Worship Circle at Air Force Academy,” February 1, 2010.

 

President Obama’s $8 billion award to pay for high-speed train rails amounts to hardly the sales tax.  The actual amount of the project, with 13 rails projected, is more like $100 billion.  The question is, with states nearly broke and the fed in record deficit spending already, who will pay to complete the project?  Answer: think toll roads. Foreign companies have been buying leases on U.S. toll roads in Indianan, Virginia, Detroit, Alabama, and elsewhere for about a decade now.

This is a dangerous trend as our national interests could be adversely affected.   In the event of some future world crisis requiring us to mobilize and move forces and supplies stateside, foreign interests would control our roads. The toll road trend may be about to get a lot worse.

One idea is that Obama already has China up his sleeve for bailing out the high-speed train project by being offered everything from purchasing the whole line, manufacturing the trains, managing the routs, and selling the tickets.  Strapped for cash, and willing to sacrifice national heritage for world approval, Obama would even put the airlines on the block if he could find a way.  Waite for it….

UPDATE: March 21- As per forecast:  Article 

The Heritage Foundation’s employment report for December 2009 also looks at the year in review, and some forecasts made back then, and some for 2010.  A survey in the report shows that, for the near future, business investing that would create jobs is expected to be down by half it was before the recession.  Many have taken a wait and see attitude as congress proceeds with sweeping cost increases to doing business such as cap and trade, and government health care.  Heritage noted that “businesses are not increasing hiring in part due to the fears of an activist government agenda that makes labor costs uncertain,” and that activism has a chart.¹

Exemplifying the divergence between that ideological activism and reality, Heritage published this following graph showing Whitehouse projections on the effect that stimulus spending would have on unemployment, and the actual figures on the rise in unemployment:

Lines like the ones above also reveal that the government has either no grasp of the severity of the problems, an inability to confront them, no ability to solve them, or, and this is becoming widely suspected, a real desire to bankrupt the nation.   Socialism: now that’s change we can really heave in.

Notes:

^1. Rea S. Hederman, Jr., James Sherk, “Heritage Employment Report: 2009 Ends with More Job Losses,”  Heritage Foundation,” January 8, 2010. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2748.cfm. (accessed January 9, 2010).

Many people are beginning to understand the ramifications of a Government-run Health Care system,  and to suspect the worst.  As proposed, the new system would not only control the entire Health Care Industry and your access to it, but it will also control every aspect of your life.  This will be accomplished under the principal of the “continuum of care”¹ that surrounds every person with a “collaborative” network of clinics and agencies.² The premise behind this all inclusive continuum of care is that everyone is always in some condition requiring care or  treatment depending on the fluctuating status of their wellbeing, and not the actual condition of their health.

The term wellbeing was introduced many years ago as a replacement category for health because physical health was increasingly being viewed as an insufficient means for measuring overall human health.  A person’s thoughts and attitudes weighted significantly on a person’s prognosis, and so wellbeing could also encompass the psychology of that person and prescribe psychotherapy to meet those needs. This view of treating the total person helped to popularize the holistic approach to medicine. This view is of relatively low risk when visiting a herbalist.

The key component of the idea of Government-run Health Care that is so freighting is a government dispensing treatment for attitudes.   When the government controls health care it will also manage the branch referred to as Mental Health; with its continuum of “assessments, crisis intervention, counseling, treatment, and referral to continuum of services including emergency psychiatric care.”³  When the government controls mental health, they also control all psychologists and psychiatrists, whom they will employ, and will determine what constitutes a condition requiring emergency psychiatric care.

Assessments could be designed to turn ordinary attitudes of sixty-year olds, which of course differ from those of twenty-year olds, into cries for euthanasia.  People who express disapproval of a government action or are critical of a government official could be assessed as requiring counseling, and remember that psychiatric care includes drug therapy.  The want by some in government now for the use of this latter health care option to be immediately employed was made evident by Senate Majority Leader  Harry Reid (D) of Nevada.

Senator Reid claimed recently that that the public outrage over the government plan to take over health care exhibited by those attending town hall meetings was really an effort to “sabotage” democracy.⁴  This is definitely a different slant on the First Amendment, which reads in part: “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Many of the people at these meetings, who were recognized and allowed to speak, brought documentation to show how they will lose their health care under the government plan, and how their children will suffer.  Grievances for sure.

Nevertheless, Senator Reid’s diagnosis supersedes these First Amendment safeguards on the grounds of the coming new government Mental Health Care plan.  He observes that “They are doing this because they don’t have any better ideas…. It’s really simple: they’re taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongerers … and insurance rackets.”⁵  (The American Health Insurance Industry will no doubt be responding to that last remark.) It seems that according to Senator Reid, these are people who cannot think and fend for themselves, and are unable to reason.  They are easily manipulated by disreputable sources such as are found on radio and the internet (he’ll deal with that later), and it is against their own personal safety and welfare for them to be free to roam the streets unsedated. The prescribed treatment would probably be restraint, and confinement to a facility where they would receive a strict diet of government-approved media, and possibly drug therapy.

While this is satiric treatment of the attitude displayed by Senator Reid,  it is not as far from the pail as it may seem.

When the government controls the dials, they can redefine what constitutes conditions such as obesity, and other health risks factors.  In the area of Preventative Treatment, where programs will be put in place to prevent disease and keep exiting conditions for escalating, patients (and that means everyone, as all will be under care) will endure ongoing assessments to monitor behavior. The controls to ensure compliance to one’s medical profile are easy enough to put into place.   A special National Health Card, or “machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card” as it is listed in H.R. 3200,⁶  could be issued and updated with new restriction codes after each visit to the clinic.

This card would have to be presented and scanned for all purchases.  A patient will take their groceries to the checkout, but only those foods approved for their diets will scan.  Remember that government has already linked the environment to human health, and some are demanding that bovine be effectively taxed out of existence under the theory of global warming.  It will be so much easier to code beef restrictions on National Health Cards so that everyone will be eating high-fiber; everyone except for Senator Reid, and others in the ruling class.  They’ll still be eating steak.  Most government officials will almost certainly be exempted from these restrictions by a Consumer National Health Division Act that will actually establish a second tier to the Government-run Health Care system for government officials.

The writing on the wall for such tyranny is as plain as the conceit and arrogance now being displayed by those officials towards the people. Not everyone sees all these possibilities as imminent realities, but many see that there is a real and present danger in a Government-run Health Care system of exactly these proportions, and worse.   There is even a provision for health practitioners to provide “advance care planning,” that would include “the continuum of end-of-life services.”⁷ That would probably be the coming demand for euthanasia government assessments are to discover exists among sixty-year olds,  and dissidents.  It is clear even now that procedures deemed to be too expensive for the contribution society receives in return from a person will be denied, and a pain pill will be dispensed instead.  A journalist producing anything other than government propaganda will score very low on contributory value no matter what their age. It will be far more cost effective to let them die than to try to change their mind.  Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accurately recognizes the Government-run Health Care plan is “downright evil,” and we are recognizing the lady from Alaska.⁸

Notes:

^1. America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, HR 3200, 111^th Cong., 1^st sess., http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h3200ih.txt.pdf   429. (accessed August 9, 2009)

^2. Ibid, 994.

^3. Ibid, 998-99.

^4. Yahoo News, “Top Democrat denounces health care protestors,” August 6, 2009.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090806/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul

^5. Ibid.

^6.  America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, HR 3200, 58

^7. America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, 425.

^8. Yahoo News, “Palin says Obama’s health care plane is ‘evil’,” August 8, 2009.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090808/ap_on_re_us/us_palin_health_care

If the assets conversion plan being considered by the Obama administration for delinquent homeowners gets approval, eminent domain will take on a new dimension.  The proposal is for $50 million to be rushed to assist bowers who cannot make their current mortgage payments, but with a double twist.  Homeowners would accept the subsidies, but have to sign over ownership of their homes to the Federal Government and become renters.  To sweeten the deal, details include paying stipends to the ‘renters’ for disposing them of their title to their homes, and land.

What is insidious about this tact is that once this almost-certain-to- gain-popular-acceptance-plan goes into effect, the Obama Federal Government, which is already dialing the knobs via the Federal Reserve and Treasury, will be able to affect these types of asset conversion rates on the general population in the not too distant future.

While some may still foolishly believe that the world will be converted to Christianity, it becomes more obvious with each passing day that the world is to being converted to Marxism.   Here is a concise definition of Marxism for those who have arrived late: Marxism is Satanism; the living organism that is part of the bride of Antichrist, which denies the Messiah, and His living body on earth the Church (not the false teachers and false professors one may see on TV, or at local gatherings).

Legislation is in the making to give the White House the power to flip a switch and close down the Internet.  The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 would give authority to Obama to shut down all or part of the internet after declaring a cybersecurity emergency.  Furthermore, all aspects of connectivity, file transfers, and database storage would be completely open to government investigation and confiscation without a court order.  Once this is tied to Hate Crimes law the security of the internet can be said to be in danger by select websites running articles and commentary on certain political or religious views.  This is the latest tactic of the Obama regime to nationalize the print media, and then take control of all public communication everywhere.

While the Church may not see the fruition of this rapacious seizure of the First Amendment, Christians should be preparing for the inevitable encroachments along the way.  Those with technical skills might look into developing stand-alone servers, and perhaps wireless delivery, and alternative hypertext protocols and URL’s.   In the long run, shortwave radio may be the last bastion of a free press.  The advantages of broadcasting by shortwave include no traceability of listeners receiving the broadcasts, world wide range, portability of receivers and low costs.  Because of its low technological profile, it will probably be the last thing the government targets for complete censor.  Roger that?

So far, Obamanomics has cornered the world’s supply of red ink in throwing away taxpayer trillions in calculated bailouts.  What’s gone unsuspected by many pundits thus far, however, is what Obama and crew were actually calculating.  Here’s the twenty-twenty hindsight to check figures and make projections.  First,  AIG was set-up by giving it Billions with no accountability attached and allowed to let human nature take its course.  It did, and that produced the predictable furor over bonuses so that the government could feign being pushed to step in and regulate private salaries under just cause; the cause it conveniently provided (AIG is already 80% owned by the government for bailouts totaling $150 billion thus far). Next, using a similar modus operandi, the same incursions into the free market were justified for taking control of all American financial institutions in like manner.

With other large industries, such as the auto industry, now virtually in the government portfolio, everyone is being lined up for Communist wage-setting as determined by the state.  What follows is career-setting where the state chooses which job a person must take according to the needs of the state.

The big goal to shore all this up is the collapse of the dollar, and Obama has been so wildly successful towards that end that he is beside himself with glee.  China, who can recognize a fellow Marxists, is responding to this never before seen opportunity to conquer the US for Communism by joining with Russia in calling for a one world currency.  That would be the death knell to American sovereignty and the end of civil rights and the Constitution.  So joyous is Obama at our demise that when being interviewed on “60 Minutes” about the dollar problems Obama experienced almost uncontrollable laughter.  It went like this with interviewer Steve Kroft:

“You’re sitting here. And you’re- you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, ‘I mean, he’s sitting there just making jokes about money-’ How do you deal with- I mean: explain. . .” Kroft asked at one point.

“Are you punch-drunk?” Kroft said.¹

It is that glaringly obvious that Obama is drunk with his success thus far at annihilating America.  His answer to Kroft’s question is very revealing.  Obama continued laughing when he said: “No, no. There’s gotta be a little gallows humor to get you through the day.”²  That was Obama’s plan all along, to give everyone enough rope to hang themselves.  But even when there’s not enough people left who are resistant to this change to matter anymore, tyrants still don’t like being grilled on it.  Look out media, here comes the rope.

The latest in bailout-turned-government-takeover in Obamanomics is looking like it’s going to be the newspapers.  It will be the first time Obama gets his budget into some black ink. The print media has been folding as the market continues to select online sources for news.  Many newspapers have already established an online presence in response, but some just aren’t going to make it.  While there is a danger in having all news electronically controlled (it could be changed or jammed, or deleted after the fact), that is nothing compared to what is about to  happen.  U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced the Newspaper Revitalization Act proposing tax breaks for struggling newspapers, and even non-profit (government controlled) status.³  Obama and crew are using the same AIG strategy to take over newsprint, and television and online news will follow.  Without a government license, even blogs will be prohibited from running commentary; they will be illegal.

Notes:

^{1 - 2.} Aig Gordon and Jonathan Martin, “Kroft to Obama: Are you punch-drunk?” Politico, March 22, 2009.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20339.html

^3. Thomas Ferraro, “U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers,” Reuters, March 24, 2009.

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52N67F20090324

With the President handing out billions unabated by a Congress that’s gone swimming in the pork barrel, and the Federal Reserve making secret trillion dollar loans to people they refuse to identify, for terms they refuse disclose, the printing presses can’t keep up.  The tailor made solution for these irresponsible socialists  is the fairy tale of global warming.  This is where the citizens are blamed for climate change and then bled to death with taxes so that the spending and the fascist takeover can continue.  Put another way: a one hundred percent profit for selling something that doesn’t exist, and passing laws which force everyone to buy it.   Here comes Energy and Climate Czar Carol Browner (always loved those Russian titles on American bureaucrats) to collect 2 Trillion for the environment.¹

The Green Evangelists and the Green Reich can be counted on to sing their hymns to Obama over the cry from the bloodletting, but this pretense that these are only taxes won’t last very long.

With the world economy crashing, even Russia is ready to throw in the ruble and is pushing for a world currency now.  Why? Lets look at it from the dollar’s perspective.  The American dollar is only backed by a promise to pay, and supported by the faith of its holders.  With equity and pension and retirement funds having vaporized in the last few months, that faith is vanishing too.  A one world currency would put all politicians and tyrants in a unique position as it would be backed by fear.  There would be no escaping, and no looking back to bring those in government responsible for this melt down to justice, and, more importantly, no corrections to ensure that freedom continues.

It would be illegal in a one world currency to barter or trade in anything other than the official currency, and penalties would include confiscation of wealth and property.  A one world currency would also be a great equalizer, or an irresistible opportunity to for the reigning socialists to redistribute wealth.  The assets conversions codes would be written in such a way as to transfer most private wealth and property to the hands of government, and leave everyone equally poor, and starving, and communists.  At last.  Now here’s change we can heave in.

^1. Tom LoBianco, “Obama Climate Plan Could Cost $2 Trillion,” Wahsington Times, March 18, 2009.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/18/obama-climate-plan-could-cost-2-trillion/

The former Washington DC city office of Vivek Kundra, the man Obama selected as federal chief information officer (CIO), is under investigation by the FBI, and two arrests have been made so far. Reportedly,  Yusuf Acar, who is  a security officer in the city’s technology office, took bribe money from Sushil Bansal, the head of Advanced Integrated Technologies, for awarding city contracts.  Charges also include conflict of interests, money laundering, and billing for ‘ghost employees.’  That latter scheme involves making people appear and disappear in a database.  They lead professional lives, get paid, and presumably vote and take part in government surveys which result in government policy. Boo.

Kundra, who will be working on Obama’s pet project of compiling all information on all Americans and housing it in the federal database (on pretense saving money, and a deep respect for our collective knowledge), has taken leave of absence pending the outcome of the FBI’s investigation.  Before accepting Obama’s assignment as federal CIO, Kundra was CTO for the city of Washington and worked at the office where his colleagues were arrested.

References: 

“F.B.I. Raids Obama Official’s Former Office,” Reuters, March 12, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/03/12/washington/news-us-obama-kundra-raid.html?_r=1&ref=technology  

With socialist nightmares coming true to usher in the advent of Antichrist and the end of the age, contemporary Christians are more resembling cuddly little procreators rather than soldiers for Christ.  The Protestant Church has moved away from Christ, and over to their Pompeii.

Did the government really cause the real estate meltdown?   Thomas Sowell brings some specifics to the forefront that show what happens when affirmative action goes mortgage manager, and banks are forced to meet racial quotas despite the financial risks.  Read:   Thomas Sowell, “Upside Down Economics” Townhall.com,  February 18, 2009. http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/02/18/upside_down_economics