Current events viewed from a conservative point of view and legislative policy analysis regarding how it affects the average person in a real world way. Even occasionally contains historical context, constitutional comparison, or original intent mixed in for good measure.
This is quite a piece of work and now one of the founders is a part of the current administration. Imagine if something like this had happened during the Bush Administration boy would the mainstream media have gone nuts. Too bad the media is a bunch of co-opted, lapdogs. Would be nice if they would do their job occasionally rather than act like Obama’s cheering section. Why would we need state run media with this group running around?
AmSpecBlog
Van Jones and His STORMtroopers Denounced America the Night After 9/11
By Matthew Vadum on 8.29.09 @ 2:01AM
Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), the revolutionary group formed by self-described "communist" and "rowdy black nationalist" Van Jones, held a vigil in Oakland, California, "mourning the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world" on the night after Sept. 11, 2001.
The reason this is important is because Van Jones is now President Obama's green jobs czar. He does not appear to have distanced himself from his past communist activities and is now part of the Obama administration's push to turn Sept. 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the promotion of the radical environmentalist agenda.
The vigil was reported by World Net Daily which excerpted parts of a history of the now-disbanded group.
Apparently, after the WND article was posted online, the website on which the original document was posted was overwhelmed by visitors and unavailable. I found the article in the "Way Back Machine" website (web.archive.org), an archival resource. The 2004 document, called "Reclaiming Revolution: history, summation & lessons from the work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM)," may be found on the archival site here. (In case that becomes unavailable, the document "Reclaiming Revolution" is available at the link embedded in this sentence.)
Jones also founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which joined in the vigil according to an Ella Baker Center press release from 2001. The press release contained this passage that quoted Jones:
"Anti-Arab hostility is already reaching a fever pitch as pundits and common people alike rush to judgment that an Arab group is responsible for this tragedy," said Van Jones, national executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. "We fear that an atmosphere is being created that will result in official and street violence against Arab men, women and children.""Reclaiming Revolution" also blamed the U.S. for 9/11. A passage on page 45 (27 of the PDF file) reads:
That night, STORM and the other movement leaders expressed sadness and anger at the deaths of innocent working class people. We were angry, first and foremost, with the U.S. government, whose worldwide aggression had engendered such hate across the globe that working class people were not safe at home. We honored those who had lost their lives in the attack -- and those who would surely lose their lives in subsequent U.S. attacks overseas.
Michelle Malkin discussed STORM and "Reclaiming Revolution" on the "Glenn Beck Program" on Aug. 25.
Here is more on Van Jones, Obama's Green Jobs Czar, and his radical activities. Who needs enemies when there are people like this infecting our government.
Contribute 2009
Job loss, foreclosure and greater demand at local food banks. These aren’t just stories on a newscast. Americans are struggling. Small businesses are at risk. We must rally to help small businesses in our communities – the very businesses that often lead an economic recovery.
So what can you do?
One idea. 100,000 people. $5 million. It all adds up to big help for small business.
Dollars spent at community-based merchants create a multiplier effect in the local economy. The American Independent Business Alliance estimates that for every dollar spent at a local independent merchant, three or more times as much goes back into the local economy compared to a dollar spent at chain-owned businesses. By pledging to spend just $50 at a locally owned small business and encouraging others to do the same, we can spread the word and collectively contribute to small businesses and to our surrounding communities.
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Our goal is to inspire 100,000 people to pledge to spend an extra $50 at locally owned small businesses on October 12, 2009. That’s a $5 million economic infusion that can create a ripple effect in communities across the nation.
Take the Contribute 2009 pledge and offer big help to small businesses in your community.
Scentsy is a company based out of Meridian, Idaho. This company is doing its part in helping stimulate the local economy in a very positive way. I hope you choose to take the pledge and do what you can for your local small businesses.
The 2010 jobs outlook
Posted on August 27th, 2009 by kbh in economy, featured
I want to continue to focus on the new economic projections from OMB and CBO. Here is some basic background:
- The unemployment rate in July was 9.4%.
- Most economists consider “full employment” to be in the 4.5% – 5.5% range.
- There are now about 154 m people in the workforce, so each tenth of a percentage point on the unemployment rate is about 150,000 people.
- This means July’s 9.4% unemployment rate translates into about 14.5 m people who want work but don’t have it.
- Rule of thumb: Because the labor force grows over time, the U.S. economy needs to create about 100K – 150K net new jobs each month for the unemployment rate to stay constant. For the unemployment rate to decline you need to exceed that range.
- The U.S. economy lost 247,000 jobs in July.
On Friday, August 7th the President spoke in the Rose Garden. He said:
Today we’re pointed in the right direction. We’re losing jobs at less than half the rate we were when I took office.
I wrote earlier about why this is the wrong way to analyze it. Now I want to compare the President’s language with his Administration’s new projections.
Here is an excerpt from Table 2 on page 11 of the Mid-Session Review, released Tuesday by the President’s Office of Management and Budget:
The blue highlight shows that the Administration projects the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of this year will be 10.0%, six-tenths of a percentage point higher than it was in July.
The red highlight shows that the Administration projects the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of next year will be 9.7%, three-tenths of a point higher than it was in July.
I draw two conclusions from this table:
- This is not “headed in the right direction.”
- If the Administration’s projection is correct, the unemployment rate will be in the high-9’s during the next election and it won’t be coming down quickly.
The last point surprised me. The Administration projects the unemployment rate will decline by only three-tenths of a point from the fourth quarter of this year to the fourth quarter of next year. That’s not good.
Looking at another part of the same table, they project GDP will grow in 2010, either 2.0% or 2.9% depending on how you want to measure it. But it appears they project employment growth to be slow enough that the unemployment rate will decline very slowly throughout 2010.
The only explanation I can find to square this projection with the President’s language is footnote 1 above. Between early June and early August we had six weeks of economic data, some of which was positive. Still, I would be surprised if the Administration would rely on this new data to disclaim the forecast they published just this week.
I think the President and his team will have a tough time arguing that the stimulus is having the desired effect as long as the unemployment rate continues to climb, and even when it begins to decline if it does so slowly. The Administration will of course argue that things would be worse if they had not done the stimulus. That’s a tough message to sell when the unemployment rate is in the 9’s or 10’s.
I need once again to remind you that nobody really knows what next year will look like. These are all just educated guesses.
CBO does not publish projected fourth quarter levels, so we can’t compare their projections. They do project the average annual unemployment rate, and their projections are slightly more pessimistic than OMB’s. OMB projects an average annual unemployment rate next year of 9.8%. CBO projects 10.2%. The Blue Chip survey of private forecasters projects 9.9%.
There seems to be a disconnect between the President’s language, which is raising expectations that things will get better in the near future, and his Administration’s economic projections.
If these projections are realized I imagine they will affect significantly the 2010 election. If the unemployment rate is in the 9.5% – 10% range on Election Day, and if it is declining as slowly as the Administration projects, there could be a big effect in the voting booth.
(photo credit: Library of Congress)
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If higher unemployment and more people reliant on the government to survive is the "right direction" for Obama and his allies, then he is going to get what he wants according to the OMB and CBO. However, this is not the way to economic recovery for this country rather to a deeper and longer recession than claimed by the talking heads of the main stream media.
Nothing like a good scolding from the left on who America should be concerned about and what they are thinking of America. DON'T CARE WHAT BEIJING THINKS OF THE U.S.!!! They and the other 3rd world, banana republic, tin pot dictators can talk a long walk off of a shor pier as far as I am concerned. Oh, wait Obama and the Congressional Democrats are borrowing all the money from China for their socialist projects, so maybe I should. Naw, still don't.
Nothing like a American political figure ranting and raving against America and its citizens.
Obama File 83 Obama's Man Van Jones-Many Roads Lead to Cuba, Communism
Obama file 82 hereTwo big questions hang over President Obama's radical "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones.
Is he still a communist?
Is he a security threat?
Many have assumed that Van Jones' committment to communism ended when the organization he helped to lead STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) dissolved in 2002.
Yet a 2004 treatise Reclaiming Revolution: History, Summation, and Lessons from the Work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement written and endorsed by a majority of former STORM members makes it clear that most ex STORMers are still committed to the revolutionary movement;From page 49.
When the last sixteen STORM members decided to dissolve, each committed as an individual revolutionary to helping this emerging trend continue to consolidate.Some are building organizations in working class communities of color...Some are promoting revolutionary ideas. Some are developing revolutionary cadre...
Some are finding other ways to serve the people.
Most former STORM members are still active in San Francisco or New York. The STORM created or staffed organisations Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, POWER, SOUL, FIERCE, War Times and Women of Color Resource Center all all going strong and are still receiving mega-bucks from multiple left wing foundations.
All these organizations are still networked with former STORM associates such as Harmony Goldberg, Raquel Lavina, Maria Poblet, Adam Gold, Cindy Wiesner, Jason Negron-Gonzales, Mei-ying Williams or Steve Williams active in one group while serving on the board of another.
Most former Bay Area STORMers are working closely with cadre from the Communist Party USA offshoot Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).
Van Jones himself has long worked with people from the CCDS orbit including Betita Martinez, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, Felicia Gustin and Bob Wing.
In February 2006, just over three years after STORM folded and just over three years before being appointed to his White House position, Van Jones was keynote speaker at a Committees of Correspondence fundraiser in Berkeley.
The second annual CCDS and Kendra Alexander Foundation Banquet will take place on Sunday, February 19 at the Redwood Gardens community room in Berkeley with Van Jones, a pioneering human rights activist known as a steadfast opponent of police brutality and mass incarceration, as keynote speaker.Jones is now working to create environmentally friendly, "green-collar" jobs for formerly incarcerated persons.
The banquet is titled "Towards Building a Progressive Majority" and benefits the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and the Kendra Alexander Foundation. The Foundation was named in honor of the visionary leader of the Committees of Correspondence.
Maybe Jones didn't realise he was addressing a Marxist-Leninist function? Maybe he thought it was a Rotary or PTA group?
Of even more concern are the close ties between STORM , the Bay Area CCDS, foreign communists and Cuba.
Venceremos Brigadistas entering US from CanadaAccording to "Reclaiming Revolution" page 37 several STORM members traveled to Cuba in 1999 as part of the notorious Venceremos Brigades.
One of the most formative "political education sessions" of this period was a group trip to Cuba in the summer of 1999.Several STORM members participated in the Venceremos Brigade to see and support one of the world's few surviving socialist states.
Members came back with a heightened understanding of both socialism and capitalism and a stronger commitment to red politics.
As STORM seldom exceeded 20 members, it is very likely that Van Jones, as a leader of the organisation was on that, or another, Cuba trip.
Surely a good question for some enterprising journalist?
Three STORM leaders also travelled to South Africa in 1998 for the South African Communist Party conference.
It is woth remembering that the Venceremos Brigades were founded in 1969 by Students for a Democratic Society radicals Carl Davidson and Tom Hayden.
Davidson and Tom Hayden take credit for having launched in 1969 the "Venceremos Brigades," which covertly transported hundreds of young Americans to Cuba to help harvest sugar cane and interact with Havana's communist revolutionary leadership. (The Brigades were organized by Fidel Castro's Cuban intelligence agency, which trained "brigadistas" in guerrilla warfare techniques, including the use of arms and explosives.)Incidentally Hayden and Davidson were two of the five founders of a new organization in 2008-Progressives for Obama. Davidson has a personal history with Obama when they worked together in the Chicago New Party and in anti Iraq War activism.
STORM associate Mei-ying Ho traveled to Cuba with the 2004 Venceremos Brigade. Now married to another STORM associate Steve Williams, Mei-ying Williams is involved with the Women of Color Resource Center where she works with Linda Burnham and well known radical and CCDS leader Angela Davis.
Steve Williams, who has been to South Africa, Cuba and Venezuela, now runs POWER-People Organized to Win Employment Rights. He worked on the organizing committee of anti Iraq War magazine War Times with Van Jones, Betita Martinez, Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, Felicia Gustin, Bob Wing and Adam Gold in the early 2000s.In July 2009 Steve Williams represented POWER at the CCDS National Convention in San Francisco.
According to Carl Davidson-elected as one of CCDS's four new co-leaders at the conference;
The panel featured responses to the "Democracy Charter" by Bill Fletcher, Jr., editor of Black Commentator, Michael Eisenscher of US Labor Against the War, Jacqueline Cabasso from Western States Legal Foundation, Frank del Campo from the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and Steve Williams of People Organized to Win Employment Rights. Bill Fletcher, Jr. cast the Charter as a political and social guide for mass struggle."Jacqueline Cabasso is a Communist Party USA supporter, Bill Fletcher Jr is with Democratic Socialists of America and was with Davidson and Tom Hayden one of the five key founders of Progressives for Obama.
The conference attracted several international guests;
Helmut Scholz of Die Linke, Germany; Chris Matlhako of the Communist Party of South Africa, and Angela Davis of CCDS.International guests included Chris Matlhako from the South African Communist Party and Marcos Garcia from the Venezuelan Embassy in DC gave a picture of protracted battles against neo-liberalism and their efforts to build and maintain unity on the left in their countries.Helmut Scholz, a leader of Die Linke (The Left Party) of Germany, described the unity efforts between groups in East and West Germany that brought together its forerunner, the Party of Democratic Socialism, made up of the former East German Communists, and groupings of Left Social Democrats from the West. Their common task now, he explained, was making sure the burden of the capitalist crisis was not placed on the working class.
Jackeline Rivera, an FMLN deputy to the legislature of El Salvador, was warmly received. She revealed how, in their recent electoral victory, the FMLN saw two left groups break away, and the national unity efforts that followed.
Solidarity messages to CCDS were read ot from Cuba and Vietnam and "The Internationale" was sung.
Carl Davidson is of course also a big fan and promoter of Van Jones' work.
Van Jones associates Linda Burnham, Bob Wing ,Betita Martinez, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, and Bob Wing are all veterans of the Venceremos Brigades or multiple trips to former East Bloc countries.
Jones' friend and ally Betita Martinez was an early Cuban visitor;
In 1959, three months after the Cuban Revolution claimed victory, Martinez went to Cuba to witness a successful anti-colonial, socialist struggle. This trip to Cuba had a profound impact on her.''In addition to Cuba, Martinez later traveled to the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Vietnam (during the war) and China to witness and observe how people were implementing socialism.
Another close ally, Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz , worked in Cuba with the Venceremos Brigades and with other revolutionaries including the Students for a Democratic Society and its terrorist offshoot the Weather Underground. She also worked in London in the 1960s with the South African Communist Party controlled African National Congress.
Not to mention over a hundred trips to Nicaragua, mainly in Sandinista times.
There is also another Cuban connection that is possibly even more concerning.
When Van Jones ran the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the organization was very close to another Bay Area institution-DataCenter.
Founded by Jon Frappier, a former supporter of the Weather Underground Organization, Datacenter is essentially the intelligence hub of the US left.The Oakland California based organisation provides strategic information & research training to communities advocating for dignity, justice & civil rights."
According to a history published on DataCenter's website;
1977
DataCenter—an activist library and publication center—is founded in affiliation with the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) by Jon Frappier, Fred Goff, Loretta & Harry Strharsky and 40 dedicated volunteers.Further DataCenter activities included;
1979
Establish Corporate Profile Project for clients such as United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations & customized research service for immigration attorneys representing Central Americans seeking political asylum.1980
Publish press profiles, The Reagan File, on Ronald Reagan and his policies on labor, El Salvador, foreign policy, and military policy in Asia.1983
Expand Search Service to include corporate accountability research to support community, labor, and corporate campaigns and political asylees from all over the world.Incredibly DataCenter also admits to being an "information" gatherer for Cuban "institutions".
1991
Launch the Cuba Project/Conexiones to respond to information needs of institutions in Cuba & facilitates information exchange between U.S. and Cuban colleagues for the next ten years
DataCenter's ties to Jones' Ella Baker Center are close. Diana Frappier who helped Jones establish and run the Center is believed to be a relative of Jon Frappier.Celina Ramirez worked as a Policy Director at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, 2006 and in 2006-2007 served on the DataCenter board.
In 2002 DataCenter celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a gala celebration honoring;
Youth United for Community Action, Southwest Organizing Project, and Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Youth Force Coalition for their Books Not Bars campaign
This is the environment Van Jones sprang from. These are his "roots".
Has Jones abandoned the values he held and the people he worked with up until a few months ago just because he now has more power, money and influence?
Working in the White House is (or should be) a high security job.
Van Jones now has access to all sorts of high level information and gossip.
He has President Obama's ear on economic and social matters that could dramatically effect the US economy and eventually US military power and security.
Let's just hope Van Jones has abandoned his core convictions and past associations in last 6 months shall we?
After all the Obama White House claims to have extensively vetted all appointments-so he must be OK.
Obama file 84 here
posted by Trevor Loudon at 8/27/2009 02:56:00 PM
Here is a great blog post about Van Jones' radical communist activities and beliefs. Definitely not the HOPE and CHANGE America wants or needs.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108083
How is this for HOPE and CHANGE all of you who voted for Obama? Nothing like the President and the rest of government being accountable to the people. Silence from the White House speaks louder than words. Maybe if we ignore this long enough it will go away seems to be the White House policy on issues like this. I can only imagine that they know what the backlash would be if they said, “yup we knew about his political and racial leanings. So what? The President thinks along the same lines.” If the truth were to come out they may need that Civilian Defense Force, that Obama wants so bad, to put down the righteous indignation of the citizens of this country.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108180
“Jones was the leader and founder of a radical group, the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM. That group, together with Jones' Elle Baker Center for Human Rights, led a vigil Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif. The radical group's manual boasted the 9/11 vigil was held to express solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans and to mourn the civilians killed in the terrorist attacks ‘as well as the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world.’" Hey liberals, this is the type of guy that Obama continues to surround himself with. Is this the HOPE and CHANGE that you thought you were getting?? This stuff is about as far from this country’s original intent that one can get. Anyone that thinks that Obama is a centrist that will transcend race and party conflict hasn’t been paying attention. I am starting to change my mind about the accuracy of these guys being compared to Nazis. Nazis were ultra-nationalistic. These clowns are about as far from that as you can get. However, they are more like communists and socialists as they are more for the destruction of national boundaries and creating a one world order in a centralized non-democratic, non-personal freedom style of power.
P.S. Van Jones is a self proclaimed revolutionary Communist ("We agreed with Lenin's analysis of the state and the party," reads the manifesto. "And we found inspiration in the revolutionary strategies developed by Third World revolutionaries like Mao Tse-tung and Amilcar Cabral." - "I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he (speaking of Van Jones) said. "By August, I was a communist.” "I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next 10 years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary," he said. “Jones, formerly a self-described ‘rowdy black nationalist,’ boasted in a 2005 interview with the left-leaning East Bay Express that his environmental activism was a means to fight for racial and class “justice." These are all quotes by him or from the manifesto that his now defunct organization wrote).
Imagine what would happen if a private citizen miss calculates or "forgets" to add assets on any government required form. No, they are not made Chairman of Ways & Means Committee which writes the tax code nor are the made Sec. of the Treasury a al Geithner. The citizen is usually fined heavily and potentially loses everything. What hypocrisy and arrogance!!
http://www.keloland.com/NewsDetail6162.cfm?Id=0,89084#
More proof that government is completely screwed up. Cash for Clunkers was supposed to help with the economy, but it is not being disclosed that states are taxing it until the car buyer goes to the DMV to license their new vehicle. How typical of government.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/38005-1.html#
Looks like Rep. Kline is one of the Republicans that gets it in regards to healthcare reform.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2009-08-26-census-kits-schools_N.htm#
“The government has launched Census in Schools, an all-out campaign targeting superintendents, principals, teachers, students and, indirectly, parents, as schools open across the nation this month and next. The message: The Census is coming and here's why everyone should care. The goal is to send posters, teaching guides, maps and lesson plans to every school in the nation, Puerto Rico and U.S. island territories to encourage everyone to participate in the national count. The materials will land in more than 118,000 schools and reach 56 million students. ‘It's great to reach the children because children are such strong voices in their homes," says Renee Jefferson-Copeland, chief of the Census schools program. "In households that are linguistically isolated, they can express the information to their parents.’ Between January and March, the Census Bureau will help plan a week of Census education in schools. During Census Week, teachers will devote 15 minutes every day for five days to the topic by discussing such things as civic participation, confidentiality or geography.” è Nothing like going after the most impressionable in society to push government policy and demands on to its citizens. This is a 30-some page census questionnaire going out that asks questions that the government does not need to know and is not part of the Constitutional requirement to count the citizens (which only requires a count of citizens every 10 years). It also threatens penalties if the whole questionnaire is not filled out. This is nothing more than identifying and labeling citizens according to liberal paranoia of those who dissent.
“Rep. Charles Rangel failed to report as much as $1.3 million in outside income -- including up to $1 million for a Harlem building sale -- on financial-disclosure forms he filed between 2002 and 2006, according to newly amended records.
The documents also show the embattled chairman of the Ways and Means Committee -- who is being probed by the House Ethics Committee -- failed to reveal a staggering $3 million in various business transactions over the same period.” So the chief Democratic tax writer is now in trouble for non-disclosure of income. (“Rangel's office insists the Harlem Democrat did not conceal any outside income from the IRS and is paid up on his taxes.”) Yeah, right. How about that little misunderstanding in Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic where chief tax writer Rangel didn’t report his income to the IRS from a sale there? What were the odds? This is nothing more than an ongoing hypocrisy from liberals.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1251145138121
Nothing like flipping off our allies and snuggling with our enemies. Obama is carrying on his campaign of using historical tried and failed liberal policies and attitudes. This is the same thing that Wilson did during his Administration only to find out it alienated America’s allies. But like Obama he didn’t care, he just wanted to be friends with everyone and make everyone like each other.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has launched an urgent effort to raise $100,000 by Monday to help combat what she calls GOP "smears" about health care reform.
"Republican opponents of reform are coming out with one outrageous smear after the next, all aimed at derailing our progress. We must be able to counter their special interest-funded attacks and set the record straight," Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democratic supporters.
"That's why I have set a goal of raising $100,000 in grassroots donations before the August FEC fundraising deadline," says Pelosi.
Pelosi and Democrats are clearly worried that they've lost momentum on health care reform this month, and many in her caucus have been crushed by opposition at town hall events.
Pelosi's appeal is aimed at small donors, and she asks for donations of $5 or more in her letter.
Democrats for weeks have been on the defensive, accusing Republicans of mischaracterizing their reform effort. President Barack Obama fired back several weeks ago after Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a key Republican negotiator on the Senate Finance Committee, said the Democratic push threatened to "pull the plug on grandma."
Now, Pelosi is pushing back.
"Republicans are doing everything they can to spread the lies they hope will kill health insurance reform," Pelosi writes at the end of the e-mail. "Please make a generous financial contribution to help Democrats get the truth out and fight GOP smears."
Nothing like hypocrisy from the left to lighten up the day. I find it interesting that there have been more mistruths, misinformation, and downright deception from liberals and their allies than from their opponents and now they want $100k to fight GOP "smears." Yes, the GOP and conservatives want to kill the healthcare powergrab!!! It is not only most likely unconstitutional, but it goes against everything this country was founded on. Personal freedom and as little government interference as possible.
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
"I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. "It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill."
Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller's aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.
A spokesman for Rockefeller also declined to comment on the record Thursday, saying that many people were unavailable because of the summer recess. A Senate source familiar with the bill compared the president's power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when grounding all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. The source said that one primary concern was the electrical grid, and what would happen if it were attacked from a broadband connection.
When Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the original bill in April, they claimed it was vital to protect national cybersecurity. "We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs--from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records," Rockefeller said.
The Rockefeller proposal plays out against a broader concern in Washington, D.C., about the government's role in cybersecurity. In May, President Obama acknowledged that the government is "not as prepared" as it should be to respond to disruptions and announced that a new cybersecurity coordinator position would be created inside the White House staff. Three months later, that post remains empty, one top cybersecurity aide has quit, and some wags have begun to wonder why a government that receives failing marks on cybersecurity should be trusted to instruct the private sector what to do.
Rockefeller's revised legislation seeks to reshuffle the way the federal government addresses the topic. It requires a "cybersecurity workforce plan" from every federal agency, a "dashboard" pilot project, measurements of hiring effectiveness, and the implementation of a "comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy" in six months--even though its mandatory legal review will take a year to complete.
The privacy implications of sweeping changes implemented before the legal review is finished worry Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "As soon as you're saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it's going to be a really big issue," he says.
Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to "direct the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary for "the national defense and security." The White House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies "shall share" requested information with the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)
"The language has changed but it doesn't contain any real additional limits," EFF's Tien says. "It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)...The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There's no provision for any administrative process or review. That's where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it."
Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.
The Internet Security Alliance's Clinton adds that his group is "supportive of increased federal involvement to enhance cyber security, but we believe that the wrong approach, as embodied in this bill as introduced, will be counterproductive both from an national economic and national secuity perspective."
More powergrabbing by Obama and his liberal allies. I am sure that this violates the 1st, 4th, 9th and 10th Amendments. But than again when has that stopped Obama and Congress from doing anything?
Four House Republicans have formed the Republican New Media Caucus.WASHINGTON (CNN) — Four Republicans behind the House Republican New Media Caucus (@GOPNMC on Twitter) are aiming to set a technological example for their colleagues.
"It's like that old saying 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks,'" Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Latta told CNN, "Well, yeah, you can."
Latta (@boblatta on Twitter) along with fellow Republicans Rep. John Culberson of Texas (@johnculberson), Rep. Buck McKeon (@BuckMcKeon) of California, and Rep. Rob Wittman (@RobWittman) of Virginia are the co-chairs of the House GOP New Media Caucus.
Roughly 60 House Republicans have joined the caucus, according to Latta's office. The group plans to sponsor staff briefings every four to eight weeks where Republican staffers will have the opportunity to meet with representatives of technology companies like YouTube, Apple, and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.
The caucus, which recently launched a Web site, is scouting social media services and other new technologies that might be of use to the rest of House Republican Conference in keeping in touch with the public.
Constituents "want to be kept up to date from us right now," Latta said, "They don't want to have to wait half a day, or a day, or two days later to actually get the communication," from a congressional office. So, the group is trying to identify "best practices" on social media services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Qik, and UStream.
The four men are also using the technologies themselves, an effort to set an example for colleagues who may be reticent to try out social media.
The caucus is also functioning as a space for its members to have discussions and share ideas about technology policy. Latta, Culberson, and Wittman met last week in Silicon Valley with reps from several large technology companies including Facebook, Apple, UStream, Google, Yahoo, and Oracle, according to Latta. The meetings involved discussions of tax law issues, patent and other intellectual property issues, and immigration policy.And the group is also keeping an eye on possible regulation of use of social media by the Franking Commission, the House body that has traditionally regulated how members of Congress communicate with the public.
Related: A new session of Congress begins . . . on YouTube
Related: Congress wades through 'tweets'
"I think we need to go before them and say, 'Here's the technology that we're dealing with today, here's what our constituents are using, here's what the business world's using, and here we are not being able to utilize it," Latta said.
A spokesman for the Franking Commission told CNN the body had no immediate plans to consider new regulations governing members' use of social media services.
"We continue to review and encourage the use of new communications technologies that assist Members in reaching and providing important information to their constituents," Kyle Anderson, press director for the House Committee on Administration, wrote in an e-mail to CNN.
In addition to keeping tabs on any new regulations, Latta's office says the caucus is also working with the Franking Commission to obtain approval for members to place paid Web advertisements in Google search results and working with House leadership to obtain official certification for Apple's iPhone, so that Members and staffers can get their secure, official e-mail on the device.(BlackBerry, an iPhone competitor, is already certified for congressional use.)
"Technology is changing, the world's changing as to how people communicate," said Latta — people "don't want their government to be living in the Stone Age."
It is nice to see that the House Republicans are entering the social media scene. Better late than never.
Pay close attention to the comments as they are the usual liberal personal attacks and name calling. Some thing never change.
The frustrating thing is that the jokers in D.C. don't see it. They have been saying the same lies for so long that they believe them and can't understand why We the People have finally said enough.
By FOUAD AJAMI
So we are to have a French health-care system without a French tradition of political protest. It is odd that American liberalism, in a veritable state of insurrection during the Bush presidency, now seeks political quiescence. These "townhallers" who have come forth to challenge ObamaCare have been labeled "evil-mongers" (Harry Reid), "un-American" (Nancy Pelosi), agitators and rowdies and worse.
A political class, and a media elite, that glamorized the protest against the Iraq war, that branded the Bush presidency as a reign of usurpation, now wishes to be done with the tumult of political debate. President Barack Obama himself, the community organizer par excellence, is full of lament that the "loudest voices" are running away with the national debate. Liberalism in righteous opposition, liberalism in power: The rules have changed.
It was true to script, and to necessity, that Mr. Obama would try to push through his sweeping program—the change in the health-care system, a huge budget deficit, the stimulus package, the takeover of the automotive industry—in record time. He and his handlers must have feared that the spell would soon be broken, that the coalition that carried Mr. Obama to power was destined to come apart, that a country anxious and frightened in the fall of 2008 could recover its poise and self-confidence. Historically, this republic, unlike the Old World and the command economies of the Third World, had trusted the society rather than the state. In a perilous moment, that balance had shifted, and Mr. Obama was the beneficiary of that shift.
So our new president wanted a fundamental overhaul of the health-care system—17% of our GDP—without a serious debate, and without "loud voices." It is akin to government by emergency decrees. How dare those townhallers (the voters) heckle Arlen Specter! Americans eager to rein in this runaway populism were now guilty of lèse-majesté by talking back to the political class.
We were led to this summer of discontent by the very nature of the coalition that brought Mr. Obama, and the political class around him, to power, and by the circumstances of his victory. The man was elected amid economic distress. Faith in the country's institutions, perhaps in the free-enterprise system itself, had given way. Mr. Obama had ridden that distress. His politics of charisma was reminiscent of the Third World. A leader steps forth, better yet someone with no discernible trail, someone hard to pin down to a specific political program, and the crowd could read into him what it wished, what it needed.
The leader would be different things to different people. The Obama coalition was the coming together of disparate groups: the white professional liberals seeking absolution for the country in the election of an African-American man, the opponents of the Iraq war who grew more strident as the project in Iraq was taking root, the African-American community that had been invested in the Clintons and then came around out of an understandable pride in one of its own.
Getty Images
The last segment of the electorate to flock to the Obama banners were the blue-collar workers who delivered him Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. He was not their man. They fully knew that he didn't share their culture. They were, by his portrait, clinging to their guns and religion, but the promise of economic help, and of protectionism, carried the day with them.
The Obama devotees were the victims of their own belief in political magic. The devotees could not make up their minds. In a newly minted U.S. senator from Illinois, they saw the embodiment of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Like Lincoln, Mr. Obama was tall and thin and from Illinois, and the historic campaign was launched out of Springfield. The oath of office was taken on the Lincoln Bible. Like FDR, he had a huge economic challenge, and he better get it done, repair and streamline the economy in his "first hundred days." Like JFK, he was young and stylish, with a young family.
All this hero-worship before Mr. Obama met his first test of leadership. In reality, he was who he was, a Chicago politician who had done well by his opposition to the Iraq war. He had run a skillful campaign, and had met a Clinton machine that had run out of tricks and a McCain campaign that never understood the nature of the contest of 2008.
He was no FDR, and besides the history of the depression—the real history—bears little resemblance to the received narrative of the nation instantly rescued, in the course of 100 days or 200 days, by an interventionist state. The economic distress had been so deep and relentless that FDR began his second term, in 1937, with the economy still in the grip of recession.
Nor was JFK about style. He had known military service and combat, and familial loss; he had run in 1960 as a hawk committed to the nation's victory in the Cold War. He and his rival, Richard Nixon, shared a fundamental outlook on American power and its burdens.
Now that realism about Mr. Obama has begun to sink in, these iconic figures of history had best be left alone. They can't rescue the Obama presidency. Their magic can't be his. Mr. Obama isn't Lincoln with a BlackBerry. Those great personages are made by history, in the course of history, and not by the spinners or the smitten talking heads.
In one of the revealing moments of the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama rightly observed that the Reagan presidency was a transformational presidency in a way Clinton's wasn't. And by that Reagan precedent, that Reagan standard, the faults of the Obama presidency are laid bare. Ronald Reagan, it should be recalled, had been swept into office by a wave of dissatisfaction with Jimmy Carter and his failures. At the core of the Reagan mission was the recovery of the nation's esteem and self-regard. Reagan was an optimist. He was Hollywood glamour to be sure, but he was also Peoria, Ill. His faith in the country was boundless, and when he said it was "morning in America" he meant it; he believed in America's miracle and had seen it in his own life, in his rise from a child of the Depression to the summit of political power.
The failure of the Carter years was, in Reagan's view, the failure of the man at the helm and the policies he had pursued at home and abroad. At no time had Ronald Reagan believed that the American covenant had failed, that America should apologize for itself in the world beyond its shores. There was no narcissism in Reagan. It was stirring that the man who headed into the sunset of his life would bid his country farewell by reminding it that its best days were yet to come.
In contrast, there is joylessness in Mr. Obama. He is a scold, the "Yes we can!" mantra is shallow, and at any rate, it is about the coming to power of a man, and a political class, invested in its own sense of smarts and wisdom, and its right to alter the social contract of the land. In this view, the country had lost its way and the new leader and the political class arrayed around him will bring it back to the right path.
Thus the moment of crisis would become an opportunity to push through a political economy of redistribution and a foreign policy of American penance. The independent voters were the first to break ranks. They hadn't underwritten this fundamental change in the American polity when they cast their votes for Mr. Obama.
American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the "mandate of heaven" is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics.
Those protesters in those town-hall meetings have served notice that Mr. Obama's charismatic moment has passed. Once again, the belief in that American exception that set this nation apart from other lands is re-emerging. Health care is the tip of the iceberg. Beneath it is an unease with the way the verdict of the 2008 election was read by those who prevailed. It shall be seen whether the man swept into office in the moment of national panic will adjust to the nation's recovery of its self-confidence.
Mr. Ajami teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University. He is also an adjunct fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
I wonder if Obama's infatuation with Chavez, Castro, and other 3rd world dictators extends to their ability to quash all forms of dissent? It sure would make it easier for him and his liberal allies.
Man collapses with ruptured appendix... three weeks after NHS doctors 'took it out'
By Daniel Bates
Last updated at 12:15 AM on 26th August 2009After weeks of excruciating pain, Mark Wattson was understandably relieved to have his appendix taken out.
Doctors told him the operation was a success and he was sent home.
But only a month later the 35-year-old collapsed in agony and had to be taken back to Great Western Hospital in Swindon by ambulance.
Enlarge
Mark Wattson, 35, from Swindon may have been the victim of botched surgery after he had to have his appendix removed twice
To his shock, surgeons from the same team told him that not only was his appendix still inside him, but it had ruptured - a potentially fatal complication.
In a second operation it was finally removed, leaving Mr Wattson fearing another organ might have been taken out during the first procedure.
The blunder has left Mr Wattson jobless, as bosses at the shop where he worked did not believe his story and sacked him.
Mr Wattson told of the moment he realised there had been a serious mistake.
'I was lying on a stretcher in terrible pain and a doctor came up to me and said that my appendix had burst,' he said.
'I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told these people I had my appendix out just four weeks earlier but there it was on the scanner screen for all to see.
'I thought, "What the hell did they slice me open for in the first place?"
'I feel that if the surgery had been done correctly in the first place I wouldn't be in the mess I am today. I'm disgusted by the whole experience.'
Mr Wattson first went under the knife on July 7 after experiencing severe abdominal pain for several weeks. He was discharged but exactly a month later he had to dial 999 after collapsing in agony.
Mr Wattson was readmitted to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon after his appendix ruptured
Following the second operation his incision became infected and he was admitted to hospital for a third time for treatment.
He said: 'I had a temporary job at a sports shop but when I took in two medical certificates saying I had my appendix out twice they didn't believe me.
'Now I'm helpless. I can't go out and find a job, I can't go to interviews, I can barely walk and am in constant pain. Before the first operation they told me I had to have my appendix removed and when I woke up afterwards they said it had been a complete success.
'But then I keeled over in agony one month later and when they did some tests at the hospital we could see the appendix was still there on the scans.
'As far as I was aware they took my appendix out and no one told me any different.
'I have no idea what they did take out, but I want to find out what went wrong.'
A spokesman for Great Western Hospital confirmed that a representative had met Mr Wattson and that an investigation had been started.
He was unable to confirm what, if anything, was removed in the first operation.
Paul Gearing, deputy general manager for general surgery at Great Western Hospital NHS Trust, said: 'We are unable to comment on individual cases.
'However, we would like to apologise if Mr Wattson felt dissatisfied with the care he received at Great Western Hospital.'
- Compensation payments to NHS patients have risen by 20 per cent in the past year to a record high of �769million. At this rate more than �2million a day is being paid over claims against the Health Service.
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I'm not one for suing the NHS but this time I think at least the doctor ought to be sued, cos somebody somewhere messed up royally. It sounds like he won't be able to work for a while after all the surgery he has had to under go., and you can't blame his employer for sacking him, I haven't heard of anyone with two appendixes.
- liz, Florida USA, 25/8/2009 21:04
The NHS is now little more than a money consuming mess that fails to deliver on all fronts..... and all this after 10 years under the control of the only party that cares or so it claims every time an election looms.
- Dave Kendall, St Helens, 25/8/2009 21:01
HOSPITAL,Probably the most DANGEROUS place on Earth ! ! !.Make a good TV game,see if you can survive 4 weeks in hospital ??.
- JohnB, Bristol.UK., 25/8/2009 20:59
Becky in London, so you have free healthcare in England do you? Those doctors and nurses work without compensation, the building is supplied with free utilities, and drugs are "free", the building was "free", etc. This is how socialism gets its hooks into the simple minded. Once the government takes your money in the form of taxes, any services they deem you can have is "free" because you don't pay for it out of your pocket at that time, just every paycheck in a stealh manner. Get a grip. Your healthcare is not free, you have a massive VAT, you have all your other taxes, and you have queues for medical care, we don't in the US unless.
- Doug, Lincoln, NE (USA), 25/8/2009 20:57
Becky,
Just what do you consider to be "free?" Do you not only pay for your own care, but the care of others as well, those who may or may not work? What percentage of your paycheck is taken out in taxes to pay for this "free" health care, free housing, free elderly care, etc?
- crockett, Knoxville, USA, 25/8/2009 20:56
I hope the NHS bills this wastrel for the unnecessary expanses!
Shame on you, Mr. Wattson!
- Robt, ex, living in Texas, 25/8/2009 20:54
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You just have to love that government controlled healthcare. So efficient and accurate. I can't see why with articles like this and the one about British Columbia cancelling necessary surgeries are turning people against government run healthcare. Oh wait, yes I can.
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