The Obama Democratic Party demonstrated their desire to help the poor, unfortunate victims of Hurricane Katrina by giving them $100 million - provided that their U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu votes in favor of legislation they want enacted.
How's that for hope and change. Makes the Visitors in the television series seem downright altruistic.
These Obama Democrats are the same people who derided Bush and the Republicans as racist and callous to the problems of Louisianans. They ridiculed Bush's response. They clamored for more federal money because of Hurricane Katrina when Bush was in office.
Now the only way the Katrina victims will get the money is if Obama gets something in return.
That is how liberals define charity!
Of course, why should anyone be shocked. The Obama Democrats idea of a selfless charity is ACORN. Furthermore, they know they will never be "called out" on it.
The Obama Democrats idea of a vigilant news media is the New York Times spiking information they have about a possible illegality or unethical conduct because they think it will be a "game changer." ( See my original March 30, 2009 report for the Philadelphia Bulletin about this. It was later reported by Fox News and made the rounds of the talk shows like Hannity, Beck et al.)
The Obama Democrats also know that the most of the members of the Republican Party are wimps. The ranking Republican on the committee that heard the ACORN whistleblower testify, Rep. Sensenbrenner did nothing when the testimony was given. Even after I contacted him and told him what was said he still did nothing.
Look at the way the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and some Congressional Republicans have pursued the dropping by Holder of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case. The majority of the Republicans are silent about this.
As I said to a member of Rep. Wolf's staff ( Wolf is one of the few pursuing this), if the situation were reversed and some racist hate group had been intimidating voters on behalf of Republicans, the Democrats would have mentioned it every day in their speeches in Congress and in the Senate and they would be calling for a special prosecutor.
Not the Pussilanimous Republicans of the NRC, the Senate Republican Conference and the House Republican Conference.
Is it any wonder why people wonder are looking for leadership.
Currently, there are only two choices. Who knows which is worse.
One is the corrupt, unethical, hypocritical, deceitful, power mad, tyrannical, liberal Obama Democratic Party?
The other is the spineless, incompetent, go-along-to-get-along, play-a-few-rounds-of-golf-and-let's-have-a-few-drinks-at-the-country-club-after-I-check-to-see-if-my-dividend-check-came-in Republican Party in Congress and the Senate.
The pundits wonder why people are lining up for Sarah Palin's book.
Hope and change is what Obama promised. I guess the change he meant was the kind in a cash register.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Hill Street Blues: The Importance of Conservative Art
By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog
Hill Street Blues was one of my favorite television programs. I watched it religiously each week.
Moreover, it was a favorite of my Philadelphia Police Department colleagues. The characters, the chaos of the district headquarters (called precincts in other cities); the challenges of the bureaucracy and the politicos, all of these resonated with cops. Not since Wambaugh had there been such realism.
Yet, there existed in the plots certain themes that were disconcerting. There was a subliminal promotion of a certain philosophy.
The most obvious example was that of Lt. Howard Hunter, the commander of the SWAT team (called EATERS in the show). Hunter was the civil libertarians caricature of someone who believed in law and order. He possessed the “let’s-kill-them-all-and-let-God-sort-them-out-I-love-the-smell-of-napalm-in-the-morning” qualities that liberals associate with anyone who believes in strict law enforcement.
Now Hunter did have his counterpart, Det. Goldbloom(?). He was the bleeding heart liberal. However, of the two, Goldbloom’s character was seen as more serious, while Hunter was a comic character to be ridiculed.
There was also Joyce Davenport, public defender extraordinaire. She was the advocate for the poor and the powerless. She cast a pall over those who wanted to see criminals in jail or who wanted to protect themselves. She talked derisively about “street justice” and “vigilantism.” Her disapproving looks were a staple of the show.
Then there was Capt. Furillo. He would take extraordinary measures to mollify the street gangs. He would be engaged in constant negotiations to have them tone down their violent ways.
Yet, he once threatened a group of neighborhood merchants. What was their crime? They caught a thief who was victimizing a store owner. Tired of being targets of criminals they organized into a protective group.
Hill Street Blues, absolutely presented the liberal construct of criminal justice. These are concepts are manifest in America everyday:
· The New York City DA who arrests the man using a gun to protect his house and kid against a burglar.
· The absurd headline in the New York Times wondering why prison rates are increasing if crime rates are decreasing.
· The fawning reportage of a violent murder just before his execution
· The idea that prison does not work only rehabilitation will.
· The increase uses of probation and parole
· Millions spent on “midnight basketball” to control violent crime
All of these were themes of Hill Street Blues. Now one can say this was art imitating life, instead of life imitating art.
This is true.
However, when a show as entertaining as Hill Street Blues was, proffers these ideas, they become validated. The public perceives Hunter as a real depiction of a strict law enforcement officer, that society does make criminals, etc. These become accepted truths.
There is no reason why a show, just as entertaining as Hill Street Blues, could not be made that showed Goldbloom as the caricature of the “let-them-all-out-of-jail” type and Hunter, the strict law enforcer, as the more serious minded.
That Joyce Davenport is a DA who routinely sees the same defendants in court time and again, because the judges keep letting them loose; all the while she watches the bodies pile up.
That shows Capt. Furillo threatening to throw the gang members in jail and negotiates with the vigilante merchants instead.
This is the importance of conservative art. It is why I wrote my novel “A Sense of Duty.” It is why I promote the novels of W.E.B. Griffin, as well as others. It is why I mention films by James Carabatsos and others.
It is why I founded the facebook forum of Creative Conservatives Corner.
Anyone who thinks art (novels, movies, television shows, music, etc.) doesn’t influence the popular culture is not being realistic.
Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog
Hill Street Blues was one of my favorite television programs. I watched it religiously each week.
Moreover, it was a favorite of my Philadelphia Police Department colleagues. The characters, the chaos of the district headquarters (called precincts in other cities); the challenges of the bureaucracy and the politicos, all of these resonated with cops. Not since Wambaugh had there been such realism.
Yet, there existed in the plots certain themes that were disconcerting. There was a subliminal promotion of a certain philosophy.
The most obvious example was that of Lt. Howard Hunter, the commander of the SWAT team (called EATERS in the show). Hunter was the civil libertarians caricature of someone who believed in law and order. He possessed the “let’s-kill-them-all-and-let-God-sort-them-out-I-love-the-smell-of-napalm-in-the-morning” qualities that liberals associate with anyone who believes in strict law enforcement.
Now Hunter did have his counterpart, Det. Goldbloom(?). He was the bleeding heart liberal. However, of the two, Goldbloom’s character was seen as more serious, while Hunter was a comic character to be ridiculed.
There was also Joyce Davenport, public defender extraordinaire. She was the advocate for the poor and the powerless. She cast a pall over those who wanted to see criminals in jail or who wanted to protect themselves. She talked derisively about “street justice” and “vigilantism.” Her disapproving looks were a staple of the show.
Then there was Capt. Furillo. He would take extraordinary measures to mollify the street gangs. He would be engaged in constant negotiations to have them tone down their violent ways.
Yet, he once threatened a group of neighborhood merchants. What was their crime? They caught a thief who was victimizing a store owner. Tired of being targets of criminals they organized into a protective group.
Hill Street Blues, absolutely presented the liberal construct of criminal justice. These are concepts are manifest in America everyday:
· The New York City DA who arrests the man using a gun to protect his house and kid against a burglar.
· The absurd headline in the New York Times wondering why prison rates are increasing if crime rates are decreasing.
· The fawning reportage of a violent murder just before his execution
· The idea that prison does not work only rehabilitation will.
· The increase uses of probation and parole
· Millions spent on “midnight basketball” to control violent crime
All of these were themes of Hill Street Blues. Now one can say this was art imitating life, instead of life imitating art.
This is true.
However, when a show as entertaining as Hill Street Blues was, proffers these ideas, they become validated. The public perceives Hunter as a real depiction of a strict law enforcement officer, that society does make criminals, etc. These become accepted truths.
There is no reason why a show, just as entertaining as Hill Street Blues, could not be made that showed Goldbloom as the caricature of the “let-them-all-out-of-jail” type and Hunter, the strict law enforcer, as the more serious minded.
That Joyce Davenport is a DA who routinely sees the same defendants in court time and again, because the judges keep letting them loose; all the while she watches the bodies pile up.
That shows Capt. Furillo threatening to throw the gang members in jail and negotiates with the vigilante merchants instead.
This is the importance of conservative art. It is why I wrote my novel “A Sense of Duty.” It is why I promote the novels of W.E.B. Griffin, as well as others. It is why I mention films by James Carabatsos and others.
It is why I founded the facebook forum of Creative Conservatives Corner.
Anyone who thinks art (novels, movies, television shows, music, etc.) doesn’t influence the popular culture is not being realistic.
Monday, November 16, 2009
She is a Rebel Not a Rogue
Sarah Palin’s New Book
By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog
I had an opportunity to meet Sarah Palin a year ago during the National Governors Association conference at Independence Hall. She was the biggest star there that day attracting more media attention than Schwarzneggar. I talked to her, albeit very briefly, as she was leaving.
Contrary to her image, she was not the vapid, cute cheerleader one would have expected. She was in command of the facts and spoke with authority.
Of course, her vacuous image is a function of the mainstream media’s prejudices. Part of this is her own doing. As she admits in her new book, “Going Rogue,” Palin gave them ammunition that validated this image after one very hostile national television interview.
However, the criticisms of Palin by the East Coast establishment media - the Manhattan Mob - are a result of two dynamic forces. One is her conservative Republican politics.
The other is the sectional differences that have defined this country since its founding. The commercial interests of New England merchants and southern slave plantation owners versus western farmers; of Wall Street bankers versus Nevada miners; of eastern immigrants versus western pioneers; all have played a part in American culture for more than two hundred years.
These differences were delineated during the campaign and are contained in her book – although not described as such. It is very apparent, though, they existed. The McCain staffers considered her a necessary evil. She was the young, attractive, vital counterpoint to the aging war hero.
Yet, they secretly, at first, later openly, loathed her. They believed she was too stupid to act in her own best interest – and certainly not in the best interest of the campaign. The campaign’s intelligentsia did not trust her to speak publicly.
First, she does not have an Ivy League pedigree. (Although when one considers that every president after Reagan was and is an Ivy League alumnus that is not much of an endorsement).
One might think McCain’s staff aversion odd when one considers that the McCain campaign’s top guns were not Ivy Leaguers. Rick Davis graduated from the University of Alabama. Steve Schmidt attended the University of Delaware and did not graduate. However, both are Beltway insiders, part of the eastern establishment
This attitude is exhibited in a September 5, 2008 U.S. News and World Report which disparaged the fact that Palin went to four different universities. Not only did she attend four different colleges, she went to such academic nonentities as Hawaii-Pacific University and the University of Idaho.
Such an educational lineage is unacceptable to those who graduated from the Ivy Eight, the Seven Sisters or the ‘Almost Ivy’ schools of Cal-Berkeley, Northwestern, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Duke and some others.
Such a scholastic heritage is an anathema to those who inhabit the banks of the Potomac or between the East and Hudson Rivers. For them, Sarah Palin was - and is - nothing more than a baton twirling beauty queen.
Then again, most of the Manhattan Media Mob or the Beltway Bums would not know Dutch Harbor, and the World War II battle there, from Dutch Apple Pie. Supercilious entertainers like David Letterman and Tina Fey – and their writers – probably confuse Kodiak bears with Kodak cameras.
She is a menace because she represents the hoi polloi. She is part of the great unwashed - the antithesis of the eastern elite. The fact that Palin excited the crowds more than McCain dismayed the Republican elite. This caused the invective directed at her by them.
It also produced alarm among Democrats who believed Palin would draw conservative Democrats away from Obama. This led to T-shirts worn by members of a Democratic Party rent-a-mob, who were outside a Philadelphia hotel as Palin exited a campaign function, which read: “Sarah Palin is a c—t.”
So much for the civility for which the liberals claim to clamor.
Sarah Palin is the embodiment of the divisions not only within the Republican Party; she represents the schisms within the nation. She has taken the mantle from Ross Perot – another who dared to shake the political institutions and who drew the wrath of Republicans and Democrats alike.
It is doubtful that Palin will have a future in a nationally elected office. What is certain though is that she will be a powerful influence in national politics for years to come.
Just as Mario Cuomo was influential in leftwing national politics as an outsider, Palin is the voice of conservative women and the pro-life movement.
Just as Ross Perot influenced national policy, so too will Sarah Palin. An elected national office would be too restrictive to someone like her who needs to be able to speak her mind.
Sarah Palin is more rebel than rogue.
By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog
I had an opportunity to meet Sarah Palin a year ago during the National Governors Association conference at Independence Hall. She was the biggest star there that day attracting more media attention than Schwarzneggar. I talked to her, albeit very briefly, as she was leaving.
Contrary to her image, she was not the vapid, cute cheerleader one would have expected. She was in command of the facts and spoke with authority.
Of course, her vacuous image is a function of the mainstream media’s prejudices. Part of this is her own doing. As she admits in her new book, “Going Rogue,” Palin gave them ammunition that validated this image after one very hostile national television interview.
However, the criticisms of Palin by the East Coast establishment media - the Manhattan Mob - are a result of two dynamic forces. One is her conservative Republican politics.
The other is the sectional differences that have defined this country since its founding. The commercial interests of New England merchants and southern slave plantation owners versus western farmers; of Wall Street bankers versus Nevada miners; of eastern immigrants versus western pioneers; all have played a part in American culture for more than two hundred years.
These differences were delineated during the campaign and are contained in her book – although not described as such. It is very apparent, though, they existed. The McCain staffers considered her a necessary evil. She was the young, attractive, vital counterpoint to the aging war hero.
Yet, they secretly, at first, later openly, loathed her. They believed she was too stupid to act in her own best interest – and certainly not in the best interest of the campaign. The campaign’s intelligentsia did not trust her to speak publicly.
First, she does not have an Ivy League pedigree. (Although when one considers that every president after Reagan was and is an Ivy League alumnus that is not much of an endorsement).
One might think McCain’s staff aversion odd when one considers that the McCain campaign’s top guns were not Ivy Leaguers. Rick Davis graduated from the University of Alabama. Steve Schmidt attended the University of Delaware and did not graduate. However, both are Beltway insiders, part of the eastern establishment
This attitude is exhibited in a September 5, 2008 U.S. News and World Report which disparaged the fact that Palin went to four different universities. Not only did she attend four different colleges, she went to such academic nonentities as Hawaii-Pacific University and the University of Idaho.
Such an educational lineage is unacceptable to those who graduated from the Ivy Eight, the Seven Sisters or the ‘Almost Ivy’ schools of Cal-Berkeley, Northwestern, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Duke and some others.
Such a scholastic heritage is an anathema to those who inhabit the banks of the Potomac or between the East and Hudson Rivers. For them, Sarah Palin was - and is - nothing more than a baton twirling beauty queen.
Then again, most of the Manhattan Media Mob or the Beltway Bums would not know Dutch Harbor, and the World War II battle there, from Dutch Apple Pie. Supercilious entertainers like David Letterman and Tina Fey – and their writers – probably confuse Kodiak bears with Kodak cameras.
She is a menace because she represents the hoi polloi. She is part of the great unwashed - the antithesis of the eastern elite. The fact that Palin excited the crowds more than McCain dismayed the Republican elite. This caused the invective directed at her by them.
It also produced alarm among Democrats who believed Palin would draw conservative Democrats away from Obama. This led to T-shirts worn by members of a Democratic Party rent-a-mob, who were outside a Philadelphia hotel as Palin exited a campaign function, which read: “Sarah Palin is a c—t.”
So much for the civility for which the liberals claim to clamor.
Sarah Palin is the embodiment of the divisions not only within the Republican Party; she represents the schisms within the nation. She has taken the mantle from Ross Perot – another who dared to shake the political institutions and who drew the wrath of Republicans and Democrats alike.
It is doubtful that Palin will have a future in a nationally elected office. What is certain though is that she will be a powerful influence in national politics for years to come.
Just as Mario Cuomo was influential in leftwing national politics as an outsider, Palin is the voice of conservative women and the pro-life movement.
Just as Ross Perot influenced national policy, so too will Sarah Palin. An elected national office would be too restrictive to someone like her who needs to be able to speak her mind.
Sarah Palin is more rebel than rogue.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Obama Is a Real Chickenhawk
Where Have All the Protesters Gone?
By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog
Remember when they called Bush a chickenhawk. Democrats, "antiwar" protesters, liberals, leftists and Bush haters in general continuously said President Bush was a "chickenhaw" a term that denotes someone who favors war - as long as someone else is doing the fighting.
Far left groups like CodePink, International ANSWER and Not In Our Name would refer to Bush in this manner. However, they were not alone.
Many Congressional Democrats - who are now interested in civility, comity and cooperation - did not hesitate to call President Bush this gratuitous, vulgar and untrue slur. Then they expanded it to all of those in the Bush administration and Republican Party who were never in the military.
Of course, liberals being liberals, were just showing their hypocrisy and amnesia. They forgot their hero, Bill Clinton, was a draft dodger. Neither did it matter that Hillary Clinton never served in the military.
Meanwhile Bill was sending troops to Bosnia, Somalia, Haitia and everywhere else. They also forgot all the Democratic Party leaders who did not serve in the military yet voted for war.
It did not matter that Bush served in the Air National Guard, certainly more dangerous than Bill Clinton's nonservice. No, they demeaned the National Guard, the same National Guard that bailed out the hippies at Woodstock by the way.
The liberals also ignored the people in the Bush administration and in the Republican Party who did serve in the military. They especially ignored those whose kids were in the service.
The fact that John McCain served in combat and had a kid headed to Iraq and that Sarah Palin had a kid going to Iraq did not earn compliments from the Democrats. It certainly did not earn them their votes.
So now that we have a dyed-in-the-wool, 14 karat, solid gold, chickenhawk in the White House sending troops into combat - or in this case not being able to make up his mind if he should - where are all the chickenhawk jibes?
Indeed, to paraphrase an old antiwar protest song:
Where have all the protesters gone
Now that a Democrat is in the White House
Where are all the peace protesters
The truth is they were just working for the Democrats
By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog
Remember when they called Bush a chickenhawk. Democrats, "antiwar" protesters, liberals, leftists and Bush haters in general continuously said President Bush was a "chickenhaw" a term that denotes someone who favors war - as long as someone else is doing the fighting.
Far left groups like CodePink, International ANSWER and Not In Our Name would refer to Bush in this manner. However, they were not alone.
Many Congressional Democrats - who are now interested in civility, comity and cooperation - did not hesitate to call President Bush this gratuitous, vulgar and untrue slur. Then they expanded it to all of those in the Bush administration and Republican Party who were never in the military.
Of course, liberals being liberals, were just showing their hypocrisy and amnesia. They forgot their hero, Bill Clinton, was a draft dodger. Neither did it matter that Hillary Clinton never served in the military.
Meanwhile Bill was sending troops to Bosnia, Somalia, Haitia and everywhere else. They also forgot all the Democratic Party leaders who did not serve in the military yet voted for war.
It did not matter that Bush served in the Air National Guard, certainly more dangerous than Bill Clinton's nonservice. No, they demeaned the National Guard, the same National Guard that bailed out the hippies at Woodstock by the way.
The liberals also ignored the people in the Bush administration and in the Republican Party who did serve in the military. They especially ignored those whose kids were in the service.
The fact that John McCain served in combat and had a kid headed to Iraq and that Sarah Palin had a kid going to Iraq did not earn compliments from the Democrats. It certainly did not earn them their votes.
So now that we have a dyed-in-the-wool, 14 karat, solid gold, chickenhawk in the White House sending troops into combat - or in this case not being able to make up his mind if he should - where are all the chickenhawk jibes?
Indeed, to paraphrase an old antiwar protest song:
Where have all the protesters gone
Now that a Democrat is in the White House
Where are all the peace protesters
The truth is they were just working for the Democrats
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Is Holder Stonewalling New Black Panther Inquiry?
By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tea Time Blog
Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.), a Philadelphia native, and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, Lamar Smith (R-Texas) sent a letter, on November 10, to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting information about the Justice Department’s inquiry into the sudden and unusual dismissal of voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party.
The congressmen are concerned that the Justice Department (DOJ) is using the investigation as a means to continue stonewalling Congress in this matter. It has been three months since DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility initiated an investigation at the request of Smith and Wolf.
Yet, despite repeated requests made during the past three months DOJ has not provided Congress with a clear explanation for why the Civil Rights Division dismissed the complaint.
According to Messrs. Smith and Wolf, “Congress and the American people must have confidence that the Department’s Voting Rights Act enforcement is free of improper political motives … it is important for Congress, in furtherance of its oversight obligations, to receive answers before the end of this year—before we enter a political season” so that voters can be assured that voter intimidation will not be tolerated.
Justice Department attorneys filed charges in January against three individuals and the New Black Panther Party for allegedly threatening voters at a poll in Philadelphia during last November’s presidential election. The Justice Department effectively won the case when the defendants declined to appear before the court and challenge the charges.
Yet, when the Obama administration took control of the Justice Department, the case against the Democratic Party’s political ally was suddenly dropped. There were no new facts or evidence to justify the decision. The impression that politics played a role in the decision has been a source of concern for Rep. Wolf who has been a strident defender of voting rights.
Not only has Congress made unanswered inquiries into this matter, so too has the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. The Commission’s chairman, Gerald Reynolds, sent a letter on September 30 to Mr. Holder saying the responses were “overdue” and asking for “Department officials to fully cooperate” with the Commission’s investigation as required by federal law.
Mr. Reynolds noted that the Commission still has not received any of the documents they requested in their initial June inquiries. He said this information is needed because the Commission is responsible to investigate voting rights deprivations and evaluate federal enforcement of federal voting rights laws. They want to form an independent opinion about DOJ’s enforcement actions and the potential impact on future voter intimidation enforcement. It may also try “to determine whether any decisions in the case were induced or affected by improper influences.”
As of this date, neither members of Congress nor members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission have called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate the matter.
Tea Time Blog
Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.), a Philadelphia native, and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, Lamar Smith (R-Texas) sent a letter, on November 10, to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting information about the Justice Department’s inquiry into the sudden and unusual dismissal of voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party.
The congressmen are concerned that the Justice Department (DOJ) is using the investigation as a means to continue stonewalling Congress in this matter. It has been three months since DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility initiated an investigation at the request of Smith and Wolf.
Yet, despite repeated requests made during the past three months DOJ has not provided Congress with a clear explanation for why the Civil Rights Division dismissed the complaint.
According to Messrs. Smith and Wolf, “Congress and the American people must have confidence that the Department’s Voting Rights Act enforcement is free of improper political motives … it is important for Congress, in furtherance of its oversight obligations, to receive answers before the end of this year—before we enter a political season” so that voters can be assured that voter intimidation will not be tolerated.
Justice Department attorneys filed charges in January against three individuals and the New Black Panther Party for allegedly threatening voters at a poll in Philadelphia during last November’s presidential election. The Justice Department effectively won the case when the defendants declined to appear before the court and challenge the charges.
Yet, when the Obama administration took control of the Justice Department, the case against the Democratic Party’s political ally was suddenly dropped. There were no new facts or evidence to justify the decision. The impression that politics played a role in the decision has been a source of concern for Rep. Wolf who has been a strident defender of voting rights.
Not only has Congress made unanswered inquiries into this matter, so too has the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. The Commission’s chairman, Gerald Reynolds, sent a letter on September 30 to Mr. Holder saying the responses were “overdue” and asking for “Department officials to fully cooperate” with the Commission’s investigation as required by federal law.
Mr. Reynolds noted that the Commission still has not received any of the documents they requested in their initial June inquiries. He said this information is needed because the Commission is responsible to investigate voting rights deprivations and evaluate federal enforcement of federal voting rights laws. They want to form an independent opinion about DOJ’s enforcement actions and the potential impact on future voter intimidation enforcement. It may also try “to determine whether any decisions in the case were induced or affected by improper influences.”
As of this date, neither members of Congress nor members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission have called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate the matter.
Monday, November 9, 2009
FBI Knew of Hasan As Early as December 2008
The FBI issued a press release today, November 9, in which they said Major Malik Nidal Hasan was noticed by them as early as December 2008. His activities at the time attracted the interest of "one of their Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs)." Hasan was communicating with the subject of an unrelated investigation by the JTTF team.
They stated that a review of the interaction between Hasan and the subject of the JTTF investigation was explainable by his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center. The content of the communications was consistent with his research. They said nothing else derogatory was found. This led them to conclude that "Major Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning." They also said other communications of which they were aware were similar to the ones reviewed by the JTTF.
The press statement did not elaborate as to the nature of those communications or exactly why they believed them to be consistent with Major Hasan's research.
The FBI stresses that "at this point, there is no information to indicate had any co-conspirators or was part of a broader terrorist plot." Yet, they did not seem to rule out the possibility that the suspect was a lone actor in a terrorist act - only that he acted alone.
They are examining forensic evidence to ascertain Hasan's motive for the massacre. However, they are limited as to what they can disclose to the public at this time.
The Army Criminal Investigative Division is leading the investigation with the assistance of the FBI and the Texas Rangers. As with any criminal investigation the suspect is presumed innocent.
They stated that a review of the interaction between Hasan and the subject of the JTTF investigation was explainable by his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center. The content of the communications was consistent with his research. They said nothing else derogatory was found. This led them to conclude that "Major Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning." They also said other communications of which they were aware were similar to the ones reviewed by the JTTF.
The press statement did not elaborate as to the nature of those communications or exactly why they believed them to be consistent with Major Hasan's research.
The FBI stresses that "at this point, there is no information to indicate had any co-conspirators or was part of a broader terrorist plot." Yet, they did not seem to rule out the possibility that the suspect was a lone actor in a terrorist act - only that he acted alone.
They are examining forensic evidence to ascertain Hasan's motive for the massacre. However, they are limited as to what they can disclose to the public at this time.
The Army Criminal Investigative Division is leading the investigation with the assistance of the FBI and the Texas Rangers. As with any criminal investigation the suspect is presumed innocent.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Pelosi’s Health Insurance Reform Bill Establishes Waiting Lists
Even Canada Said These Were Illegal
By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog
H.R. 3962, the Democrats’ health insurance reform bill, to be voted on this week by Congress, contains a provision to establish waiting lists as a mechanism to control costs. Such waiting lists have long been a characteristic – and a bane - of socialized medicine.
Indeed, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled them illegal in June 2005. "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care," wrote Canada’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin at the time.
Yet, this is exactly what the Democrats’ plan has in mind for Americans if their proposed bill becomes law. Called the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D.- Ca., unveiled it with great fanfare last week. The bill is sponsored by Rep. John Dingel, D. Mich., and is co-sponsored by Democrat Representatives Charles Rangel of New York, Henry Waxman, Fortney “Pete” Stark and George Miller of California, as well as, Representatives Pallone and Andrews of New Jersey. It is more than 1900 pages long.
But one need only turn to page 26 to find the provision for waiting lists.
There, listed in Title I ‘Immediate Reforms,’ Sec. 101 ‘National High Risk Pool Program,’ paragraph (3)(g) ‘Covered Benefits Cost Sharing Premiums and Consumer Protection’ is paragraph (7) (h)(2) with the heading ‘Insufficient Funds.’
This states, “If the Secretary estimates for any fiscal year that the aggregate amounts available for payment of expenses of the high-risk pool will be less than the amount of the expenses, the Secretary shall make such adjustments as are necessary to eliminate such deficit, including reducing benefits, increasing premiums, or establishing waiting lists. (Emphasis added)
The High Risk Pool Program is designed exactly for those uninsured individuals who health insurance reform proponents say are the neediest. Estimates are such people comprise one to two percent of the population.
Jane Orient, M.D., Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), believes that if the government is willing to deny benefits to those who they purportedly consider the most deserving, then eventually waiting lists will be applied to everyone enrolled in the government’s plan. The Democrats’ promise to increase the amount insured, decrease costs and increase benefits is a chimera according to her.
“It’s just inevitable if you make everyone dependent on the system and you make promises you can’t keep. This will be the fate of everyone dependent on the public option - and they (Democrats) want everyone in the country dependent on this program,” she said.
The AAPS, ironically, was established to be the “voice of private doctors” in 1943. That year the Wagner-Murray-Dingel bill was introduced to establish a government run health insurance system. The Dingel of that bill was the father of Rep. John Dingel the author of H.R. 3962.
A similar sentiment was expressed by Robert Kaufman, Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University in California. He too believed that although this policy is limited to only this one specific group it will eventually apply to everyone.
“Rationing is the inevitable consequence of this monstrosity. There is no way that anyone can administer anything like this without waiting lists - de facto or otherwise,” he said. “Given the trajectory and logic of the Obama administration, it is a reasonable surmise to expect that this establishes waiting lists as a policy and that the burden proof is with the Obama administration to show it is not."
By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog
H.R. 3962, the Democrats’ health insurance reform bill, to be voted on this week by Congress, contains a provision to establish waiting lists as a mechanism to control costs. Such waiting lists have long been a characteristic – and a bane - of socialized medicine.
Indeed, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled them illegal in June 2005. "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care," wrote Canada’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin at the time.
Yet, this is exactly what the Democrats’ plan has in mind for Americans if their proposed bill becomes law. Called the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D.- Ca., unveiled it with great fanfare last week. The bill is sponsored by Rep. John Dingel, D. Mich., and is co-sponsored by Democrat Representatives Charles Rangel of New York, Henry Waxman, Fortney “Pete” Stark and George Miller of California, as well as, Representatives Pallone and Andrews of New Jersey. It is more than 1900 pages long.
But one need only turn to page 26 to find the provision for waiting lists.
There, listed in Title I ‘Immediate Reforms,’ Sec. 101 ‘National High Risk Pool Program,’ paragraph (3)(g) ‘Covered Benefits Cost Sharing Premiums and Consumer Protection’ is paragraph (7) (h)(2) with the heading ‘Insufficient Funds.’
This states, “If the Secretary estimates for any fiscal year that the aggregate amounts available for payment of expenses of the high-risk pool will be less than the amount of the expenses, the Secretary shall make such adjustments as are necessary to eliminate such deficit, including reducing benefits, increasing premiums, or establishing waiting lists. (Emphasis added)
The High Risk Pool Program is designed exactly for those uninsured individuals who health insurance reform proponents say are the neediest. Estimates are such people comprise one to two percent of the population.
Jane Orient, M.D., Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), believes that if the government is willing to deny benefits to those who they purportedly consider the most deserving, then eventually waiting lists will be applied to everyone enrolled in the government’s plan. The Democrats’ promise to increase the amount insured, decrease costs and increase benefits is a chimera according to her.
“It’s just inevitable if you make everyone dependent on the system and you make promises you can’t keep. This will be the fate of everyone dependent on the public option - and they (Democrats) want everyone in the country dependent on this program,” she said.
The AAPS, ironically, was established to be the “voice of private doctors” in 1943. That year the Wagner-Murray-Dingel bill was introduced to establish a government run health insurance system. The Dingel of that bill was the father of Rep. John Dingel the author of H.R. 3962.
A similar sentiment was expressed by Robert Kaufman, Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University in California. He too believed that although this policy is limited to only this one specific group it will eventually apply to everyone.
“Rationing is the inevitable consequence of this monstrosity. There is no way that anyone can administer anything like this without waiting lists - de facto or otherwise,” he said. “Given the trajectory and logic of the Obama administration, it is a reasonable surmise to expect that this establishes waiting lists as a policy and that the burden proof is with the Obama administration to show it is not."
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