Socialized Medicine in Britain: Obama's Prescription for America

Neglected by 'lazy' nurses, man, 22, dying of thirst rang the police to beg for water

From The Daily Mail
By Emily Andrews

A man of 22 died in agony of dehydration after three days in a leading teaching hospital.

Kane Gorny was so desperate for a drink that he rang police to beg for their help.

They arrived on the ward only to be told by doctors that everything was under control.

The next day his mother Rita Cronin found him delirious and he died within hours.

She said nurses had failed to give him vital drugs which controlled fluid levels in his body. 'He was totally dependent on the nurses to help him and they totally betrayed him.'

Kane, aged 11. He worked for Waitrose and had been a keen footballer and runner until he was diagnosed with a brain tumour the year before his death

A coroner has such grave concerns about the case that it has been referred to police.

Sources say they are investigating the possibility of a corporate manslaughter charge against St George's Hospital in Tooting, South London.

Mr Gorny, from Balham, worked for Waitrose and had been a keen footballer and runner until he was diagnosed with a brain tumour the year before his death.

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Ronald Reagan's Timeless Message on Socialized Medicine

Terry Jeffrey: Obama Begins His Assault on Your Life Savings

The welfare state and your life savings are two cars heading down a one-lane road in opposite directions. One must yield, or there will be a crash.

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Lincoln and Justice for All

From First Things
By Allen C. Guelzo

“Justice and fairness” has become something of a mantra ever since presidential candidate Barack Obama told Joe the plumber that his hope was to “spread the wealth around” so that the economy is “good for everybody.” The plumber, Samuel Wurzelbacher, was less than thrilled by the implications of spreading the wealth, since his fear was that much of the wealth the president-to-be proposed to spread around was the plumber’s. But that has done nothing to give pause to President Obama’s determination to answer the “call to justice and fairness.” In his 2009 Lincoln’s Birthday speech in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield, Illinois, the president described justice and fairness—the “sense of shared sacrifice and responsibility for ourselves and one another”—as “the very definition of being American.”

Perhaps. But that was not Abraham Lincoln’s definition of justice or fairness or “being American.” And our current president’s failure to see that gives us an uneasy sense that Barack Obama has wrapped himself in some other man’s coat.

Lincoln certainly had more than a little to say about justice. After all, he was a lawyer by profession. “My way of living leads me to be about the courts of justice,” he joked in 1848, although what he saw happening there wasn’t always justice. “I have sometimes seen a good lawyer, struggling for his client’s neck, in a desperate case, employing every artifice to work round, befog, and cover up, with many words, some point arising in the case, which he dared not admit, and yet could not deny.” And in politics, which was his other great vocation, he had seen how often “the immutable principles of justice are to make way for party interests, and the bonds of social order are to be rent in twain, in order that a desperate faction may be sustained at the expense of the people.”

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Global Bank Tax Near, says Brown

From The Financial Times
By George Parker and Lionel Barber

Gordon Brown said on Wednesday the world’s leading economies were close to agreeing a global bank tax, amid hopes in Downing Street that a deal can be concluded at the G20 summit in Canada in June.

Mr Brown believes that opinion has shifted decisively in favour of a globally co-ordinated tax after President Barack Obama’s move last month to raise $90bn (£57.7bn) from a US bank levy.

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Ray Stevens’ Hit ‘We the People’ Becoming Anthem of Tea Party Movement

Ray Stevens has a new viral hit that is becoming an anthem of the Tea Party movement. With more than 1.4 million hits on YouTube, we think he has hit a chord that will vibrate right through November 2010.

We're Taking Back America in 2010!

Here's hope and a great anthem for freedom fighters. I think we will be hearing this often in the crucial year ahead.

The Assault on American Business

From American Thinker
By Chris Banescu

The message from Washington is clear and getting louder by the day. If you run a successful business you face excessive government regulations and higher levels of taxation for years to come. The more productive and profitable you become, the more you will be forced to pay for the privilege of operating in this country. This threat is real and it appears that many companies and business owners are taking steps to protect themselves.

President Obama's anti-business and anti-competitive campaign messages made executives and business owners apprehensive even before the January 2009 presidential inauguration and the Democrats obtaining control of Congress. Coming in the midst of one of the worst financial crisis and economic recessions in recent memory these promises had predictable results: businesses aggressively cut expenses, decreased their capital expenditures, drastically reduced their payrolls, and hunkered down to weather the current crisis and deal with the long-term consequences of punitive government actions.

What are the messages that businesses have been receiving from Obama and a vast majority of the Democrats in Washington even before the November 2008 elections?

• We will raise your income taxes.
• We will raise your capital gains and dividends taxes.
• We will increase regulations and impose further restrictions on your economic activities and personal freedoms.
• We will take over the private heath care system, dictate coverage and prices, and add a permanent surtax on upper-income individuals and businesses to pay for it all.
• We will tax your carbon dioxide emissions and force you to justify your energy consumption.
• We will dramatically increase energy and raw material prices via a convoluted and oppressive cap and trade tax and regulate scheme.
• We will radically expand government deficit spending and bureaucracy.
• We will add trillions of dollars to the national debt and virtually guarantee very high inflation, drastic weakening of the US dollar, diminished prospects of new jobs creation, and reduced economic activity for the foreseeable future.

Five Threats

There are at least five different specific promises and initiatives from the current administration that threaten the future competitiveness and success of American businesses and the prosperity of individuals who dare to succeed and earn more. These combined threats have played an important part in further depressing economic activity in the US and signaling to all company owners to remain defensive and cautious in the face of a business unfriendly political environment at least through the end of Obama's term (only one, we hope) in office.

Threat #1 - Higher Income Taxes

Beginning with 2011 the Obama administration promises to raise income taxes on married couples earning more than $250,000/year and singles earning more than $200,000/year. This would mean that the two highest federal income tax rates will rise from 33% and 35%, to 36% and 39.6%, respectively. Furthermore, the White House seeks to phase out the personal exemptions and limit deductions allowed for these taxpayers. Many businesses are usually started and run by families and individuals with gross incomes in those ranges. This guaranteed 9% to 13% tax increase (likely much higher due to tax exemptions limits and planned healthcare surtaxes) on their yearly incomes will reduce cash flowing into the economy (via investments or purchases) and seriously hinder economic growth.

Threat #2 - Higher Capital Gains Taxes

President Obama also pledged to raise capital gains and dividends taxes from the current 15% to 20% starting in 2011. This represents a 33% tax increase on all businesses and individuals who realize a capital gain on the sale of stock, real estate, or other assets, and those that receive qualified dividends from stocks in their personal portfolios, retirement accounts, or pension funds. This enormous tax increase will punish not only the highest income earners, but all hard-working taxpayers and retirees.

Threat #3 - Government-Run Health Care/Socialized Medicine

The current administration is actively working to create a government-run health care system that will cost approximately $1.6 trillion over 10 years, as reported by the Congressional Budget Office , and will only remove "16 million from the 46 million uninsured."

The Wall Street Journal reports that House Democrats want to implement a package of surtaxes from 1% to 3% on all families making $350,000 or more in order to raise an additional $540 billion in taxes over the next decade. So any small to medium-sized business earning at least $250,000 or more will see its tax rate increase from 35% now, to 39.6% to 42.6% come 2011, and possibly as high as 44.6% in 2013 when these health-care surtax rates are scheduled to rise to 2-5%. These business owners can now look forward to a massive 13.1% to 27.4% tax increase on their earnings.

Furthermore, Investor's Business Daily details that the latest Senate version of this plan would include "a $750-per-worker 'annual fee,' $375 for part-time workers on companies with more than 25 employees that do not offer coverage to employees." This represents yet another additional tax on small businesses. As the IBD article correctly points out, "if you're a small business seeking to expand beyond 25 workers, you have quite a bit to think about. That's sure going to help job growth."

Threat #4 - Cap and Trade, Significantly Higher Energy Prices

Another fiasco in the making is President Obama's obsession with reducing and regulating carbon dioxide emissions by businesses and individuals, despite the solid research and objections of thousands of scientists that attest that carbon dioxide (CO2 is only 0.037% of the earth's atmosphere) is not a pollutant and does not contribute to global warming or "climate change" of any kind. Dubbed "Cap and Trade" this legislation threatens to bring about enormous government regulation and taxation of energy production and usage across every single industry in the US.

A recent Investor's Business Daily outlines the inevitable consequences of such an intrusive scheme:

A major reshaping of our nation's energy policy will include massive new taxes, mostly on businesses, and cause our economy to crater. Most depressingly, despite taxing businesses and consumers to the hilt, the Waxman-Markey climate stabilization act will not remove one ounce of carbon from our atmosphere over the next decade.

Waxman-Markey is nothing but a huge scam that will bankrupt any business that relies heavily on energy, boosting fuel prices by 22 cents a gallon and socking the average family with an $1,800 a year tax hike.

Threat #5 - Runaway Government Spending, High Inflation and Weakened Dollar

The countless government bailouts of bankrupt financial institutions and many incompetently managed companies, runaway borrowing and spending by the federal government (currently running $1 trillion yearly deficits, for at least another 10 years), and warnings from China, Russia, and India who are rapidly losing confidence in the US dollar and are threatening to dump it, are setting the stage for future hyper-inflation; another potential tsunami of financial devastation for all Americans. Under such conditions companies will continue to be increasingly risk-adverse, be very stingy with their cash reserves, steer clear of US-based capital expenditures that require a long-term financial commitment, and remain guarded with any expansion and hiring plans that would unnecessarily endanger the enterprise in the event of high inflation rates.

Staying the Course on Anti-Business Initiatives

Obama's current anti-free market initiatives have been consistent from the beginning of his candidacy and throughout his first six months in office, and he's aggressively making good on his promises with legislation that's implementing them. Businesses understand what is happening and have tried to make adjustments. Like a living organism that has been attacked (imagine an octopus that's drawing its tentacles closer to its body to protect itself from an intruder or another predator) business has contracted and retreated to avoid disaster and survive. Company owners and managers have taken on a defensive stance to deal with the worsening economic downturn and the coming higher taxes, increased regulations, and future hostile economic environments they will face even when the current recession subsides.

Consequences for the US Economy

The consequences of business activities contraction worsened by Obama's multiple threats are devastating. Economy activity reduction, as measured by GDP numbers, reached -6.3% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and -5.5 % for the first quarter of 2009. Our economy has shrunk by almost 12% in the last 9 months and the US unemployment rate has peaked at 9.5% as of June 2009. Since January of this year 2.7 million private sectors jobs have been lost, despite the so-called $787 billion "stimulus" plan that was supposed to keep unemployment rates below 8%. To date only $43 billion of this "stimulus" act has actually been infused back into the $14 trillion US economy; a miniscule and insignificant drop in a huge bucket that most likely did little to help an economic recovery. Yet President Obama insists that it "has worked as intended."

The Investor's Business Daily article reveals yet more alarming statistics regarding the US economy:

Shrinking GDP has crushed investment. First quarter gross private domestic investment - a proxy for business investment - plunged 20%, or nearly $450 billion, annually. The outlook is grim.

Worse, the June jobs data mark a milestone of sorts: Our unemployment rate equals that of the no-growth Eurozone nations.

What the Future Holds

As far as the eye can see President Obama and the Democrats are preparing to implement multiple significant tax increases, layer upon layer of new government regulations and restrictions on business activities, and massive and wasteful government borrowing and spending for at least the next decade. There is nothing coming out of this White House that would signal to American businesses that it is willing to change course and let the private sector - the only real engine of value and job creation in a free-market economy - do its job and bring our country out of this recession. The assaults on American business and entrepreneurship continue unabated and the negative consequences of these actions are already rippling through our economy and impacting our lives. Things are getting worse not better! At a time when a normal recessionary cycle should be coming to an end and the economy should be stabilizing and begin recovering, US business activity continues to contract, with hundreds of thousands of jobs (467,000 lost in June 2009) still being lost every month. We're heading down a dangerous path that will virtually guarantee reduced long-term economic growth, higher unemployment and inflation rates, lowered living standards, and an erosion of our individual freedoms and liberties for the foreseeable future.

Chris Banescu is an attorney, entrepreneur, and university professor. He regularly blogs at chrisbanescu.com.

The President's Power Grabs

From RealClearPolitics
By Diana West

At some point of embittering clarity, Americans will open their eyes to the glaring significance of the Obama era and see the Power Grab Years for what they are. Whether this realization comes in time to stave off the eradication of the United States as we thought we knew it, or whether it comes too late, I predict it will surely come.

If it comes in time, the realization that the nation dodged history's bullet will produce massive waves of relief. If it comes too late, the understanding of our fallen state will live on as the lost lore, not of a subject people exactly, but of a self-subjected people. That's because in this strange historical instance, the American people, beginning with but not limited to those of us who voted Barack Obama into the White House, seem to have agreed to shoulder the heavy, costly yoke of exponentially increasing government control of our lives.

Make that exponentially increasing executive branch control of our lives -- even more alarming given the cult of President Obama's personality already evident. With a rubberstamp Democratic Congress, it is the Obama White House that calls the shots, and it doesn't let dissenters forget it. As much as anything else this week, what cast me into this particular abyss of speculation was the stunning news that after Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., declared the Obama administration's stimulus spending plan ineffective and urged a halt to further stimulus spending, the White House dispatched four Cabinet secretaries -- Transportation's Ray LaHood, Agriculture's Tom Vilsack, Housing and Urban Development's Shaun Donovan, Interior's Ken Salazar -- to write letters to Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer enumerating every dime of federal monies that would no longer flow to her state if Sen. Kyl had his way.

As LaHood snarkily put it to Gov. Brewer, "If you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to your state, as Senator Kyl suggests, please let me know."

What did the White House expect the governor to do next? Make Sen. Kyl an offer he couldn't refuse? Or, as Mark Steyn, detecting the whiff of extortion in the air, asked: "Why not just break his (Kyl's) legs in the Senate parking lot?"

Muscular politicking on steroids is the Obama way, whether the administration is bullying Chrysler bond-holders, wresting control of the Census from the Commerce Department, or empowering, at last count, as many as 31 "czars" to oversee various aspects of federal policy, from Gitmo closure "czar" Daniel Fried to executive pay "czar" Kenneth Feinberg, many without Senate confirmation. In explaining the full White House press on government-controlled health care, top Obama strategist David Axelrod could have been describing the Obama White House m.o. in general: "Ultimately, this is not about a process, it's about results." Which is just another way of saying the ends justify the means.

But what are those ends? My guess is that socializing the engines of wealth and creation in this county is itself a means to an end -- the consolidation of a new power structure derived from a government-dependent population and animated by the kind of identity politics exemplified by Sonya "wise Latina" Sotomayor, whose self-contradictory Senate testimony this week, by the way, perfectly tracks Axelrod's playbook. In the meantime, however, as the administration expands its control over the private sector, as it formulates foreign policy in harmony with that of Castro's Cuba, Chavez's Venezuela, and Ortega's Nicaragua, it's no stretch to say that Barack Obama is reshaping the USA in a distinctly socialist mold, something closer to a dictatorial workers' paradise than to cowboy-friendly Reagan Country.

But there exists a potent taboo against the S-word and other terminology essential for analysis. Jeb Bush's aversion to the term is typical. "Is Obama a socialist?" Tucker Carlson recently asked him in Esquire magazine.

Bush said he didn't know, and called the president a "collectivist." Same difference? Perish the thought. "Socialism is pejorative in America," Bush explained. "So people stop listening. People are tired of it. That word won't stick. It's a turnoff. It doesn't help."

"It's a turnoff"? It had better not be a turnoff. Because if we don't talk about it, we won't think about it -- until it's too late.

Diana West is the author of the "The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization."

Why Europeans are turning against Obama

From American Thinker
By Steve McCann

On the 6^th of November last, I made a wager with some of my associates in London and Zurich that within a year they would be pining for the return of George W. Bush and his "cowboy presidency".

As of today, my friends have collectively conceded and are forwarding payment.

Why the sudden capitulation? Reality has begun to set in with a vengeance.

For nearly 65 years Western Europe has lived under the military umbrella provided by the United States. That left these countries free to minimize spending for defense and maximize spending on social issues. European socialism became a new hybrid form of historic socialist thought. It combined a modified capitalist system to provide the funding and the government to oversee cradle to grave security. At that point in history, United States and European economic hegemony controlled world trade. Surely prosperity, despite some expected minor ups and downs, would be expected far into the future, thus financing all the spending on both sides of the Atlantic.

But some unexpected things happened on the way to this never-ending golden age.

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Yankee Genocide Still Here

From NewsWithViews

By Alan Stang

Our source for the present discussion is War Crimes Against Southern Civilians, by Walter Brian Cisco (Pelican, Gretna, Louisiana, 2007). It is important to establish that the spiritual and political inheritors of the war criminals who committed those crimes do not deny them. They ignore them, hoping that if they say nothing those crimes will fade away; and so far they have been successful. Remember, the winner of a war writes the history of the war. They will respond only if their crimes become sufficiently known.

It is important to correct the record. The crimes and the criminals need to be named. More, they must be explained, because the motives that inspired them continue to motivate the men who run our country, regardless of political party. As we shall see, little has changed. Only if we drag this continuing horror into the light do we have a chance of exorcising it.

Let’s begin with a revealing contrast. In 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee invaded the North. The South by then had suffered two years of Yankee crimes and some Southerners thought the invasion was their chance to retaliate. Not so, said Lee. In a proclamation he reminded his men that “the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own.”

“The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenseless and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. . . .”

Remember that at the beginning of the war Lincoln offered Lee command of the Union army. Imagine the humane result had he been able to accept. We make war “only upon armed men,” said Lee. Taking vengeance for the “atrocities of our enemies” would lower ourselves and offend “against Him to whom vengeance belongeth.” What atrocities is he talking about? Our source is divided into the states of the Confederacy. Let’s begin with Missouri.

Union Brigadier General James H. Lane: “We believe in a war of extermination. I want to see every foot of ground . . . burned over – everything laid waste. . . .” Whoa! A war of extermination? Why? Wasn’t the restoration of the Union the goal of all this? Wouldn’t that have been accomplished simply by occupying the offending states? As we shall see, some other motive was at work.

But so it was. Civilians, male and female – yes, female – died by the hundreds in diseased Yankee jails. The Yankees stole everything they could lift. Lane himself stole a carriage, a piano and women’s dresses. My favorite was his chaplain, Rev. Hugh D. Fisher, who stole the altar furnishings from an Osceola church. He needed them for his own church in Kansas. “Brethren, let us worship.”

A long caravan of stolen property wound its way to Kansas. Arson, theft and murder became commonplace. No citizen was allowed to own guns or ammunition. At war’s end, vast sections of Missouri were uninhabited. Lane’s policy of extermination had been imposed.

General William T. Sherman wrote that “rebel” farms should be given to immigrants from the North. “Enemies must be killed or transported to some other country.” Deported Missourians left the state in miles-long wagon trains laden with household effects. Foraging Yankees robbed and killed them on the way. One report speaks of a road “crowded with women and children, women walking with their babies in their arms, packs on their backs and four or five children following after them . . . .”

There is a word for all this. At the time, the word had not yet been coined. It is “genocide.” Indeed, that is what the UN calls forcibly removing one population and replacing it with another. Genocide was settled Yankee policy imposed from the top.

In Tennessee, pastors were told to declare allegiance to the Union. They refused and were jailed. Episcopal rector George Harris was arrested and told to pray for Lincoln or be hanged. Happily, he was able to escape. The Yankees used his church to store munitions. The Communists would later do something similar to churches in Russia. The Yankees closed every church in Murfreesboro and all the schools in Nashville. In that city, there was an election for circuit court judge and the secessionist won. He was arrested, charged with treason and sent to the penitentiary.

How did the Yankees treat blacks? In Athens, Alabama, they raped a slave girl at the home of Charlotte Hine. At the John Malone plantation, they went to the slave quarters and raped again. A black woman charged a soldier with the crime; his commanding officer refused to prosecute: “I would not arrest one of my men on Negro testimony.” Doesn’t your Communist school textbook say the Yankees had come to free the slaves, not to rape them?

In New Orleans, Cpl. William M. Chinock raped Mary Ellen De Riley, a black woman. He was fined $40 and reduced to private. Captain S. Tyler Reed fired his pistol at William Bird, a black boy, and put out an eye. His sentence? A reprimand. Major General Benjamin Butler, known as the “Beast,” made crooked millions in New Orleans, committed outrageous atrocities and was the only Union commander the Confederacy called a criminal. After the war the people of Massachusetts elected him Governor, proving that, with some noble exceptions, they were already as stupid as they are now.

In occupied Virginia, Union Brig. Gen. Robert H. Milroy wrote his wife that “my will is absolute law – none dare contradict or dispute my slightest word or wish . . . both male and female tremble when they come into my presence . . . I feel a strong disposition to play the tyrant among these traitors.” Wow! They actually trembled, Bob? So then, you must have been something like a god, correct?

In South Carolina, “. . . The free blacks who made up Charleston’s force of firefighters struggled heroically to protect their city and its people.” Free blacks? In South Carolina? Trusted to run the fire department? Hmm!

In Louisiana, Union brigadier general William Dwight wrote: “The scenes of disorder and pillage . . . were disgraceful to civilized war. Houses were entered and all in them destroyed …. Ladies were frightened into delivering their jewels and valuables into the hands of the soldiers by threats of violence toward their husbands. Negro women were ravished in the presence of white women and children.” The Union, forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah.”

“The home, barn, and store of Samuel Schmulen were looted and burned. . . . Benjamin George, a fifty-year-old slave who lived nearby . . . tried to help his neighbor at least try to save the store. The effort was in vain. Then a group of drunken soldiers surrounded George, demanding to know why he, a black man, would try to assist this white Southerner. They demanded his money, and when George pleaded that he did not have any, one of the soldiers shot him in the right thigh. He survived the wound but was crippled for life.”

The forced evacuation of Atlanta saw “aged grandmothers upon the verge of the grave, tender girls in the first bloom of young womanhood, and little babes not three days old in the arms of sick mothers, thrown out upon the cold charity of the world.” A Yankee reported, “The African Methodist Episcopal Church, built by the colored people with their hard earnings, was also demolished by our soldiers.”

Union war criminals even introduced a criminal scheme later perfected by Chicago gangsters. One of them told a lady he had orders to burn her house, but, “I’ll insure it for fifty dollars.” Selling “insurance” against their own depredations was one extortion technique they used. “You buy my insurance or I breaka you head. Capish?”

In Columbia, South Carolina, Union terrorists stole everything. “Purses, watches, hats, boots, overcoats . . . were taken from victims, white or black.” A witness says: “Commissioned officers, of a rank so high as that of a colonel, were frequently among the most active.” They took the rings from the fingers of a dying woman. They urinated on the beds. They opened graves in search of lucre and left the corpses on the ground.

But here is la pièce de résistance. “Countless women had earrings ripped from bleeding ears.” A foreign diplomat wrote: “I have myself seen a lady with the lobes of both ears torn asunder.” Witnesses saw soldiers torching the Catholic convent. “What do you think of God now?” they shouted to the nuns. “Is not Sherman greater?. . .”

In St. Landry Parish alone, in western Louisiana, there were 1,596 free blacks just before the war. Some owned sugar plantations and slaves. What? Yes, blacks owned slaves. Invading Yankees were shocked. One Connecticut officer was indignant because they dared “call themselves Americans.” The Yankees stole from these free blacks as well as from the whites.

In Nashville, in September, 1862, blue bellies couldn’t find seats in a crowded theater. They ejected blacks from the “Negro gallery,” beat them and threw them down the stairs. After enjoying the performance, they attacked every black they found in the streets. In Gallatin, in May, 1864, they torched two new schools for black children, murdered one freedman and swore they would kill every black in town.

In southeast Georgia there were many free blacks who had accumulated substantial property. Indeed, so had hard working slaves. Union goons stole it all, even threatening black wives. In some cases, black husbands had to rescue them. They stole everything from a black nurse and killed her animals. “Honey, I never knowed a Yankee that wasn’t mean as dirt. . . . What can you spec from a hog but a grunt.”

And finally, in Columbia: “One black woman . . . was raped by seven soldiers of the United States Army. She then had her face forced down into a shallow ditch and was held there until she drowned.” William Gilmore Simms reported how “regiments, in successive relays,” committed “gang rape on scores of slave women.” On the Sumter District plantation, the corpses of eighteen black women were found. Each had been stabbed in the chest with a bayonet. Yankee war criminals had done with them.

Remember, these are just a few examples. You really need to read the book. So what are we looking at? Obviously it is considerably different from the mostly mythical war to “free the slaves” your high school textbook told you about. Notice that it is motivated by an insane, messianic fury. The war criminals are enraged, utterly out of control. About what? Obviously not about slavery. Men outraged by slavery do not rob, rape and murder slaves. And remember that chief war criminal Lincoln was as foul a racist as ever lived, even discomfited other racists, staunchly defended slavery and wanted to ship American blacks “back” to Africa.

No, what drove these Yankee war criminals insane was that the Southerners had dared to come out from under, to say no to the Leviathan state, to total government, to go their own way. They had expressed their freedom through secession. They had invoked their inalienable right to depart.

A debate endures about whether they had the constitutional right to secede. I don’t know why. I can solve the problem for all time. The Founding Fathers seceded from England. In the Declaration of Independence – the nation’s birth certificate – they said that whenever a people find their government oppressive, they have the right to alter or abolish it. To argue that there is no right to secede is to say that only a few years later, these same men, would concoct a document – the Constitution – in which they would deny themselves that blood-bought right.

Indeed, there were a few incipient attempts to secede before Lincoln. No one tried to argue that secession was illegal. One area that seriously considered secession was New England. What? Yes. And all through the Twentieth Century, did not the United States vociferously advance the right to secede for other people? We even fought a couple of wars, and lost thousands of the best of the best, to ensure the independence of South Korea and South Vietnam. Could there possibly be a straight-faced argument that other people deserve independence but we do not?

The Founding Fathers did not create slavery; they inherited 150 years of it. Many Southern slaves were sold to the South by Yankee slavers who no longer had need of them. Slavery was an intolerable stain on the American record. That stain could only be expunged by total abolition. Other countries, including Russia, abolished it without violence. Only ours did so at the cost of some 600,000 men and the destruction of the Union, by men who claimed to revere it and who had owned slaves themselves – and who did all this to keep the South in economic subjection.

But even this is not the core. Remember the strutting Yankee generals who confused themselves with God. Indeed, remember the terrorist assertion that insane mass murderer Sherman actually outranks God. Consider the messianic fury we have mentioned. Something more than mere greed was at work.

It is literally a satanic perversion of Christianity, a perversion pretending to be Christianity, which erupts time and again across the centuries. From time to time people who are smarter than God appear, usurpers who have the temporal power to do the job right. If you disagree with them they burn you at the stake. If you try to get out from under them, they scream you are a rebel. You have betrayed them. They will rob and rape you, they will kill you; they will invade and burn your country to the ground, to persuade you to see it their way. Either do that or die. They are disciples of Satan.

The reason this is so relevant is that this very mentality rules the nation today. That is why the federal juggernaut is so merciless, so confiscatory, so totalitarian. Reconstruction continues, not just of the South; this time of the whole nation, conducted by men consumed by hubris, who believe they can improve upon God.

But Sherman is still dead. God is alive.

Alan Stang was one of Mike Wallace’s original writers at Channel 13 in New York, where he wrote some of the scripts that sent Mike to CBS. Stang has been a radio talk show host himself. In Los Angeles, he went head to head nightly with Larry King, and, according to Arbitron, had almost twice as many listeners. He has been a foreign correspondent. He has written hundreds of feature magazine articles in national magazines and some fifteen books, for which he has won many awards, including a citation from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for journalistic excellence. One of Stang’s exposés stopped a criminal attempt to seize control of New Mexico, where a gang seized a court house, held a judge hostage and killed a deputy. The scheme was close to success before Stang intervened. Another Stang exposé inspired major reforms in federal labor legislation.

(Reprinted with permission of the author.)

Oh Canada! ... Role-Reversal in North America?

From Brussels Journal
By Marc Huybrechts

Stereotypes are often rooted in some current or past reality, but they can also become outdated. While the USA and Japan have for a long time been regarded as small-government countries, among industrial countries, Canada has long been considered more ‘socialistic’ and closer to the big-government model of Western Europe. However, a careful look at the relevant economic data casts serious doubt on that old stereotype. That is exactly what three economists did in a recent article in The Washington Post (Chris Edwards, Jason Clemens and Niels Veldhuis, Great Right North, Sunday, May 17, 2009), using data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and development (the OECD, which is specialized in constructing ‘comparable data’ for industrial countries) as well as on national data from the USA and Canada. Consider the following 7 criteria for judging the degree of socialism in North America (excluding Mexico).

1) Government Spending

Over the last twenty years or so, consolidated general government spending, i.e. spending at ALL levels of government (federal, state/provincial, local) has steadily declined in Canada from a peak of about 53 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) in 1992 to just below 40 percent in the last few years (2004-08).

By contrast, in the USA, over most of the same time period, general government spending has tended to fluctuate narrowly around 35-36 percent. However, in recent years (2006-08) it has turned sharply upwards to reach the current ‘Canadian level’ of just below 40 percent of GDP.

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Revolution

From American Thinker
By Herbert E. Meyer

During the last 30 years we Americans have been so politically divided that some of us have called this left-right, liberal-conservative split a "culture war" or even a "second Civil War." These descriptions are no longer accurate. The precise, technical word for what is happening in the United States today is revolution.

Because of our country's history, we tend to think of revolutions as military conflicts, and of the revolutionaries as the good guys; the image of Minutemen fighting valiantly against the British forces at Lexington and Concord lies deep within our DNA. But sometimes -- quite often, actually -- revolutions aren't military conflicts, and the good guys are the ones trying to keep the revolution from happening. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by its elected president; he would spend the next two years consolidating his power with the legislative connivance of his political allies in the Reichstag. In October 1917, Lenin and his Bolsheviks took control of Russia from Kerensky and his Social Democrats -- who had overthrown the Czar earlier that year -- entirely through parliamentary maneuvering in Russia's fledgling Duma.

What defines a revolution -- and this is the crucial point to grasp -- is that when it's over a country has changed not merely its leaders and its laws, but its operating system.

Since most of us think of computers when we hear the phrase "operating system" let me use this analogy to illuminate my point: Every computer has an operating system, and most of us are using either the Microsoft or the Apple operating system. If you want to do something with your computer -- send an email, watch a DVD, read an online essay like this one -- you must do it the way your computer's operating system is designed to work.

No operating system is perfect, which is why Microsoft and Apple send updates to their customers from time to time. And every so often these companies launch new versions of their operating systems that incorporate a lot of modifications at once. Can you change the operating system you use? Of course you can. Two years ago I threw out every Microsoft-based machine in our company's office and replaced them with Apple products. Last month I met a corporate CEO who had just done the opposite, and replaced the Apple computers in his office with ones that run on the Microsoft operating system.

Democracies and Dictatorships

Now, just as computers have operating systems so too do countries. In fact, countries have dual operating systems - one political and the other economic. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of each: Politically you can be a democracy or a dictatorship, and economically you can have either a free market or a command economy. Because countries don't buy their operating systems off the shelf, the way we buy our computer operating systems, each country develops its own versions. This is why our country's democracy is somewhat different from Canada's, which in turn is slightly different from Australia's, and so forth. These countries all have free-market economies, but again they aren't quite the same. Still, the similarities among democracies and free-market economies are more striking than the differences. Likewise, while no two dictatorships are the same, and no two command economies work in exactly the same way, the differences among them are comparatively trivial.

Since no country's operating systems are perfect, can they be improved? Of course they can. Every time our Congress passes a new law, or enacts a new regulation -- or whenever the Supreme Court issues an opinion -- that's the equivalent of an update to our political or economic operating system. Can you change a country's operating system? Yes, you can. And the precise, technical word for replacing one political or economic operating system with another is -- revolution.

When politics in a democracy is normal, the political parties all agree to preserve the operating system while they compete to improve it. This is what is actually happening when one party in Congress introduces a new piece of healthcare or education legislation and the other party opposes it or introduces its own healthcare or education bill, or when two candidates for the Senate argue over whether or not to change our immigration laws. Honorable people often will disagree about what to do -- sometimes quite strongly, just as the software engineers at Microsoft and Apple will sometimes argue through the night about whether a proposed change in the operating system's code is an improvement or just "kludge." But in normal politics the outer limits of all these disagreements are marked by a shared commitment to preserving and improving the operating system.

In abnormal politics, the objective of one party isn't to improve the operating system, but to overthrow it.

With this analogy in mind, now we can see clearly what's been happening in the United States during the last three decades. While conservatives have been working to improve our democracy and our free-market economy, liberals have been working to replace our democracy with a dictatorship, and our free-market economy with a command economy controlled by the government. The liberals couldn't say this aloud, because if they did the American people would have tossed them out of office on their ears. So the liberals worked covertly, feigning support for democracy and for the free market while working diligently to undermine both.

This is why our politics has been so partisan, so vicious, and so deadlocked. This is why words have lost their meaning in Washington, why we can never get to the bottom of anything, why we lurch from one manufactured scandal to another. It's all been part of a decades-long effort by the liberals to throw sand in our eyes -- to keep us from seeing clearly where they really want to take us. (And this explains why, when we question their judgment on some issue, they go berserk and accuse us of questioning their patriotism. They're afraid we're on the verge of catching on. If you want to have some fun, the next time you're chatting with a liberal and he goes nuts when you call him a socialist, say to him: "I'm so sorry you're offended. Please tell me, what is there about socialism you don't like?" You won't get a coherent answer; he'll just accuse you of a hate crime.)

Obama's Two-Front Offensive

With the election of Barack Obama as president, the liberals have launched a massive, two-front offensive they believe will end in victory. They have judged that our public education system is so degraded that only a few Americans are left who even understand what a democracy is, and how the free market actually works. They are convinced that the majority of Americans are too frightened by the current recession to care about preserving the principles that made us the most powerful, productive and innovative country the world has ever known. In short, the liberals are reaching for victory because they believe that history now is on their side.

The speed of their offensive is breathtaking.

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Why Government Can't Run a Business

Politicians need headlines. Executives need profits.

From The Wall Street Journal
By John Steele Gordon

The Obama administration is bent on becoming a major player in -- if not taking over entirely -- America's health-care, automobile and banking industries. Before that happens, it might be a good idea to look at the government's track record in running economic enterprises. It is terrible.

In 1913, for instance, thinking it was being overcharged by the steel companies for armor plate for warships, the federal government decided to build its own plant. It estimated that a plant with a 10,000-ton annual capacity could produce armor plate for only 70% of what the steel companies charged.

When the plant was finally finished, however -- three years after World War I had ended -- it was millions over budget and able to produce armor plate only at twice what the steel companies charged. It produced one batch and then shut down, never to reopen.

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Obama's Catholic "Plan"

Obama's Moves a Step Toward Fascism

From The Chicago Sun-Times
By Steve Stanek

This week has brought two more reasons to be afraid --very afraid -- about what our federal government is up to.

The headline-grabbing reason is, of course, the firing of General Motors chief executive Richard Wagoner by President Obama and his administration's attempt to force a merger of Chrysler with Italy's Fiat. The other reason, all but ignored by the news media, is the declaration by Timothy Geithner that some banks will receive huge amounts of new government Troubled Asset Relief Program money even if they don't want it.

GM and Chrysler have received about $17.4 billion from the federal government over the past few months and want $22 billion more. Obama is holding off on the additional $22 billion to force the moves he wants. Those moves include the removal of Wagoner and remaking of GM's board of directors (with no concern for what GM stockholders want) and giving Chrysler 30 days to merge with Fiat.

Obama, Geithner, et al. tell us they do not want to run companies. But when they fire chief executives, install new ones, remake boards of directors and force mergers, that is exactly what they are doing.

Geithner's announcement that his agency is conducting "stress tests" that could force banks to take more federal money comes just a week after leaders of the nation's largest banks met with Obama and told him they want to pay back the TARP money they have already received, not take more of it.

Last week, Geithner announced he would decide, apparently with no firm guidelines, which companies -- including nonfinancial firms -- could pose "systemic risk" to the financial system. Such a designation would give the government unprecedented powers to inject itself into any business it chooses.

All of us -- not just corporate executives and shareholders -- should be shocked and frightened by these actions. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to appropriate money, yet trillions of dollars have been spent, borrowed and committed in the form of various guarantees without congressional approval.

The Constitution also blocks the government from interfering in private contracts. Various court rulings since the 1930s have weakened the protections, and now the executive branch is shredding them.

In addition to recent attacks on (admittedly unjustifiable) contractual bonuses at American International Group, the administration has recently moved to impose unjustifiable mortgage "cram downs" that require lenders to rework loans.

These recent actions amount to a fundamental move away from individual rights and toward state corporatism -- better known as fascism.

Steve Stanek is a research fellow at the Chicago-based libertarian Heartland Institute.

Christians Across the Nation Unite in Fasting for Freedom

The TEA parties spreading across America are an important phenomenon in building conservative solidarity and the political movement necessary to free America from the Marxists and socialists who are moving quickly to destroy it. But in the quiet of our own homes it is even more important to raise hearts and minds in prayer to God, asking his mercy and deliverance from evil. The following press release explains a spiritual movement that complements and will empower the TEA Party political movement.

A movement is gaining popularity as people of the Christian faith are joining together to “fast for freedom.” Fasting, which is typically accompanied by prayer, is a spiritual discipline that has been practiced by Christians and Jews as far back as the Old Testament and commonly involves abstaining from food and drink. There are many different ways to fast, but the Fasting for Freedom movement asks those concerned about the direction our country is heading to give up a specific kind of food or something else they normally do several times a week.

“You can fast just about anything,” Jonathan Grant, one of the founders of the movement, says. “You could choose to give up donuts, soft drinks, a certain kind of TV show, movies, basketball – whatever you feel led to fast. And every time you think about the thing you are fasting, let that be a reminder to say a prayer asking God to protect our country from socialism.”

Many believe the next twelve months are pivotal to the future of our country and that if something isn’t done soon it might be too late to prevent the freedoms we take for granted from being taken away from us. Subsequently, Christians are asked to fast for the rest of the year, ending on January 1, 2010. That might seem like a daunting task, but Grant insists it is not as difficult as it sounds.

“Fasting for the majority of a year sounds difficult, but you can take it one month at a time and switch up what you are fasting at the beginning of each month. If you absolutely can’t make it that long, at least commit to fast till Independence Day (July 4th). Is it a sacrifice? Yes, but that’s the point! The most powerful thing we can do is pray and fast. Too often we think of prayer as a last resort, but God is doing unbelievable things all over the world right now that are every bit as miraculous as the stories in the New Testament. We seem to be the one nation stuck in a rut. The good news is that God doesn’t need a majority! Remember the stories of David, Gideon, and Joshua?”

All Christians concerned with the future of our country are encouraged to visit the movement’s website, www.fastingforfreedom.com where they can read more details about the fast and what they can do to help. Also on the site is a very encouraging and inspiring essay titled “Storm and the Abyss” that everyone is encouraged to read, along with a blog featuring true stories from around the world showing the true power of prayer.

Daniel Hannan: A New Conservative Superstar?

Hat Tip to Gates of Vienna for calling attention to this British Member of the European Parliament. America has its Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, but if we had one Republican member of Congress who could as effectively challenge the same insanity in this country, America would rally around as we did for Ronald Reagan.

“The Cult of Moloch Lives on Today”

From California Catholic Daily
By Father Richard Perozich

(Fr. Richard Perozich, pastor of St. Mary's Church in Escondido, published the following commentary in the Sunday, Feb. 1, parish bulletin.)

“100 DAYS OR END OF DAYS”

The "governator" Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a 1999 movie called "End of Days" where the devil was to come to take over the world. In the story line the devil must mate with a certain mortal if he is to escape hell and begin his reign of dominance over human hearts and freedom, to oppress people with death, pride, avarice, greed, sloth, ire, gluttony and lust. Arnold plays a man wounded spiritually and emotionally who ultimately opposes the devil who is defeated and reconsigned to hell for another 1,000 years. In real life, however, his legislation works for Satan.

The first 100 days of a new presidency is the time when legislation desired by the new leader is rammed through the congress without much discussion and over the objections of the minority party. It often is not good legislation, has been brewing in the hearts of special interest groups for years, who now have a vehicle to impose their will on the American people.

If the special interest groups have their way, it will spell the end of days for the American nation as we have known it since 1776. Abominations will be forced on us by the new government, such as which our founders never had intended, and certainly opposed to the Christian life: abortion on demand, homogenital sex, lust in all its forms, euthanasia, oppression of opportunity and entrepreneurs, silencing of faith and free speech among many.

In the old testament, God's chosen people abandoned Him and sacrificed their own innocent children to a demon god called Moloch in hopes of a good harvest to feed themselves. The cult of Moloch lives on today, but just not under the god's formal name, but in the name of abortion, or rightly put, murder of children in the womb to promote false promises, ruined lives, and degraded humanity.

Abortion is our god and Obama, Pelosi, Kennedy are his prophets. His sacrifice is the life of infants and the souls of mothers. His priests are doctors who perform abortions. His church is Planned Parenthood and FOCA, (freedom of choice act). His covenant promises rights and freedom for women. It delivers death of infants, permanent damage to the souls of women, of men, of politicians.

Homosexual lust is our god and Obama, Bishop Gene Robinson, and democratic politicians are his prophets. The sacrifice is personal integrity and corruption of the body and spirit. Its priests and priestesses are men who have sex with men (MSM) and women who have sex with women (WSW). Its church is the Human Rights Campaign and other activist organizations, Pride clubs and "gay" and "lesbian" centers. Its covenant offers false promises of equality with those who have normal sexual relations and inner peace. It delivers disease, prolonged adolescent immaturity, and oppression of the church and good people who live upright moral lives.

Money is our god, and the wealthy and the welfare are its prophets. Its sacrifice is hard earned savings and retirement. Its priests are those taking obscene profits by defrauding investors, and those who choose government money over honest work. Its church is a non vigilant Securities and Exchange Commission and congress. Its covenant promises self reliance and security in wealth. It delivers collapse of the economy, unfair distribution of wealth, and a drain on the tax system.

Socialism is our god, and Obama is his prophet. Its sacrifice is personal freedom. Its priests are politicians and communist ideological organizations. Its church are legislatures and executive branches in government. Its covenant promises fairness and sameness for all. It delivers power and wealth those who already possess it and takes away opportunity for those out of power and destroys of the economy and future for others.

Liberalism is our god and the Democratic party is his prophet. Its sacrifice is freedom, integrity, opportunity, and wholeness. Its priests are the fascist elites in government, education, and bureaucracies, who wish to control others' thoughts and actions. Its churches are political parties, universities, and corrupt professional organizations. Its covenant promises unbridled freedom for perversion of the natural law and oppression for all who disagree with it. It delivers the breakdown of society, constitutional government, and true freedom for morally minded people, especially faithful Christians.

For us Christians, these are abominations, and the people who promote them are truly overcome by evil. 2 Peter 2:19-20 "They promise them freedom, though they themselves are slaves of corruption, for a person is a slave of whatever overcomes him. For if they, having escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of (our) Lord and savior Jesus Christ, again become entangled and overcome by them, their last condition is worse than their first."

This may not be the change you wanted when you voted for new government, but it is the change you voted for if you did not clearly listen to the evil promises of the new priests of the new churches and ignored the warnings about the new evils that this government clearly promised to impose on America.

The Father is our God, and Jesus Christ is His prophet. His sacrifice is the life of His Son Jesus celebrated at Mass. His priests are those ordained and faithful clergy who teach fully the Catholic faith from the Bible and magisterium, and who celebrate the sacraments of the church faithfully according to its tradition and rites. Its Church is the Holy Catholic Church in which salvation is found in Jesus, the only name in heaven or on earth by which man can be saved, through Jesus, the only mediator between God and man who saves us by grace through faith in Him and not in abortion, homosexual lust, money's greed, socialism, or liberalism. He delivers forgiveness of sin and eternal life.

Jesus came to save us from abortion, homosexual lust, socialism, liberalism, and greed of money. He begins by gathering us into His Holy Catholic Church in baptism, giving us faith in HIM rather than the perversions and evil legacies of the world and worldly people. He fills us with His Holy Spirit in confirmation to give us the gifts of HIS wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, courage, piety, and fear of the Lord, so that we are formed to conquer the world. He nourishes us with His Body and Blood to fortify our Spirit to hear the counsel of the Holy Spirit to reject not only for ourselves the evil legacies, but to fight for others who are under evil's influence.

So we pray each day, and worship on Sunday. Renewed in Spirit, we begin the fight for the faith and the souls of all in our country and world. We march, telephone, fax, write, protest, inform all those in power of our beliefs and interests to show them we will resist their impositions, remove them from office and employment if they pervert our nation. We began with the passage of Proposition 8. We continue the fight there, which is far from over.

Please, take the time to sign your pledge card to urge all senators and congressmen to vote against the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) which would enshrine into law the killing of infants in the womb and make it a crime to oppose it, and use your money to promote it through taxes.

Jesus has called you out of the darkness of abortion, lust, greed, socialism, and liberalism into His marvelous light of freedom. Fight for that freedom now, so that you will not be oppressed like the Christians of the first centuries. Evil has acceded to power in this administration. We must pray as if it all depends on God, and work as if it all depends on us.

US Economy Predicted to Collapse Under Socialism

From OneNewsNow
By Pete Chagnon

A U.K. official says his predictions of economic collapse are coming to pass.

The Telegraph is reporting that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Christopher Monckton, the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, agrees. He says the Labor Party's continual borrowing for social programs is to blame.

"Every Labor government there has ever been from 1926 to the present day has always ended in exactly the same way because they essentially try to run a communist financial system," he contends, "and it doesn't work any better here than it worked in the Soviet Union."

He adds that hope does not trump experience. "We have politicians who simply haven't had enough experience in the real world before going into politics to know how things run, to know how many beans make five," Monckton notes.

Monckton says U.K. markets are starting to realize that tax revenue is collapsing, which in turn makes investment in debt undesirable.

"So you've got government revenues collapsing and government expenditures rocketing because not only do they have to pay the cost of unemployment and other very lavish benefits for people who are no longer employed," he points out, "they're also having to pay eye-wateringly large sums to bail out the banks whom overspending and over-regulation drove under."

He believes the U.S. is poised for the same collapse should they hold fast to a doctrine of socialism.

"She is a large, and for the time being, a relatively prosperous nation, and I think that the likelihood I'm afraid is that Obama is going to change that for the worse. He has all the kindliness intentions I have no doubt; the left usually do," he adds. "They would love to have motherhood and apple pie, as would we all. But they are so busy working out how to distribute the apple pie, that they never think about the people who are going to have to roll up their sleeves and bake it. And that's the difficulty with socialism. It is all about redistribution and not about generation of wealth."

Monckton says both the U.K. and the U.S. need to return to Margaret Thatcher's "handbag economics," or living within a person's means.

"What it meant was that you always knew you had enough to buy your baked beans because you were careful with your money," he concludes. "And if the government is careful with the people's money, then the people can prosper."