What's Moral, greedy 911 survivors or Dead Heroes ?

“I think the vast differences in compensation between victims of the September 11 casualty and those who die serving our country in Uniform are profound.
No one is really talking about it either, because you just don’t criticize anything having to do with September 11. Well, I can’t let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the entitlement mentality of this country.
If you lost a family member in the September 11 attack, you’re going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4~7 million.

If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable.

Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry. And there’s a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18. When the child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt.

Keep in mind that some of the people who are getting an average of $1.185 million up to $4.7 million are complaining that it’s not enough. Their deaths were tragic, but for most, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Soldiers put themselves in harms way FOR ALL OF US, and they and their families know the dangers. (Actually, soldiers are put in harms way by politicians and commanding officers.)

We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims from the Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11 families are getting. In addition to that, some of the families of those bombed in the embassies are now asking for compensation as well.

You see where this is going, don’t you? Folks, this is part and parcel of over 50 years of entitlement politics in this country. It’s just really sad. Every time a pay raise comes up for the military, they usually receive next to nothing of a raise. Now the green machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families have to survive on food stamps and live in low-rent housing. Make sense?

However, our own US Congress voted themselves a raise. Many of you don’t know that they only have to be in Congress one time to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 per month. And most are now equal to being millionaires plus. They do not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn’t have to pay into the system. If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7, they may receive a pension of $1,000 per month, and the very people who placed them in harm’s way receives a pension of $15,000 per month.

I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now fighting.

“When do we finally do something about this?” If this doesn’t seem fair to you, it is time to forward this to as many people as you can. ” “

Reportedly By Rush Limbaugh:

[Via http://readthisor.wordpress.com]

Guess how many taxes are in this bill??!!

As a citizen concerned about our nation’s health care system, I thought you’d like to know that the health care bill being rammed through the House contains 10 years worth of tax increases to pay for only 6 years worth of benefits.   These taxes total $500 billion dollars over 10 years.  Many of these taxes will affect Americans earning less than $200,000 a year, despite the President’s promise to avoid such taxes.
Here are just a few of the taxes contained in the bill:

• $750 penalty per worker charged to employers who fail to provide government-sanctioned health insurance
• Tax on brand name drugs—totaling $2.3 billion
• Increased penalty for early withdrawal from your HSA (from 10% to 20%)
• Tax on medical devices—totaling $19.2 billion
• 10% tax on indoor tanning services

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU:  Some of these taxes may affect you directly.  Others, like the employer mandate, will cost our economy desperately needed jobs.  Others will have ripple effects through the system that will raise prices for everyone.    THE DOCTOR’S DIAGNOSIS:  America needs common sense health reform, not job-killing taxes.  Future Congresses will be under pressure to raise taxes even further to pay for future years of an expanded government-administered health care system.
As this process unfolds, I will continue to work to represent you, bring common-sense to this debate, expose abuses of power and do all I can to prevent bad policy from becoming law.   

[Via http://randysright.wordpress.com]

A Quickie: Pope Plays Dumb

Pope John Paul II Pope is ’shocked’ to hear of abuse case in Munich while he was archbishop
Shocked, eh Pope? Give him an Oscar!

“His former archdiocese of Munich has acknowledged that, while he was in charge, it dealt with a suspected paedophile priest by transferring him to a different parish where he went on to commit sex offences against children. The revelation has drawn attention to Benedict’s handling of abuse claims, both when archbishop and later as a prefect of the Vatican office dealing with such crimes, a position he held until becoming pope in 2005.

I bet he is as shocked as Obama and Biden and Hillary on the new Israeli settlements!
Another three Oscars, please!!!!!

[Via http://fkpolitics.wordpress.com]

The Most Dangerous Weapon

I haven’t yet read the books by Tom Brokaw about the Greatest Generation, or the Baby Boomers.  I have enough of a worldview to know that who they are and what they did.  In their own way, they were courageous people who had to stand up against those people who had done wrong.  And all the times that I heard people talking about the Civil Rights Movement or the people who fought the Axis Powers, I always thought, damn, man.  Ours is not a generation that has done any of that.  We don’t do these things.  We don’t have Nazis to fight, or civil rights to save.

Certainly, gay marriage is a civil right, as is health care, and the extremists who are responsible for me having to take my shoes off every time I go to the airport need to be stopped, but these aren’t threats to the world.  Realistically, these “terrorists,” they’re sad little men that simply want attention and have no means of coping with this world we live in today.  They have no frame of reference.

I have followed very carefully, and much to my distraction, the rantings and lunatic ravings of Glenn Beck.  At first I was fascinated by this man, this guy that, in spite of facts, truth and evidence to the contrary, would just up and invent falsehoods and spouted them on TV.  No one did anything about it.  After I was fascinated, I was terrified that he was going to be the undoing of this great experiment.  The Constitution and the Framers never ever anticipated a world like this: internet, television, news and opinion 24 hours a day, phones with mail and a universe of knowledge at your fingertips.  No one, even in the history of science-fiction, ever thought of today.

And then I wasn’t scared of him anymore.  I’m not amused by him, certainly (He’s a dangerous person, strictly because he has too many people believing him.  It’s like Bizarro Jesus.  I honestly expect one of these days that he’s going to call the President a Pharisee and call for him to be stoned), but I’m not afraid of him.  He’s a tragic figure, a sad little boy, who just wants his mommy to hold him.  He’s nothing more than a frightened child.  Once you realize that, you realize that he’s completely harmless.  An uneducated buffoon who reads, but does not understand, a man with no real understanding of the world, who just likes to hear himself talk.  A man who fears the government, and has no real reason to, apart from the fact that he should face up to the fact that he let the government get in this deep.

And I got to thinking about the rest of them, these Tea Partiers, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, people who aren’t so much sad, but very very vocal.  People who rail against the government, for no real reason.  they don’t understand costs, or debts or anything else, really.  They just know we’re in a bad place and can’t figure out how we got there.  They’re scared and they have every right to be scared.

Then there’s the banks.  The hippies and post-hippies who preached individualism, tune in turn on drop out and explode.  They opened their minds and found untold treasures beyond their wildest imaginings.  Kings among men who currently posess more money than there is any sort of precious metal or gemstone to back up.

And they’re all over 40.

You might say that they worked hard to get there.  Or, you might say that after World War II, they discovered that we had completely and utterly untouched resources for the taking.  No one had bombed our cities.  No one had destroyed out infrastructure.  The War was 3000 miles away in both directions and we were perfectly fine.  We were able to create a solid economy here, because we still had one to begin with.

That, of course, combined with the mentality of the individual, “just be yourself” generation turned into “Me, Me, Me.”  Which turned into the 80s.  And now, here we are.

But then I still think of my generation, and how we haven’t a battle to fight, that we’re given this world to live in and we might as well live in it.  We are a lost generation, buried under mountains of debt because it’s what our parents did.  It’s how you make it.  Follow the American Dream.

And then, apart from a wicked few, it occurred to me:  my generation might not be the Greatest or the Boomers, or Y or X or ZABFR at all.

When Haiti was hit by that earthquake, I found out that a friend of mine had started a charity to help with education.  It’s still running and she was hoping to get down to the devastated country to help in any way she could.  The caterers for my wedding are organic, local, free-range, fair trade and every other descriptor of good.  My fiancee’s best friend works for AmeriCorps.  I’m working to save a classic movie theatre for a town that desperately needs it.  This article. Pittsburgh elected a man in his twenties to be the mayor, and Pittsburgh is now one of the great cities of America again.  And it’s because of these things that I know what my generation is called now.

We’re the Sesame Street Generation.

We grew up believing that every last person, right down the the grouchiest grumps, are worth saving and befriending.  We learned unconditional love.  We learned that it’s not about me.  It’s about all of us, near and far.  We learned that you don’t eat a whole plate of cookies (at least not all the time).  We learned that science is cool and that the numbers, ah-ah-ahhhh, the numbers are miraculous.  We are Ernie and Bert, We are Grover.  We are Gordon and Maria and Mr. Hooper and Bob and Oscar and Snuffy and Big Bird and we are the generation that believes, absolutely and without question, that together we can make something greater than before.  We do not stagnate, because to stagnate is to die.  We move forward and we pull everyone with us, no matter how weak, or how grumpy.  We are full of wonder and cookies and the world is our oyster.

Our war is not fought with guns or bombs or poison gas.  Ours was already won with the most dangerous weapon of all:

A puppet.

[Via http://clockworkthoughts.wordpress.com]

O'Biden: 'Oh Boss, Israel Won't Play. They've Seen This Rodeo Before'.

Vice Emperor Biden’s sidewalk act isn’t playing well in places like Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa, or Jerusalem. The administration’s choice for ‘putting those Jews in their place’ is no intellectual giant in the first place, as he has proven on innumerable occasions both at home and abroad. In this he’s much like his boss, the would-be once and future king. Too bad the President hasn’t figured out that the American people don’t cotton much to kings, dictators or wannabes. Much to ‘Jumpin’ Joe Biden’s discomfiture, the Israelis have this one down pat also.

Joe Biden and President Shimon Peres

Joe is so dense that he went to Israel planning on tapping in to the autumn of Israeli discontent, in the form of the completely discredited and now powerless liberals, who have been the loudest proponents of an appeasement policy towards the very ‘Palestinian’ terrorists who would gleefully see to the annihilation of every man, woman and child in the State of Israel.

These same ‘appeaseniks’ are the ones who would trade away much of Israel’s strategic security in fanciful ‘land-for-peace’ deals. Shamefully, many of these bogus ’security’ deals have been fostered by a United States desperate to show some sort of moral high ground at the expense of the Israeli people through several administrations. This points to a sadly deficient State Department which has been proven to be not only anti-American, but anti-semitic as well.

Speaking of anti-semitic, we have ‘good old Joe’ scolding the Israelis for not buying into Barak Hussein Obama’s latest attempt to collar Israel and have them cower in front of His Magnificence. The Israelis announced no intention to reverse the decision to build 1600 settlers’ homes on the occupied West Bank, on land annexed to the holy city. Ramat Shlomo is part of the area that Israel considers to be part of the holy city and capital of the State.

Biden was depending on selling the Israelis the idea that his boss, Barack Obama, was committed to defending Israel from the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. A claim which recent cowardly reversals by the administration have proven to be patently untrue.
Sorry, Joe. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

[Via http://skipmaclure.wordpress.com]

Senate Climate Bill

Here we go again. The three little pigs are “crafting legislation“. That’s right Lindsay, Lieberman and Lurch (John Kerry) are hard at it but it’s just so difficult to hide the decline that they are not sure if they can get it done by Easter. They ruined Christmas and now they’re shooting for Easter. HEY! ATHEISTS! HOW ABOUT SCREWING UP RAMADAN!

Just like the failed health care fiasco the libs are “indicating” that they are willing to settle for something less so the three stooges (My deepest apologies to the Howard brothers and Mr. Fine) are toiling two, sometimes three-hour a day to get this done by Easter so they can have another all night vote-a-thon on Easter morning.

They don’t seem to have the votes to pass this thing so Chairman Zero summoned some errant voters to be water-boarded at a meeting on Tuesday but there were some no shows. (Wonder why.) Anyway, the Sierra Club and The League of Conservation Voters have attacked Blanche Lincoln, the Senate Agriculture Chairwoman, for backing off on climate change. I guess she likes her job. I tempted to send the old bag a ten-dollar donation just for pissing them off. Until next time, screw environmentalists.

[Via http://libertyview.wordpress.com]

Obama And The Rule Of Law

The New York Times has a good article, in which several pragmatic reasons for retaining the use of what used to be the most common, normal thing in democracies with the rule of law until ten years ago – namely, the criminal justice system – for trying terrorism suspects are cited. Of course, this is as much a principal matter as a pragmatic one, but in the age of Obama, principles don’t really count for much.

Obama’s view on trying terrorism suspects – either putting them away forever, or giving them a fake trial in a military commissions system - is now almost indistinguishable from that of the most conservative of Republicans. This is not why he was elected, and if he continues on this line, I believe he deserves a challenger in the next primaries, and then I hope he loses.

Of course, if he turns around from what he is now expected to do and does give the 9/11 suspects, who are bound to get convicted anyway, a normal trial, then I take everything back. In the meantime, read the following article. This is not something that only “left wing” “fringe” ”civil libertarians” (should) worry about, as people who want to support Obama no matter what he does might contend. This is really about the fabric of democracy, about the most basic principles you can have in a state to which the rule of law applies – that you give people who are suspected of something a trial. If Obama does not have it in him to retain this principle, then he was elected for nothing.

Leading Congressional Republicans are arguing that getting tough on terrorism means trying all foreign terrorism suspects before military commissions. But national security officials who served in the Bush administration say that taking away the criminal justice option would weaken the government’s hand.

Former counterterrorism officials are warning that the political debate has lost touch with the pragmatic advantages of keeping both the civilian and military systems available.

“This rush to military commissions is based on premises that are not true,” said John B. Bellinger III, a top legal adviser to the National Security Council and the State Department under President George W. Bush. “I think it is neither appropriate nor necessary to limit terrorism cases to either military commissions alone or federal trials alone.”

Among the problems with a commissions-only policy, they say, are that some nations will not extradite terrorism suspects or provide evidence to the United States except for civilian trials; federal courts offer a greater variety of charges for use in pressuring a defendant to cooperate; military commission rules do not authorize a judge to accept a guilty plea from a defendant in a capital case; and the military system is legally untested, so any guilty verdict is vulnerable to being overturned on appeal.

(…)

The Republican line on military commissions has hardened after an outcry over the administration’s decision to send to a civilian court the cases of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of planning the Sept. 11 attacks, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound jet on Christmas.

Conservatives, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, have sought to attack Mr. Obama as soft on terrorism and unwilling to treat Al Qaeda as a wartime enemy rather than a criminal target.

But Mr. Obama has undertaken several hard-line policies in national security matters — including sending more troops to Afghanistan, increasing missile strikes on militants from Predator drones in Pakistan, continuing to imprison some detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, without trials and using military commissions to prosecute some terrorism suspects. Those policies, which have outraged some civil libertarians, have left the administration’s willingness to handle other terrorism cases in civilian courts as a rare remaining opportunity to try to draw a sharp political line between the Obama approach and that of Republicans.

(…)

National security officials from both the Bush and Obama administrations say such a ban would create major obstacles to swift punishment of terrorism suspects. For instance, many European allies, including Britain, have been willing to extradite terrorism suspects only if they faced regular criminal trials, not military commissions. In some cases, extradition treaties require criminal trials.

(…)

Current and former officials who want to preserve the option of civilian trials note that prosecutors routinely use a broad array of charges against terrorism defendants or their friends and families: obstruction of justice, false statements to investigators, passport and immigration fraud, firearms and arms trafficking offenses, and various computer and finance-related offenses.

[Via http://lsdimension.wordpress.com]