This Is An Order

Is Obama planning to rule by executive order? Ulsterman thinks so. And he has some evidence.

John Podesta of the George Soros funded Center for American Progress is now urging President Obama to side step Congressional approval and simply utilize executive authority to move forward with sweeping reforms Podesta deems necessary for the good of the American people. These reforms include the following:

-Clean energy

-Education

-Health Care

-National Security

The suggested executive authority reforms are detailed in a just released document by the Center for American Progress titled, The Power of the President: Recommendations to Advance Progressive Change.

Well that is just for openers. They have a few more things up their sleeves. Like ending free speech.

Democrats keep OPENLY talking about doing all sorts of things that are so damn blatantly un-American.

Taking FOX News, a business, off the air?

How is that the purview of the government?

Here’s my gut feeling: the next five to ten years are going to be ROUGH. The Left is pushing so hard now for a reason…and that is because this seems to be their last chance ever.

The welfare states of Europe have failed. We’re broke. There is no money to keep paying entitlement programs and supporting the unions. The Democrat Party is on the verge of collapse. They know it. So they are going to push as much madness as possible while they still can.

We just need to resist them, hold them at bay, and then stake the Left’s corpse when it falls.

It is going to be TOUGH and no fun, but we need to work hard together to take the Left down…for all of your kids.

Yeah. I'm in this fight all the way.

Here is Rockefeller suggesting that the FCC take FOX and MSNBC off the air.



And isn't it cute that he attacks the left and the right? Swell. And the reason for doing this? Cable costs too much. Right. I guess the only way to make free speech cheaper is to have less of it.

Funny thing is that the FCC is part of the executive branch. Hmmmmmmmmm. I think I see a pattern here.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Free Speech

It seems a lot of folks are upset by the recent Supreme Court decision on corporate free speech. Let me reprise a discussion at Talk Polywell on some aspects of health care that have a bearing on why corporate free speech is important. The discussion was about life extension and how cooling the body in trauma situations helps prevent damage until treatment can be obtained. Currently such methods only gain you an hour or an hour and a half. It is often enough.

kurt9

The most common long-duration medical procedure performed in the U.S. is bypass surgery. Traditionally, the patient is put on a heart-lung machine while the surgery is performed. It is believed that the brain damage that results from bypass surgery (bypass surgery almost always reduces patient IQ by around 15 points - this is real brain damage) is due to the heart-lung machine. I do not believe this. However, most of the medical community does and as such, they are very eager to utilize a technology to cool the patient to near zero C such as to eliminate the need for the heart-lung machine.

I expect all hospitals and clinics that do bypass surgery to utilize this technology within 5 years. Of course, it is much better to chelate with EDTA than to under go bypass surgery. However, the FDA and AMA do not recognize EDTA chelation as effective. The reason is economics. Bypass surgery cost $100k, which is paid by insurance. EDTA chelation typically runs around $3k, which is usually not paid by insurance. Since EDTA chelation actually works in 75% of the cases, the medical industry would loose a considerable income stream if EDTA chelation become popular. Since bypass surgery is one of the most common surgeries performed in the U.S., this presents a significant percentage of the income revenue for the MD's, clinics, and hospitals. They are loath to loose this income stream. Don't be surprised. The medical field and its players are just as greedy, corrupt, and evil as any other private industry or government-funded milieu (e.g. NASA, Tokamak fusion, climate research, etc.).

So I asked:

A lot of this sort of thing was sorted in the electrical industry with UL which was designed to lower insurance losses.

If only we had a medical UL instead of the FDA.

So my question is: why aren't insurance companies pumping for lower cost therapies?

And I got this reply:

kurt9

I think the recent supreme court ruling on free speech will help to end FDA tyranny.

One would think that the insurance companies would be interested in lower cost therapies. One would also think that an effective anti-aging therapy would be considered a form of preventive medicine. Why the industry is slow to respond to this kind of thinking is not clear to me.

Aubrey de Grey thinks its due to cultural inertia, which we calls the "pro-aging" trance. I think its due to medical bureaucracy and that the industry itself does not favor such an approach because it will lead to radical downsizing. Nothing will down size the medical industry more than an effective cure for aging. Curing aging will do to the medical industry what the mp3 downloads are doing to the music industry.

I think the founders had it right. The answer to bad speech is more speech. With the internet multiplying the venues available for people to speak their minds (you are reading me - an unknown with no access to big media aren't you?) the risks from corporate speech are much less than they were when big media was a one way street.

Update: 1319z 25 Jan 2010

Before you run off to your nearest chelation therapy provider see what Jeff has to say in the comments at Classical Values.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Court Ruling Whittles Down McCain's Pet

And I'm not talking about Senator John McCain's dogs and cats. I'm referring to the McCain-Feingold Campaign finance reform law. And who is doing the whittling? A Democrat supporting organization called Emily's List.

Brought in 2005, the suit alleged that FEC rules limiting how much so-called 527 outside groups could raise and spend violated EMILY’s List’s First Amendment rights and also exceeded the FEC’s authority. A judge in Washington, D.C.’s federal district court ruled in favor of the FEC last year, and EMILY’s List appealed, winning a sweeping ruling last month from a three-judge panel of federal appeals court. The panel not only struck down narrow restrictions dictating what types of money could be used for ads that referred to federal candidates versus more generic organizing activities, but also called into question contribution limits on independent political groups as a whole -- a ruling that went far beyond what EMILY's List sought in the case.

The courts seem to have struck another blow for free political speech. In time the law may be whittled down to nothing more than reporting requirements. Good.

Is Your DVD Illegal?

Live Leak reported on about the DVD confiscation raids.

Friday, May 9, 2008 Actor and comic Tommy Chong says he is linked to FBI raids Wednesday in Newport and Clermont County's Union Township. Chong tells Local 12 federal agents were after thousands of DVD copies of a documentary he recently made.

Tommy Chong, 30 years ago, appeared in the movie that made him famous, "Up In Smoke."

But today, Tommy Chong is 69-years-old and selling a different More..movie, called "The United States of America Vs. Tommy Chong."

The documentary details Chong's 2003 federal prosecution and guilty plea for distributing drug paraphernalia. He was selling pot pipes online. Chong served nine months in prison.

Wednesday night, Chong told Local 12 he's the focus of an FBI raid of two, local offices.

"They apparently confiscated 10,000 copies of the movie, "a/k/a Tommy Chong," said Chong.

Evidently the man is a threat to the welfare of the Government's War On Drugs. Now what are you supposed to do when you find out about something the Government doesn't want you to see? Go look of course.

You can watch one trailer here.

Or another trailer here.

You can get a/k/a Tommy Chong here.

You might also find American Drug War of interest.

H/T Commenter Phelps from the post LEAPing To Repeal

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Obama's Attack On Free Speech

Read about it at Classical Values and see the NRA ad Obama is trying to silence.

Obama and the Democrats have declared war on America. Turn them all out.

The End Of Free Speech In Missouri

Two public officials in Missouri are threatening to bring criminal charges against any one who speaks falsely against Obama. You know it should be illegal to blaspheme against The One. In a police state.

St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce and St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch are threatening to bring libel charges against those who speak out falsely against Barack Obama.

KMOV aired a story last night, that stated that St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, both Obama supporters, are threatening to bring criminal libel charges against anyone who levels what turns out to be false criticisms of their chosen candidate for President.

St. Louis C of CC Blog has more on the Obama Truth Squads.

I have been saying for some time on various blog comments that a coup is under way. I'm going to say it out loud. If one Democrat is left in office after this election the American people will deserve what they get. The don't just need to be defeated. They need to be crushed.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Whose Side Is He On?

There is a video going around about Senator ∅'s interference with American foreign policy in Iraq. So I thought I'd look into the matter.

It seems like Senator ∅ has taken a crash course in order to gain foreign policy expertise. One minor problem. The course is crashing.

The Obama campaign spent more than five hours on Monday attempting to figure out the best refutation of the explosive New York Post report that quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying that Barack Obama during his July visit to Baghdad demanded that Iraq not negotiate with the Bush Administration on the withdrawal of American troops. Instead, he asked that they delay such negotiations until after the presidential handover at the end of January.

The three problems, according to campaign sources: The report was true, there were at least three other people in the room with Obama and Zebari to confirm the conversation, and there was concern that there were enough aggressive reporters based in Baghdad with the sources to confirm the conversation that to deny the comments would create a bigger problem.

Instead, Obama's national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi told reporters that Obama told the Iraqis that they should not rush through what she termed a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of U.S. forces until after President Bush left office. In other words, the Iraqis should not negotiate an American troop withdrawal.

According to a Senate staffer working for Sen. Joseph Biden, Biden himself got involved in the shaping of the statement. "The whole reason he's on the ticket is the foreign policy insight," explained the staffer.

What a howler. Joe Biden a foreign policy expert.

And Candidate ∅ calling for troop withdrawals in America and trying to delay them in Iraq.

How about that New York Post article?

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."

"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says.

Well what do you know. The Iraqis would rather be running their own country instead of having a Junior Senator from Illinois running it. It is almost like they favor self government over foreign rule. I thought the lefties were saying that self government in the Middle East was impossible. I think the evidence points to the contrary. It appears it is rather robust and in fact so robust that they have rolled Senator ∅.

Speaking of lefties. I appears that the Demthuglies are out in force on this issue.

The real news I see in the Obama statement is that there may be an encouraging evolution in his position on Iraq: The "rebuttal" shows that the senator no longer shares his party leadership's belief that the United States has lost the war in Iraq.

He now talks of "the prospect of lasting success," perhaps hoping that his own administration would inherit the kudos. And he makes no mention of his running mate Joe Biden's pet project for carving Iraq into three separate states. He has even abandoned his earlier claim that toppling Saddam Hussein was "illegal" and admits that the US-led coalition's presence in Iraq has a legal framework in the shape of the UN mandate.

In his statement on my Post article, Obama no longer talks of "withdrawal" but of "redeployment" and "drawdown" - which is exactly what is happening in Iraq now.

While I am encouraged by the senator's evolution, I must also appeal to him to issue a "cease and desist" plea to the battalions of his sympathizers - who have been threatening me with death and worse in the days since my article appeared.

And that is not the only place the Demthuglies have been out in force. It seems they still don't like Milt Rosenberg.

Rosenberg's producer, Zack Christenson, e-mailed National Review's Corner with this message:

Tonight, we have David Freddoso on our show discussing his new book. As we speak, thousands of Obama supporters are flooding our phone lines and e-mail boxes, just as they did for our show with Stanley Kurtz. An Obama Action Wire was sent out tonight to intimidate us into taking Freddoso off the air.

I caught the last twenty minutes of Extension 720. I'll download the podcast as soon as it is available.

The first thing I heard when I tuned in was a female caller who identified herself as a journalism student. She started reciting obvious Obama-nut talking points, when Rosenberg--a very calm man by the way--interrupted and asked, "Did you receive that e-mail and are you quoting from it?"

She responded that she had, but was adding her own insight. She then went on to tell the longtime host of the program that she supports Obama because he "simultaneously represents integrity and class."

The Obama campaign has nothing to do with integrity and class. The first attempted disruption of Rosenberg's program could have been written off the work of a rogue staffer. But this time, uh-uh, no way, not a chance. The Obama campaign...no, make that Obama himself has to answer for their intrusion on free discourse.

And just in case you were wondering about the book being discussed. Here it is with a link to Amazon so you can check it out. The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate

In any case I seem to recall that this kind of political behavior was well known in history. So well known that it had a name. Storm something I think.

H/T Just One Minute.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Obama Threatens TV Stations

Here is a letter Obama's Campaign [pdf] sent to TV Stations in an attempt to block this ad.

Watch the video and send a copy to all your friends and enemies. Stop the suppression of Free Speech.

H/T Larry Johnson

Mr. Warman Claims Bad Reputation

Richard Warman claims he has a bad reputation because of a possibly erroneous story published by The National Post newspaper of Canada.

REGINA -- Linking one blog to another and allowing comments on her blog postings has landed one prominent Saskatchewan blogger in a legal quandary.

Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals is one of several named as defendants in a statement of claim filed by Richard Warman with the Ontario Superior Court on April 7. Others include Ezra Levant, The National Post and one of its journalists, Jonathon Kay.

In the statement of claim, Warman alleges he was defamed on a blog known as freedominion.ca. He alleges those comments were linked to or commented upon on other blogs, including McMillan's and The National Post's.

You know, I didn't take any steps to determine if this story is true. So Mr. Richard Warman, if Richard Warman is your real name, sue me.

I expect by the time this goes viral on the 'net Mr. Richard Warman will have no reputation left worth defending.

And just to raise my Richard Warman score a bit I'm going to add a few more. Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman, Richard Warman.

With any luck Mr. Richard Warman, if Richard Warman is actually your name, will be able to find this without trouble.

H/T

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

Front Page Magazine has a self parody up in which they refer to American Fascism Awareness Day. I was taken in by the parody. So I wrote Ron Paul - Communist Sympathizer? The joke was on me. Why was I taken in? It seemed like so much I have read on lefty and Islamic fascist sites from the usual cast of characters. So I guess it is time to look at the real deal.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week coming to a campus near you starting October 22nd.

Beginning on October 22, student groups across the nation will hold Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week on their campuses. These protest weeks will feature a series of events designed to bring a message to these academic communities that challenges most of what students are taught about the so-called War on Terror both in the classroom and on the quad.

The Week’s events will include speeches about Islamo-Fascism by prominent figures, including former Senator Rick Santorum (Penn State, Temple and UPenn), Sean Hannity (Columbia), Ann Coulter (Tulane and USC), Dennis Prager (UC Santa Barbara), Robert Spencer (Brown, Dartmouth, University of Rhode Island, and DePaul), Daniel Pipes (Northeastern and UPenn), David Horowitz (Columbia, Emory, Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin), Michael Ledeen (Maryland), Nonie Darwish (UCLA and Berkeley), Wafa Sultan (Stanford) and radio talk show hosts Melanie Morgan (San Francisco State), Michael Medved (University of Washington), Martha Zoeller (Georgia Tech), Alan Nathan (George Mason), Mark Larson (to be named) and many others.

A major theme of the Week will be the oppression of women in Islam. The photo accompanying this article, which shows a teenage girl buried before being stoned to death for alleged sexual offenses, will serve as the poster for the protest Week. The stoning took place in Iran.

They will be holding teach-ins on the subject. I was in Bezerkely, California for Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement. Back then the anti-free speech people were on the right. Now the PC codes support the left. The worm has turned with echoes of the 60s. I like it.

The plight of Muslim women will be featured at “teach-in” panels and also at sit-ins in Women’s Studies Departments, designed to protest the absence of courses that focus on Islamic gynophobia. The silence of Women’s Studies departments in the face of this oppression is a national outrage. College students are offered the opportunity to study the “oppression” of women in Boston and Beverly Hills in hundreds of Women’s Studies courses across America. But there is not a single course we are aware of that addresses the real oppression of women in Teheran and Riyadh. In Saudi Arabia, to take one horrendous example, Saudi police recently shot to death schoolgirls who were fleeing a burning building without their veils. Better that they should be dead than seen. A pamphlet on the subject of women’s oppression in Islam, written by Robert Spencer and Phyllis Chesler will be distributed on campuses (and posted on Frontpage next week), along with a petition protesting the campus blackout of this issue.

You would think that the left which championed Women's Rights in America would be championing them in the most patriarchal societies in the world. You would be wrong. They have made common cause with those opposed to what they supposedly stand for. It seems like the only thing they have in common is hatred for America.

There seems to be a backlash against Angry Studies and PC on campus. This should shake up the professoriate. Good. Nothing like a bit of cognitive dissonance on the other side to give one a feeling of schadenfreude.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

When Only The Truth Is Allowed...

Some of the conspiracists over at Volokh were discussing the Bong Hits for Jesus" case that the Supreme Court decided. Basically they said that if you intentionally skip school and show up at a public event with a "Bong Hits for Jesus" sign a 10 day suspension for the sign is not unreasonable because school kids were expected to be at the public event as part of a field trip.

Trouble is people have no idea how bad drugs are.

Calling attention to them by public ridicule of the Drug War will not be tolerated in America.

In Canada telling the truth about drugs will get you thrown out of school.

Do you see what these drugs are doing? By their very nature they destroy free speech. All is not lost. I have a fix. We declare all discussion of the Drug War and why people take drugs illegal except for professionals licensed or authorized by the state. Fortunately the state has access to enforcers for just such problems.

When only the truth is allowed everyone will be able to speak freely.

Keep that thought in mind when you listen to music by some morning maniacs.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Sandmonkey On Jailed Egyptian Blogger

My favorite Egyptian blogger The Sandmonkey has been blogging about jailed blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman.

CAIRO -- An Egyptian court's imprisonment of a blogger last week is another official blow to free speech, according to fellow bloggers and human-rights activists.

"It affects the only space of free speech left in Egypt, which is the Internet and the blogs, and it could possibly hinder what you can write in the future," said a prominent Egyptian who posts in Web logs, or blogs, anonymously under the name Sandmonkey.

An Alexandria court convicted Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, 22, of insulting Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, sentencing him Thursday to four years in prison.

Suleiman, a former student of Al-Azhar University, the Middle East's most respected Sunni religious institution, attacked the university, Muslims and the Egyptian government in his blog.

That is not the worst. In true Soviet style his own father has denounced him and called for his death.

His parents denounced him, demanding that he recant or be executed, one Egyptian newspaper reported.

The court's sentence has shocked the growing Egyptian blogosphere. Its more than 3,000 writers, from all levels of Egyptian society, increasingly have exposed police torture and other government excesses through Web articles and videos. Some post in English, although most -- like Suleiman -- write in Arabic.

"These charges are indefinable -- you can't define insulting the president, you can't define the space for religion," said Sandmonkey. "There are no fixed parameters for that."

"What really upsets me is ... that he has no sympathy coming from the Egyptian street, mainly for what he said about Islam and religion," said another blogger who posts under the name Big Pharaoh. "This is really scary. It could start with Abdel Kareem and it could go to other areas. In the future, maybe anyone who writes about politics will get arrested."

Big Pharaoh comments on the sentence - scroll down.

Here are a few Sandmonkey posts on the subject.
Abdel Karim family disowns him
Abdel Karim gets sentenced
My PJM piece on Abdel Karim is up
Proxy Blogging
Leave Egypt, to where exactly?
Follow Up

H/T Israpundit