Japan: North Korea Planning 4th Of July Missile Launch Towards Hawaii

You know, you could sketch a comedy routine about leftist liberals and the looks on their faces when reality comes up and punches them in the stomach. Such is the case now with Japan reporting that North Korea may attempt a missile launch towards Hawaii next month.

From the UK Daily Mail:

North Korea may launch a long-range ballistic missile towards Hawaii on American Independence Day, according to Japanese intelligence officials. The missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles, would be launched in early July from the Dongchang-ni site on the north-western coast of the secretive country.

Now, that in and of itself is not very earth shattering. But this is:

It was announced today that the U.S. has deployed anti-missile defences around Hawaii in response to the threat.

For the past eight years, and almost every day during last year's presidential campaign, the Dems and other leftists have been screaming that we do not need a missile defense system and that research into such a system is a waste of money. Obama himself pledged to end funding for such a defense system.

Now that reality has come home to roost, the Dems have a different view. If we do not need a missile defense shield, then why would a Democrat administration deploy one to Hawaii in response to a possible launch from DPRK?

It is one thing to run a campaign and debate on academic theory, but, as the Dems are now learning, it is quite a different thing to expereince reality.

North Korea appears to be taking advantage of the weak foreign policies of Barack Obama. We will see more provocative actions like this in the next three-and-a-half years.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Japan Warns That North Korea May Fire Missile At U.S. On Independence Day
Mail Foreign Service
UK Mail Online
June 19th, 2009

Letter To America's "Leadership"

This is long, but read it all the way through. It was written by Janet Contreras of Arizona.

I put the word "Leadership" in quatation marks in the title because I do not really consider those idiots in Washington to be leaders.

The words are truer than most people even know:

I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me? Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation: One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration. Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal. Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it. Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say. Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down! Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there. Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate. Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit? Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves. Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us. Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me. Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now. Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave. I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending. From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons. We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when hewill rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution. Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

If you wish to sign the petition that is this letter, go to the following website:

An Open Letter To Our Nation's Leadership

Obama Administration To Attempt Another Socialist Power Grab

You know, I have a question for all the hard-core Democrats that keep stamping their feet and insisting that Obama is not a socialist: Why does Obama insist on proposing socialist policies which enhance his power over the free market? I have yet to see any Democrat answer that question.

Here is Obama's latest attempt at a socialist power grab according to the Los Angeles Times:

The Obama administration this week will propose the most significant new regulation of the financial industry since the Great Depression, including a new watchdog agency to look out for consumers' interests. Under the plan, expected to be released Wednesday, the government would have new powers to seize key companies -- such as insurance giant American International Group Inc. -- whose failure jeopardizes the financial system. Currently, the government's authority to seize companies is mostly limited to banks.

The government shouldn't have the power to seize anything and this latest attempt by Obama to grab more power for himself over the means of production should serve as the final straw for any true freedom loving American.

But it isn't just Obama. Other Democrats wanted this measure earlier and with more power:

"This is too little, too late," said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), based on his understanding of the plan. "It's going to be way less than it should be."

We have to wake up! From my history lessons, I remember two prominent socialist movements who seized the means of production in their respective countries and they both ended in disaster, one in utter defeat in 1945 and the other finally fell under its own weight in 1991.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Obama To Propose Strict New Regulation Of Financial Industry
Jim Puzzanghera
Los Angeles Times
June 16, 2009

Doctors Boo Obama

Obama's trek towards socialized medicine got off to a rocky start with his speech to the American Medical Association in Chicago last Monday. Part of the reason was that he refused to endorse limiting the payouts of medical malpractice lawsuits.

From Richard Alonso-Zaldivar of the Associated Press:

For all the young president's popularity, the response he got Monday from doctors at an American Medical Association meeting was a sign his road is only going to get rockier as he tries to sell his plan to overhaul the nation's health care system. The boos erupted when Obama told the doctors in Chicago he wouldn't try to help them win their top legislative priority—limits on jury damages in medical malpractice cases.

Why would Obama go to an AMA conference and say something that he knew would draw the ire of the crowd?

Read on:

If Obama announced support for malpractice limits, that would set trial lawyers and unions—major supporters of Democratic candidates—on the attack. Not to mention consumer groups. Every other group in the health care debate has a wish list and a top priority. Insurers don't want competition from the government. Employers don't want to be told they have to offer medical coverage to their workers. Hospitals want to stave off Medicare cuts. Drug companies want to charge what the market will bear. Obama can't give all of them what they want. Instead, he's got to figure what's just enough to keep as many groups as possible on board—without alienating others. It's a fine line for him—and sometimes for them.

Obama and the Democrats can no longer hide the fact that socialized medicine is going to be expensive (about $62,500 per person per year, including illegals) and that people are going to get screwed by the new socialized system.

But, the Dems still say they want to reform the system because the current system is too expensive. Where is that expense coming from?

The article actually hit on it here:

Doctors have special reasons to be wary of the president's plans to overhaul the health care system. Not long ago, doctors' decisions were rarely questioned. Now they are being blamed for a big part of the wasteful spending in the nation's $2.5 trillion health care system. Studies have shown that as much as 30 cents of the U.S. health care dollar may be going for tests and procedures that are of little or no value to patients.

A very large perecentage of the tests and procedures that have "little or no value" to the patient are requested by the doctors to make sure they didn't miss anything that they could be sued for. In other words, it is not the patients or the insurance companies driving doctors to request these test, it is the medical malpractice suits that Obama refuses to address that are the driving force behind them.

Obama also tried to say that he is not endorsing a socialized medical system. Either he is lying or he is incredibly ignorant. There are people from Canada and Great Britain who know very well what a socialized medical system is and they see Obama trying to build exactly that.

Here is something to show that Obama really is pushing government run health care:

Since doctors are the ones responsible for ordering tests and procedures, health care costs cannot be brought under control unless they change their decision-making habits. ... Obama assured the doctors that his plan would provide them with objective information on what treatments work best, with new computerized tools to better manage their patient case loads, and with support for harried solo practitioners to form networks.

And how would those "decision making habits"change? Through government edict.

Although Obama avoided the term "socialized medicine" he was unable to avoid the desciption of it in his own plan.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Analysis: Doctors' Boos Show Obama's Tough Road
Richard Alonso-Zaldivar
Associated Press via Breitbart
June 15, 2009

Essay From A Retired Army Command Sergeant Major

Got this in an email. One thing about this CSM (Command Sergeant Major), he does not waste time getting to the point! This essay has been around for a long while, but the points made are still extremely valid.

(I checked this out on snopes.com but didn't find anything to indicate that this wasn't written by J.D. Pendry, US Army, Retired.)

"The Axis of Idiots" Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the runner-in-chief. Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the USS Cole and the First Trade Center Bombing and our embassy bombings emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately, they grew bolder, until 9/11/2001. John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam. Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You've accused our military of terrorizing women and children in Iraq. You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, the same words you used to describe Vietnam. You're a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did to the Vietnamese. Iraq, like Vietnam , is another war that you were for, before you were against it. John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can't win militarily in Iraq . You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof and said we should redeploy to Okinawa. Okinawa, John? And the Democrats call you their military expert! Are you sure you didn't suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You're a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You're not a Marine, sir. You wouldn't amount to a good pimple on a real Marine's butt. You're a phony and a disgrace. Run away, John. Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot, who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned Southeast Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? Lord help us! See Dick run. Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu Ghraib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraqi's torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news, Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrated another beheading for you. If you truly supported our troops, you'd show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a Communist victory there. You're a bloated, drunken fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, the Hollywood Leftist morons, et al, ad nauseam: every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied, that the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers, that we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers - the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we'll run away again, and all they have to Do is hang on a little longer. It is inevitable that we, the infidels, will have to defeat the Islamic Jihadists. Better to do it now on their turf, than later on ours after they have gained both strength and momentum. American news media, the New York Times particularly: Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one united with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can't strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer. You are all America 's 'AXIS OF IDIOTS.' Your collective stupidity will destroy us. self-serving politics and terrorist-abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don't ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam. If you want our Soldiers home as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies. Yes, I'm questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I'm also questioning why you're stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don't deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war, this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it. Our country has two enemies: Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within. J. D. Pendry - Command Sergeant Major, USA (Retired)

You've got to admit, nothing was served cold in that essay!

J.D. Pendry is the author of The Three Meter Zone: Common Sense Leadership For NCOs available at Amazon.com

Joe Biden: "Everybody Guessed Wrong" About Stimulus Package

So that's what government does? Make guesses only to have those guesses turn out wrong?

Many promises were made by those who supported the stimulus/spendulus/porkulus package, promises that those of us who opposed the measure knew could never be kept. Joe Biden finally admitted as much.

From the Associated Press:

Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that "everyone guessed wrong" on the impact of the economic stimulus, but he defended the administration's spending designed to combat rising joblessness. ... "The bottom line is that jobs are being created that would not have been there before," Biden said. But they are not coming at the pace first estimated. Just 10 days before taking office, Obama's top economic advisers released a report predicting unemployment would remain at 8 percent of below through this year if an economic stimulus plan won congressional approval.

"Jobs are being created that would not have been there before." What Biden left out (deliberately it would seem) is that more jobs that were there before are not there now. In other words, jobs are being lost faster than the stimulus/spendulus/porkulus package could have possibly created them. Why is this so?

Because government cannot create jobs. Government can destroy jobs through excessive taxation and over-regulation or can tranfer jobs from the private sector into the lower-paying government tent, but government cannot create jobs.

Therein lies the fatal flaw of the stimulus/spendulus/porkulus package; it assumes an untruth to be the truth. And that is why Joe Biden is now admitting that "everybody guessed wrong."

His full quote:

"Everyone guessed wrong at the time the estimate was made about what the state of the economy was at the moment this was passed," Biden said.

Not everyone, just those who supported the measure. Those of us who opposed it knew exactly what the outcome would be.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Biden Says 'Everyone Guessed Wrong' On Unemployment Numbers
Associated Press via Fox News
June 14, 2009

Time has an even more scathing analysis:

Biden tells "Meet the Press" that "everyone guessed wrong" on the impact of the stimulus, economy was worse off than anyone thought. Backs away from the estimate that the funds could create or save 3.5 million jobs, instead promises 600,000 by the end of the summer.

You can access that story on-line here:

Stimulus Concession
Mark Halperin
Time
June 14, 2009

Global Warming Not Affecting Chicago?

The central thesis of global warming theory is that as concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ rise then so does global temperature. Unfortunately for Al Gore and the AGW alarmist crowd, global temperatures have remained steady or have been declining since 2003 despite the fact that CO₂ concentrations have been rising (thanks to the industrial efforts of China and India whom the leftists want to exempt from any type of carbon restrictions).

The city of Chicago is feeling the effects of this period of Global Cooling:

The cloudy, chilly and rainy open to June here has been the talk of the town. So far this June is running more than 12 degrees cooler than last year, and the clouds, rain and chilly lake winds have been persistent. The average temperature at O'Hare International Airport through Friday has been only 59.5 degrees: nearly 7 degrees below normal and the coldest since records there began 50 years ago.

If the Global Warming alarmists were correct, temperatures should have gone up, not down. That would be true for the temperature in the Great Lakes as well as in the atmosphere.

Global Warming theory has once again failed it own test.

You can access the complete entry on-line here:

So Far, June's Chill Is One For The Records
Steve Kahn
WGN Weather Center
June 12, 2009

Political Humor: Divorce Agreement

I got this in an email from my sister today:

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al: We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way. Here is a model separation agreement: Our two groups can equitably divide up this country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes. We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them). We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood. You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security. We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill. We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volkswagon you can find. We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World. We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag. Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you which one of us will need whose help in 15 years. Sincerely, John J. Wall Law Student and an American P.S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand & Jane Fonda with you.

The sad part is that if the Dems succeed in inflicting socialism on the United States in such a way that it become irreverisble through the electoral process, what you just read above may actually happen and the U.S. will split into to distinctly separate nations with one nation embracing the disaster known as socialism and the other going back to the roots of our Founding Fathers. You can already see the beginnings of it from the states that are declaring their sovereignty from the Federal government.

Sarah Palin: 14, Democrat Smear Campaigners: 0

Sounds like a football score, doesn't it? Well, Gov. Sarah Palin (R) of Alaska has shut out the Democrats who began fabricating bogus charges against her almost immediately after she was announced as John McCain's running mate in last year's Presidential election. If you need any more evidence of how ineffective the Dems are, you need look no further than their bumbling efforts at trying to smear her.

From Amanda Carpenter of the Washington Times:

Mrs. Palin, who became a target of such complaints after being named Sen. John McCain's running mate, is 14-for-14 in fighting off the complaints. She's been cleared of 13 charges by the independent State Personnel Board and of another complaint by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). After the latest complaint in Alaska was dismissed last week, Mrs. Palin's team said that having to fend off the pile of accusations was wasting state money. "This complaint cost the governor personally, and the state of Alaska, thousands of dollars to address," said Thomas Van Flein, the governor's attorney. "It is regrettable that the ethics process has been diverted for partisan purposes by some, but it is also commendable that the board remains focused on the law."

But the Democrats felt so threatened by Gov. Palin that they continued the complaints long after the polls closed:

Even after the election was over, the stream of complaints continued. Alaska residents challenged Mrs. Palin's trips out of state to attend a campaign event for Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Georgia Republican, and to speak at a pro-life breakfast in Indiana, as well as for conducting television interviews in her state office. The latest complaint to be decided was filed by Anchorage resident Linda Kellen Biegel, who took issue with Mrs. Palin for wearing to a public function a jacket made by a company that sponsored the governor's husband, Todd, a snow machine racer. Ms. Biegel asked the personnel board to determine whether Mrs. Palin was abusing her position to serve her personal and financial interests. Mrs. Palin called the complaint "asinine political grandstanding," and the board's independent investigator said there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

That says alot about Gov. Palin's strength of character. Not only in her being able to show all 14 complaints as being patently false, but also for the fact that the Dems feel so vulnerable to her politically that they need to attack her like this.

She most certainly is a threat to the leftist hate-mongers in America, but throwing false charges and bogus accusations in her direction was probably the dumbest thing the Dems could have done.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Palin Fends Off Ethics Charges
Amanda Carpenter
Washington Times
June 8, 2009

Another Look At Socialized Medicine From A Canadian Doctor

I find it interesting that the Dems are all about looking to other nations when it comes to interpreting American law, but when it comes to socialized medicine, they want to ignore the experiences of other nations.

The Wall Street Journal has a column by Canadian-born physician Dr. David Gratzer concerning socialized medicine in his home country.

Here is what he has to say:

Born and raised in Canada, I once believed that government health care is compassionate and equitable. It is neither. My views changed in medical school. Yes, everyone in Canada is covered by a "single payer" -- the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system.

Not just in Canada, but in Great Britain as well and any other country that practices socialized medicine. And the waiting is extremely detrimental to patients who need care as soon as possible:

The problems were brought home when a relative had difficulty walking. He was in chronic pain. His doctor suggested a referral to a neurologist; an MRI would need to be done, then possibly a referral to another specialist. The wait would have stretched to roughly a year. If surgery was needed, the wait would be months more. Not wanting to stay confined to his house, he had the surgery done in the U.S., at the Mayo Clinic, and paid for it himself. Such stories are common. For example, Sylvia de Vries, an Ontario woman, had a 40-pound fluid-filled tumor removed from her abdomen by an American surgeon in 2006. Her Michigan doctor estimated that she was within weeks of dying, but she was still on a wait list for a Canadian specialist. Indeed, Canada's provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery -- described by the Globe and Mail newspaper as "broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain."

Why would we want to move to a system that is so inefficient and so low-quality? The failures of socialized medicine are myriad:

Only half of ER patients are treated in a timely manner by national and international standards, according to a government study. The physician shortage is so severe that some towns hold lotteries, with the winners gaining access to the local doc. Overall, according to a study published in Lancet Oncology last year, five-year cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. than those in Canada. Based on data from the Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health (done by Statistics Canada and the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics), Americans have greater access to preventive screening tests and have higher treatment rates for chronic illnesses. No wonder: To limit the growth in health spending, governments restrict the supply of health care by rationing it through waiting. The same survey data show, as June and Paul O'Neill note in a paper published in 2007 in the Forum for Health Economics & Policy, that the poor under socialized medicine seem to be less healthy relative to the nonpoor than their American counterparts.

Rationing. That's what socialized medicine comes down to. The government will decide who gets what treatment and when. That is the main reason why cancer survival rates are lower in places like Canada and Great Britain. Delayed detection and delayed treatment allows cancer to spread and grow in a patient until, in many cases, the treatment comes too late and the government then decrees that the patient is now a "hopeless diagnosis" and should be left to die.

But, it seems as though the people of Canada have learned their lesson. Dr. Gratzer asks a very profound question while presenting some good evidence that privatized medicine is the way to go. Make sure you read the following excerpt all the way through:

Ironically, as the U.S. is on the verge of rushing toward government health care, Canada is reforming its system in the opposite direction. In 2005, Canada's supreme court struck down key laws in Quebec that established a government monopoly of health services. Claude Castonguay, who headed the Quebec government commission that recommended the creation of its public health-care system in the 1960s, also has second thoughts. Last year, after completing another review, he declared the system in "crisis" and suggested a massive expansion of private services -- even advocating that public hospitals rent facilities to physicians in off-hours. And the medical establishment? Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon, grew increasingly frustrated by government cutbacks that reduced his access to an operating room and increased the number of patients on his hospital waiting list. He built a private hospital in Vancouver in the 1990s. Last year, he completed a term as the president of the Canadian Medical Association and was succeeded by a Quebec radiologist who owns several private clinics. In Canada, private-sector health care is growing. Dr. Day estimates that 50,000 people are seen at private clinics every year in British Columbia. According to the New York Times, a private clinic opens at a rate of about one a week across the country. Public-private partnerships, once a taboo topic, are embraced by provincial governments. In the United Kingdom, where socialized medicine was established after World War II through the National Health Service, the present Labour government has introduced a choice in surgeries by allowing patients to choose among facilities, often including private ones. Even in Sweden, the government has turned over services to the private sector. Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries that have experienced it for so long are backing away?

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Canada's ObamaCare Precedent
Dr. David Gratzer
Wall Street Journal
June 9, 2009