Archive for July, 2010

Mark Watson

During last year’s deliberation-free ObamaCare debate, Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Florida) had this to say about the Republican opposition to the socialization of medical care. “This is what the Republicans want you to do. If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly!”

Die quickly.

Dr. Donald Berwick, appointed last week by President Obama to be administrator of The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has pretty much adopted the same health plan Grayson assigned to Republicans last year.

Does this mean Obama has selected a Republican to run CMS? Hardly.

Berwick is a strong proponent of rationing and he loves the British health care system.

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Herman Cain

All tax increases are bad, but there are some that are just plain unfair and punitive for no logical reason. The marriage penalty, the small business penalty, the retirement penalty, and the death penalty are in that category.

Everyone except the most clueless “mushrooms” of our society know that tax rates will return to 2000 levels if the Democrat-controlled Congress does nothing to stop them.

Hey, they'll fix everything.

And they have shown a real skill for doing nothing but legislative carnage to this country in the last 18 months. That carnage has included the publicly unpopular Health Care Deform bill, the House-passed Cap and Trade and Tax and Kill (Jobs) bill, and the newly proposed Dodd-Frank Financial Deform bill. The full negative economic impact of those penalties on our economy continues to unfold.

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Gregory D. Lee

In the July 7, 2010 edition of USA Today, Janet Murguia, the president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, wrote an opposing view to the newspaper’s contention that the U.S. government should not sue Arizona over its yet-to-be-enacted law to check the papers of suspected illegal aliens. The newspaper is actually for “comprehensive immigration reform,” but against the suit, so it was like Ms. Murguia was debating herself.

I got your comprehensive reform right here!

Ms. Murguia used the same, old, tired, arguments opponents to the bill have made since Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) signed it. She wrote that the “Justice Department has a duty to block Arizona’s unconstitutional law.” The constitutionality of the law is yet to be determined by any court. Even though she’s a lawyer, I hardly think Mr. Murguia is qualified to render such an opinion when she is the leader of the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy group.

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Joe Bell

The Obama administration has filed a lawsuit against S.B. 1070, Arizona’s new immigration law. After reviewing the July 6 press release from the Department of Justice, in which the legal action is explained, it is clear the administration would have an easier time stapling ice cream to a wall than winning this case.

The DoJ said the law “unconstitutionally interferes with the federal government’s authority to set and enforce immigration policy, explaining that ‘the Constitution … (does) not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local immigration policies…’”

If that’s true why does the administration ignore a Rhode Island policy that mirrors S.B. 1070? Rhode Island State Police have the authority to verify an individual’s immigration status at a traffic stop if they believe it’s justified.

The Arizona law says during any “lawful detention or arrest … a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person…”

Maybe Rhode Island gets a pass because its senators, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, are Democrats and Arizona’s senators, John McCain and John Kyl, are Republicans. Read the rest of this entry »

Andy Hefty

There is no other way to say it. The harsh reality – until someone proves otherwise – is that the New Black Panther Party and their allies are out for revenge.

During the 2008 presidential election, members of NBPP were staged outside a voting precinct in Philadelphia. They were dressed in “paramilitary” outfits, wielding a night stick. They were shouting racially charged language at white voters. Many left the precinct without voting, feeling intimidated. It was captured on video. None of this is in dispute.

Nothing changes

The outgoing Bush Administration’s Department of Justice began an investigation. A summary verdict was handed down because the accused wouldn’t even show up to face justice. Soon after the Obama Administration placed Eric Holder as Attorney General, the charges were quietly dropped, and the thugs were allowed to remain on the streets.

Now that a DOJ whistle-blower has emerged with further information, it is clear what has been happening since the man of Hope and Change took office: racial revenge.

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Bob Maistros

The King has fled!  Long Live the King!

Cleveland Sports has a new King, even though you have never pulled on a uniform in the town.  Your name is Dan Gilbert, and you are the majority owner of the newly reborn Cleveland Cavaliers National Basketball Association franchise.

Long live The King!

Mr. Gilbert, you have richly earned the sobriquet by acting as a true leader does: identifying with and giving voice to the most deeply held emotions and aspirations of your constituency.

In the immediate wake of the cruelest yet of the thousand cuts suffered by Northeast Ohio sports fans and their diaspora – our unspeakably crass and unprecedentedly sadistic abandonment by hometown hero LeBron James – you refused to seek safety and solace in the practiced, conventional PR response:  “We appreciate the many wonderful years So-and-So gave our organization and wish him/her well in her future endeavors.”

Heck, no.

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Bob Franken

Shouldn’t we remember that, by definition, clandestine agents like to skulk in the dark shadows, jealously guarding the secrecy of their creepy creeping? So mightn’t we want to be just a tad suspicious about the clamor of publicity concerning the recent espionage game playing.

No doubt on her way to getting a reality show.

Suddenly, the spy biz has become show biz. About all we haven’t seen of that suburban ring is a program called “The Real Russian Housewives”. And one has to believe that Playboy and/or Hustler have been in touch with the redhead. I see a centerfold coming.

Of course, they’ll need to shoot it in Moscow, or somewhere, because that’s where the ring members are taking up residence, now that they have been deported, uprooted from being embedded in our bedroom communities.

Their charade could hardly be called “Deep Cover”. Given the superficiality of the ‘burbs, “Shallow Cover” seems more appropriate. And these moles were removed by the FBI, not the usual lawn care service.

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Dan Calabrese

The Associated Press is lost. It can’t understand what’s going on in America this year, and its hopeless attempts to come up with an explanation are leading it to indulge some of the year’s biggest losers in their predictable exercises in blame-deflection – mixed in, of course, with the AP’s usual propaganda disguised as news.

All propaganda.

I give you, Congressman (but not for long) Bob Inglis, Republican of South Carolina. Mr. Inglis was destroyed in his primary this year by local prosecutor Trey Gowdy. How badly destroyed? How about by 42 percentage points? That’s pretty destroyed.

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Brett Noel

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Large version for newspaper publication.

Greyscale version for newspaper publication.

Dan Calabrese

I guess it’s time for legions of marijuana smokers to descend upon the state capital in Missouri, calling for legislators to die in a fire and declaring them to be dickheads and the Antichrist. Because more of their chemical-induced fun has just been taken away.

Missouri has now become the fifth state to ban a sort of synthetic marijuana called K2, which looks a lot like incense and which you could heretofore purchase at gas stations and the like.

Your reason for living.

The appeal of K2 is that it mimics the high you get from smoking pot, but doesn’t show up on any drug tests, so you can continue to spend your life in a stupor without your employer noticing – except for the fact that your reports read like lyrics from a Pink Floyd album.

Poor dears. Every time someone points out negative information about marijuana, or even a fake version thereof, they act as though their child has been kidnapped. I write columns on this page about everything from economics to foreign policy and all points in between.

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