Global Warming, Al Gore, Nobel Peace Prize

I was just wondering. With the global warming scandal growing by the day and it looking more and more like the science was rigged from the start, will Al Gore be giving back his Nobel Peace Prize? What will be the long term effects on the prestige of the award once they realize they gave it to a fraud? This is just the beginning. I have to wonder why our president still plans on attending the opening of the climate change conference in Copenhagen. I hate to say it, no I don't, I told you so.

Healthcare in the Senate

Senator Mary Landrieu' s (D-LA) vote was vital to get to the debate stage of the legislative process for the Senator Harry Reid health-care bill moving through the Senate. So vital that two pages were added to the bill that would steer $200 - $250 MILLION dollars in Medicaid funds to her home state of Louisiana in fiscal year 2011. As a result, tonight the senate will vote on moving the bill to debate and it will pass. We should not underestimate the resolve of the Democratic party to pass their health-care initiative before the mid-term elections in 2010. They are going to use every trick in the book and they will promise anybody anything to get it done. The reason they want it now. When the mid-term elections are complete, the Democrats won't have the numbers they have now and their chance at passing a health-care bill will be dead. There is even a chance that Harry Reid himself will be on the outside looking in after 2010. If it costs $200M to get the bill to debate, you can imagine what concessions will be made should be get to the actual vote on the bill itself. One of the things being espoused in this bill is it will actually reduce the federal budget. What you're not being told is how it achieves that end which is not guaranteed. To achieve this savings and not actually increase the federal deficit, Congress will have to reduce Medicare/Medicaid and other federal expenditures by $420B. It's important to note that no congress has ever done this before. Additionally, they will have to pass an excise tax on that will be levied on the best health insurance policies. You read that right. Those who have the very best health insurance policies in this country will actually have to pay a tax on having health insurance. We should note here that even if Congress does pass this excise tax, it is something the President Obama has not endorsed or favored in the past. America is being told they are going to have better health-care and a reduced federal deficit. That's just not going to happen and anyone who believes it will is either not paying attention or is just plain stupid.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson

The Rev. Jesse Jackson recently said, "You can't vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man." In this day and age where so many are trying so hard to get past the racism of the past, why would anybody listen to one of the most racist people in this country? To Mr. Jackson I say, you can't say the things you say and call yourself a reverend.

Terrorist Trial in Federal Court

The Obama administration has decided that they they will try the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed or KSM, in Federal Court in New York. Side note here - I am guessing a change of venue will be the first request by the defense team. In any case, this is unprecedented territory. By what stretch of the imagination does this administration believe that this terrorist is due the rights afforded to citizens and residents of this country? What evidence won't be admitted because we failed to "Mirandize" KSM prior to his interrogation? What other evidence won't be admitted based on the already acknowledged intense interrogation techniques that were employed? In our court system the accused has the right to face their accusers. Will we have to trot out a long line of what will then be formerly undercover CIA operatives to afford KSM this "right"? The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that trials such as these can and should be conducted by a military tribunal and there are several examples in our history such as when we captured eight Germans during who were landed on our shores by a U-Boat. In the legal arena "precedence" is everything. By trying KSM in our federal court system, we are setting the precedence that terrorists are criminals and not enemy combatants. We are conceding them rights to which they are not entitled. Our illustrious Attorney General, Eric Holder, believes he can win this case without any of the evidence obtained through interrogation of KSM. Let's hope he is right. Many a guilty person has gone free in our legal system because of a technical slip up. I am praying we don't make any mistakes on this one. Does it bother anybody besides me that the taxpayers of this great country are going to have to spend millions of dollars not in the prosecution of KSM but in funding his legal defense team?

The U.S Bows

Short and sweet today. The question is whether or not the President of the United States should bow in the presence of another world leader. The answer is undeniably no. The office of the President of the United States is bigger than the person who holds the office. There is no higher symbol of what we as a nation stand for in all the world. As such, it denigrates an entire nation and her people when our leader chooses to bow before another suggesting inferiority or deferment. I might be able to bless this off as a mistake by an man who lacks the experience to actually hold this office except it's not the first time he has done it. I guarantee you every military man in our armed forces winces at this sight. To show even the slightest weakness is the largest of mistakes.

Death for a Killer

About two hours from now the state of Virginia will execute by lethal injection John Allen Muhammad the "Beltway Sniper", who terrorized the DC area in the fall of 2002 - hard to believe 7 years have passed. In all he and his accomplice killed ten random people. As you can tell by my previous writings, I am not a supporter of the death penalty. I believe life is God's alone to create and end. That said, if ever a person deserved to be executed, John Allen Muhammad does. I won't shed a tear for him today but I will say a prayer for the families and friends of his victims who will live with the punishment he dolled out for the remainder of their lives. I can't support this execution but if it brings some amount of closure to those families at least some good will have come from it.

A little extra. Did you know that the United States and Japan are the only two developed nations in the world that impose the death penalty?

Don't Jump to Conclusions

Interesting comments by our President. He has asked us not to jump to any conclusions regarding the massacre that occurred at Ft. Hood. In general that's good advice. Let's look at this particular incident a little closer. Six months ago the FBI was watching this guy for some web postings. He has previously said that a suicide bomber is much like the soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades in arms. I don't get the comparison. One is trying to save lives and the other is trying to kill innocent bystanders. Anyway, according to soldiers who were present while he was shooting the place and people up he yelled "Allah Akbar" which means "God is great" and has become the battle cry Muslim extremists. Now let's turn back the clocks a few months to when a Harvard professor was being arrested, and as it turned out rightly so. At that point in time, the President himself commented publicly that the Cambridge police acted "stupid". He also went on to link this particular incident to racial issues indicating he believed the arrest was racially motivated. Never mind that he didn't have all the facts; something the President admitted to later. I not saying the Muslim who shot up Ft. Hood is a terrorist or an extremist. He's a nut job no doubt. What I am saying is, I find it odd that our President would ask us not to jump to conclusions when that's what he does. If you still don't believe that President Obama's actions and affiliations prior to his election tell the truth about the man, you're either blind or stupid and that's not jumping to conclusions.