About Me

Name: The Proud...
Email: proudexdem@yahoo.com
Loading...

Create Your Own Blog Find Other Townhall Blogs

Comments

Blog Roll

 
[Click to edit me]

Support the troops

 
Here's a great idea, and a concrete way to show your support to the brave men and women of our military.
 
A man named Ken Whatmore had this idea when he saw this Anheuser-Busch commercial where people in an airport stop and spontaneously applaud some troops in uniform as they are passing through.  He thought why not do that for real?  His kids were excited about it so he decided to go to his local airport and do just that on December 22 (that's today).  He emailed a couple friends who emailed some of their friends and it appears to have gotten around the Internet a bit, so there are going to be people showing up at airports scattered around the country today to applaud any troops in uniform they see.  I've heard Mr. Whatmore call into a couple national talkradio shows promoting the idea.  It's pretty loose in terms of organization, I couldn't really find anything online about it, but how much organizing do you need to just go do this and isn't it a good idea even if your the only person who shows up?  

It's sounds like a good time to me and who knows, maybe it'll grow into a December 22 tradition in future years.
 
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Harry Reid gets his 60 votes on health care reform


Even in the face of strong public opposition, the announcement Saturday morning by Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska that he is ready to vote for cloture on health care reform appears to give the Democrats the 60 votes they need to proceed to a vote on the bill.  The version Senator Nelson agreed to is what is called a "Manager's Amendment" and it is yet another revision of the bill that was just released earlier Saturday.  As with every other version of health care reform to this point, the public and open process President Obama promised (as a candidate he said health care reform would be done "live on C-SPAN") was no where to be seen.   It appears that Mr. Nelson's vote was purchased with a lot of financial goodies for his home state in this new bill.
 
While health care reform still faces many challenges before it becomes law, it must be said a significant hurdle has been cleared.  Senator Nelson also made it clear in his statement Saturday that once a compromise is worked out with the far more liberal House version, he would only support it if it was materially similar to the Senate version.  This means while the most pernicious part of the proposal, the public option, is likely dead, a very dangerous piece of legislation lives on for now.
 
The sad thing at this point is that the Democrats have continued on course to ram though a very liberal, very top-heavy, bureaucratic attempt to solve health care when there are many good reform ideas out there that enjoy wide bi-partisan support in the country.  These are solutions that would reduce the cost of health care and reduce the cost of and increase access to health insurance.  Ideas that would put patients and their doctors at the center of health care decisions.  It is impossible for one to see how the Democratic sponsored bills currently being considered in Congress will accomplish any of these objectives unless you believe that the principles of economics can be suspended by passing a law.
 
If the Democrat's plan passes they are going to be facing a slaughter at the polls next November.  But it seems they have an opportunity here to expand the only institution they trust or care about, the federal government, and they are not going to miss this opportunity.  They know the people are on to just how statist their goals are and that this chance won't come again for many, many years so they're just going to go full steam ahead on what is essentially a political suicide mission.
 
 
None of these are happy numbers for Democrats going forward, but as I said above, I don't think they care.
 
What can you do?  The answer is much the same as what i have written in earlier posts.  CALL your representative and your Senators.  Email if you can't call.  Let them know how you feel and promise to contribute to their opponents in their next reelection run if they vote for ObamaCare.  And then DO SO.  Even small contributions help.  As I have written before, the best summary of how to do this is this one from a post at Hugh Hewitt's website.  Check it out.  It includes a link that will allow you to call the DC offices of your elected representatives toll free.  Contacting Senators like Lincoln, Nelson, and Bayh is still a good idea to let them know you will support their next opponent if they stay on board the ObamaCare express.
 
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

That's the Chicago way, Senator Nelson


There's a moment in Brian De Palma's 1987 version of "The Untouchables" where Sean Connery, in the role of Jimmy Malone, says to Kevin Costner's Eliot Ness, "You want to get Capone?  Here's how you get him:  He pulls a knife, you pull a gun.  He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.  That's the Chicago way."
 
I'm guessing that President Obama is a big fan of this scene.  It's how he and Rahm Emanuel and the rest of their bunch from Chicago are running our government.
 
In one of the more outrageous political strong arm jobs in recent memory, the President has, according to the Weekly Standard, threatened Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska with the closure of Offutt Air force base in his home state if he doesn't vote for the health care bill.  Offut is the base of US Strategic Command, which operates our nuclear deterrent, and is therefore a critical element of our national security.
 
So much for any hope that Barack Obama could ever, ever seriously claim that he puts the safety of the American people first in his priorities as President.  
 
UPDATE:  In the interest of fairness both Senator Nelson's office and the White House deny this story, but it also appears there will be an investigation.
 
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

The totalitarianism of climate change


It's long been accepted wisdom that when the Soviet Union collapsed and Socialism laid in a heap of rubble, more or less completely discredited, that many of it's adherents did not give up on their beloved collectivist philosophy.  I mean why would they?  These people had been operating in an environment of almost total denial of the facts for many years, so why would they let a little thing like the disintegration of the world's biggest Communist prison camp...err...country, discourage them? 
 
No, they just needed somewhere else to hang out. Some place new, where they could easily blend in.  They've actually been doing this for awhile now.  
 
Many of these folks found just the place in the environmental movement.  It was perfect, with all that desire for top down control and centralized international power.  The old socialists liked it so much in their new ideological home they even coined a name for themselves: Watermelons.  You know, green on the outside, red on the inside!  Like I said, it was perfect.
 
The upcoming Copenhagen Carbon-fest is the kind of international navel-gazing session our lefty friends love.  And their little pow-wow would be amusing to watch if it weren't so potentially dangerous to our freedom, our safety and our economic health.  The upcoming conference has inspired some very cogent and instructional op/ed writing about the Watermelons and what their goals are.  I offer the three best I've read so far:
 
 
 
 
 
As always if you wish to comment please email us using the link on the right side of the page, just below the words, "About Me".

Well-reasoned, insightful comments, questions and challenges will be posted. Thank you.
 
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Health care reform deadlocked...for now


It's seems at this point the health care bill is stalled in the Senate.  No wonder, since the poll numbers show it's support in a steady decline for weeks now.  As this snapshot of three polls from last Thursday's Politico shows, support for the Senate bill is between 34 and 42 percent, with opposition between 50 and 61.  Some Senators are now rightly getting nervous about what their vote could mean for their jobs.   Before we get into some specifics, I urge you to stay active and engaged.  Hugh Hewitt has an excellent list of five things you can do to stay in the fight to defeat this job-killing and liberty-destroying disaster in this post on his blog.  This is no time to let up.  Go to the link and do all you can, it'll only cost you a little time and a little money to do all five things listed there.
 
 
Key paragraph from the actuary's report:  "In still more bad news, the report starkly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan included in the legislation could "face a significant risk of failure" because it would attract people in poor health, leading to higher and higher premiums, and eventually triggering an 'insurance death spiral.'
 
Very sobering. 
 
So at this point the bill will massively increase taxes in a recession, effectively hitting the brakes on any recovery, while making the problems it's supposed to solve worse.  As Hugh put it while discussing the report on his radio show last Friday: "if there was sanity in the world, this would kill ObamaCare right here."  He's so right about that, but these are Democrats were talking about, so I have no expectation that sanity, let alone wisdom or logic, will play any significant role in their decisions.  They will continue looking for that 60th vote so they can have something, anything, for their President to sign.
 
As always, if you wish to comment please email us using the link on the right side of the page, just below the words, "About Me".

Well-reasoned, insightful comments, questions and challenges will be posted. Thank you.
 
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Update on Rifqa Bary, the Ohio teenager who fled her family in the wake of alleged death threat from her father

 
We first reported on Miss Bary last August.  She is a 17-year-old from Ohio who ran away from home, reportedly because her father, who is a Muslim, threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity.  She fled to Florida, to the home of a pastor she met online.  The latest news is some good but mostly bad. 
 
Rifqa was returned to Ohio, but not to her family.  One report says she's in a foster home, another that she is in a juvenile detention facilityInexplicably she has not been allowed visits from friends that she has requested, so she is effectively in solidarity confinement.  Odd considering she is not accused of a crime. 
 
Some Christian groups have started a campaign to send Rifqa Christmas cards.  In an even more bizarre twist, her family, along with notorious pro-Jihadist group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have gone to court to try and stop those cards from being delivered.  It seems to me that this display of religious bigotry lends substantial weight to Rifqa's claims about her family, who have maintained in public that they love her and don't care if she converted or not.  If they really felt that way I doubt they'd be mixed up with CAIR, an organization with links to the Hamas terror group.
 
If you wish to send Rifqa Bary a Christmas card (I've added her to our list) the address is:
 
Rifqa Bary
c/o Angela Lloyd
255C Drinko Hall
55 West 12th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210

Also, since CAIR's motion to the court singles out those of us who desire to send her a card as a threat to her, we can respond by sending a petition to the court against their motion.  I doubt CAIR had that angle figured out in advance.  The information on how to do that is here.  It's easy and it'll only cost you $0.44.
 
Lastly, Rifqa Bary is scheduled for a dependency hearing on December 22 in Columbus.  The Atlas Shrugs blog, who have carried most of the water on this story, is sponsoring a rally on her behalf there that day.  That info is here.  Attend if you can.
 
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Strong and effective medicine for the economy, from someone who actually understands it

 
Former Gov. Mitt Romney is one of the most successful businessmen to enter politics in my lifetime.  In this very insightful column from USA Today, the Governor offers his wise council to President Obama on polices most likely to assist the economy in recovering and especially to stimulate job creation.  All this from someone who has actually created jobs.

I don't expect our experience-challenged President to pay any attention, but it was good of Mr. Romney to try.
 
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

The doctor is in


Tom Coburn is a practicing physician and a Senator from Oklahoma.  He is on the short list of Senators who have made the most sense during the health care debate. 
 
Doc Coburn took to the Senate floor last week Monday to break down the problems with the bill they were beginning to consider. 
 
It was a masterful performance.  The video of is here.  Worth a look.
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

The Ditherer-in-Chief finally makes up his mind on Afghanistan


Finally. 
 
After almost three months of navel-gazing, President Obama has decided to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.  It took him almost 3 months to decide that General  McChrystal only needed 75% of the 40,000 troops that he requested.  75% of what he said was the minimum required for success in that theater of the Global War On Terror.  This is just one more example of Mr. Obama's world-class naivete we can add to our rapidly expanding list.
 
You know, his critics used to infer or outright accuse President George W. Bush of not being that smart.  I still find this take quite funny, since Mr. Bush has an MBA from Harvard Business School AND was a qualified jet fighter pilot while virtually none of his detractors has ever done anything in their lives remotely as difficult as these two accomplishments.  But their criticisms missed the larger point.  There are other character traits that are more important to have in a President than brain power, because you can always hire smart people to advise you.  Judgment, character, wisdom and decisiveness are all higher up the list of traits I want in a Chief Executive.  In all four of these areas, Barack Obama pales next to George W. Bush.  In fact if you take character off the list, he pales compared to Bill Clinton.
 
After September 11, 2001, President Bush was always mindful of the fact that the terrorists who murdered 3000 of our countrymen, and desired to kill many more, watched very carefully how he made decisions just as much as what those decisions were, so Mr. Bush always showed a resolute and decisive approach.  Of course, Mr. Obama would reject a similarly decisive approach at this time as too Bush-like, as is standard operating procedure for everyone in his administration.
 
The Afghanistan decision is the most vivid example yet of what we most feared about Mr. Obama when he was running for President: That he was an ideologue who lacked executive experience, an ivory-tower, academic elitist who was well versed in theory, but without the first clue about what works in the real world, or how to make decisions.
 
Another example of President Obama's judgement-gap is that he did exactly what President Bush knew not to do: Set an specific timeline for withdrawal.  I don't know how many times our side of this argument will have to have to say it, but time lines and deadlines are VERY dangerous.  You should commit to withdrawing only when it can be done responsibly, and that means when the mission is accomplished.  If the Taliban knows we're going to leave in eighteen months, what's to keep them from just lying low until then?  One hopes this comment in his speech was just rhetoric (read: a lie) to placate the wacky elements of the President's anti-war left, and that he'll really leave our guys there until the Taliban is destroyed.  That is my hope, not my expectation.
 
With his barely concealed hostility toward the military, Barack Obama has a lot of nerve even showing up at a place like West Point.  This is especially true in light of the witch hunt the administration has launched against three navy SEALS that recently captured a highly sought-after terrorist ringleader in Iraq.  Accounts of the charges brought against the SEALS are here and here.  There are those in the military community that think these charges are payback for the SEALS who shot and killed three Somali pirates during a standoff at sea last April.  The pirates were shot after the Captain of the USS Bainbridge interpreted his Rules of Engagement, which were issued by the White House, let's say, liberally. 
 
Looks like we can add pettiness to the list of Obama "leadership" traits.
 
Mr. President, in the future, when it comes to the Service Academies and the Military, send someone else next time.  You don't like them and they know it.  What they are being asked to do is hard enough without having to serve as props for another one of your silly speeches.
 
 
  
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Health care debate underway in the Senate and how you can be involved


As debate has begun on the Senate version of health care reform, I have been remiss in passing on this estimate of the cost of the House version that was published a couple weeks ago by the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  The short version is PelosiCare will increase the deficient by at least $289 Billion.  The link above is from The Hill, and includes a link to the full report.  It's more readable than you may think.  Check it out.
 
I also forgot to pass along my take on the fact that the American Medical Association endorsed the House bill:  Big whop.  I learned a startling statistic the other day:  Only 17% of doctors in the US belongs to the AMA.  That is down from 70% in the 1960's.  The AMA is hurtling towards irrelevancy.
 
Opposition to the Democrats plans is quite solid, as we see in this poll from Rasmussen.   And this one from Gallup.  None of this means we can stop our efforts to oppose this mess.
  
You can make a huge difference in a couple hours.  Call or email your Senators and the ones that may vote against the bill, as listed in this column by Hugh Hewitt.  Give $50 to ReverseTheVote.orgIf you can't afford that, $10 or $20 still helps.  Give more if you can.   And lastly, contact 5 friends who you think also oppose this liberty-destroying mess and urge them to do the same, and to contact 5 of their friends and so on.
 
Now's the time folks.  If the people who tell opinion pollsters that they don't want this legislation get active, we can kill it right here.
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Climate-Gate rising

 
I was already preparing a global warming post last week when this story broke.  I debated putting up something right away on the Climate-Gate scandal, but ultimately decided it was better left to marinate over the long weekend.
 
What I was working my way through last week was watching this YouTube video featuring Lord Christopher Monckton.  Lord Monckton is one of the world's leading critics of the man-made global warming "theory."  In the video he spends about an hour and a half breaking down the science to show that MMGW is a lot of "unscientific, freedom-destroying nonsense."  His quote.  You may have heard of Lord Monckton because he's the guy who keeps trying to get Al Gore to come out of his big ole house and debate him.  So far the former vice-president and current gutless liar has refused.  Come on out Mr. Gore!  If you really believe your own rhetoric, it's time to be a man and stand up for your point of view.  The video is terrific.  Highly recommend.
 
Being a somewhat long video, I was looking at it in a couple of sittings when word came that some industrious computer hackers had busted into the email and database of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (aka CRU) in England
 
These individuals  then posted the 61 megabytes of purloined files onto the Internet for all to see.  This is the database upon which much of the so-called "science" on Man-made global warming has been done. 
 
Now I would normally be a bit queasy about commenting on information gained in such a way, but no one on either side of the debate is denying that what went on the net is the genuine article.   So here goes:
 
They cooked the books.  How appropriate that this old saying includes the word cooked.
 
I have felt for a long time that the people, from Al Gore to Robert Hansen to all the rest, who have been screaming about global warming were fanatics who were way carried away with their fear of what they thought was a genuine threat. 
 
The truth is far, far worse.  They're a pack of liars.  These guys would make Enron's accountants proud.  They have manipulated data and conspired to avoid being peer-reviewed by those who point out flaws in their theories, or they use that old favorite trick of the political left: they simply attack the credibility of said critics.
 
But sadly for the alarmists, were on to them now.  These files, as one pundit said, could be to global warming what the Pentagon Papers were to Vietnam.  We'll see.
 
There has been a lot of analysis written of these emails and this data since they surfaced.  Some of the best has been from the brilliant legal mind of John Hinderaker at Powerline.  The most recent of his posts as of this writing is here.  It includes links to his other posts on the subject.
 
A key quote:  "In every scientific field other than global warming, a scientific hypothesis that generates false predictions is considered disproved. When it comes to global warming, however, there is no such thing as falsification. Which is the ultimate evidence that the alarmist scientists are engaged in a political enterprise, not a scientific one." (emphasis added)
 
Our friends at PajamasMedia weigh in here.  A bunch of good posts, read as many as you can.  They also include this link to the raw data, along with an invitation to read through them and help with the ongoing analysis effort.  Help them out if you have the time and especially if you have expertise in this area. 

And keep watching this story, as it has big implications for the statists who are currently running the Democratic Party.  They'd like to use "climate change," along with several other made-up "crises," as an excuse for massive expansion of government power.  Frustrating them on this issue would go along way toward stopping their liberty-destroying agenda.

As always, if you wish to comment please email us using the link on the right side of the page, just below the words, "About Me".

Well-reasoned, insightful comments and challenges will be posted. Thank you.
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

A death in the family


As some of you know, part of the Proud Ex-Democrat family is our good friend Denise.  Early on in the process of writing this blog, Denise offered her services as editor.  I think she did it out of pity, being horrified by the extent to which I am grammar challenged.  Her efforts have made this site far more readable than I could've ever made it without her.
 
Denise's mom passed away on Thanksgiving day after being in declining health for some time.  Our thoughts and prayers are with her and we trust yours are too.
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Go Joe!

 
We love Joe Lieberman.  The most principled man in the US Senate, in our opinion, gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal this week where he announced his opposition to the public option.  He added he would not vote for cloture on final passage of a bill that contained such an option.  When pressed on various versions of the public option, like a trigger or letting states opt out, The independent from Connecticut repeated his no and said "I'm going to be stubborn on this."
 
This is excellent progress, as with all 40 Republicans and Lieberman we can stop a vote on final passage. 
 
But also don't think for a moment I'm saying we can take our foot off the gas right here.  There is still a lot that can go wrong with any bill that may emerge from the Senate, so keep calling those Senators and keep giving to those organizations as I outlined here to whatever degree you can.
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

An hour with Newt


OK, it's really an hour and 8 minutes.
 
Last week former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared on the C-SPAN classroom series.  He talked about the 1994 elections, the recent election in the 23rd district in New York, and and other current issues.  Great summary of where the country and the Republicans are at right now in the midst of the era of Obama and looking forward to the 2010 mid-terms from one of the truly brilliant thinkers around today.
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Health care reform reaches the Senate floor for debate


Harry Reid and the Democrats needed 60 votes last night to bring healthcare reform to the floor for debate and amendment, and they got exactly that, 60.
 
It is an unfortunate setback for those of us who have argued vigorously for real reform that is centered on patients and health and not this dishonest government power grab. 
 
If this annoys you and you have not called or emailed the short list of persuadable Senators, do so today, right now.   Politely indicate your opposition to a big government takeover and your support for real reform. 
 
Also if you haven't made a contribution yet, or even if you have, consider sending a few bucks to ReverseTheVote.org, a fund of the Republican Party, who are collecting money to deploy against vulnerable Democrats in the House who voted for PelosiCare, and also TalkPAC.com, and independent fund set up by talkradio, who are doing the same in the Senate.  I have contributed to both.
 
Another venue for your contribution dollar is Docs4PatientCare.org, a grass roots organization of doctors working against the Democrat's phony proposals and promoting the kind of real change the system needs.  They could use, and deserve, your support.
 
As other strategies emerge on how to make your voice heard I will post them here.
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive
« Previous1234567Next »