The Cloward/Piven Strategy of Economic Recovery

Using borrowed money for a band-aid bailout of the economy should seem backwards to most people. However, it likely is a planned strategy to promote radical change. Those naively believing that President Obama is simply rewarding his far-left base, and will then move to the political center, must wise up.

The assumption that Obama will need the nation to prosper in order to protect the 2010 mid-term election incorrectly assumes that he esteems free market capitalism. He does not. Rather than win through superior ideas and policies, the Democrat plan for success in the mid-term elections is to win by destroying political opposition.

Obama adheres to the Saul Alinksy Rules for Radicals method of politics, which teaches the dark art of destroying political adversaries. However, that text reveals only one front in the radical left's war against America. The Cloward/Piven Strategy is another method employed by the radical Left to create and manage crisis. This strategy explains Rahm Emanuel's ominous statement, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

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Glenn Beck Examines 1960s Radicals Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven

ObamaCare’s Cost Could Top $6 Trillion

Congressional Democrats are using several budget gimmicks to disguise the cost of their health care overhaul, claiming the House and Senate bills would cost only (!) about $1 trillion over 10 years. Now that critics have begun to correct for those budget gimmicks, supporters of ObamaCare are firing back.

One gimmick makes the new entitlement spending appear smaller by not opening the spigot until late in the official 10-year budget window (2010–2019). Correcting for that gimmick in the Senate version, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) estimates, “When all this new spending occurs” — i.e., from 2014 through 2023 — “this bill will cost $2.5 trillion over that ten-year period.”

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Obama Violates Osama Oath

Why has the President stopped talking about defeating bin Laden and al Qaeda?

On December 18, 2007, then presidential candidate Barack Obama leveled the first of dozens of heavy criticisms against President George W. Bush. In a speech in Des Moines, Obama blasted President Bush for taking his “eye off the ball in Afghanistan." He continued: "It’s time to…increase our military, political, and economic commitment to Afghanistan. That’s what…I’ll do as president.”

This was Barack Obama’s first “eye off the ball” speech. It was the beginning of a barrage of campaign speeches accusing the Bush administration of “taking our eye off of Osama bin Laden” (Denver, 1/30/08).

On July 15, 2008 in Washington, D.C., then Senator Obama vowed to deploy “the full force of American power to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all of the terrorists responsible for 9/11." In fact, Barack Obama specifically used the name of Osama bin Laden at least 40 times in speeches during his Presidential campaign while definitively pledging to focus all necessary resources against bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban in the countries where they live and operate.

Today, it has become completely obvious that President Obama has taken his eye off the very ball that he defined as candidate Obama. As President, he has virtually stopped talking about defeating Osama bin Laden.

In the year since elected, during the dozens of speeches and press conferences he has given as president and in dramatic contrast with his own persistent and repetitive warnings about “taking our eye off of Osama bin Laden,” Obama has uttered the name bin Laden only four times. It is even more significant that not once since his election has Obama repeated his oath to “finish the fight against bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorists.”

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Obama Issues Special Hajj Message To World's Muslims

He really does consider himself "President of the World". He's the first president to honor the annual Muslim Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), and he does it the day before Thanksgiving!

But he didn't issue a public message of Thanksgiving in honor of the day Americans were about to celebrate. He also refused to honor our nation's traditional "National Day Of Prayer", which, if he wants to choose religious observances to commemorate, is far more American and worthy of notice by an American president.

By the way, does anyone else consider it a conflict of interest for the Saudi King to be paying for Obama's grandmother's Hajj, and welcoming her as his honored guest? I wonder how the media would have reacted if the Saudi's had garnered such a favor for the Bush family?

Climate Change: This Is The Worst Scientific Scandal Of Our Generation

A week after my colleague James Delingpole, on his Telegraph blog, coined the term "Climategate" to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.

The reason why even the Guardian's George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

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Global Warmists Caught Red-Handed

I assume all readers of this column are aware of polite society's theory of Global Warming. According to the theory, anthropogenic (once known as "man-made") gases waft into the atmosphere, causing worldwide temperatures to soar and our imminent doom.

Yet, how many of you are familiar with my theory of Kultursmog? According to it, our culture is polluted by political ideas, prejudices, and false pieties advocated by the soi-disant liberals or progressives or People of Conscience or whatever the hell they are calling themselves nowadays. They keep changing their designations, and every designation they opt for becomes an honorific, at least for them. Liberal, indeed -- they actually favor government coercion and regimentation. Progressive, indeed -- they are for a political system that was recognized as archaic late in the last century when socialism was found to be obsolete even by the Indians and the Chinese.

At any rate, my theory of Kultursmog has just been buttressed by some 3,000 emails of cold probative evidence that Kultursmog is real. That the emails come from the Global Warmists is most gratifying. I have always suspected that they are leading contributors to the smog. That is to say, they are leading polluters of our culture. The Environmental Protection Agency should take note.

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Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren involved in unwinding “Climategate” scandal

Covering their tracks: Climate change data dumped

ClimateGate Totally Ignored By TV News Outlets Except Fox

I'm not even going to pretend I'm surprised.  True journalism has been dead for a long time...

The Obama administration has another reason to hate Fox: it appears to be the only national television news outlet in America interested in the growing ClimateGate scandal.

Despite last Friday morning's bombshell that hacked e-mail messages from a British university suggested a conspiracy by some of the world's leading global warming alarmists -- many with direct ties to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- to manipulate temperature data, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC through Monday evening have completely ignored the subject.

LexisNexis searches indicate that NPR appears to also be part of this news boycott.

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The Truth of Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!  I appreciate your patience during the lag in my blog.  I was away for the holiday and my family's computer wouldn't let me post.  Thanksgiving may be over, but I found this article very insightful, and I'd like to share it anyway:

Our nation has dramatically changed since the inception of this special day.

I asked my students if they knew the original intent of the day we now call Thanksgiving. To my consternation, these were a few of those responses:

"Isn't it to celebrate the final time we showed unity with the Indians before we massacred them?"

"I think some important document might've been signed that day, right?"

"Does it symbolize how the Native Americans taught white people how to cook?"

These are some of your nation's college students...participants in American high academia. Our country may be in serious trouble.

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Solving Whose Problem?

It’s stupid to believe that politicians are trying to solve our problems, instead of theirs.

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.

Many of the things the government does that may seem stupid are not stupid at all, from the standpoint of the elected officials or bureaucrats who do these things.

The current economic downturn that has cost millions of people their jobs began with successive administrations of both parties pushing banks and other lenders to make mortgage loans to people whose incomes, credit history, and inability or unwillingness to make a substantial down payment on a house made them bad risks.

Was that stupid? Not at all. The money that was being put at risk was not the politicians’ money, and in most cases was not even the government’s money. Moreover, the jobs that are being lost by the millions are not the politicians’ jobs — and jobs in the government’s bureaucracies are increasing.

No one pushed these reckless mortgage lending policies more than Rep. Barney Frank, who brushed aside warnings about risk, and said in 2003 that he wanted to “roll the dice” even more in the housing markets. But it would very rash to bet against Representative Frank’s getting reelected in 2010.

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Dems 'In Deep Trouble' On Health Care, The Only Options Are A Bad Bill Or 2010 Losses

The HuffPo is worried that the Democrats won't be able to pass their radical healthcare bill.  This just brightens my holiday weekend, and gives me one more thing to be thankful for! 

One of the leading progressive champions of health care reform is pessimistic about the state of the debate in the Senate, saying he sees virtually no path to passing strong legislation and predicting potential congressional losses for Democrats as a consequence.

Former DNC Chair Howard Dean told the Huffington Post on Monday that Senate Democratic leadership was "in deep trouble" on health care, even after Majority Leader Harry Reid cobbled together over the weekend the 60 votes needed to get legislation to the floor. The problem was as much about politics as policy.

"I think if you passed the Senate bill tomorrow it would be OK. But then the problem is they don't have any defense for their members in 2010," Dean said, noting that the public option would not become operational until 2014. "On the other hand, if they drop the public option [to placate moderate members], I think they lose seats."

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President Washington's Orginal Thanksgiving Proclamation

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

Enabling the Opponents of Reform

Once again, what's best for the kids doesn't matter.  All that matters to the unions is money, power and control. 

A promising performance-pay program is under attack in the Boston public school system, which is trying out some new and innovative school reforms. The plan was to allow Advanced Placement teachers to receive $100 bonuses for each student who passes an AP exam, and teachers could be rewarded up to $3,000. But the Boston Herald reports that the Boston Teachers Union is trying to put an end to the innovative plan.

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Hiding Evidence Of Global Cooling

Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication. The past couple of days have uncovered some shocking revelations about the baloney practices that pass as sound science about climate change.

It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.

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DOJ Probes Lawmaker That Controls Its Budget

The federal lawmaker who chairs the powerful committee that oversees the U.S. Department of Justice has long been under investigation by the agency, creating a dangerous conflict of interest that for years has been ignored.

For three years the Justice Department has been scrutinizing the shady finances of West Virginia Congressman Alan Mollohan while he has headed the crucial House Appropriations subcommittee that controls its $65 billion budget, according to a news report published this week. That means the influential Democrat, who has represented West Virginia’s first district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1983, has oversight over the agency that’s probing him.

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Voters in Honduras told to hand in guns before elections

An unarmed public is ripe for the picking...and Zelaya knows it!

Honduran authorities began disarming voters in a bid to avoid violent confrontations at Sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections. The order to hand in weapons also applies to gun owners with licences, authorities said Monday. The firearms are due to be returned after the polls.

Meanwhile the Honduran army began the distribution of election materials across the country.

De-facto leader Roberto Micheletti said Thursday he intended to step aside temporarily for one week during the elections, a decision widely hailed as a step towards the resolution of the five-month crisis.

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Liberals Hate Thanksgiving (and America)

How NOT to debate with your liberal friends and relatives this Thanksgiving. What can I say? Apparently I'm not the only one with a wierd sense of humor! 

Health Care and the Constitution

The “general welfare” clause is not an open-ended endorsement of whatever Congress deems in a given moment is in the public interest. Were that the meaning of “general welfare,” no Constitution itself would even be necessary – Congress could simply do whatever it wants regardless of any constitutional limitations.

There is no constitutional basis for the Obama/Pelosi/Baucus approach to health reform. Period. Let us not delude ourselves that this is a serious constitutional debate – the debate does not exist, at least within the realm of intellectual honesty. It is settled.

The Democratic Congress does not care, nor does the President, nor do many Republicans. But “we, the People,” should, especially if we care about remaining a nation whose God-bestowed liberties and rights are protected not by the legislative confections of Congress but by a written Constitution whose text defends us from the intrusions of the federal state – if, but only if, we are willing to follow it.

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Tax Terrorists, Not Americans

National Defense (i.e. war) is one of the few legitimate constitutional responsibilities of the federal government. All the other things they spend our tax money on - bailouts, subsidies, pork, stimulus, entitlement programs - are not.

So let me get this straight...they spend all our hard-earned tax money on things that are none of their business and completely outside their constitutional jurisdiction, and then they want to raise our taxes to pay for what they should have been funding in the first place?  I DON'T THINK SO!

As President Obama pondered anew his strategy for winning the war on terror in Afghanistan, the antiwar crowd unleashed an odd new tactic to force a retreat: a tax. Not a new tax on the terrorists which, while obviously uncollectible, would at least be properly targeted. And, thankfully not a new tax on the men and women leading the fight. The far left, as explained by Senator Levin in a November 20 interview on Bloomberg Television, is targeting Americans making more than $250,000 with a new surtax.

As with most slippery slopes, Politico reported this morning that some policymakers just introduced a “Share the Sacrifice Act.” Going a step further than Levin, this bill would tax middle-class households earning between $30,000 and $150,000 and force them to pay 1% on top of their tax liability.

The left’s approach to tax policy is nothing if not consistent. When it comes to taxing family farms and small businesses, investors and professionals, their approach is reminiscent of a famous poem, “How can I tax thee, let me count the ways”.

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The Manhattan Declaration

Last Friday I was privileged to stand with Chuck Colson, Jim Daly, Robert George, Archbishop Wuerl, Tony Perkins, Alan Sears, Cardinal Rigali, and over 20 others to represent the first 150 signers of a document called The Manhattan Declaration.

Why the name? The group met a few weeks ago in Manhattan where we read a draft of the document. It was there we concluded that we had to bridge the huge historic chasms separating the major branches of the Christian faith. The famed Chuck Colson along with co-initiators issued a call to all Christians that we must remain true to our core convictions, based upon the scriptures. The group also came together to let the secular community know that increasingly Christians from Catholic, Evangelical, and Orthodox traditions will work together and speak with one voice.

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A Thanksgiving Revival

This past year has been a tough one for many, if not most, Americans. While fighting two fronts in the war on terrorism, we've had to contend with economic turmoil, soaring unemployment, political division and a growing sense that America's best years are behind us.

However, this Thanksgiving holiday provides America with an opportunity to reflect on our Thanksgiving history and tradition while giving thanks to God for seeing us through another year. In spite of our current strife, we should thank our Lord for his grace (giving us what we don't deserve) and mercy (not giving us what we do deserve).

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Congress Must Stop the Trial in New York City

The U.S. Constitution can rescue us from the Obama administration's latest push toward "remaking America." Our Constitution is on the people's side to stop Obama from turning the judiciary into a platform for America's sworn enemies to spread their propaganda and even use our own laws against us.

Our Constitution's framers foresaw the probability that power-hungry men would try to take over the judiciary. So, they gave us the tools to maintain a government based on the separation of powers.

Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, has announced that he will move the trial of the confessed 9-11 terrorist mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, from a military court (where he ought to be tried) to a civilian court in New York City. Even worse, Holder plans to reward this terrorist with all the constitutional rights of any ordinary U.S. citizen defendant accused of an ordinary crime.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to override this Obama-Holder outrage. Congress can and should prevent this travesty, and the sooner the better.

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We Have Been Betrayed

We are being betrayed by those we elected to represent us.

If the Senate vote over the weekend proved anything, it is that word “moderate” is synonymous with “spineless” on both sides of the aisle. (Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary offers this definition, among others: “Having average or less than average quality.” No kidding.)

Senator Mary Landrieu sells her vote for a $300m check for Louisiana, and then brags that just because she voted for cloture doesn’t mean she’ll vote for the bill, whatever it looks like when it’s done. Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska hope you won’t notice that while it takes 60 votes for cloture or to end debate on a bill, it only takes 51 votes to pass the damn thing.

So, while Landrieu, Lincoln and Nelson could have used their power as “moderates” to stop debate on the monstrosity currently festering in the Senate (and thus postpone the possibility of passage), they can’t stop passage even if they do vote against the bill.

So much for the so-called “moderate” Democrats.

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Welcome to the USSA

Not all revolutions begin in the streets with tanks and guns. Some advance slowly, almost imperceptibly, until a nation is transformed and the public realizes too late that their freedoms are gone.

Such is the revolution now taking place in America. The '60s crowd has emerged from the ideological grave and is about to impose on this country a declaration of dependence in the form of government-run health insurance and treatment. It matters not what facts are known about this "coup," because to those from the '60s - whether they lived in that decade or were born later and adopted its ideology - only feelings and intentions matter, not truth and results.

This is about liberal Democrats realizing their decades-old dream of complete control of our lives. Every move you make, every breath you take, they'll be watching you. Except, of course, when it comes to terrorists who want to destroy America faster than the liberals do. A different standard is applied to them.

Nowhere in the debate over health care "reform" have we heard a single word from liberal Democrats about personal responsibility, self-reliance and freedom. In fact, the message has come through quite clearly that government will penalize anyone who demonstrates such beliefs, as it attempts to spread your wealth around.

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Freedom vs. the Courts

Kevin Gutzman, best-selling author and expert on American Constitutional history, discusses the 14th Amendment and the Incorporation Doctrine, how the doctrine has given us government by judiciary instead of government by representation, the Due Process clause, Substantive Protections vs. Due Procedure, the original intent of the 14th Amendment, how the courts changed that meaning over the ensuing five decades, the Bill of Rights as a limitation on the power of Congress, how the incorporation doctrine has turned the principles of federalism on its head, representative government vs. government by “experts,” Privileges or Immunities and The Slaughter-House Cases, rights of State citizenship, how James Madison warned that those in government would tend to use and expand power, some of the greatest violations of the Constitution under the doctrine of incorporation, why federalism and decentralization is a better system to secure liberty, and more.

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Thankful for Fading Freedoms

Abraham Lincoln once said, "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."

But what if those who restrict our freedoms are the very people who are in charge of securing them?

Over just the past year, Washington has worked double time to limit your liberties, despite the fact that such reductions have been cloaked under the guise of governmental progress.

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A Troubled Thanksgiving 2009

I have always loved Thanksgiving. It is my favorite national holiday. It reminds Americans how fortunate we are to be Americans. And it unites Americans around gratitude, the greatest human trait. Gratitude is the mother of both goodness and happiness. The ungrateful cannot be either happy or good.

So, it is with a heavy heart that I write that my mood on this Thanksgiving will not be the same as on any other I have ever experienced.

My gratitude will be marred by a dark cloud.

Not the cloud of economic crisis; Americans have lived through worse economic crises.

Not the cloud of war. America is at war in Afghanistan, and troops remain in Iraq in the war against Islamic terror; but Americans have fought far more bloody wars.

Not the cloud of politics; whatever an American's political persuasion, every American has lived through political battles and political losses.

No, this is a new cloud. This is the cloud of "transformation." This is what candidate Barack Obama promised; this is what President Barack Obama seeks to achieve -- nothing less than the transformation of America.

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Obama Dithers, US Troops Die

Pay close attention over the next few months for you are about to see how Democrats lose a war.

History will be made as the world's only super power, led by a socialist President and a socialist controlled Congress, feed our soldiers into a meat-grinder in order to turn public opinion against the war. As soon as a sufficient percentage of Americans declare their distaste for the war in Afghanistan, Obama will declare the war cannot be won - thus -- creating an excuse to bring US troops home from Afghanistan in defeat and disgrace.

So far, Obama has rejected every single option placed before him by the military.

Think about this for a moment: Obama knows absolutely nothing about the military. He knows absolutely nothing about military tactics.

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The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed

This doesn't bode well for our own family's job hunt...

As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed.

According to the government's broadest measure of unemployment, some 17.5 percent are either without a job entirely or underemployed. The so-called U-6 number is at the highest rate since becoming an official labor statistic in 1994.

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9/11 Families Issue Call To Action

If this White House thought Tea Party activists were an “angry mob,” wait until they see the backlash from 9/11 family members and their supporters nationwide.

Last Wednesday, a group of 9/11 family members and New York first responders attended the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Attorney General Eric Holder testified about his decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the 9/11 co-conspirators in a New York City federal court. Mr. Holder stumbled through several tough and pointed questions about the dangers of giving war criminals the same rights as American citizens and blurring the mission of our war fighters. He was visibly unnerved by the presence of the families and the first responders. We want to keep the pressure on him, as well as President Obama, who we were shocked to learn was AWOL on this reckless decision.

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Lieberman Digs In on Public Option

We'll see...

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: "I'm going to be stubborn on this."

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a "public option," or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won't vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.

Probe for a catch or caveat in that opposition, and none is visible. Can he support a public option if states could opt out of the plan, as the current bill provides? "The answer is no," he says in an interview from his Senate office. "I feel very strongly about this." How about a trigger, a mechanism for including a public option along with a provision saying it won't be used unless private insurance plans aren't spreading coverage far and fast enough? No again.

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