Good is bad in 2010, not just 1984

Supposed someone proposed a plan that would:
Save taxpayers money.
Help improve the public schools.
Give poor students trapped in the worst schools a chance to get a good education.
You might be in favor, right?
Well, the St. Petersburg Times, voice of the left in Florida, hates it.
Rick Scott, Florida's next governor (against the wishes of the Times) proposes vouchers that would accomplish all of the above.
The Times, in a rant that read like the Facebook page of the demented gunman who tried to kill School Board members in Panama City, says the plan is awful.
You see, liberals want the government schools to be run for the benefit of adults, not kids.
Liberal politicians throw money at the schools, and most of it goes into the paychecks of adult administrators and teachers. Not a single kid gets a dime.
Teacher union bosses get a cut of those paychecks and this helps them build huge warchests to fund the campaigns of liberal politicians.
It is a cozy arrangement all around.
If children were allowed to get an education so that they would understand schemes like this, they would vote against liberals when they grow up, and this would disrupt the system.
Can't have that.

Halfway there

Adlai Stevenson said, "In America, anyone can become president. That's one of the risks we take."
Thankfully, the voters twice declined to take a risk on Stevenson. But, he had a point.
In two short years, Barack Obama has taken the good will a majority of the voters entrusted into him and turned it into distrust and dislike.
This happened in part because he seemed to think he had been elected God, instead of merely the president. The position is important, but it is still a political position and, as Stevenson noted, the least qualified person in the nation can become president.
Obama was elected by criticizing his predecessor, but he has continued most of the domestic and foreign policies of his predecessor. Thus, he has angered his supporters while not placating those who did not support him.
Like Franklin D. Roosevelt, he has waged war on capitalism and business, while relying on them to produce the money for his vast spending programs. This is not a road to success.
His central weakness, other than his obvious dislike for this nation, is that to him it is all about him. He fell in love with his reflection in the pool of public opinion.
Businesses, like voters, take risks. When one doesn't pan out, you cut your losses.
Voters took a risk and it didn't pay off. In 2012, they will have a chance to reconsider.

On the left coast

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is, like many of the Hollywood set, including Whoopi Goldberg, Alec Baldwin, Barbra Streisand, etc., a disciple of the Chosen One and therefore as far left as you can be.
In a hate-filled, expletive-filled diatribe in the Puffington Host, he calls Sarah Palin an "idiot."
His ire was raised because Palin shot a caribou, which Sorkin called "murder."
So, it is murder to kill an animal. What about humans?
“I get happy every time one of you faux-macho s***heads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face,” the deranged leftist said.
The accidental killing of a human being is cause for joy but killing an animal so he can have a fancy meal in a Hollywood restaurant is OK. (I don't care if he professes to be a vegan like so many of the other phonies in la-la land. They sell a lot of steaks in Hollywood.)
But one thing is clear. Sorkin is a certified idiot.

Say what?

CNN says the Tax Policy Center estimates that a married couple with two kids under 13 and a household income of roughly $75,000 could end up paying about $2,600 more in federal income taxes next year -- if the largest tax increase in history is allowed to take place.
Raising taxes in a depressed economy is insane, so everyone is hot to sign on to the "tax compromise."
Hold on.
The "cost" of the compromise is estimated at about $850 billion. But $550 billion of that is based on the revenue that the higher taxes would bring.
In other words, not raising taxes and taking more money from American families is a "cost."This is the crazy way politicians think.
The real cost is the $300 billion in pork and other spending Democrats want to tack on as the cost to Republicans of preventing the tax increase.
Obama says this is a good deal. So, obviously, it is not.
Bill Clinton tells Democrats they should vote for it because the new Congress can enact legislation that will be even better for conservatives.
Is there any doubt that the wise course is to wait, let the Democrat tax increase take place, and then for Republicans to rescind it and put in place a tight clamp on spending?

Bubba speaks

Everyone says Bill Clinton is the smartest, slickest politician ever, so why aren't Republicans heeding his advice?
At the amazing press conference recently, where President Obama was upstaged by Clinton so badly that Obama fled from the room, Clinton said he thinks the tax compromise should be approved by Democrats.
Why? Because, he said, the Republicans could get a better deal in January, when they will have the majority in the House.
None of the Lamestream Media asked, so I will: So, why should Republicans vote for the compromise?

If O had been in the Oval Office then

Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy, whatever the hell that means — the United States of America allegedly was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The imperialist United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. The Japanese have been offended by our policies in the Far East and I have bowed to the emperor and offered my apologies on several occasions.
It is surmised that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the U.S government has deliberately sought to deceive the Japanese by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace, so I say we should not jump to hasty conclusions about who started this fracas.
And don't sweat it. Adolf told me he is going to sit this one out.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands -- one of my favorite golfing spots -- has caused some damage to American naval and military forces. Also, a few American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.
Yesterday there was also an attack against Malaya.
Last night someone attacked Hong Kong.
Last night some forces attacked Guam.
Last night other forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night someone attacked Wake Island.
And this morning someone attacked Midway Island.
But let's not make a big deal out of it. Stuff happens. We should be tolerant and not engage in racial profiling.
Someone may have undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today, as interpreted by the New York Times, speak for themselves.
The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation and how it could influence votes in the next election.
Would someone please move the TelePrompter a little closer?
As commander in chief of the Army and Navy and winner of the Nobel Peace prize, therefore, I have directed that measures be taken for our defense. I have authorized Marines to carry live ammunition when they land on the beaches, and may return fire if fired upon. And, of course, they will be fully covered by my health insurance.
For a while our nation might remember the character of the onslaught against us, but, hey, we'll get over it.
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory -- or a negotiated peace. If we happen to win, we'll pay big reparations.
I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves if anyone actually does something to piss me off but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never make us feel ill will toward the oppressed people of other nations.
Hostilities exist. But even if our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger, we should not fly off the handle.
With confidence in our armed forces, under the greatly reduced defense budget I recently introduced, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us (insert your own deity here).
Never mind Kate Smith. As the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has said, God damn America.
However, I can read the polls and I ask that the Congress declare that since the so-called unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
But I will bring the troops home next July. We have an election coming up, you know.

Watch your language

In politics, it is often necessary to mangle the English language in order to conceal the absurdity.
For example, building a bridge to nowhere is called an "investment."
But my favorite is "tax expenditures."
When lobbyists succeed in carving out a provision in the tax code that favors their interests, the government -- having approved it as good public policy -- then labels it a tax expenditure.
What does that mean? It means that it is a cost to the government.
That's right: not taking money from you that you have earned (because you are doing something with it that they approve of) is a cost.
By that same token, shouldn't the remainder of your paycheck be a cost to the government?
Aren't they entitled to all of it?
The tragic fact is that some politicians think so.

Karl Marx couldn't have said it better

This rant by socialist Bernie Sanders is amazing, but not for the reason libs think.
In his anti-capitalist tirade, Sanders claims the middle class is disappearing and that billionaires are waging war against ... somebody.
To take just one misleading statistic, consider his claim that 1 percent of the people earn 23 percent of the money in the United States. (I'll accept the figure for the sake of argument; it sounds about right.)
What the socialists never tell you when they do this routine is this:
The people who create wealth and earn such income also pay a larger share of taxes -- a share larger than their share of the income. Larger.
In addition, whatever they earn is not subtracted what everybody else earns. This is probably the largest hole in the argument socialists make.
In other words, you can earn whatever you are able to earn and want to earn -- regardless of what anybody else earns.
It is also true that the famous five income brackets most people use are very elastic. People are in the top bracket one year and another a year later. The contrary also is true. People rarely stay in the lowest income bracket. They are there when they are young, before their peak earning years. If they work and save, they move up to higher brackets.
And of course the poorest Americans are better off than 90 percent of the people in the world.
Liberals feed off of the wealth capitalism creates -- the whole time they are bashing it. Their worse fear is that Atlas will Shrug some day and leave them empty handed.
So, watch Sanders and pity the poor, addled old socialist. But avoid his brave new world like the plague.

How libs think

Americans should not be allowed to keep $3.7 trillion of their own money because part of it ($700 billion) belongs to the evil "rich."
That is how liberals think.
The fact that $3 trillion of it was earned by people who are not rich and who need it to care for their own families matters not a whit.
Liberals are so caught up in the class warfare they have practiced for the past 75 years that they are willing to burn the village, if necessary. (As long as it isn't the mythical village that it takes to raise a child.)
Their perceived mission in life is to forcibly take wealth created by productive people and give it to others (in exchange for their votes).
This, they believes, makes them modern-day Robin Hoods. In fact, if they bothered to read Robin Hood, they would realize they are more akin to Prince John.
This tax-the-rich-at-any-cost logic is precisely the same kind of warped thinking used by liberals in their efforts to keep the United States from defending itself against a nuclear missile strike.
They say antimissile defenses are not 100 percent effective.
In other words, why should the people of Jacksonville be saved if a missile could get through and demolish Des Moines?
Put aside the fact that the missile defense systems are good and getting better, and think about the premise.
Naval anti-aircraft didn't bring down every kamikaze plane during World War II, either. Would today's liberals have refused to place anti-aircraft guns on ships in the Pacific fleet?
Yet, some people actually vote to put liberal politicians in positions where they can make decisions that affect the lives of Americans. Scary.

Jacksonville: 40 years ahead of its time

This is a hoot.
Russia plans to build a fleet of floating nuclear power plants and use them in its Arctic regions.
Even better: the venture is called OPK.
The local media, with its 15 minute attention span, wouldn't know it but in the early 1970s, Jacksonville was going to be the home of a company called OPS. It planned to build floating nuclear power plants.
The ambitious venture failed because it over-reached in its proposed contract with the Jacksonville Electric Authority to buy plants. Had it succeeded, it would have meant 12,000 new jobs here -- dwarfing the 1,000 hailed by the lame duck mayor recently.
It also was a victim of the anti-nuclear crazies, who helped ensure the continued massive use of oil and coal by heaping on regulations that made the cost of nuclear power too high.
One interesting side effect of this clean power is that a plant could be towed to an area such as Israel, which is experiencing water shortages, and used to power a huge desalinization plant.

Facts and fancies

Let's look at the record.
The Soviet Union collapsed, after 75 years of socialism -- and praise by American liberals for the enlightened views of its leaders.
Cuba and North Korea are basket cases.
Sweden is scaling back, Ireland is cutting spending by 20 percent, Britain is slashing spending.
China is alive only because of capitalism.
In short, everywhere and anywhere socialism/communism/facism,/liberalism/progressivism or whatever other ism that doesn't begin with "capital" has been tried it has failed.
What works? Freedom. Allowing people to take risks and either succeed or fail.
The American people know that, which is why we got real hope and real change Nov. 2.
Young Americans aren't going to learn how the world works by attending public schools or reading the liberal media. They have to learn it from us, or the hard way.
Nearly 400 years ago the first Americans tried collectivism and it failed them, resulting in the deaths of nearly half the settlers in New England.
In spite of their misery, the pilgrims joined with the Indians and gave thanks for their freedom.
Sadly, some misguided Americans still want to return to the system wisely rejected by the nation's first settlers. No matter how many times it fails, they can't let it go.

Get the facts

If he does nothing else, let's hope the next mayor of Jacksonville asks questions.
Apparently, the current one does not.
Mayor John Peyton, while raising taxes and fees he says are needed to pay employees, has championed spending millions of dollars on the Jacksonville Journey.
This is, like all liberal ventures, well-intentioned. It is supposed to reduce crime, which all would agree is a worthy goal.
But two years into the program, and while spending more than $12 million this year alone, there is little evidence that anything is being accomplished.
One need look no further than the oversight committee's own report.
It hails the hiring of more policemen, without citing any proof that more police results in less crime.
It hails efforts to find jobs for convicted criminals after they are released from prison. It does not cite any statistics on how many were place in jobs or how many returned to crime.
At the same time, it calls for greater efforts to reduce waste, inefficiency and abuse in the costly program. Apparently, the committee knows those deficiencies exist but does not cite any examples.
The most glaring flaw is that it hails a slight drop in crime since the program began without providing vital relevant facts.
They are: is this different from the experience in other cities that are not spending vast sums of money on similar programs? Is it related to demographics, which many studies have found are directly related to the incidence of crime?
The new mayor, as he is struggling to help the city get its finances in order, will need to ask some tough questions and demand answers.
He might start by ordering an independent study. The oversight committee consists of those who invented the Jacksonville Journey and they have an obvious incentive to show that it is working.

Directions

Republican leaders postponed their meeting with President Obama.
Good. They need to regroup and get on message.
First, they are not the people's choice. They were the lesser of two evils -- but they were still evil, as far as voters were concerned, as a result of botching the opportunity they had in 1994.
Tea Party candidates would have clobbered Republicans and Democrats.
Second, moving halfway from where we are to where the liberals want to go is not "bipartisan compromise."
It is caving in halfway.
The American people want to go in another direction. Let the liberals do the bipartisan compromising by moving toward less government, less spending and less taxing.
Ignore the New York Times and the various George Soros outlets and do what the people want, for a change.

Stop marking ears

GOP doesn't stand for Good Old Pork. Or, at least, it shouldn't.
Having won back the House largely by riding on the Tea Party movement, which favors banning earmarks in the federal budget, some Republicans now are trying to wiggle out, saying earmarks don't amount to a lot of money.
Maybe by their standards.
No matter the cost, earmarks -- also called pork barrel projects -- are highly symbolic of wasteful government. Getting rid of them would help erase the public's perception of the Republicans as just diluted Democrats. The Congress of 1994-2006 create that perception by going in as reformers and winding up as big spenders.
That resulted in Congress going to the liberals in 2006 and the White House in 2008.
Fortunately for the country, the Democrats squandered their chance as well.
Banning earmarks does not mean that worthy projects won't get done.
Florida TaxWatch has campaigned against pork-barrel projects -- called "turkeys" in the Sunshine State -- for years.
It points out that turkeys are items inserted in the budget by one or more legislators without being on the state's priority list. In some cases they are not even a state responsibility.
The federal government has legitimate responsibilities, such as building highways and bridges. But they don't all need to be built in West Virginia just because it has a powerful senator.
Ban earmarks and run government like a business. Do what needs to be done not what you need to do to get re-elected.

Good read

Mad as Hell, by pollster Scott Rasmussen is a must-read if you want to understand the political wind that is sweeping over the country.
Although the Lamestream Media tried to ignore it, and then denigrate it, the Tea Party movement is stronger than ever. Thank the Internet and the fair and balanced coverage from Fox News for that.
Rasmussen says the Tea Party is the most important populist movement in this nation's history. It is large, growing, and here to stay, he says.
Moreover, it demographically mirrors the nation and gets higher marks from the public than either of the two major parties. It also has a sizable component of disaffected Democrats.
Rasmussen bases his analysis on polls and extensive interviews. He makes a compelling case. While I didn't agree with some of his opinions, his facts speak for themselves.

Too big to cut?

The party line is that government is so big it can't be cut.
Nonsense.
Even some Republicans, mostly those with beltway fever, are echoing this line.
Billions can be cut, easily. Examples:
The Department of Education. Totally unnecessary. Schools are a state and local function.
The Davis-Bacon Act. Enacted during the Depression to keep blacks from getting jobs, it adds billions to construction costs.
Highway trust funds. About a quarter of it is diverted into non-highway uses like bike lanes and choo-choo trains.Use it for what it was intended and/or cut it back.
The Department of Energy. Totally unnecessary.
Environmental Protection Agency. FDA, and dozens of others could be cut substantially.
Big savings would accrue by privatizing public parks and the twin monstrosities Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
Moving to the Fair Tax would be another money saving move. Failing that, fewer tax brackets, with lower maximum rates and capital gains rates.
Finally, the bloated bureaucracy, overpaid and under-worked. Freeze pay and convert pension plans to defined contribution.
All these have been discussed forever but if Congress wants to do something about the $13.7 trillion debt, which is propelling us to financial ruin, it needs to quit talking and act.

Spin masters in action

Liberals were quick to misquote Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, after her recent debate.
Her manager says she was not questioning the concept of separation of church and state as established by the courts. She simply made the point that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution.
Actually, it was her opponent, liberal Chris Coons, who demonstrated his ignorance by being unable to name the five freedoms contained in the First Amendment.
All the Constitution does is ensure that the government will be neutral to religion. It does not make it hostile to religion nor preclude any religious references in public, as liberals would prefer.
The "wall of separation between church and state" is a phrase from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Baptist Church in Danbury, Conn., in 1802. It is not in the Constitution.
Liberals have been so effective in turning schools into indoctrination academies that two-thirds of Americans, according to a Columbia Law School study in 2002, believe that the Constitution says "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs." Karl Marx, author of that phrase, would be proud.
When a slick professional politician like Coons takes on a novice like O'Donnell, he can make cheap debating points but it doesn't change the equation. This year's election is between more freedom and less freedom. Choose wisely.

To the rear, march!

Under Obama, the liberal lemmings are marching bravely right to the cliff.
Socialist Sweden for decades has been the liberal idea of heaven, if any of them thought such a place existed.
Sweden now is moving to the right as fast as it can, realizing that it can only print wealth, not create it.
Germany's leader, meanwhile, has declared that nation's attempt at "multiculturalism" is a dismal failure and must be abandoned. It remains in full swing in the U.S.
The Brits are slashing government jobs, and spending.
Even the Dutch now are dropping pot cafes and other vestiges of the Sixties. Not to worry. All the potheads can move to California.
The rest of the world has been there and wants to go back (except for Cuba, North Korea, San Francisco and a few other foreign places, of course).
But the American left, led by Pelosi, Reid and Obama, still are searching for Shangri-la.

Barry Blowhard takes a bow

President Obama, with characteristic modesty, is giving himself credit for saving America from another Depression.
Sorry, but I think George Bush is the hero.
Obama has made a career out of blaming Bush for the world's woes but in this case the facts show that Bush has a better claim.
The government says the 18-month recession ended in June 2009.
That was six months after Obama took office, and long before any of his misguided policies took place.
You can't take credit for ending a recession when all you've done is make speeches blaming your predecessor for creating it.
In truth, government action usually is too little, too late, in affecting recessions as the accompanying chart shows. They are a natural phenomena and self-correcting. Generally, the government just prolongs them, or turns them into a depression.

Crunch time

Nov. 2 offers a golden opportunity, but if you want to put the nation back on track you have to vote.
Dims will be out in force, protecting the socialist agenda. Look for 100 percent turnout from the cemeteries and millions of votes by citizens of other countries, even as they try to prevent members of the U.S. armed forces from voting. The latter is a tactic they employed in 2000 while trying to steal the election in Florida.
Pundits and pollsters say conservatives will win back Congress, or at least the House. But it can't and won't happen unless every conservative casts a vote.
Anyone who was part of the Mistake in '08 also can help, and without anyone knowing. We still have a secret ballot, at least for now. To ensure it stays that way, Congress must be changed.
Once that's done, we can look ahead to 2012 and hope for change.

Sociable security

Once again, desperate Democrats are bringing out the Social Security bogeyman.
Many people don't understand how Social Security works. The government forcibly takes money from a worker's paycheck and gives it to someone who has retired. If there is any left, the politicians spend it on whatever nutty fad is dominant at the moment. They promise to put the money back in the system, someday. The only way they can get that money is to take it from someone else when the time comes.
It is the greatest Ponzi scheme in history. It worked fine when 13 people were paying for every one taking out, but today with two workers sharing their paychecks with one retiree, it isn't such a good deal.
Conservatives propose making it a rational, workable system by allowing people a choice. Stick with this, and get low returns, or invest the money and get tangible returns.
When the British were offered this choice during one of Britain's occasional bouts with reality, many Brits chose the private investment route. When liberals took over again, they shut down the option.
For liberals, the problem is that investing the money in the private sector does not give them a chance to get their hands on it, and the taxpayer is not beholden to politicians for his retirement.
So, liberals refer to honest reform and offering a choice as "taking away Social Security."
Well, did you expect them to tell the truth?

1960

Reporters on one local paper are writing about events than happened 50 years ago, before most of them were born. They say reporters for the paper were told not to cover an event that happened downtown.
I was a reporter. No one told me not to cover the event. I was there.
It was a day when a number of black citizens decided to demonstrate downtown against segregation. Some chose to "sit in" at the lunch counter at Woolworth's, next to Penney's department store west of Hemming Park, in the block where the federal courthouse is now.
This was a tactic being used all around the nation by civil rights activists.
I was a general assignment reporter for the Jacksonville Journal.
I was told to go to the scene and report what I saw. Other reporters were told to do the same.
What I saw was:
A crowd of white men, most carrying wooden ax handles, cornered a black man in the north doorway of Penney's and hit him several times. I was carrying a camera and shot several pictures but was not able to get close enough for a good shot. One of the men edged up to me and suggested that I should take my camera and leave. It was in a friendly tone but he was not kidding.
I went to the south side of the block and saw two white men stop a young (about 14) black boy who was riding his bike. One of them punched him. They told him to leave. I didn't take a picture. I could have but probably would have had my camera destroyed.
I went over to the park, where there were two or three brief clashes between white and black men. At Laura and Monroe one man was hit on the head with an ax handle and blood was streaming down his shirt. I took pictures, as unobtrusively as possible.
I telephoned the information about what I had seen to the office and a rewrite man fashioned a store that included my information and what he got from other reporters. I don't honestly remember what the published story said.
What I was told was that the paper did not plan to give the story big play because the executive editor was worried about inciting more violence.
Life magazine asked to see my pictures and I sent them my roll of film but they used photos someone else had taken.
Compared to cities in places like Alabama and Mississippi, the violence in Jacksonville was mild.
There was another occasion later, however, when a house in Lackawanna was bombed. It resulted in my first scoop.
I had become police reporter and an FBI agent called to tell me, right on deadline, that the bomber had been arrested after a nationwide hunt. I got the story in time.
There were a few people who opposed integration strenuously but as I remember it, most people in Jacksonville were like me and thought it was time for black citizens to be on an equal footing. One legitimate viewpoint was that it could be handled in each state individually better than being imposed by force at the federal level. It might have taken longer but it surely would have resulted in less violence.
On the other hand, black citizens justifiably were not inclined to wait and were willing to risk the violence.

Stealth jihad

Those defending the Ground Zero mosque on First Amendment grounds might want to contemplate this, from Andrew McCarthy:
"Islam is a comprehensive political, social, and economic system with its own authoritarian legal framework, sharia, which aspires to govern all aspects of life."
In other words, it is not just a religion, entitled to religious freedom.
The imam promoting the mosque also has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization founded in 1928 and now worldwide.
Its aims?
Wikipedia says the Muslim Brotherhood's "General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America" makes the objectives clear: "The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."
If those promoting the mosque were "moderate" and sincere, they would accept offers of another site. But the real purpose is to have a symbol for all radical Islamofascists that they have conquered the site where the symbols of capitalism were destroyed.
It was to be called the Cordoba mosque, in fact, a clear reference to the area of Spain where a Christian church was turned into a grand mosque after it was conquered by Muslims in the eighth century.
When people tell you in advance they plan to destroy you from within and you aid them, you have no one to blame but yourselves.

The numbers game

Within a few years, it will take all taxpayers can give just to pay for Medicare and interest on the national debt.
Yet, the liberals claim Medicare is in great shape.
Last week, they produced a report purporting to support that notion.
However, Robert Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, cautioned that "financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range ... or the long range."
In other words, the report is baloney.
Obamacare claims to save Medicare by making cuts but as any number of experts have shown, they are spending the same dollars twice, and no one believes such cuts will be made anyway.
This is the government liberals promised would be the most honest ever.

Our Muslim president

Just when you thought he couldn't get any more outrageous, President Obama declares it a First Amendment right for Muslims to build a mosque at Ground Zero.
Absolute nonsense. Nothing in the constitution gives the First Baptist Church or anyone else a right to build a church anywhere it wants to.
The only reason to build the mosque there is to provoke the America people, and to send a signal to Islamofascists worldwide: We tore down the symbols of capitalism and replaced them with a symbol of Islam.
In addition, the government-owned company AIG is now investing in enterprises that funnel money to terrorists. In effect, American taxpayers are financing the assaults upon them that have been under way nearly 20 years now.
Meanwhile, practitioners of the religion of peace plan to brutally stone another young woman to death after torturing a confession out of her and a Texas Muslim father has shot his two daughters to death for dating non-Muslims. You can listen to one of them calling 9-1-1 and screaming, "My father shot me and I'm dying!"
Gradually, efforts to subvert the U.S. judicial system and replace it with sharia law continue. France already has lost this battle and England is losing as well. Democracy is dying.
Obama clearly supports this trend and is working to advance it on every front.

Early warning

August is approaching. This affords America-hating liberals a chance annually to publicly wring their hands and whine about the dropping of atom bombs on Japan, which they view as evidence that America is a despicable country.
They would be more than happy if the Nazis or Japs had won World War II and now ran this country. Or the communists. Or Mexicans. Or Muslims. Anyone but Americans.
Here's the undeniable truth, for anyone who attended the public school indoctrination academies and doesn't know American history: Dropping the bombs saved millions of lives, American and Japanese.
The battle for Okinawa and voluminous other evidence convinced military planners than an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have resulted in horrendous casualties on both sides. Harry Truman got it. Liberals don't.

Death squads authorized

Remember when the left went nuts because George Bush allowed our spies to monitor telephone calls made to suspected terrorists outside this country?
Can you image what would happen if Bush had said U.S. citizens could be assassinated just because they were suspected of being terrorists?
The New York Times would be spinning its presses putting out special editions. CNN would be broadcasting 24/7 on this story alone (sort of like the camera image of the oil spill).
President Obama is doing it, and no one really cares. The ACLU has issued a mild protest.
Yep. Actual terrorists who kill Americans? Put them on trial. Suspected terrorists who may or may not kill Americans, but are Americans? Shoot them.
One reason the telephone surveillance (which is constitutional, unlike assassination) was needed was that the media had made it easier for terrorists by publishing the information that we were monitoring their cell phone calls. It almost allowed us to catch Osama bin Laden. But the media chose to exercise its constitutional rights, rather than protect Americans.
Why is the assassination of U.S. citizens needed? Who is next? Tea Party members that the leftists deem to be "racists"?

More disasters ahead

You couldn't pick two people least qualified to write a bill to regulate the financial institutions than Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. Yet, they are the authors.
No one has been able to read it, of course. Liberals don't produce their sausage in the sunshine.
But from news accounts we can learn that it does nothing to prevent another housing crisis.
Anyone who wants to understand the last crisis should read "The Housing Crisis" by Thomas Sowell, an economist who deals in facts instead of fancy.
It was Frank who assured everyone than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in great shape as those two government agencies were failing. Even the New York Times editorial page saw it coming!
Dodd is on record as saying they don't know what the bill will do or whether it will "work."
The chances are that the banks and others who fall under this regulation will be able to find ways to operate, but apparently there is nothing in the bill to help the situation, so why bother?
Because it's what liberals do. Tinker and meddle, and hope everything will come out right.

Obama's Last Stand

So, General Obama is taking over the war in Afghanistan.
This is a Democrat war. It is "the right war," they said (not that thing in Iraq).
They voted for it and they own it.
But will they win it?
Obama announced a while back that he would send additional troops, in a "surge" just like the one he opposed in Iraq. At the same time, he announced that, win or lose, the troops would pull out in July 2011.
Even the barbarians in the Afghan mountains understood that one. Lay low, inflict maximum casualties, husband and expand resources, exploit the American media and wait. Victory comes next year.
Obama has fired the general running the war and put in charge a general the liberals have lambasted as a traitor. That means that for all practical purposes, Obama is in charge.
Meanwhile, suffering Afghans don't trust their corrupt and ineffective government (showing that they have something in common with Americans) and know the Taliban will ruthlessly murder anyone who has opposed them after the Americans leave.
Pity our poor troops who are going to die in vain.

Cause and effect

Headline on First Coast News: "Home Prices Dip But Sales Up."
This reminds me of the headlines many papers were writing a while back: "Prisons are full even though crime is down."
In liberal newsrooms, they are astounded to find that when you lock up criminals, the crime rate goes down. They can't see the connection.
The folks at Channel 12 also don't know much about economics if they think it is an anomaly that homes sell well when the prices are lower, as the headline indicates.
Homes are selling here because sellers are lowering their prices to match the market.
When the housing bubble burst many people thought they could still get the inflated price when they sold. Doesn't work that way.

Watch out for 2011

Art Laffer's piece in today's Wall Street Journal is a must-read, especially for those who expect the usual rebound from a recession.
As Laffer explains, the tax-and-spend crowd this time has done it's work well. It has set out to destroy the economy -- and, many think, this country -- and is having some success.
The private sector always recovers from the occasional business cycle downturn. It would have in the 1930s as it did in the 1920s had it not been for the New Deal, which turned it into a depression.
That could happen again.
Debt soon will equal GDP and this year the largest tax increase in history will take place when the liberal Congress fails to extend the Bush tax relief. That, Laffer says, will kill all hope of recovery.
Ronald Reagan stuck to his guns and started a 25 year period of unparalleled growth. If Obama sticks to his, a policy the direct opposite of Reagan's, it could have exactly the opposite effect.

Let's all hate BP

Remember the novel 1984? Regularly, the brainwashed masses were required to face the TV and actively hate the political enemies of Big Brother.
And here we are. Each night the masses mass to glare at the TV screens and hate the corporation British Petroleum. An "enraged" president leads the throng.
This carefully orchestrated hate-in is in keeping with this president's all-out assault on free enterprise and individual freedom. He is out to reshape America in his own vision, as a socialist state.
He is aided by the media, which blamed President George Bush for the Hurricane Katrina disaster immediately but has yet to fault Barack Obama.
Now they have fixed on a comment by a BP press flack, who allegedly said there are other places to get shrimp besides Louisiana.
This is being portrayed as a Marie Antoinette-style remark when it could as easily be regarded as a simple statement of fact, in answer to concerns about shrimp not being available.
Rational people understand that the Gulf oil spill was an accident, not a deliberate act by BP. It isn't even clear that it was the result of gross negligence or incompetence. BP, which has been a politically correct corporation seeking government blessing and a donor to liberal causes, deserves no sympathy, just the benefit of doubt.
Oil companies would not be drilling for oil in 5,000 feet of water where an accident is difficult to fix if it were not for liberal politicians who refuse to let them drill in shallow water or on land, where there would be less risk.
They would not be drilling at all if it were not for the billions of people who drive cars and use electricity.
Those blessed with perfect hindsight now insist we should be using windmills and the sun instead of oil, forgetting perhaps the billions that have been spent unsuccessfully trying to develop those sources into a reliable and efficient means of delivering electricity.
The fact is that oil is necessary to modern life and until the private sector finds something better, it must be used.
Don't hold your breath waiting for politicians to invent a replacement. All they know how to do is order other people around: "Mr. Edison, invent that electric light right now!"
As long as they are doing everything they can to quench the entrepreneurial spirit, progressives will delay progress.
Meanwhile, they seek to deflect blame, as they did in the housing crisis, from themselves to the people who are our only hope for better solutions and a higher standard of living.

More mush for the media

Headline says the Chief Phony in the White House is "enraged" over the fact that BP has not been able to stop the oil spill in the gulf.
So, why doesn't Barack Obama fix it himself?
In fact, why did he let it happen in the first place?
When he was misrepresenting himself to get elected, he promised to heal the planet and cause the allegedly rising waters to recede, so stopping an oil leak should be an easy task.
BP had no reason to allow the accident to occur and has every reason to stop the damage as soon as humanly possible. Let's not forget that the reason oil companies are drilling in thousands of feet of water is because the liberal left Obama leads won't allow them to drill on land, which is safer and cheaper.

Garbage in, garbage out

Something I've known for years is in the news: Recycling wastes money.
First Coast News reports the city is losing millions a year recycling garbage.
The reason is simple. It's garbage. Few people buy garbage and those who do don't pay much for it.
But it is a PC thing to do, so city officials waste our money doing it.
With the mayor preparing a budget for next year and crying crocodile tears over "shortfalls" in revenue -- usually prep for raising taxes -- this would be a good time to jettison this program.
But the libs will demand that we save the Earth by continuing to waste our money.
Proponents claim the city will run out of space if it has to bury the garbage. But that's what they have to do with it if nobody buys it.

Rumor central

Sources that are often reliable tell me that a federal grand jury may be on the verge of bagging several city officials.
No details on the charges, but there seem to be a lot of possibilities. It might be related to the FBI probe that resulted in the arrest of a former port authority chairman recently.
Or, other things that have been simmering might be boiling over.
Stay tuned.

"I said I want civility, *&%^$#&* it"

Never was the Obama style on better display than the other day when he hauled out the old liberal trope about the need for civility in public discourse.
This came on the heels of his own disparaging remarks about Tea Party members. Do as I say, not as I do, in other words.
The list of liberal libels against conservatives is too long to go into, but we could start with the "colorful" Dim congressman from Central Florida Alan Grayson, who calls Republicans "knuckle-dragging Neanderthals."
Guess he didn't get the memo either.
By now everyone knows that when liberals lecture us on the need for civility, another slander of conservatives is on the way.

Who knew?

The Times Square would-be bomber, now in custody, appears to be a Muslim extremist from Pakistan.
So, I guess the loony left can now stop the warnings they began issuing almost the moment it happened:
"Don't jump to conclusions."
This meant, don't assume it was done by a Muslim extremist just because every other attack on the United States has been from this quarter.
To the left, it is much more logical to assume that some right-wing extremist American is responsible for any attack of domestic terrorism. They still suspect one of them was really behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, probably at the behest of George W. Bush.
This is why all liberals should be required to have national identity cards, to be produced upon police demand, as well as periodic psychiatric examinations. Better yet, put them all on boats and ship them to Russia, where they can amuse themselves by trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union.

Lame stream media on a roll

Is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which may kill hundreds of fish, a more important story than Iran getting nuclear weapons, which may kill millions of human beings? If you read the Lame Stream Media, you would think so.
Exaggeration is the name of the game. The nation was on the verge of getting more drilling, which would reduce imports and lower the cost of oil, so this was an opportunity for the media to seize. As one liberal said, never let a crisis go to waste.
Meanwhile, the state of Arizona exercised its constitutional authority to enact a law that was needed because the federal government refuses to enforce federal law.
The law allows police officers in certain circumstances to ask for identification, such as a drivers license.
The media turned this into "Nazi Germany!"
Why? Liberals hate this country and want to change it into something else. Having people flood across the borders who are willing to vote (illegally ) for liberals is part of the plan.
Arizona's law would hamper this "hope and change."

Appointed to a useless organization

The City Council has voted to place a University of North Florida professor on the Human Rights Commission despite objections raised by one organization that claims to be against terrorism.
UNF President John Delaney vouched for Parvez Ahmed, calling him "a man of peace," according to First Coast News.
Ahmed was once involved with CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. That is reason enough to ask questions because the group has had people associated with it who have been cozy with terrorist organizations.
But the real question the council should have asked is, why do we need an anachronism like the Human Rights Commission?
Jacksonville is not Darfur. No one's human rights are being violated on a daily basis, if at all.
It seems to be that this commission is made up of liberals who meet monthly and pontificate, and it exists simply for political correctness. It produces nothing of any value to the community as far as I can see. If any discrimination exists, there are plenty of venues to rectify such problems.

Taxpayers and students lose another one

Once again, the powerful special interests have killed education reform, with the help of the Lame Stream Media.
As a result, we can expect to continue seeing half the students who leave the public schools after 13 years being unable to read and write well enough to go to college.
This is a "profession"? If half their patients died, would doctors be "professionals"?
As they did in the 1980s, when another attempt to reward good teachers was enacted, then repealed, the teacher unions argued, in essence, that there is no way to measure what a teacher does.
You can't go by test scores, they said, because some students don't want to learn.
The previous system used a measuring device devised and tested by a professor at the University of Florida. They said that didn't work either.
If you ask any teacher who the good teachers at his school are, he can tell you.
How does he know?
If we can't measure a teacher's performance, how do we know they do anything?
If it is the student's fault, how do they explain the good results in private and parochial schools?
We have to assume by the aggregate results that public schoolteachers are only doing half the job. Maybe the answer is to cut their pay in half -- for good and bad teachers, since we can't tell the difference.

Here's a chance for the courts to actually help

Most conservatives are opposed to the litigation fever that has swept the country over the past few decades. It is difficult to have a civil society when everyone fears his neighbor and friends because they may join the litigation lottery by suing him at any moment.
But it is tempting not to applaud the mass of lawsuits being filed by more than a dozen states. They do not seek "pain and suffering" compensation -- although perhaps that is warranted. Instead, they seek to overturn Obamacare.
The legislation is fraught with problems.
But the main problem is that it violates the Constitution.
Liberals don't think much of the Constitution. It gets in their way. But it is the only thing that ensures our freedom.
Obamacare is unconstitutional because it requires Americans to buy a product from a private party. The government has no such authority.
If it had that authority, the federal government could also require people to buy a GM car. GM is now an agency of the federal government and labor unions.
The fact that liberals want the government to have that authority does not mean it is the case, yet.
With the lawsuits pending, it isn't surprising that Obama is hurrying to find a red-hot leftwinger for the Supreme Court.

Hooray, more busy work

City planners have drafted a 2030 mobility plan and liberals are swooning over it.
Naturally, it is full of "sustainability" and acronyms galore, both of which give liberals orgasms.
To be fair, the state ordered the city to waste its time in this effort, so they are not to blame.
Apparently, the point of this exercise is to find ways to reduce greenhouse gases and promote mass transit. When you have two pointless goals it takes careful planning to find ways to reach them, especially those that don't work.
At best, the plan will be ignored. At worst, it will cause the cost of housing to go up, which is what "smart growth" does everywhere else. Once they drive housing costs up, liberals then can demand "affordable housing" and create market meltdowns as they did in 2007.
Everyone now understands that the liberal elite want mass transit so that the masses will stop using cars for transit, leaving the roads clear for libs to drive their Volvos and hybrids on.

Lou Ritter R.I.P.

Lou Ritter has died. It is a loss to the city of Jacksonville.
Ritter probably was the most knowledgeable person about politics in Jacksonville for the period from the Depression to today.
He came out of college at the University of Florida and won a seat on the old City Council at the age of 25. Later he was a city commission and in the 1960s became mayor. For many years he was a highly effective lobbyist.
I first met Ritter as a young police reporter in the early '60s. He came to the old county patrol headquarters at about 7 a.m., campaigning, and I was introduced to him. One of the cops told Ritter I might be carrying a gun and Ritter patted me down, jokingly.
When he finished I grabbed my pocket and said, "My wallet is missing!" He laughed and we were friends from that point on. For the past several years I had lunch with him and some other friends once a month. He always amused and astounded us with his political stories and he had been working on a book for months that probably would contain many of them.
Jacksonville won't see the likes of Lou Ritter again.

An actor who knew what he was talking about

Whenever I hear some liberal airhead in Hollywood being quoted on public policy, I think of two comments Spencer Tracy made, on different occasions.

• "Why do actors think they're so God damn important? They're not. Acting is not an important job in the scheme of things. Plumbing is."
• "Actors have no damn place in politics, period."

Read the bill

In case anyone was influenced by the March for Mediocrity staged by the teacher unions to protest rewarding good teachers, here is what SB6 actually does.
Anyone who understands what the bill does is not likely to be opposed, unless -- like the teacher union bosses -- they simply want to cling to the status quo, where education is expensive yet fails many children.
Some pundits say merit pay is good but requiring it at the state level is bad. Local boards already have been told to devise merit pay plans, but few have bothered to do anything meaningful.
These same pundits are not above applauding state government intervention when it is to their liking, such as barring sex offenders from living within a certain distance of bus stops on the zany theory that it will deter the criminals from following their avocation, or when the state seeks to allow the media to pry into personal business.
How about a bipartisan effort to improve the bill? Seems we heard a lot of that advice when Congress was in the process of taking over the health care industry.
Maybe in this case the efforts would not be ignored.

It's all over

A learned professor says the world is doomed. There is no way to stop global warming, so we should not bother to try, he says.
Professor James Lovelock is one of the alarmists who believe humans are destroying the planet by driving SUVs and burning electric lights instead of kerosene lamps. He is just a bit more alarmed than others.
Basically, he told BBC, we should just give up and enjoy life the best we can until the world comes to an end, which he implied would be sooner rather than later.
Hell's bells: Isn't that what we're doing?
Liberals are spending the legacy of future generations as if there is no tomorrow.
So, if there isn't, what's the diff?
And why are they proposing legislation to prevent the inevitable? I mean, this guy is a scientist, for heaven's sake. His theory can't be questioned.

There he goes again

Joe "Gaffe-a-minute" Biden is at it again.
When he whispered to President Obama about how big a deal health care was, the Biden Damage Control Team in the Lame Stream Media went to Defcon 2.
Had it been Dan Quayle, of course, there would have been headlines for a week.
Biden says more stupid things in one day than Quayle did in his entire career. Toss in George W. Bush, for that matter.
The difference is that it worked then. It doesn't anymore.
People aren't stuck with the New York Times and a few emulators. They have Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report, Fox News, (a-hem) Cowford Commentary and others to bring them the truth, varnished and unvarnished.

Topsy-turvy logic

The navel-gazers at one local newspaper are fixated on a single statistic.
It is alleged that Florida is last among states in spending on schools as a percentage of income.
This brings cries to raise taxes immediately and pour more money into the salaries of the adults who run the school system, which is where most spending goes.
Meanwhile, people who live in the real world look at that statistic and think to themselves: "If we are educating kids as well as, or better than, other states that are spending a lot more money, we're doing a pretty good job."
Now, let's see what School Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals says:
"Last year 45 of our schools increased their school grades by at least one letter grade over the previous year. The progress over the last 10 years is even more encouraging, as the number of “A” and “B” schools has increased more than 500 percent, with 102 of our 166 schools receiving an “A” or “B” last year. In 2009, for the second consecutive year, Duval County Public Schools earned a district grade of “B” from the state of Florida.
"Our district is making gains in spite of our budget being significantly cut each year."
Let's recap. Since school reform began under Gov. Jeb Bush, Jacksonville has seen significant improvement in its schools, according to the school superintendent. Currently, it has a grade of B (which is above average).
What Pratt-Dannals did not mention in this particular message is this:
In the past three years, the local school operating budget has increased from $994,243,295 to $1,006,172,080 this year.
Thus, the navel-gazer's logic goes like this: Schools are making significant gains in education, while spending more money, therefore we must have a tax increase -- NOW! -- because other states spend more money than we do!!
Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

They aren't finished

Liberals are just getting warmed up with the takeover of the health care industry.
Still to come:
Amnesty for millions of people who are in this country illegally. Democrats know they will need their votes in November.
Takeover and shut down conservative talk radio and Fox News. If they can do it, they will silence the Wall Street Journal, too. Like the Chinese, Obamanation doesn't need any dissent.
In that same vein, some kind of government regulation of the Internet.
Inevitably, a crushing new tax burden. This, however, will be after the election, not before.
Right to work laws will be stricken.
Welfare will return, bigger than ever.
The Supreme Court will be packed with liberals, like the nut case just appointed to the Ninth Circuit.
Trust me. All of this and more is on the agenda. What's more, it is the domestic agenda that matters. If we lose in Afghanistan and cities in Israel are destroyed with nuclear weapons, too bad but it can't interfere with the important business at hand: turning America into a welfare state, cradle to grave.
Elections have consequences, and there was a game-changing election in 2008.

Malfeasance

Like the vast majority of Jacksonville residents, I don't read the Florida Times-Union. It is so lightweight, literally and figuratively, I have better things to do with my time.
But I asked someone who does (it's a job requirement) whether the paper had ever interviewed someone locally who (a) had no health insurance and (b) was unable to get health care. He could not cite an example.
Think about it.
Health care has been the No. 1 issue in the nation for more than a year. Those favoring the liberal plan that was enacted have been saying millions of Americans have been going without health care -- and even dying.
And the local paper couldn't find a single example?
Or, perhaps, it didn't even occur to them?
As someone who spent nearly 50 years in the business, this is incredible to me.
Localizing a major national story is Journalism 101.
But the paper is so busy with its liberal agenda, and fluff and stuff stories, it doesn't have time to provide readers with useful information. While constantly trying to figure out why readers are leaving in droves, maybe it could consider its content.

Don't ask, don't tell

President Obama's health secretary was boasting recently that because of the health care takeover, drug companies will see their profits reduced $90 billion over the next 10 years.
When the cheers subside, will someone answer this question:
How many people will die because they didn't get the new drugs that would have been developed had that money been put into research?
Who will develop and produce new life-saving drugs?
The French?
Perhaps the Obama administration will issue an executive order directing drug companies to produce new drugs, at no cost, because that is their duty to society.
That should do the trick.

None for me, thanks

If national health care is the greatest thing since sliced bread, don't you wonder why President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want no part of it?
Here's the story.
Well, Joe Biden says it is for "ordinary Americans." Not the extraordinary.

More dirty tricks

Critical Condition - National Review Online
Just one more example of the duplicitous tactics used to enact health care "reform."
Remember this?
Barack Obama. "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future."
He signed that bill today. It is law.

Stupid Stupak's stupendous surrender

If John F. Kennedy's ghost writes another edition of Profiles in Courage, we now know one person who won't be in it: Bart Stupak.
Stupak is a Democrat, which means he is a liberal and not to be trusted. Yet, some people believed that he would be true to his word and vote against the health care bill because it allows government funding of abortions.
Instead, he caved, and provided the votes needed to pass the atrocious bill.
Here's his payoff.
That's the icing on the cake that was the sleaziest chapter in American political history.

Elegy written in a kayak

Last weekend, while paddling my kayak around in the marshes, a great blue heron swooped overhead and dropped some guano on my head.
I thought to myself: This must be heaven.
As I combed it out of my beard, I thought to myself, “Self, why are you intruding on nature this way?
“This beautiful expanse of nature should be preserved for the bugs and weeds Gaia has put here. Homos, sapiens and otherwise, should not be here despoiling it.”
This brilliant bit of philosophy inspired me to write a column. So I took out some organic weed, rolled one and lit up. It makes me think more clearly.
I also fired up my laptop and began typing: “The solution to pollution is dilution; the solution to pollution is dilution …”
It was one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever written and it reminded me of a tune by the Rolling Stones. That led me to write a brilliant aphorism: “A rolling stone gathers momentum.”
Then an osprey swooped overhead.
I took out my parasol and opened it up. I can always wash the parasol.
But I’ll never wash my beard.
Nature’s most sublime work must be kept pristine.
Forever.
And ever.
Amen.

Government docs in Britain make a slight mistake

How appropriate on the day of the health care takeover vote: An example of national health care efficacy.
Yes, doctors make mistakes in this country. But isn't Liberalcare supposed to be better than what the president calls "the status quo?"
If they succeed today, or ever, we will be trading the status quo for the statist quo.

Poor politicians

I'm so glad I'm not one of the holdout Democrats.
Sure, I could have anything I wanted. Move the Washington Monument to Florida? No problem.
But the pressure!
Rep. Nancy Pelosi is a vote-getter, no question about it. She gets them the same way Lyndon Johnson did. "Grab them by their ... and their hearts and minds will follow."
My guess is they will get the votes to pass the abominable health care takeover bill.
When Johnson passed his civil rights bill, he told other senators that there would never be another Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas, his close friend Bobby Baker once told me.
Pelosi is asking House Democrats to give up their jobs to save Obama's, and apparently they are willing.

Typo trouble

Being one who has experienced many problems with typographical errors in my lifetime, I wouldn't make too much of one.
But a typo in the American History curriculum of the local public schools is too good to ignore.
Students in the 11th grade spend weeks 16 and 17 studying the Progressive Era. Anyone familiar with the extent of liberal (progressive) influence in the public schools will appreciate the need for this area of study.
An essential question: "How was imperialism a continuation of Manifesto Destiny and how was it different?"
Would that be the destiny of the Communist Manifesto? They were a pretty progressive bunch.

What lies ahead

If the Democrats succeed in taking the major step toward socialized medicine they are proposing, it will be the beginning, not the end.
Fred Barnes sees nothing but trouble for years ahead.
He is right on.
Walgreens stores in Washington state will no long provide drugs for Medicaid patients because the government will not pay for it, and that is what will happen in the new plan.
The phony numbers and cheap tricks liberals are using to pass the bill have a majority of the people opposed to the plan, and Idaho already is threatening a law suit, with dozens of other states to follow.
Many states are exempting themselves from the plan's unconstitutional requirement that people buy health insurance.
Many Democrats expect to lose their jobs if they vote for the bill.
They will. And they should.

The money thing, again

Pulitzer Prize winner George Will has a good column about Washington's latest foray into public education.
The money quote: "Abundant evidence demonstrates that money is not an Archimedean lever for moving the world of education. Inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending tripled over four decades; pupil-teacher ratios were substantially reduced as the number of teachers increased 61 percent while enrollments rose about 10 percent. Yet test scores stagnated or declined."
The idea of measuring public schools by the amount of money you throw at them is thoroughly discredited, but liberals continue their attempts to revive this myth. Therefore, it is necessary to counter them each time in order to drive a stake through the heart of their theory.

A Times reporter writes the truth

When a writer for the liberal icon New York Times acknowledges that the health care bill being rammed through Congress by liberals is "fundamentally imbalanced," you have to wonder what more it would take to make the point.
David Brooks:
"There is the doc fix dodge. The legislation pretends that Congress is about to cut Medicare reimbursements by 21 percent. Everyone knows that will never happen, so over the next decade actual spending will be $300 billion higher than paper projections.
There is the long-term care dodge. The bill creates a $72 billion trust fund to pay for a new long-term care program. The sponsors count that money as cost-saving, even though it will eventually be paid back out when the program comes on line.
There is the subsidy dodge. Workers making $60,000 and in the health exchanges would receive $4,500 more in subsidies in 2016 than workers making $60,000 and not in the exchanges. There is no way future Congresses will allow that disparity to persist. Soon, everybody will get the subsidy.
There is the excise tax dodge. The primary cost-control mechanism and long-term revenue source for the program is the tax on high-cost plans. But Democrats aren’t willing to levy this tax for eight years. The fiscal sustainability of the whole bill rests on the naïve hope that a future Congress will have the guts to accept a trillion-dollar tax when the current Congress wouldn’t accept an increase of a few billion.
There is the 10-6 dodge. One of the reasons the bill appears deficit-neutral in the first decade is that it begins collecting revenue right away but doesn’t have to pay for most benefits until 2014. That’s 10 years of revenues to pay for 6 years of benefits, something unlikely to happen again unless the country agrees to go without health care for four years every decade.
There is the Social Security dodge. The bill uses $52 billion in higher Social Security taxes to pay for health care expansion. But if Social Security taxes pay for health care, what pays for Social Security?
There is the pilot program dodge. Admirably, the bill includes pilot programs designed to help find ways to control costs. But it’s not clear that the bill includes mechanisms to actually implement the results. This is exactly what happened to undermine previous pilot program efforts."
Brooks goes on to say that the Democrats have not been totally irresponsible.
How one could arrive at that conclusion from the predicate Brooks set is inexplicable.
With all this political prevarication prevailing, no wonder economist Robert Samuelson writes: "Almost everything you think you know about health care is probably wrong or, at least, half wrong."

Watchdogs gnaw the bones they are thrown

This is Sunshine Week in Florida and the old media are all gushing about their important role as "watchdogs," yadda, yadda.
Meanwhile, they have lost a major source of important information, surrendering without a fight.
When I was a police reporter during most of the 1960s the media roamed the police station at will. I spent most of my day there, when I wasn't out chasing police calls to robberies and murders.
Now, the press is not even allowed in the police station except under carefully controlled circumstances. They have to wear I.D. badges and can read whatever offense reports are left in a special room just inside the front door of the station.
Reporters never talk to the cops on the beat. I knew every cop in town and talked with them constantly, including detectives working on cases. I rode with them, at times. They let me into crime scenes and in return I didn't mess up the scene and I gave them copies of photos I took. Evidence technicians were scarce in those days.
The first designated public information person was J.T. Lowe, a nice guy who just died recently. He asked what he could do for me and I told him I'd call him if I couldn't get any information on my own, a problem that never arose.
Now, the reporters are spoon-fed by public information officers and get only what they are told or allowed to see.
If they ever bother to ask, they probably are told non-access is about security. It's about control.

Quote of the day

Worth noting as we move in that direction...
"Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that to-day is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity." -- William Howard Taft

Un-revising history

Liberal bloggers are in a snit over the textbook review by the Texas Board of Education.
They claim the board was "revising history."
History is supposed to be a collection of facts. Facts don't change unless new information is obtained.
Children in public schools in America were, until a few years ago, taught that the Founding Fathers and history-changing people such as Christopher Columbus were important persons. That changed as liberals in government and academia managed to change school curricula and textbooks.
The changes weren't based on any new information. It simply reflected the hatred liberals have for America and American values.
Texas made it possible for children in public schools to learn more about history. This will give them a better foundation for the indoctrination they face later in college from liberal professors.

Here's a howler

Howell Raines, former editor of the New York Times, is making a post-career career out of bashing Fox News, which is bashing most of the liberal media in the ratings, including the New York Times.
Here's the latest from Raines. In an op ed piece he says, "For the first time since the yellow journalism of a century ago, the United States has a major news organization devoted to the promotion of one political party."
This from the guy who ran Jayson Blair's fiction and crusaded against the Masters Tournament over some fictional "womens' rights" issue in a way that made even other liberals blush.
Raines is the print equivalent of disgraced TV talking head Dan Rather.
The Times, as everyone in America knows, has been the quasi-official mouthpiece of the Democrat Party and continues to be, even with Raines gone.
Liberals cannot compete in the marketplace of ideas. They hate Fox because it presents both sides of issues, which responsible news organizations are supposed to do.

Damn the Constitution

In Nancy Pelosi's world, the U.S. Constitution does not matter.
She is getting ready to enact an unconstitutional bill, unconstitutionally.
Pelosi plans, according to news reports, to pass the health care takeover bill through the House without voting on it.
The Senate version of the bill is itself unconstitutional, because it would require Americans to buy a product (which most of them don't want). This never has been done before.
But the Constitution clearly requires a vote on bills.
As stated here a number of times before, Pelosi is hellbent on passing this bill, by whatever means necessary. Reluctant Democrats are being bribed and browbeaten to fall into line even now.
Remember the period 2000-2008 when Democrats constantly were complaining that the president was "shredding the Constitution"?
Ignoring it is better, I suppose.

Campaign promise review

China is calling the Americans "hypocrites" on human rights.
France's premier is lashing the U.S. for protectionism.
Iran's head continues to berate the U.S.
Hugo Chavez scoffs at the U.S. (to applause by "actor" Sean Penn).
Israel is not happy about Joe Biden's lectures on its housing construction.
Wasn't the ascension of the Chosen One, Barack Obama, to the presidency supposed to bring harmony throughout the world and renewed respect for the United States from every nation?
Just wondering how that hopey changey thing was working.

A victory for public education in Texas

Thanks to the Texas Board of Education, public school students in the Lone Star State will be learning ideas that students are not allowed to learn in other states.
For example, textbooks in Texas will no longer use the loaded word "capitalism," which is equated with evil by the left. Instead, they will use "free-enterprise system."
Two champions of the free-enterprise system, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Von Hayek, will be mentioned in the books.
These changes are the result of a “textbook war” that took place recently. Every 10 years, textbooks used in the public schools are reviewed by the board, and changes ordered. This time, the conservatives on the board prevailed and some of the left-wing ideology was purged from the books. (Hat tip to Greg Halvorson at American Thinker for listing some of the changes.) Other topics Texas children have not been allowed to hear in school: the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s: Phyllis Schlafly, the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, and the Contract with America.
Dangerous things, these. But now children will know they exist.
Black Panther agitation in the civil rights era will be addressed, rather than hidden. Also, the inclusion of congressional vote-tallies on civil rights legislation, from which children will learn which party had the largest percentage voting in favor of the Civil Rights Act. (If you said Republican, you get an A.)
One more heretical thought will be added by teaching the importance of personal responsibility. Students will have to learn that the world owes them a living from watching the news on TV, from any network other than Fox, which merely reports the news.
There will be a clarification on "separation of church and state" as intended by the Founding Fathers. Texas students may even learn than these were great men, not evil conspirators.
It is entirely possible that the public schools in Texas will get more students, as fewer parents resort to private schools and homeschooling in order to get a full education for their children. Controlling the minds of children is one way those who do not like America have been able to gain political power. But indoctrination is not education.

Reinventing the wheel, and making it square

Liberal Democrats are in the fight of their lives with less-liberal Democrats over health care and are using insurance companies as their whipping boys to distract from the ugly details of their plan.
This is a popular tactic. Trial lawyers have managed to whip up a sizeable segment of the public to hate insurance companies.
The libs want three things in their plan: guaranteed issue, which means companies must insure anybody; “pre-existing conditions,” which mans companies cannot screen anyone out for being sick; and community rating, which means everyone pays the same.
Sounds fair, right? Sure, if you want to wreck another industry the way liberal policies wrecked banking and auto manufacturing.
As someone said recently, liberals have managed to concoct a plan no rational person would buy, and now they plan to force everyone to buy it.
Being forced to insure someone who already has cancer means that irresponsible people – and there are a lot of them – won’t buy insurance until they get cancer. So they won’t pay any of the costs, but everybody else will, including responsible people who have been paying premiums all along.
It isn’t as if these brilliant ideas haven’t been tried.
Heritage Foundation scholars looked at several states that tried such reforms in the 1990s and found the results were “nothing short of catastrophic.”
New Jersey's experience with community rating and guaranteed issue found "a precipitous decline in enrollment, a corresponding increase in premiums, and a change in enrollment composition toward older and potentially more expensive enrollees."
In New York, community-rating was tried. "In the first year," Ed Rubenstein wrote in National Review, "25-year-old males were hit with premium hikes of over $500, while 55-year-olds paid about $415 less than under the risk-rated system. Not surprisingly many young people decided to drop their coverage. With fewer young, healthy policyholders available to subsidize older ones, insurance premiums skyrocketed..."
Slow-learners in Maine enacted these same insurance rules in 2003. After being in effect for five years a healthy 30-year-old male had a monthly premium of $762 in the individual market. In New Hampshire, which shunned community rating and guaranteed issue, similar coverage costs $222 a month, Heritage said.
There are ways to lower the costs of health care, and health insurance, such as tort reform, tax credits, and cutting insurance loose from employment. Liberals aren’t interested in those ideas. They propose to give away “free” to everyone something that is expensive by its very nature.
Hey, while you’re at it, could I have a 30-foot sailboat?

Absolutely astounding

There is much to be amazed about in the full-court press by Democrats to ram through the health care takeover bill.
They are not going to be hampered by any rules, including the rules of decency.
But this sets some kind of record.
Rep. Bart Stupak is a holdout Democrat, fighting to keep out federal funding of abortions, which is in the Senate bill. He is not optimistic. Nancy Pelosi and company have been able to peel away a couple of the 12 votes pledged to his stance.
What is the argument the Democrat leadership offers?
“If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak told National Review.
That is, if more unborn children are not killed it will increase the costs. Hiding the cost is a major part of the Democrat strategy.
This is the ugliest political fight ever. If the liberals succeed, there will be an enormous backlash as people learn what has been done to them.

Obama spurs the sale of books

According to a 1991 survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Atlas Shrugged was second only to the Bible as the book that made the most difference in the lives of Americans.
It's making more difference to a lot more Americans now.
Last year, sales shot through the roof. During Year One of Obama, the book sold more than 500,000 copies, a record according to the Ayn Rand Institute. Not bad for a book written more than a half-century ago, and one that is far from being a quick read.
For the first time, Ayn Rand's four novels sold more than 1 million copies.
As most people know, Rand's magnum opus Atlas Shrugged poses the question of what would happen if producers rebel against government over-regulation and just quit producing.
Imagine. Without businesses to create wealth and collect taxes for the government, liberals would be dead in the water.
People have to be wondering, as the fist of government closes on them, just how long it will be until that scenario unfolds.

Puzzling paradigms

Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal plan to start selling their content on the Web, rather than giving it away free.
That should be interesting.
Representing the left and the right, these two papers are likely to have different outcomes.
Liberals who think you are entitled to have whatever you want whether you can pay for it or not, may not want to pay for the Times. For heaven's sake, they might make a profit!
On the other hand, people who believe in free enterprise probably will pay to read the Wall Street Journal, which is one of the few papers left that presents the news objectively.
The question remains what all the other newspaper are going to do. They are giving away their product now, but are afraid people won't pay for it on the Web. But, then, fewer and fewer are paying for the increasingly thin paper product either.
Maybe some will go back to offering content.

Water, water everywhere

When the liberal pundits wring their hands and cry crocodile tears over Florida's lack of water, why don't they ask the obvious questions?
Such as: Why does the state persist in dumping 1.7 billion gallons of perfectly good water into the ocean every day?
Does the media have any curiosity, or do they just write by rote these days?

Don't confuse us with facts

Because the debate over school funding is so one-sided and fact-deficient, I'm linking to a commentary I wrote for Examiner on this topic, in advance of tonight's "community meeting" on the school budget.

Promises, promises

A few people are backing the Democrat health "reform" bill because health care costs are rising.
President Obama says health insurance premiums would go down if the bill passes.
A leading Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin just said premiums would go up, not down.
What Durbin says makes sense.
The proposal would increase the number of people who are insured, and create incentives for them to use more health care. How could that "bend the cost curve down" as Obama has said?
Also, on savings, the Joint Tax Committee says taxes will go up for those earning less than $200,000 a year.
That takes care of the Obama promise that anyone making less than $250,000 a year would not see their taxes go up as much as "one dime."

Time to turn around

Having taken note of a stupid comment (see Finding the Middle below), let me acknowledge a profound observation by way of comparison.
"People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid. Much of the stupidity we see today is induced by our educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities. In a high-tech age that has seen the creation of artificial intelligence by computers, we are also seeing the creation of artificial stupidity by people who call themselves educators.
"Educational institutions created to pass on to the next generation the knowledge, experience, and culture of the generations that went before them have instead been turned into indoctrination centers to promote whatever notions, fashions, or ideologies happen to be in vogue among today’s intelligentsia."
That is from economist Thomas Sowell's insightful essay in National Review.
We need to get away from indoctrination and back to education.

Elections have consequences

Every day seems to bring a new horror story as the encroachment of the federal government continues.
1. The government is taking over the student loan business, driving out the private sector, which is the preferred choice of most universities.
2. The government is redefining poverty, and the new definition will assure that poverty is never eliminated. It is being set up so that it is a proportion of the total population.
3. The government has singled out Florida for punitive EPA regulations that will classify pristine lakes, rivers and streams in the state as polluted. By one estimate, water and sewer bills for the average Floridian will go up $60 a month as a result.
4. The government has not taken overt action yet, but fishing enthusiasts believe that it is heading toward restricting or banning recreational fishing in many lakes, rivers and coastal waters throughout America.
As the growing Tea Party movement shows, Americans are not going to take it lying down, but there is still an incredible amount of apathy. As Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
The problem is that liberals, socialists, fascists, communists and others on the left don't think government control is evil. They think private property and individual freedom are the evils.

Trotting out the usual blarney

Those who want to continue throwing money at the public schools are revved up good this year.
What has them on edge is another proposal for meaningful school reform.
State Sen. John Thrasher wants to reward good teachers for doing good work.
Teacher union bosses are outraged. They think it is the ruination of the public schools.
The usual nitwit argument is being posed: Florida taxpayers aren't doing their civic duty because they spend less money on schools than taxpayers in some other states.
As if there was some connection between throwing money at the schools and educating children.
Do these knee-jerk liberals really think people buy that lame argument anymore?
It isn't as if that method hasn't been tried. Public schools by any measure have had funding increased substantially. But there has not been a commensurate increase in education.
Florida children began getting better educations when conservatives in the Legislature demanded competition and accountability in the public schools.
Getting into a race with other states to see who can throw the most money at schools helps teacher unions and the liberal politicians they support. It doesn't help kids, families or taxpayers.

Another Ratherism

Disgraced ex-talking head Dan Rather says Barack Obama "couldn't sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic."
Watch what happens -- or doesn't happen -- next.
MSNBC talking head David Shuster just accused Republicans of being racists for calling Charlie Rangel "a Harlem Democrat." (Hat tip to Media Research Center.)
Harlem is in Rangel's district. Yet, Shuster accused them of injecting race into the issue of Rangel's ethical transgressions by mentioning his district.
But is Rather going to be called a racist by Shuster for linking Obama with "watermelons"?
Wait and see. But don't hold your breath.

Finding the middle

This has to be the most moronic statement written in the past year:
"Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist."
This is from the flat-earther Tom Friedman of the New York Times.
Centrist? A guy who is taking over not only private companies but entire industries? A guy piling up debt as far as the eye can see, and pushing for the largest entitlement in 75 years?
If that is the center of America, God help us.

Elections have consequences

From the New York Times:
"To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon."
That will be one the nut cases can't blame on Big Oil.

Thanks, Al Gore

From the U.K. Telegraph: A couple in Argentina killed themselves and their 2-year-old son and shot their 7-month-old daughter, who lived.
They left a suicide note explaining that they were afraid of global warming.
This serves as merely one example of why people who believe humans are toasting the world are called "alarmists."
The worst of the alarmists is the former vice president who is trying to become a billionaire by needlessly scaring people with junk science.

Tit for tat

As predicted here, the socialists in Congress and the White House are going to use the Jonestown solution to their problem of taking over the health care industry.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was quoted by Fox News as saying, "We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."
She meant to say "do a job ON the American people."
The free translation for Democrat underlings is this: Drink up that purple Koolaid. Your jobs are less important than advancing our ideology.
President Obama, Pelosi and Harry Reid plan to use the budget reconciliation process to get a majority vote for Obama's health care takeover. That has been used by both parties before but, as the name implies, only for budget issues.
If they do it, there will be a precedent. So if they sacrifice their jobs, and their majority, a new Republican majority can feel free to use the same method to take apart the Democrat plan, and to begin dismantling the rest of the welfare state.
If Republicans make clear that is their intention, it should increase their chances of obtaining that majority.
Hardball begets hardball.

Caleeforniya dreamin'

After mentioning the financial condition of Greece in the previous post, I ran across a story in the London Telegraph.
Here's the lead:
"Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan Chase, has warned American investors should be more worried about the risk of default of the state of California than of Greece's current debt woes."
California politicians long have thought you can have whatever you want, regardless the cost.
Their attitude is that if they drag the state into bankruptcy, the other 49 states will bail them out.
We may soon find out if they are right.

There may never be another Maggie

One of the wisest statesmen of the 20th century was Margaret Thatcher.
One of her pearls of wisdom is this: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money."
That is precisely what is happening in Greece.
Mark Steyn explains the problem, and why it is a problem for the United States, here.
OPM, or other people's money, is the Euro of socialism/liberalism/communism/fascism.
It is plentiful but not inexhaustible.

Liberal trickery on display

One bit of trickery at the health care summit was noticeable to anyone paying attention.
When one Republican asked the relevant question, "Does Washington know better" than an insurance buyer what he needs, President Obama bristled.
He suggested that using such loaded language was unfair because "everyone is mad at Washington right now."
Yet, repeatedly, Democrats assailed the evil insurance companies they hate for making profits.
Not once were they remonstrated by Obama for using loaded language.
There were other examples, such as the Republican disclosure of the trickery Democrats had used to lower the apparent cost of their health plan.
But you had to be watching and listening closely. For most people, the political showmanship was just too much, even though the end result will affect their lives directly, in a major way.

More spin

Everyone is going to put his own spin on the health summit.
Liberals saw one thing, conservatives another.
What I saw was a meeting dominated by Democrats, who used up most of the time and expressed no real interest in considering Republican ideas.
Democrats did their best to paint Republicans as intransigent. They were aided by the airhead Shepard Smith on Fox News, who raged at Sen. John Thune about the Republicans not being willing to compromise.
Here's the problem. Liberals want to go in one direction and conservatives want to go in the other. Compromise as envisioned by liberals and Smith means conservatives should go halfway in the direction liberals want to go.
That is not compromise. That is surrender. And conservatives should not surrender because they are right.
Polls show the American people agree on that point.

Much ado and nothing adone

I have no problem with the fact that some people would like other people to pay their medical bills for them.
Just don't tell me that someone else has a moral obligation to do so.
I work out in the gym three days a week and I don't eat cheeseburgers and French fries. I never have had a cigarette in my mouth.
To tell me I have an obligation to pay the doctor bills for someone who smokes, drinks, stuffs himself with greasy food and never exercises is sheer lunacy.
No one has a right to free medical care. If you do, then you have a right to free food.
Neither is free anyway. As P.J. O'Rourke said, "If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it's free."
Rational calculations indicate the Obama plan will cost $2.5 trillion and up over the next 10 years, with relatively little benefit.
With such facts on the table, the Republicans and Democrats are getting nowhere arguing about how to give everyone unlimited health care at no cost.
The best thing they could do is call a truce, drop the subject, and go find ways to help the private sector get the economy moving again.
That's what the people want. Remember them?

Prep for the dog and pony show

Let's hope the socialists in the White House read TimesOnline.
Here's the lead from a story it just published about Britain's National Health Service.
"Patients were routinely neglected or left “sobbing and humiliated” by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care."
That's socialized medicine.
Sure, everyone is covered.
But does everyone get health care?
Why did a top politician in Canada, where everyone is covered, go to the United States for his own treatment?
If Republicans insist on meeting with President Obama tomorrow to talk about health care, those are the questions they should ask.
Obama called the meeting to get input from the GOP on their ideas about health care. But Monday he unveiled his own plan, at last, without GOP input. Furthermore, congressional leaders are planning to ram the plan through Congress by ignoring rules they called fair just a few years ago -- if they can.
And, if that video makes you applaud liberals for their high principles, see this one for how they actually do business.
The liberals' problem is that Democrats don't like the plan either. Nor does the American public.
Republicans will be used as props by the president but they have the better plan. Just don't plan on the media spinning the story that way.

Believe it or not

Democrats in Congress are bringing back segregation.
In addition, they are establishing a monarchy.
What's next? Taking up my suggestion to make native Hawaiian Barack Obama an emperor?
I was just kidding, fellas!

Running out of time

President Nero fiddled for a year while Iran was burning with a desire to exterminate Jews. The result of his "engagement" is that Iran now claims to have the means to fulfill its desire, with nuclear weapons.
But, Barack Obama is prepared to step it up. His next move will be stern talk.
Meanwhile, the potential victims are acting to reduce terrorist threats.
Israel, apparently, managed to assassinate the top official of Hamas.
While some are expecting Israel to do what it did once before -- bomb a nuclear threat to rubble -- it may not have the capability.
Israel does not have B-2 Stealth bombers and bunker-buster bombs that can reach underground nuclear plants.
America does, but will it use them before it is too late for Israel?
The top military official is expressing reservations about using military power against Iran. He seems to favor spy operations such as getting homing devices into Iranian nuclear plant equipment and infecting Iran's computers with viruses.
But that requires an effective spy operation.
That's two abilities Israel has that the United States lacks. It can keep state secrets and it can run a spy operation that works.