YID With LID

Fort Hood Killer Shared "Spiritual Adviser" With 9/11 Hijackers

2009-11-07T20:48:00.000-05:00

“Jihad is the greatest deed in Islam and the salvation of the ummah is in practicing it. In times like these, when Muslim lands are occupied by the kuffar, when the jails of tyrants are full of Muslim POWs, when the rule of the law of Allah is absent from this world and when Islam is being attacked in order to uproot it, Jihad becomes obligatory on every Muslim. Jihad must be practiced by the child even if the parents refuse, by the wife even if the husband objects and by the one indebt even if the lender disagrees.” --Anwar al-Awlaki “44 Ways to Support Jihad”

Al Awlaki is a U.S. citizen, who served as an imam in Colorado, California, and Washington D.C. and worked as the Muslim Chaplain at George Washington Univ. He was the “spiritual advisor” to 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar.

The Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 reported that “the FBI agent responsible for the September 11 investigation informed staff that ‘there’s a lot of smoke there’ with regard to…[al Awlaki’s] connection to the hijackers.” Returning to Yemen, he was arrested in 2006 and held for over a year.

The Telegraph in the UK is reporting that Major Nidal Malik Hasan the Fort Hood mass-murderer had a relationship with Al Awlaki :

Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists
By Philip Sherwell and Alex Spillius

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan's motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an "al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers... who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen".

Last night Hasan remained in a coma under guard at a military hospital in San Antonio, Texas, and was said to be in a "stable" condition. Born in America to a Palestinian family, Hasan, 39, was an army psychiatrist who had chosen to sign up for the US military against his parents' wishes.

But he turned into an angry critic of the wars America was waging in Iraq and Afghanistan and had tried in vain to negotiate his discharge.

He counselled soldiers returning from the front line and told relatives that he was horrified at the prospect of a deployment to Afghanistan later this year – his first time in a combat zone.

Whether due to his personal convictions, his stress over his deployment or other reasons, Hasan is alleged to have snapped and gone on a murderous rampage with a powerful semi-automatic handgun after shouting "Allahu Akhbar" ("God is great"), according to survivors. He had earlier given away copies of the Koran to neighbours.

Investigators at this stage have no indication that he planned the attacks with anyone else. But they are trawling through his phone records, paperwork and computers he used before the attack during an apparently sleepless night.

Five of the 13 victims were fellow mental health professionals from three units of the army's Combat Stress Control Detachment, it was disclosed yesterday.

It is understood that Hasan had been due to be deployed with members of those units in coming months. Whether he deliberately singled out other combat stress counsellors is another key question.

What does seem clear is that the army missed an increasing number of red flags that Hasan was a troubled and brooding individual within its ranks.

"I was shocked but not surprised by news of Thursday's attack," said Dr Val Finnell, a fellow student on a public health course in 2007-08 who heard Hasan equate the war on terrorism to a war on Islam. Another student had warned military officials that Hasan was a "ticking time bomb" after he reportedly gave a presentation defending suicide bombers.

Kamran Pasha, the author of Mother of the Believers, a new novel relating the story of Islam from the perspective of Aisha, Prophet Mohammed's wife, was told of the al-Awlaki connection from a Muslim friend who is also an officer at Fort Hood. Using the name Richard, the recent convert to Islam described how he frequently prayed with Hasan at the town mosque after Hasan was deployed to Fort Hood in July. They last worshipped together at predawn prayers on the day of the massacre when Hasan "appeared relaxed and not in any way troubled or nervous".

But Richard had previously argued with Hasan when he said that he felt the "war on terror" was really a war against Islam, expressed anti-Jewish sentiments and defended suicide bombings.

"I asked Richard whether he believed that Hasan was motivated by religious radicalism in his murderous actions," Mr Pasha said.

"Richard, with great sadness, said that he believed this was true. He also believed that psychological factors from Hasan's job as an army psychiatrist added to his pathos. The news that he would be deployed overseas, to a war that he rejected, may have pushed him over the edge.

"But Richard does not excuse Hasan. As a Muslim, he finds Hasan's religious perspectives to be fundamentally misguided. And as a soldier, he finds Hasan's actions cowardly and evil."

Fellow Muslims in the US armed forces have also been quick to denounce Hasan's actions and insist that they were the product of a lone individual rather than of Islamic teachings. Osman Danquah, the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, said Hasan never expressed anger toward the army or indicated any plans for violence.

But he said that, at their second meeting, Hasan seemed almost incoherent.

"I told him, 'There's something wrong with you'. I didn't get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn't seem right."

He was sufficiently troubled that he recommended the centre reject Hasan's request to become a lay Muslim leader at Fort Hood.

Hasan had, in fact, already come to the attention of the authorities before Thursday's massacre. He was suspected of being the author of internet postings that compared suicide bombers with soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save others and had also reportedly been warned about proselytising to patients.

At Fort Hood, he told a colleague, Col Terry Lee, that he believed Muslims should rise up against American "aggressors". He made no attempt to hide his desire to end his military service early or his mortification at the prospect of deployment to Afghanistan. "He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there," said his cousin, Nader Hasan.

Yet away from his strident attacks on US foreign policy, he came across as subdued and reclusive – not hostile or threatening. Soldiers he counselled at the Walter Reed hospital in Washington praised him, while at Fort Hood, Kimberly Kesling, the deputy commander of clinical services, remarked: "Up to this point, I would consider him an asset."

Relatives said that the death of Hasan's parents, in 1998 and 2001, turned him more devout. "After he lost his parents he tried to replace their love by reading a lot of books, including the Koran," his uncle Rafiq Hamad said.

"He didn't have a girlfriend, he didn't dance, he didn't go to bars."

His failed search for a wife seemed to haunt Hasan. At the Muslim Community Centre in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, he signed up for an Islamic matchmaking service, specifying that he wanted a bride who wore the hijab and prayed five times a day.

Adnan Haider, a retired professor of statistics, recalled how at their first meeting last year, a casual introduction after Friday prayers, Hasan immediately asked the academic if he knew "a nice Muslim girl" he could marry.

"It was a strange thing to ask someone you have met two seconds before. It was clear to me he was under pressure, you could just see it in his face," said Prof Haider, 74, who used to work at Georgetown University in Washington. "You could see he was lonely and didn't have friends.

"He is working with psychiatric people and I ask why the people around him didn't spot that something was wrong? When I heard what had happened I actually wasn't that surprised."

Indeed, many of the characteristics attributed to Hasan by acquaintances – withdrawn, unassuming, brooding, socially awkward and never known to have had a girlfriend – have also applied to other mass murderers.

Hasan was born and brought up in Virginia to parents who ran restaurants after emigrating to America from the West Bank. He graduated from Virginia Tech university – coincidentally, the scene of the worst mass shooting in US history in 2007 – with a degree in biochemistry and then joined the army, which trained him as a psychiatrist.

Relatives said that he was subjected to increasingly ugly taunts about his religion and ethnicity from other soldiers after the September 11 attacks. But his uncle insisted yesterday that Hasan would not have been driven to mass murder by revenge or religion.

Speaking in the West Bank town of al-Bireh, Mr Hamad said his nephew "loved America" and could only have been caused to snap by an as yet unexplained factor. "He always said there was no country in the world like America," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "Something big happened to him in Texas. If he did it – and until now I am in denial – it had to have been something huge because revenge was not in his nature."

Louisiana Raids ACORN to Get To Bottom of Rathke Embezzlement Scandal

2009-11-06T22:21:00.000-05:00

According to a July 9, 2008 article in the New York Times, Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN’s founder, Wade Rathke, “embezzled nearly $1 million from Acorn and affiliated charitable organizations in 1999 and 2000.” The Times reported Dale Rathke embezzled $948,607.50, “carried as a loan on the books of Citizens Consulting Inc., which provides bookkeeping, accounting and other financial management services to Acorn and many of its affiliated entities.” ACORN “chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly $1 million eight years ago as an internal matter and did not even notify its board.” According to an October 10, 2008 New York Times report, ACORN “had failed to disclose the theft for eight years.” Dale Rathke remained on ACORN’s payroll until June 2008, when news broke of his wrongdoing.

Like all seeds this ACORN Grew... Back in October Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell charged that the embezzlement of one million dollars was actually FIVE Million Dollars. Today the AG executed a search warrant on ACORN's New Orleans offices and removed about 100 computers with the purpose of learning more about the Rathke embezzlement and the subsequent ACORN cover-up:

ACORN hard drives to be returned after data is copied by state investigators
By Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune

Agents from the state Attorney General's Office executed a search warrant Friday on ACORN's local headquarters, seizing roughly 100 computers and files as part of an ongoing state embezzlement and accounting fraud investigation.

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has been investigating the community organizing agency since June.

The seizure on Friday focused on computers and "electronic media," such as e-mail and files, said David Caldwell, an assistant attorney general and son of the attorney general.

"The search was pretty broad," said the younger Caldwell, who heads a state public corruption unit. "Now we don't have to start worrying about them (computers) walking off."

About 100 computers were taken from the agency's offices in a seizure that lasted most of the day.

David Caldwell said the probable cause cited in the search warrant stemmed from ACORN's own acknowledgement that one or two recently terminated employees may have taken computers or other pertinent materials from the office.

In the state investigation, ACORN attorneys are citing an accountant/client privilege as the basis for withholding financial files, Caldwell said.

The Attorney General's Office issued subpoenas in August seeking documents related to former ACORN International President Wade Rathke and his brother Dale Rathke, who kept the group's books. Those subpoenas were focused on possible ACORN violations for nonpayment of employee withholding taxes, obstructing justice and violating the Employee Retirement Security Act.

Early last month, Caldwell's office issued other subpoenas for records from ACORN's New Orleans office in the 2600 block of Canal Street, where the organization -- now moving its national headquarters to Washington -- has long been based. The seizure on Friday was an outgrowth of those subpoenas, according to Caldwell's office.

ACORN Deputy Director of National Operations Brian Kettenring released a statement Friday noting that agency has been cooperating with a "variety of governmental entities across the country to provide" requested information and documents.

"We were told that the AG's office has no criticisms of ACORN's cooperative efforts, but rather that the warrant was issued because of concern that former local ACORN staff members had and may intend in the future, to remove or alter electronic documents."

The state investigation is taking place as the community organizing behemoth undergoes seismic shifts, and has seen some members form a reform group.

David Caldwell said state investigators will copy the hard drives from ACORN's computers and return them next week. The computers contain payroll information for the national organization. Caldwell noted that some computers were not taken Friday because they would have affected the agency's immediate payroll, and forced some to go without paychecks. Caldwell said investigators worked with ACORN members and will pick up those items in the near future.

People inside and close to ACORN were angered by news last spring that Dale Rathke had taken close to $1 million from the organization, which is billed as an advocate for poor and working-class people.

But in the subpoenas, the state attorney general's office suggested that the embezzlement may have been on the order of $5 million, and that ACORN's current CEO, Bertha Lewis, acknowledged as much at an Oct. 17, 2008 board meeting, soon after she assumed the position.

Lewis blasted the Attorney General's investigation last month, saying the state agency had bought a misleading version of events that she said was being peddled by disgruntled former ACORN board members.

Some ACORN members created a reform group, dubbed ACORN 8.

"The ACORN 8 have always sought a forensic examination and an independent audit of ACORN and its related entities," group President Marcel Reid said in a statement released Friday. "And we were thrown off the board for attempting to investigate a $1 million embezzlement."

Amid the infighting, the agency recently faced a firestorm of criticism by the release of embarrassing videotapes in which ACORN workers in several cities appeared to be offering helpful business advice to a young man and a woman posing as a pimp and prostitute.

Obama's Tax LIES and BROKEN PROMISES

2009-11-06T21:00:00.101-05:00

During the campaign, Obama made a definitive promise not to raise any taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year:

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes” (September 12, 2008, Dover, NH)

"No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised," Joe Biden said, "whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax."(Joe Biden, Oct. 3, 2008, Vice Presidential Debate, St. Louis, MO)

On Tax Day White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked if the President’s tax pledge applies “to the health care bill” Gibbs assured us that it did:

“The statement didn’t come with caveats.”

On August 3, 2009, Gibbs was asked again about the Obama'ss tax pledge, Gibbs replied:

“I am reiterating the President's clear commitment in the clearest terms possible, that he's not raising taxes on those who make less than $250,000 a year.” (White House Briefing)

The more we read about the about the House's $1.8 Trillion Obamacare bill and its $1 Trillion in new taxes, the more we see that many of those new taxes do not conform to Obama’s promise of not raising taxes to people making under $250,000. But promises don't really matter when one is trying to redistribute income. Today Obama endorsed H.R. 3962, which is loaded with tax hikes on families making less than $250,000 per year. Here’s how:

Health Insurance Mandate Taxes on Working Families

·        Individual Mandate Excise Tax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest. There is no exception for families making less than $250,000.

·        Employer Mandate Payroll Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to the following schedule:

Payroll Tax Rate

Average Payroll Size

N/A

<$500,000

2%

$500,000-$585,000

4%

$585,000-$670,000

6%

$670,000-$750,000

8%

$750,00<

Small business owners pay their taxes on their owners’ personal tax returns. Since this provision does not exempt business owners making less than $250,000 per year, this employer mandate tax will violate President Obama’s promise in some cases.

Tax Hikes on Healthcare Spending Accounts



·        Cap on Flex-Spending Account (FSA) contributions at $2500 (Page 325): Currently, the contribution level is unlimited

·        Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Americans would no longer be able to purchase over-the-counter medicines with their FSA, Health Savings Account (HSA), or Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA)

·        Increase in the Non-Qualified HSA Distribution Penalty from 10% to 20% (Page 326): This makes HSAs less attractive, and paves the way for HSA pre-verification

There are 30 million Americans with FSAs. About 8 million Americans have an HSA. Virtually all of them make less than $250,000 per year. These are clear tax hikes on these families

      Making Legal Tax Deductions Not So Legal

·        Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

There is no exception for families making less than $250,000 per year.

Source ATR

White House Tells Democratic Political Strategists: STAY OFF FOX !!!

2009-11-06T13:52:00.048-05:00

Shortly after the White House declared "war" on Fox's news division last month, calling it an arm of the Republican Party and attempting to freeze it out of a pooled press briefing, pundits on both the left and the right cried foul, summoning up comparisons to Richard Nixon's paranoid, vindictive presidency and based on the transcript of a Nixon tape below that comparison is very justified:

Nixon Tapes Transcript
December 11, 1972
President Richard Nixon: Hi Ron
Press Secretary Ron Ziegler: Yes Mr. President.
Nixon: Yeah.
Ziegler: I just talked to Connie. She fully understands the Washington Post, uhh, situation. There was no reporter today at the uhh, at the uhh, uhh, ceremony. There was a photographer there. But, apparently they, uhh, screwed up on their desk assignment today and uhh, there was no reporter present, from the Post.
Nixon: I want it clearly understood that from now on, ever, no reporter from the Washington Post is ever to be in the White House. Is that clear?
Ziegler: Absolutely.
Nixon: (Unintelligible)
Ziegler: Yes sir. In the briefings here, but…
Nixon: Not at briefings
Ziegler: But, n..
Nixon: But never, never in the White House. No church service, nothing with Mrs. Nixon does. You tell Connie don’t tell Mrs. Nixon, because she’ll approve it. No reporter from the Washington Post is ever to be in the White House again. And no photographer either. And no photographer. Is that clear?
Ziegler: Yes sir.
Nixon: None ever is to be in. Now that is a total order. And, and if necessary I’ll fire you. Do you understand?
Ziegler: I do understand.
Nixon: Okay, alright, good, thank you.

History does indeed repeat itself

The White House has not been happy about Fox's relentless pursuit of the truth, unlike the rest of the mainstream media Fox has covered ALL the news including tea party rallies, anti-health care reform town halls, ACORN's missteps and White House adviser Van Jones' unveiling as a radical Marxist 9/11 "truther."

In September, Obama froze out "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace after appearing on five other Sunday shows to tout health care reform. Then, on Oct. 11, Anita Dunn, White House Communications director, went on rival cable news channel CNN to declare "the reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party," a sentiment echoed by presidential adviser David Axelrod, who said "they're not really a news station."

Recently there have been rumors of a pending truce, but the White House seems to be ratcheting up the battle. There are reports the White House is telling Democratic Political Strategists do not appear on Fox--or else:

White House: FOX off-limits -- strategist
by Peter Nicholas

At least one Democratic political strategist has gotten a blunt warning from the White House to never appear on Fox News Channel, an outlet that presidential aides have depicted as not so much a news-gathering operation as a political opponent bent on damaging the Obama administration.

Political consultants are a staple of cable television talk shows, analyzing current events based on their own experiences working on campaigns or in government.

One Democratic strategist said that shortly after an appearance on Fox he got a phone call from a White House official telling him not to be a guest on the show again. The call had an intimidating tone, he said.

The message was, "We better not see you on again,'' said the strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to run afoul of the White House. An implicit suggestion, he said, was that "clients might stop using you if you continue.''

In urging Democratic consultants to spurn Fox, White House officials might be trying to isolate the network and make it appear more partisan.

A boycott by Democratic strategists could also help drive the White House narrative that Fox is a fundamentally different creature than the other TV news networks. For their part, White House officials appear on Fox News -- but sporadically and with "eyes wide open,'' as one aide put it.

David Plouffe, the president's campaign manager and author of a new campaign book, The Audacity to Win, was scheduled to appear on Fox's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren last night as he promotes his book. His appearance, pre-empted by the breaking news of the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, has been rescheduled for Monday.

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said Thursday night that she had checked with colleagues who "deal with TV issues'' and they had not told people to avoid Fox. On the contrary, they had urged people to appear on the network, Dunn wrote in an email.

But Patrick Caddell, a Fox News contributor and a former pollster for Democratic President Jimmy Carter, said he has spoken to Democratic consultants who have been told by the White House to avoid appearances on Fox. He declined to give their names.

Caddell said he had not gotten that message himself from the White House. "They know better than to tell me anything like that,'' he said.

Caddell added: "I have heard that they've done that to others in not too subtle ways. I find it appalling. When the White House gets in the business of suppressing dissent and comment, particularly from its own party, it hurts itself.''

The White House has taken an aggressive stance toward Fox. When President Obama appeared on five separate talk shows one Sunday in September, he avoided Fox.

"It would be foolish for us to just treat it like it's CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS,'' said a White House aide. "That doesn't make any sense. That would be like saying we're going to do [interviews] with the news magazines and we're going to do Time, Newsweek and the [conservative] National Review.''

The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to talk more openly about the White House's thinking.

Last month, Dunn told CNN that Fox was, in effect, an "arm'' of the Republican Party. Dunn said in an appearance on the rival cable network: "Let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is.''

As the dustup played out, Fox's senior vice president of news, Michael Clemente, countered: "Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. ''

Fox's commentators have been sharply critical of the Obama administration. After the president won the Nobel Peace Prize, Sean Hannity, who has a prime-time show on Fox, said he got the award for "trashing America.''

The two sides seemed interested in easing tensions. On Oct. 28, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met privately with Clemente.

But White House aides haven't changed their underlying view of Fox.

Fox's audience is by far the largest of the cable networks, with an average of more than 2.1 million viewers in prime-time this year. CNN is second with 932,000 prime-time viewers.

Fox's viewership is not what worries the White House, though. More troubling to White House aides is that other news organizations may uncritically follow stories that Fox has showcased.

The White House aide said: "Where some of the falsehoods become dangerous is when the rest of the media accepts them as fact and reports on them, either out of a desire to tap into Fox's news audience - which you can understand, given where circulation and viewership rates are - or as some sort of knee-jerk fear of being considered liberally biased, which is what conservatives have been saying of the mainstream media for years.''

The White House's pugnacious approach to the network leaves some Democrats troubled.

Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, said in an interview: "This approach is out of sync with my conception of what the Obama administration stands for and what they're trying to do. I think they'll think better of it and this will be a passing phase.''

Was Ft. Hood Killer Was Praising Suicide Bombers on the Internet ?

2009-11-05T23:05:00.001-05:00

Investigators are still trying to figure out what made Ft. Hood Major Nidal Malik Hasan, kill 12 of is fellow soldiers and injure another 31. Little by little some disturbing facts are beginning to sneak out.

Hasan has a history of psychological issues. As an intern at Walter Reed, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.

The AP is reporting that about six months ago, investigations of Hasan were initiated by enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades. One of the officials said late Thursday that federal search warrants were being drawn up to authorize the seizure of Hasan's computer in order to determine if the Nidal Hasan praising terrorism on the net was the same Nidal Hasan that killed a dozen comrades today.

Below is one of the posts which generated the interest of investigators:

NidalHasan scribbled: There was a grenade thrown amongs a group of American soldiers. One of the soldiers, feeling that it was to late for everyone to flee jumped on the grave with the intention of saving his comrades. Indeed he saved them. He inentionally took his life (suicide) for a noble cause i.e. saving the lives of his soldier. To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause. Scholars have paralled this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory. Their intention is not to die because of some despair. The same can be said for the Kamikazees in Japan. They died (via crashing their planes into ships) to kill the enemies for the homeland. You can call them crazy i you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam. So the scholars main point is that "IT SEEMS AS THOUGH YOUR INTENTION IS THE MAIN ISSUE" and Allah (SWT) knows best.

Accosting to Wired.com, Hasan also wrote online of his admiration for suicide attackers. “Their intention is not to die because of some despair. The same can be said for the Kamikazees in Japan. They died (via crashing their planes into ships) to kill the enemies for the homeland. You can call them crazy i[f] you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam.”

May God Comfort the mourners of the Ft. Hood Dead and grant a speedy recovery to the wounded,

More to come...

Democrats Block Amendment To Guarantee Fair Census

2009-11-05T20:48:00.001-05:00

The "straw-dog" that comes out of the liberal circles is asking people if they are in the US legally during the census is a horrible act of racism. In actuality it is simply an attempt to guarantee all US Citizens the right to equal representation in Congress and equal access to Congressional funds and programs.

As set up by the constitution, the purpose of the US Census is to determine the amount of congressional representatives each state receives

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

Counting the slaves as "3/5ths of a person" was eliminated via the 14th amendment.

Republican Senators Vitter (La.) and Bennett (Utah) introduced an Amendment to the Census bill that would require the 2010 Census to ask all individuals whether they are citizens or lawful residents of the United States.The bill also stipulates that for purposes of planning congressional seats, the population should be based on the number of legal residents of the United States. Today, the Democrats used a technicality to block the amendment:

Senate Blocks GOP Effort to Include Census Citizenship Question

The proposal by Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Robert Bennett of Utah was aimed at excluding non-citizens from the population totals that are used to figure the number of congressional representatives for each state.

Senate Democrats on Thursday rejected a GOP attempt to require next year's census forms to include a question about citizenship status -- an effort opponents called anti-immigrant.

The proposal by Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Robert Bennett of Utah was aimed at excluding non-citizens from the population totals that are used to figure the number of congressional representatives for each state.

But the Vitter plan fell after a 60-39 procedural vote made it ineligible for inclusion in a bill funding the census.

The "relevancy" test, called "germaneness," is a very strict one, and often can exclude a measure that is seemingly relevant. The spending bill, for instance, funds the Commerce, Justice, and State Departments; the census is part of the Commerce Department.

Critics said Vitter's plan would discourage immigrants from responding to the census and would be hugely expensive. They also said that it's long been settled law that the apportionment of congressional seats is determined by the number of people living in each state, regardless of whether they are citizens. A separate survey already collects citizenship data.

The Commerce Department estimated that making the change on census forms would have cost the federal government $1 billion, but Vitter, after weeks of requesting supporting data, said the explanation fell short.

"After three weeks of asking for the data behind that $1 billion claim, they sent us one piece of paper with 10 bullet points on it, all very general statements and suggestions, and with the final bottom line, a nice, even, round figure of $1 billion. That's very unimpressive, in my opinion, in terms of any precise accounting for $1 billion," Vitter said.

And citing what he called the Census Bureau's "horrendous record" of cost estimation, Vitter noted a nonpartisan General Accounting Office study that noted: "Given the bureau's past difficulties in developing credible and accurate cost estimates, we're concerned about the reliability of the figures that were used to support the 2010 budget."

Census data is also used to distribute billions of dollars in federal aid.

"The current plan is to reapportion House seats using that overall number, citizens and non-citizens," Vitter said. "I think that's wrong. I think that's contrary to the whole intent of the Constitution and the establishment of Congress as a democratic institution to represent citizens."

If Vitter were successful -- and if non-citizens were excluded from the census count for congressional apportionment -- states with fewer immigrants would fare significantly better in the upcoming allocation of House seats.

States such as California and Texas would fare worse than they would under the current way of allocating seats, which under the Constitution is based on the "whole number of persons" residing in a state.

Louisiana stands to lose one of its seven House seats in the upcoming round of reapportionment. Vitter says that if non-citizens were excluded, Louisiana and eight other states would keep or gain congressional seats that would go to California, Texas, Illinois and New York.

In a floor speech before the vote, Vitter pleaded in vain for support from his colleagues.

"This is an important question, and we simply shouldn't forge ahead when Americans have a fundamental problem with not even asking the citizenship question and with, therefore, forging ahead with the plan to reapportion the entire U.S. House of Representatives, putting noncitizens in the mix when the whole notion of a representative democracy and of Congress is to represent citizens of the country," he said. "I urge my colleagues to support that position."

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., managing the spending bill on the floor, said Republicans missed the boat to make changes to the census.

"The time to stand up was in April of 2007," Mikulski admonished. "Did you know that the census is mandated by law to submit the questionnaires to congress? And they did.

"So for one year, from April 1, 2007, to the close of the review by congress one year later, April 2008, there was plenty of time to say, 'We don't like the questionnaire. We want to add a citizenship question,'" she added. "That was the time and the place."

Pelosi/Reid SCAM America on CBO Cost For Obamacare->House Bill Costs $1,8 TRILLION

2009-11-05T18:29:00.000-05:00

Each of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) costs for Obamacare released by the leaders of the Senate and House respectively were totally honest, and totally full of crap ! Its all a matter of timing. In their efforts to gain support for the government take over the health care industry Ms Pelosi and Mr Reid are Running a scam on the American People.

Here's how it works, each plan starts the taxes in year one, but they back loaded costs. The house bill for example doesn't start spending real money until 2013, year 4 of the plan. The CBO measures costs for ten year periods (2010-2019). The Congressional leadership chose to release the CBO's 2010-2019 estimate, but if they chose to release the estimate for the actual first 10 years of the plan The CBO reports the House bill would cost $1.8 trillion, and the Senate bill would cost $1.7 trillion. Pelosi would raise Americans' taxes by $1.1 trillion over that period, while Reid would hike them by $1 trillion:

Prescriptions for disaster

By BENJAMIN E. SASSE & JEFFREY H. ANDERSON

Don't buy the claim that the Sen ate health-care bill is substantially more moderate than the House measure. While Speaker Nancy Pelosi's legislation is even more onerous than the package created by Sen. Max Baucus and now championed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the larger story is how similar the two Democratic bills are.

First, we need to get past the misleading accounting games. Each bill is routinely "scored" for its 10-year costs from 2010-19. Yet this includes several years when the spending wouldn't yet have kicked in. According to the Congressional Budget Office, fully 99.9 percent of the Pelosi bill's costs would hit from 2013 onward. Similarly, 98.3 percent of Reid's spending would come after 2014.

If you start the tally when the bills' spending would actually start (in 2013 for the House bill and 2014 for the Senate bill), then the bills' real 10-year costs become clear -- and are remarkably similar.

The CBO reports that, in their true first 10 years, the House bill would cost $1.8 trillion, and the Senate bill would cost $1.7 trillion. Pelosi would raise Americans' taxes by $1.1 trillion over that period, while Reid would hike them by $1 trillion.

And the House bill would siphon about $800 billion from Medicare to spend it elsewhere, while the Senate bill would suck out about $900 billion.

So the financial bottom lines are almost the same.

And if we discount the bills' claims to divert hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare (which is already on the edge of insolvency), the CBO says the House bill would raise our national debt by about $650 billion in its real first decade, while the Senate bill would up it by $740 billion.

So, the bills would either sock older Americans by taking huge sums of money from Medicare -- or hit future generations with huge tax hikes to cover the shortfall.

Whether it's our grandparents or our grandchildren, someone is going to pay.

To give an idea of how much $1.7 (or $1.8) trillion is, let's compare it to private insurance companies' profits. The 10 largest insurance companies in America (according to the Fortune 500) last year had combined profits of $8 billion. You could double that, and it still would be less than 1 per cent of $1.7 trillion.

The House and Senate bills are similar in another important way. Each seems to mandate that insurers cover all comers at any time, at only nominal added cost for waiting to sign up.

This would provide a perverse incentive for young, healthy people to avoid carrying insurance -- knowing that they could just wait until they're sick or injured and buy it then. Without question, that would cause premiums to skyrocket for most Americans who now have insurance.

Recent studies by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Oliver Wyman and Wellpoint all support this conclusion. Top Democrats in Congress dispute those findings -- so they should agree to let the CBO do an independent study of the question, before any floor vote on the legislation.

Yes the House and Senate bills differ in many ways, with the Senate approach being generally a bit less regulation- and bureaucracy-heavy. But it's really just a question of degree -- and either one is more than capable of sinking our already badly leaking federal budget.

The Obmacare bill continues to look like a disaster for America, and that only includes the problems we know about. Based on their track record it is very likely that the democratic leadership is hiding other skeletons in the Obamacare closet.

Nominate Yid With Lid?

2009-11-05T15:21:00.000-05:00

Folks Nominations are open for the 2009 Weblog Awards...Please click on the link below and nominate your favorite blog (especially this one).

http://2009.weblogawards.org/nominations/

UPDATED !!!! Capitol Police ARREST Protesters

2009-11-05T12:18:00.012-05:00

If you cannot see the videos in this post CLICK HERE

UPDATE: When Originally Reported by Philip Rucker At the Washington Post it was reported as Obamacare Protesters at Senator Michael Bennet's Office. He has since changed his story to Joe Lieberman's office, and he isn't sure what they were protesting.

Hours before the rally began, Capitol Police arrested nine protesters in the Hart Senate Office Building and charged them with unlawful entry. It was unclear whether the protesters were affiliated with the Tea Party protests or were with other groups. They were arrested about 10 a.m. in the seventh-floor office of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman

Roll Call is reporting that the protesters were from Code Pink not the health care protest group:

In an unrelated incident, nine activists were arrested in the Hart building, and they are being processed at police headquarters, but Roll Call is reporting that these were protesters from the opposite end of the political spectrum - Code Pink. All the buildings in the Capitol complex remain open for now.

I apologize to Senator Bennet and most importantly to my readers for believing the mainstream media without getting a second source.

Since then there were Tea Party Protesters arrested...but in Nancy Pelosi's office apparently for Shredding copies of the House version of the healthcare bill.This is from the Plum Line Blog at WAPO:

A Dozen Demonstrators Arrested At Pelosi’s Office — Shredded Copies Of Health Bill

Looks like the demonstrators really are serious about storming the Congressional barricades.

A dozen people were arrested this afternoon in or just outside of Nancy Pelosi’s office, some for unlawful entry and others for disorderly conduct, the Capitol Police confirm, adding that some of the arrested were throwing papers around.

Four demonstrators were arrested for refusing to leave her office in the Canon House Office Building, and eight more were arrested for unlawful or disorderly conduct, Capitol Police spokesperson Kimberly Schneider tells our reporter, Amanda Erickson.

Apparently those who were arrested outside her office were also throwing papers in the hallway, the spokesperson says. It couldn’t immediately be determined what sort of papers the demonstrators were tossing or why the paperwork ticked them off.

This is less serious than arrests at Pelosi’s office in the Capitol itself would have been, but a dozen for unlawful entry and disorderly conduct is definitely noteworthy. More soon.
****************************************
Update: Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill confirms that the demonstrators were Operation Rescue people and that they were shredding copies of the health care bill.

Amanda Carpenter is reporting that one protester was "man-handled"

Things also got rough for Smart Girl Politics Founder Teri Cristoph who says she was physically rebuffed by a senior staffer for Rep. Gerry Connelly, Virginia Democrat.

Ms. Cristoph, a Burke resident, attended the "House call" event and attempted to meet with her congressman and interview him about health care legislation. When she arrived at the office she was questioned by Connelly's staff about her camcorder. They told her she was not permitted to video tape because she was not press. At this point, she says Mr. Connelly's Communications Director, George Burke, used some degree of force against her.

"He put his whole body into me so I would put the camera down," she said, although she noted it was not an aggressive assault. "He bumped into my right arm and his staffers saw it. I was shocked that he physically ran into me. it was not accidental."

Ms. Cristoph contacted the Washington Times about the incident at roughy 3pm. Multiple messages to Mr. Burke's cell phone and email over the last two hours have not been returned.

Read Teri's account on Her blog here

~~Michelle Bachman said that their would be days like this. Early reports are that thousands of protesters have shown up at the US Capitol today to push home the point that they do NOT want Obamacare.~~

One Senator, Michael Bennet (D) of Colorado was not to happy to see his constituents. They showed up at his Hart Office building office asking to meet with the Senator in his Hart Senate Office building. Instead of a meeting with the Senator, they got a meeting with the Capitol Police The protesters were arrested about 10 a.m. were charged with unlawful entry, a Capitol Police spokeswoman said.

~~Looks as if the Democrats are following the President's advice regarding blocking Dissent:~~

Tea partiers hit Capitol

By JONATHAN ALLEN & MEREDITH SHINER Thousands of Tea Party activists descended on Washington Thursday to protest the trillion dollar health care bill and government spending, holding signs protesting Barack Obama’s agenda while aiming chants of “you work for us” at the Capitol building. .

The gathering was organized by local Tea Party groups around the country, who are arriving in Washington this morning by the busload. Conservative leaders in Congress, led by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), have taken to the airwaves to encourage the activists to show up on the Capitol steps and demand meetings with members of Congress. The crowd is expected to grow into the thousands by noon, when Bachmann has promised to lead some protesters to a press conference inside the Capitol to express their opposition to the health care bill in person to members of Congress.

The arrived as early as 8:30 a.m., by bus, car and plane — from Bluffton, S.C., Des Moines and Dorris, Calif. — to rally with conservative lawmakers and possibly roam the halls of Congress.

"Can you hear us now!" they chanted from the foot of the Capitol, as they awaited the arrival of their heroine — Bachmann.

"She's very brave," said Nancy Holmberg of Dorris.

"Palin/Bachmann 2012," came a shout from the crowd. The crowd is also chanting Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s name and demanding that she come address them on the steps of the Capitol.

Another hero of the movement, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), has been autographing tea bags for the crowd and is wearing a jacket covered in pins and stickers reading “Yes! Freedom!”

Speaking on conservative talker Laura Ingraham’s radio show this morning, Bachmann encouraged people listening to show up on the West Front steps, but she said they should show up with “cameras” instead of “pitchforks.”

A Capitol Police spokeswoman confirmed to POLITICO that nine activists were arrested in the Hart building, and they are being processed at police headquarters. All the buildings in the Capitol complex remain open for now.

The protesters, who are occupying the patch of grass only a few yards from where Barack Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 20, have also chanted “you work for us!” Many are holding signs that echo their distrust of Obama and their belief that he is pursuing socialist policies.

Last night, Bachmann reasserted a claim that Pelosi was considering tightening security in preparation for the activists, which she warned "would be a huge mistake." There has been an increased police presence around the Capitol Thursday morning, and a Capitol Police officer told POLITICO that protesters are allowed to march on the West front lawn of the Capitol, but are not allowed onto the steps of the building.

Mary Beth Bishop of Monument, Colo., spent $500 on a plane ticket to lodge her complaints about the growth of government.

"We need to show up and uphold the Constitution," she said. "It wasn't written on toilet paper."

Police patrolled the gates and stone walls keeping the crowd in but there was little sign of trouble.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) shook hands at a wall line like a presidential contender. This is too great," he said.

"Moderate" Terrorist Leader Mahmoud Abbas to Step Down?

2009-11-05T10:35:00.000-05:00

Palestinian Sources have announced today that the leader of Fatah/President of the Palestinian Territories has decided he will step down because of a lack of progress in peace talks.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not seek re-election in polls next year, reports suggest.

Officials from the Palestine Liberation Organisation told journalists in the West Bank that Mr Abbas "insists on not running" in the 24 January election.

A aide to Mr Abbas said earlier a lack of progress in peace talks with Israel and failure to achieve reconciliation with Hamas could prompt such a move.

But another aide said PLO officials were trying to change Mr Abbas' mind.

When it comes to a lack of progress in making peace Abbas has no one to blame but himself. While the world saw him as a moderate he was just as much of at terror leader as his predecessor Yassir Arafat.

Mort Klein, head of the Zionist Organization of America, described Arafat this way:

"One of the extraordinary blind spots of contemporary Middle East history is the obsession of calling Mahmoud Abbas, whose nom de guerreor war name is Abu Mazen, a peace-loving moderate. ... Abbas was not only Yasser Arafat's deputy for 40 years, he also co-founded with him the terrorist group Fatah, masterminded the Munich massacre and wrote a PhD thesis and book denying the Holocaust."

When he was running for election the "Moderate" Abbas denounced Israel as the "Zionist enemy," and offered a prayer to "the souls of the martyrs," a reference to seven Palestinian terrorists killed by the Israeli army earlier in the week.

Immediately after Abbas was elected, he proclaimed that "the little jihad had ended, and the big jihad is now beginning." Abbas also took the opportunity to dedicate his victory to "brother shahid [martyr] Yasir Arafat," and paid tribute to all Palestinian "shahids and prisoners."

The Weekly Standard reported that in December 2005, Abbas approved a law authorizing lump-sum payments of $2,200 to the surviving family members of "shahids" -- suicide bombers.

In early 2007, Abbas called for killing Israelis "We [Palestinians] should put our internal fighting aside and raise our rifles only against the Israeli occupation." Around the same time period, he said, "We must unite the Hamas and Fatah blood in the struggle against Israel as we did at the beginning of the Intifada."

In 2008 in Arabic, for Arab consumption Abbas said that he is against terrorist attacks only for tactical reasons 'at this time' and that 'in the future, things may change.' He boasted of his long involvement with PLO violence -- 'I had the honor of firing the first shot in 1965' ..."

On April 27, 2009, Abbas addressed the Palestinian Youth Parliament. He said: "The 'Jewish state.' What is a 'Jewish state?' We call it, the 'State of Israel'. You can call yourselves whatever you want. You can call yourselves whatever you want. But I will not accept it. And I say this on a live broadcast. It's not my job to define it, to provide a definition for the state and what it contains. You can call yourselves the Zionist Republic, the Hebrew, the National, the Socialist [Republic] call it whatever you like. I don't care."

Just words you say? Not Quite, as leader of the Fatah movement Abbas is also in charge of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. In June 2004 then Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei openly stated:

"We have clearly declared that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades are part of Fatah. We are committed to them and Fatah bears full responsibility for the group." In July he further declared "The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, military wing of the Fatah movement will not be dissolved and Fatah will never relinquish its military wing."

And the Martyrs' Brigade has been firmly under the control of Abbas:

Abu Ahmed, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader in the northern Gaza Strip, told WND his group, including the militants launching rockets, is loyal to Abbas and coordinates "resistance operations" with the Fatah party.

"The Al Aqsa Brigades is the military wing of the Fatah and the President Abu Mazen (Abbas) is the chairman of the movement. We are committed to our leadership, to Abu Mazen. All our activity is in accordance with the political line of Fatah, which consists of fighting the occupation until the creation of a Palestinian state. The rocket shooting is part of this vision," Abu Ahmed said.

All rockets fired from Gaza have been launched from the northern part of the territory, which falls within Abu Ahmed's jurisdiction in the Brigades.

Asked why Abbas distances himself from Al Aqsa's rocket firing, Abu Ahmed told WND, "Listen, we are aware of our president's (Abbas') declarations but we are also aware of the international political system that brings the president to adopt this position."

During the tenure of Abbas this supposed moderate has ordered many deadly terrorist attacks via the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, including

In January 2008 the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade joined with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to shoot rockets into Israel from Gaza. Israel retaliated by blockading the Gaza strip.
A January 2007 suicide bombing in Eilat that killed three people. The attack was the first suicide bombing in Israel in nine months and both al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
In June 2006 members of the brigade kidnapped an American college student after mistaking him for an Israeli. Initially they said he would be killed unless Israel released all of its Palestinian prisoners but released him the same day upon discovering his nationality.
An October 2005 suicide attack at the Gush Etzion junction that killed three Israelis and wounded three others.

As a threat to peace, Mahmoud Abbas is worse than the murderers in Hamas, at least Hamas is honest about their hatred and terror. Abbas pretends to be a "moderate" while inciting as much hatred as Hamas, while ordering as much terror.

Red State Dems Finally Pay Attention to Jobs--THEIR OWN !

2009-11-05T08:33:00.054-05:00

Generally, from the time that they are elected, members of Congress turn their attention to the most pressing issues of their districts that, of course, is getting re-elected. Usually that means district earmarks, having their staffs listen to the concerns of their constituents and following up with pre-written issue pieces that have very little to do with their concerns.

This year, especially for those blue dogs in red states, funny things happened to disrupt their usual agenda; tax day tea parties, summer town halls, and a 9/12 rally in Washington. Perhaps the biggest thing to open the eyes of the red state dogs was Election Day, while there were many lessons coming out of this week's elections, the most hard hitting for those congressmen was that the anger came through in the voting booth. Candidates of both parties were vulnerable because of the "get rid of them all" attitude sweeping America. Just ask Mike Bloomberg, the popular mayor of NYC, who spent 100 million of his own dollars in his reelection bid. Bloomberg won, but by a much smaller margin than expected, because voters were upset that he had his own term limit law vacated so he could run again.

Tuesday may have been the straw that broke the camel's back because right now in congress, Nancy Pelosi may be pushing health care, but blue dog Democrats are worrying about Jobs---their own.

Election result: Red-state Dems worried, rethink agenda

By: Manu Raju and Jonathan Allen

Election Day losses in Virginia and New Jersey have congressional Democrats focused like never before on jobs — their own.

While the White House and party leaders are urging calm, Democratic incumbents from red states and Republican-leaning districts are anything but; Tuesday's statehouse defeats have left them acutely aware that their votes on health care reform and other major Obama initiatives could be career-enders in 2010 or beyond.

“I should be nervous,” said Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Huntsville, Ala.

Griffith said the Democratic rank and file is “very, very sensitive” to the fact that issues being pushed by party leaders “have the potential to cost some of our front-line members their seats.”

House Democrats, forced to take a tough vote on a controversial cap-and-trade climate change bill in June, may have to vote as earlier as this weekend on the even more controversial health care bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team have struggled to get moderates on board for that vote, and Tuesday's results won't make the task any easier.

“People who had weak knees before are going to have weaker knees now,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), a relatively liberal congressman who seemed safe in 2010 but now thinks a Republican challenger might feel emboldened by Tuesday’s election results.

Democratic Sen. Jim Webb — who watched Republican Bob McDonnell and other statewide candidates erase years of Democratic gains in his home state of Virginia — said Tuesday’s results show that Republicans are “energized from what happened last year” but also that “people up here on our side need to get their message straighter, too.”

Party leaders put their best face on Tuesday’s results.

Pelosi, pointing to Democratic House victories in special elections in New York and California, said: “We won last night.”

The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid circulated an analysis arguing that “gubernatorial races are primarily about local issues,” and that it’s therefore “hard to draw any direct comparisons between what happened in New Jersey and Virginia and what will happen in Congress.”

But some Democrats weren’t buying the spin.

“We got walloped,” said Sen. Mark Warner, the junior Democrat from Virginia.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said it was “nonsense” to suggest that the results in New Jersey and Virginia represented a referendum on President Barack Obama. To the contrary, he argued that the results meant that Democrats should redouble their efforts to “make sure we deliver on the promises of the last election.”

But if Tuesday’s results leave red-state Democrats nervous about health care reform, a climate change bill and regulatory reform, it’s going to be harder — not easier — for Van Hollen and his leadership colleagues to develop that record of legislative accomplishment.

And that’s certainly where things seemed to be headed Wednesday. As Pelosi’s office ordered members to stay in town for a possible Saturday night House vote on health care, other Democrats were suggesting that it's time to take the foot off the gas.

As members came to grips with the election returns, Rep. Frank Kratovil Jr. (D-Md.) said he wants “as much time as I possibly can [have] to review both sides and make the best decision I can make” on the health care bill.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a big swing vote for Democratic leaders, said Tuesday’s elections should tell Democrats that their “agenda needs to be patterned towards” the economy.

“People need to be saying slow it down and don’t add more to the deficit,” Nelson said. “And what have many of us been talking about? We don’t want to see anything added to the deficit unless there’s cost containment.”

On health care, Nelson said: “Let’s see coverage extended, … but at what cost?”
Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, the lone Republican to vote for a health care bill, said Tuesday’s results should slow Democrats down on health care — and “certainly gives pause on how you approach things.”

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who’s threatened to filibuster the health care bill if it isn’t changed before it goes to a vote, said he’s sensing that public fears over the rising national debt “may affect” the Democrats’ broader agenda, noting that there’s been “a very large and quick move of independents” away from the Democratic Party and that public fears of the rising debt are at a “tipping point.”

According to exit polls, Republican gubernatorial candidates took 62 percent of the independent vote in Virginia and 58 percent of the independent vote in New Jersey.

“They’re feeling anxious and they want the government to do something to help them; they’re very worried that we’re going to spend more money,” Lieberman said. “I think one thing it says to me is that whatever we do, we better make damn sure it’s paid for.”

Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in an interview that he’s not concerned about next year’s races, calling Tuesday’s results a “mixed bag” that was not the result of Obama’s agenda.

But Menendez added: “We need to be focused like a laser beam on the question of the nation’s economy and the issues of how we best can create jobs. That’s the laser-beam approach. If we do that, we’ll be fine next year.”

Other Democrats said not advancing health care legislation is not an option, with Karin Johanson, a former DCCC executive director, saying it would “be foolish” if Tuesday’s results had a chilling effect on the health care debate.

“I think people have to keep in mind that we will be judged on if we get a good thing going,” said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.). “I think failure to get anything done will counted as a huge black mark against us, and rightfully so.”

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said the gubernatorial results said more about Virginia and New Jersey than they did about Congress. But still, she said she is well aware that voters are feeling anxious about what the Democrats are doing on Capitol Hill.

“They’re very concerned about some of the actions that are occurring here in D.C., and we have got to be very sensitive to the fragile economic recovery that’s underway,” she said.

AARP To Officially Announce Abandonment of Seniors

2009-11-04T22:12:00.000-05:00

AARP has been to portray itself as a "non partisan" observer on the health care debate, but has been actively working toward ensuring the passage of Obamacare. All the evidence points to the fact that the Senior advocacy organization is willing to push through a plan that will hurt its membership so it can make millions on its insurance related activities.

During the summer AARP's management contended that they generically support health care but don't support any specific bill. At the same time they were running commercials that advocating for specific elements of the House Bill.

The AARP even published bogus "debunking facts" on its website. Most of the AARP "debunking" facts` have been from the White House point of view and falsely accuse people who oppose the Obamacare plan as opposing any health care reform. Clearly they are not fulfilling their role as a non partisan advocate, and for a very profitable reason.

While the AARP does not own the insurance companies who offer plans that bear its name, according to the Washington Post they get millions of dollars of royalties from the firms that sell the plans. The royalties from these programs make up the majority of AARP's tax free income.

The word is that tomorrow the AARP will announce their choice of profit over their membership by officially throwing their weight behind the house option of Obamacare:

AP Sources: Dem Health bill to get AARP backing By ERICA WERNER and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

In a coup for House Democrats, AARP will endorse sweeping health care overhaul legislation headed for a history-making floor vote, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

An endorsement from the seniors' lobby was critical when then-President George W. Bush pushed the Medicare prescription drug benefit through a closely divided Congress in 2003. House Democratic leaders are hoping it will work the same political magic for them as they strive to deliver on President Barack Obama's signature issue.

An announcement from the 40-million member group is expected Thursday, said officials with knowledge of the group's decision. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the endorsement is not official yet.

Backing the 10-year, $1.2 trillion House bill is a tricky move for AARP. Many retirees are concerned about cuts in Medicare payments to medical providers, which will be used to finance an expansion of health insurance coverage to millions of working families who now lack it. Also, AARP says its membership is about evenly divided among Democrats, Republicans and independents, meaning its endorsement in today's highly politicized atmosphere could anger many members.

Floor votes on the House bill could come as early as this weekend. Asked Wednesday if Democratic leaders had the 218 needed for passage, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., responded: "We're counting. We're counting."

House leaders moved on Wednesday to shore up support for the measure among the Democratic rank-and-file, even as they sharpened their fight with the health insurance industry.

Last minute changes to the legislation, released late Tuesday night, started a 72-hour legislative clock and cleared the way for votes as early as Saturday.

In a move aimed directly at health insurance companies, the revised House bill would launch a federal-state crackdown on what it terms "unjustified premium increases." Insurers have sought above all to block creation of a government insurance plan, which happens to be the top legislative goal for liberals.

Under the bill, insurance companies would have to publicly disclose the justification for premium increases before they go into effect. The federal Health and Human Services department would monitor patterns of premium increases, and could take action if the price hikes are out of line. The bill would also provide $1 billion to state insurance commissioners, allowing them to ramp up their own enforcement.

Democrats also strengthened a provision that would strip the industry of its decades-old exemption from federal antitrust laws.

Supporters said the tougher approach is needed to keep insurance companies from artificially boosting premiums in advance of the major reforms taking effect in 2013.

Other late changes to the bill, such as enhanced status for the government's office of minority health, were intended as sweeteners for supportive lawmakers, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

With no Republican backing for the measure, Democrats will need overwhelming support from their own. A festering intra-party disagreement over how to prevent federal funds from being used to pay for abortion remained unresolved Wednesday morning.

The House bill is estimated to expand coverage to about 96 percent of eligible Americans. Beginning in 2013, it would provide government subsidies to extend coverage to tens of millions who now lack it, and ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical problems.

For the three years before the federal aid starts flowing, the bill would set up a temporary "high-risk pool" through which people who have been denied coverage because of poor health could obtain a government-subsidized policy.

The bill would set up health insurance "exchanges" through which self-employed people and small businesses could buy coverage, either from a private insurer or a new government plan that would compete. All the plans sold through the exchange would have to follow basic consumer protection rules, making it easier to shop and compare among them.

The majority of middle-class Americans covered under big employer plans would not see dramatic changes. But coverage for the poor through Medicaid would be significantly expanded.

Seniors in traditional Medicare would get improved preventive benefits. Also, the prescription coverage gap known as the "doughnut hole" would be gradually closed. However, seniors signed up for private insurance plans through Medicare could lose some benefits, as the bill scales back extra payments that the plans have been getting.

In addition to raising money by cutting payments to hospitals and other medical providers, the House bill boosts taxes on upper-income earners. Democrats also moved Tuesday to close a biofuel tax credit loophole, raising about $23 billion to help pay for the legislation.

Payroll Tax Rate	Average Payroll Size
N/A	<$500,000
2%	$500,000-$585,000
4%	$585,000-$670,000
6%	$670,000-$750,000
8%	$750,00<