French President Nicolas Sarkozy Ridicules President Barack Obama at UN

See http://ambafrance-us.org/spip.php?article1432

Speech by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France to the United Nations Security Council New York, September 24, 2009

"The people of the entire world are listening to what we're saying, to our promises, our commitments and our speeches, but we live in a real world, not a virtual world.

We say: reductions must be made. And President Obama has even said, 'I dream of a world without [nuclear weapons]'. Yet before our very eyes, two countries are currently doing the exact opposite. Since 2005, Iran has violated five Security Council resolutions. Since 2005, Secretary-General, the international community has called on Iran to engage in dialogue. An offer of dialogue was made in 2005, an offer of dialogue was made in 2006, an offer of dialogue was made in 2007, an offer of dialogue was made in 2008, and another one was made in 2009. President Obama, I support the Americans' outstretched hand. But what did the international community gain from these offers of dialogue? Nothing. More enriched uranium, more centrifuges, and on top of that, a statement by Iranian leaders proposing to wipe a UN member State off the map."

Obama on the Surge in Iraq

■ "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence. In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
■ "Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct."
Senator Barack Obama II (D-IL)

White House Collects Web Users' Data Without Notice

See http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/16/obama-wh-collects-web-users-data/

White House Collects Web Users' Data Without Notice by Audrey Hudson in Washington Times:
"The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama's promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet. "

Imbecilic Support Materials Soliciting Students to Write Fantasy Letters to ‘Help’ the President

“imbecilic support materials soliciting students to write fantasy letters to ‘help’ the president (a coercive directive quickly withdrawn under pressure)”

See Sept 9, 2009 article “Too late for Obama to turn it around?” by Camille Paglia at http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/09/09/healthcare/

Includes: “This column has been calling for heads to roll at the White House from the get-go. Thankfully, they do seem to be falling faster -- as witness the middle-of-the-night bum's rush given to "green jobs" czar Van Jones last week -- but there's a long way to go. An example of the provincial amateurism of current White House operations was the way the president's innocuous back-to-school pep talk got sandbagged by imbecilic support materials soliciting students to write fantasy letters to "help" the president (a coercive directive quickly withdrawn under pressure). Even worse, the entire project was stupidly scheduled to conflict with the busy opening days of class this week, when harried teachers already have their hands full. Comically, some major school districts, including New York City, were not even open yet. And this is the gang who wants to revamp national healthcare? “

Who’s Going to Get More Publicity Palin or Obama Joint Session of Congress Speech?

President Barack Obama will today, Sept 9, 2009 address a joint session of Congress. I wonder how well he will do? I bet as he walks down the aisle, he will reek of cigarette smoke; I bet he is smoking about two packs a day now.
I’ll listen for Obama “this was the moment…” What a truly audacious fellow. From June 3, 2008 St. Paul Minnesota, after cinching the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, Barack Obama said:
“generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.”
But can the Press not cover former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin even more? See her op/ed piece to day Sept 9, 2009 in the Wall Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574400581157986024.html
Governor Palin may make news in writing:
- “We also know that our current health-care system too often burdens individuals and businesses—particularly small businesses—with crippling expenses. And we know that allowing government health-care spending to continue at current rates will only add to our ever-expanding deficit.”
- “How can we ensure that those who need medical care receive it while also reducing health-care costs? The answers offered by Democrats in Washington all rest on one principle: that increased government involvement can solve the problem. I fundamentally disagree.”
- “Common sense tells us that the government's attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats' proposals "will provide more stability and security to every American."
- “ask yourself whether the government that brought us such ‘waste and inefficiency’ and ‘unwarranted subsidies’ in the first place can be believed when it says that this time it will get things right. The nonpartistan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doesn't think so..”
- “Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He's asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of ‘normal political channels,’ should guide decisions regarding that ‘huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .’ Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels?”
- “the Democrats' proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we've come to expect from this administration.”
- “Only in Washington could a plan that adds hundreds of billions to the deficit be hailed as a cost-cutting measure.”
- “let's talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let's give Americans control over their own health care.”

The Convenient Fantasies of President Obama

So true. See Michael Barone's Sept 9, 2009 column "The convenient fantasies of President Obama" at http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/The-convenient-fantasies-of-President-Obama-8215470-57862907.html

"the administration seems enamored of his "green jobs" concept. There's an understandable political reason. Legislation to restrict carbon emissions that is supported by the administration would undoubtedly kill a large number of jobs by increasing the cost of energy, and so you can see why its advocates might want to argue that there will be a compensating number of "green jobs" created -- at least if the government spends a lot of money on them.
But this sounds like fantasy. If there were money to be made in green jobs, private investors would be creating them already."

"Yesterday Baucus came out with his own plan, which includes a tax on high-value health insurance policies. But this is likely to be rejected by the Left, by labor unions that have negotiated such benefits from employers, and by members of Congress from states like New York, where, because of state policies, almost all health insurance costs that much.
There is an element of convenient fantasy as well in Obama's health care statements to date. We are going to save money by spending money. We are going to solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1,000,000,000,000 over a decade. We are going to guarantee you can keep your current insurance with a bill that encourages your employer to stop offering it."

"The list goes on. We are going to improve health care for seniors by cutting $500,000,000,000 from Medicare. We aren't going to insure illegal aliens, except that we won't have any verification provisions to see that they can't apply and get benefits."

Obama's Crisis: Credibility

Good point. See Sept 9, 2009 article by Michael Gerson at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/09/09/the_crisis_of__health_care_reform_98217.html

"And so Barack Obama's address to Congress on health care, at a minimum, must answer the question: What is the crisis? When an individual can't get needed health care, it is certainly a crisis for them. This, Obama might argue, creates moral responsibilities for the rest of us to help. But this would argue for a more incremental approach, adding coverage for the working poor instead of remaking the American health system for everyone."

"Obama abandoned his pledge to reduce the government's health costs long ago; now he only aims at budget neutrality. But every pending health reform bill in Congress increases both short-term and long-term deficits, failing even on Obama's modified terms. Americans get the joke. While Obama has made cost control a centerpiece of his public message, only about 20 percent of Americans, in one poll, believe Obama will keep his promise not to increase the deficit with health reform."

"America has an ongoing crisis -- an economic crisis of rising unemployment and negative economic growth. Obama clearly believed the economic emergency would give him the opportunity to do anything on the progressive agenda that he wished. Actually, it gave him the burden to do one thing well -- responding to the economic emergency. Insofar as health reform is seen as complicating this task -- particularly by the addition of massive, inflationary debt -- the narrative of crisis will continue to work against Obama instead of for him."

Polar Ice Growing - UN BanKi-moon Should Resign

See UK paper Telegraph Sept 5, 2009 article by Christopher Booker “Arctic ice proves to be slippery stuff”; “The extent of the sea-ice is now half a million square kilometres [size of Texas] more than it was this time last year” at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6143587/Arctic-ice-proves-to-be-slippery-stuff.html

I hereby call for the resignation of the Secretary-General of the United Nations Mr BanKi-moon who said: "100 billion tons" of polar ice are melting each year, so that within 30 years the Arctic could be ‘ice-free’. This was supported by a WWF claim that the ice is melting so fast that, by 2100, sea-levels could rise by 1.2 metres (four feet), which would lead to ‘floods affecting a quarter of the world’.”

According to Christopher Booker “Everything about this oft-repeated item was propaganda of the silliest kind. Standing 700 miles from the Pole, as near as the stubbornly present ice would allow his ship to go, Mr Ban seemed unaware that, although some 10 million square kilometres (3.8 million square miles) of sea-ice melts each summer, each September the Arctic starts to freeze again. And the extent of the ice now is 500,000 sq km (190,000 sq m) greater than it was this time last year – which was, in turn, 500,000 sq km more than in September 2007, the lowest point recently recorded (see the Cryosphere Today website). By April, after months of darkness, it will be back up to 14 million sq km (5.4 million sq m) or more.”

Catholic Church Does Not Teach That Government Should Directly Provide Health Care

Iowa bishop R. Walker Nickless in a message issued by the Diocese of Sioux City:
See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574387002761694162.html

"[T]he Catholic Church does not teach that government should directly provide health care.

Unlike a prudential concern like national defense, for which government monopolization is objectively good—it both limits violence overall and prevents the obvious abuses to which private armies are susceptible—health care should not be subject to federal monopolization.

Preserving patient choice (through a flourishing private sector) is the only way to prevent a health care monopoly from denying care arbitrarily, as we learned from HMOs in the recent past. While a government monopoly would not be motivated by profit, it would be motivated by such bureaucratic standards as quotas and defined "best procedures," which are equally beyond the influence of most citizens. The proper role of the government is to regulate the private sector, in order to foster healthy competition and to curtail abuses. Therefore any legislation that undermines the viability of the private sector is suspect. "