Rockefeller Proposes Federal Control Over Internet

US Senator Jay Rockefeller is currently working on a bill that, if passed, will drastically increase the power held by the federal government over the internet.

Designed as a law to enable federal takeover of large parts of cyberspace in event of a national security crisis, it identifies "critical" elements of the private sector that might be vulnerable. It gives the government authority over information sharing and personnel hiring. Proponents compare it to the power that President Bush exercised after 9/11 to ground air traffic.

Critics argue that this is another attempt by a left wing government to extend its power over America's private sector. Larry Clinton of the Internet Security Alliance told Declan McCullough of CBS News that the vagueness of the bill invites maximum infringement upon property, personal, and other rights. This group, which includes representatives from Verizon, Carnegie Mellon University, and others, has expressed repeated concerns over increased control from an administration already noted as failing in most areas of cybersecurity.

Vague laws undermine the concept of rule of law that is critical to our freedom. If a law is written loosely enough, it can be applied to many situations where enforcement to protect or maintain order is not required. The federal government would love to see the internet regarded more like broadcast radio and television than print. That way it can regulate it without regard to the Bill of Rights.

The Real American Crisis

The media over the past several months provided America with saturated coverage of two manufactured crises, one of health care and the other of global warming/climate change/whatever else they want to call it this week.

America's most important domestic crisis of the next decade lies somewhere else, behind bars.

Two major state penitentiary type institutions, one in California and the other in Kentucky, saw violent riots this month. They serve as frightening reminders that the criminal population has exploded well beyond the capacity of the state and federal government to handle them, much less discipline or rehabilitate.

Two factors played into the explosion of the prison system. First was the drug boom starting in the 1960s. This obviously created new and more dangerous classes of criminals. Money fueled the rise of street gang power and violence.

The massive shutdowns of state hospital facilities at about the same time also contributed to the problem. Criminals with serious mental problems now go to jail instead of treatment. I am talking here more about the kleptomaniac, the severely depressed, and others who would benefit more from medical science rather than incarceration. So many individuals with severe problems were let out onto the streets with admonitions to take their pills and no other guidance. Many, unable to cope with mainstream society, ended up in prison or homeless. All too many of the mentally ill only immerse themselves more into the criminal world when they are placed with more hardened inmates.

No easy answers exist here. I watched a National Geographic program recently about the North Branch prison built near Cresaptown. Every cell has an intercom and a camera. Every control system is redundant. This prison cost $171 million. It is only one of many prisons in one medium sized state. The cost of prison is skyrocketing.

The problem is that when prisons get overcrowded, the chance that society will have to deal with truly violent prisoners increases. California received a court order to simply release a large number of prisoners. How many armed robbers, rapists, murderers, and molesters does that include? Early release programs also send these people back onto the streets more quickly. Less ability to monitor these people means that increasing numbers can escape from facilities less modern than North Branch. Those most violent inmates also prey upon the weaker and non violent in their midst, exacerbating their problems and creating a disturbed mindset that they will take with them when they are released.

I have no idea how to begin to solve this problem outside of dropping the country's most violent offenders onto a deserted atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Just because no solution is apparent now does not mean we should avoid the conversation. Our inmate population will eventually grow to a point where we cannot afford to keep it housed. Time to look at ways to address it right now.

Papiere gefallen!

What has happened to free speech in this nation? It is a Constitutional Right guaranteed by the First Amendment to petition government and a Congressman has the nerve to ask for the identification of a constituent. It is reminiscent of those words heard in Germany in the 1940's "Papiere gefallen!" When a Congressman basically echo's "Paper's Please," then things have gone to far. It is time to return to the Constitution!

The Republican Party Finally Embraces the Alice Cooper Strategy

I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing

Until they got a hold of me . . .

I got no friends cause they read the papers

They can't be seen with me and I'm getting shot down

And I'm feelin' mean

No more Mister Nice Guy

No more Mister Clean

The Ministry of Disinformation once again issued an Obama style bull. Republicans found themselves again attacked, Obama threatening to not work with them on major issues.

Hmm. Who outside of the Republican Party of Maine has he worked with?

A furious Michael Steele charged the issue, challenging Obama directly. Calling the current health care bills "poisonous," Steele told the Democrats to go ahead and try to pass it over public protests and GOP objections. He promised that the Democrats would face voter wrath next year.

Steele's approach so far in his tenure as national chairman has reflected occasional pin pricks at the opposition, but not the fire and brimstone expected from the faithful. This shows a new adversarial approach that reflects left wing attitudes towards the conservative majority of America in the past few months.

State parties have already taken up the challenge. Michigan's Republican Party has a Facebook page with a nationwide following. It issues press releases, commentary, and links to nationally known writers such as Michelle Malkin. Followers get at least three or four topical updates from this source daily.

The West Virginia Republican Party has also fired up its press machine, releasing information and attacks on Democratic hegemony daily. It plans to update its website soon and increase its ability to reach those who follow the new media. Media modernization will form a large part of its plan to push towards legislative majorities in the next election.

Republicans tend to be quiet citizens, concentrating on work and family. The threat to our country's values has sparked justifiable fear and rage that the party organizations must recognize and channel into peaceful, effective protests and votes.

Media Mythologizing

If I had a dollar for every time I saw the word "myth" in the media recently, I'd be rich for awhile, but then an Obama redistribution czar would say I had too much and take it away.

For once, the left found itself on the short end of the language battle. Well schooled in postmodernist principles of the slippery nature of words, they scared the dickens out of people when Bush proposed modest changes in Social Security. No one accused liberals of mythologizing when they made seniors think that Bush wanted to put all of their Social Security into the stock market. As usual, conservatives lost the language war by trying to keep the tone and rhetoric at what they believed was a civil level.

A new generation, guided by Newt Gingrich and led in part by Sarah Palin, attacked leftists on their own turf. Conservatives and libertarians were still more accurate in their rhetoric than leftists in the past. Obama and his ghoulish chief of staff discussed independent panels and allocating resources to people with social usefulness. Palin called them what they are, "death panels." If you withold health care to an elderly person with dementia, as Emmanuel wants, you kill them. Leaving the decision to an independent panel of experts, as Obama advocates, put them in charge of saying who will live and who shall die. What is mythological about that?

Leftists struggle to regain the initiative by calling conservative and libertarian concerns "myths." Opponents gained the initiative on this debate because, unlike congressmen and media types, they actually read the bill and imparted their sense of horror to the world. Democrats opposing Social Security reform did not quote at length from the bills as conservatives and libertarians have. The word "myth" still lacks the punch of "death panel" and I would assume that baby boomers will continue to fight for their immediate future and the health care they have paid for all of their working lives.

We ought to still seek a tone of reasonableness and civility whenever possible. However in some cases the stakes are too high to not inflame and mobilize. Those opposing the transformation of America into something alien have not lied, nor have they exaggerated the truth out of all proportion. However they have succeeded in getting your attention. Hopefully that will be enough.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy dies at 77

Who Says There's Death Panels In Obama Care? Obama!

Hat tip, Erick Erickson of RedState.com

In their own words:

One of Obama’s health-care advisors, the brother of Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel wrote in January 2009 that health care should be rationed in a way that “promot[es] and reward[s] social usefulness.” He said age could play a factor in determining who can and cannot access health-care resources and “[S]ervices provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens [in the body politic] are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

Obama himself said, "Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. … And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.” The example Obama used should not distract us from the fact that he wants a death panel to decide who gets care and who does not after individuals paid into the Medicare fund over their working lifetimes.

They won't cut alcoholics and drug addicts from SSI, but they want grandma to die sooner so they can save money.

Call it what you want, it's a death panel. Add this to the Obama Administration placing "Hurry Up and Die" booklets into Veterans' Administration hospitals and you have a serious threat against the sanctity of elderly care in this country.

After all, they paid into it. Now Obama wants to deny them the care they need when it is most necessary.

As for Sarah Palin, who has adopted this as her crusade, her decision to leave the governorship of Alaska looks better and better. We need a visible and national leader to take the left wing grandma and baby killers head on.

So What If You Sacrificed For Your Country? Hurry Up and Die Already!!!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html

The above link takes you to a column explaining the re-released "death book" given to elderly and sick veterans from the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Long story short, it was written by a euthanasia advocate and tries to create a sense of guilt among sick and elderly veterans for having the audacity to remain alive.

President Bush, horrified at the content, ordered the booklet's removal from VA Hospitals. Under Barack "Dr. Death" Obama, they have been restored to use.

What kind of message do we send to anyone, much less veterans, when our government tries to guilt people into dying sooner? What kind of monstrous society are we transforming into when this becomes standard operating procedure and few people raise an eyebrow.

Basically Obama's health care policies tell a veteran "yeah, we know you came ashore at Normandy, were pinned down at Omaha Beach, and fought one of America's most tenacious foes into their heartland. Dude, sorry that was seventy years ago. You're wasting our time and money, so hurry up and die."

Sickening, just sickening. I don't see Teddy Kennedy making the end of life decisions that they want our World War II and Korean War era vets to make. And I would never want him to choose death over life because it is convenient for other people.

Margaret Thatcher on Socialism

"West Virginia is very comfortable with the elected officials we've got, and most of those officials are Democrats,"

That quote comes from Nick Casey, Chairman of the West Virginia Democratic Party.

Has he been paying attention?

Congressmen Rahall and Mollohan struggle to defend the increasingly out of touch policies of the left wing Congressional leadership. Rahall, frustrated, even asked a constituent if he would rather the congressman read the health care bill, or came down to his district to talk about it. The answer, obviously, was "Both!"

Give the congressmen credit. They worked to accomodate large crowds with opposing points of view. They stayed for long periods of time, despite the lack of experience in dealing with overtly hostile constituencies. However, their answers were often evasive. The political situation for some elected Democrats has been as comfortable as a nail in the bottom of the foot.

The comfort level of the voters has fallen away as Democrats pursue policies to increase taxes, increase electric bills, and decrease good paying jobs in areas such as the coal industry. All the comfort that remains lies in the minds of Democratic officeholders and their party who have become very accustomed to power in West Virginia. That will not change.

West Virginia Republicans and other concerned voters have an opportunity next year to afflict

the comfortable. Even Democrats should want their party to remember the concerns of voters and not take their support for granted. The GOP has a sound and proven plan for prosperity. Most of the state continues to lag in economic indicators. It is time for positive and constructive change.