Obama sequester lies reported by Washington Post, Obama false claim of Capitol janitors receiving pay cut, Obama gets 4 Pinocchios, Post receives 4 Murrows

Obama sequester lies reported by Washington Post, Obama false claim of Capitol janitors receiving pay cut, Obama gets 4 Pinocchios, Post receives 4 Murrows

“Starting tomorrow everybody here, all the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol. Now that Congress has left, somebody’s going to be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the garbage. They’re going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards, they just got a pay cut, and they’ve got to figure out how to manage that. That’s real.”… Obama news conference, March 1, 2013

“dedicated his life as a newsman and as a public official to the unrelenting search for truth.”…Lyndon B. Johnson

“The function of the press is very high. It is almost Holy.
It ought to serve as a forum for the people, through which
the people may know freely what is going on. To misstate or
suppress the news is a breach of trust.”…. Louis D. Brandeis

Hats off to the Washington Post for reporting the truth about Obama sequester lies.

From the Washington Post March 1, 2013.
“Sequester spin: Obama’s false claim of Capitol janitors receiving ‘a pay cut’”

“This column has been updated with a new Pinocchio rating

This was a pretty evocative image the president offered at his news conference Friday on the sequester — janitors sweeping the empty halls of the Capitol, laboring at less pay.

When we first heard his remarks, we thought he was perhaps overstating matters. Even at federal agencies that have planned furloughs, none are expected to begin on Saturday; such actions are weeks away at many federal agencies. But that’s perhaps a minor rhetorical overreach.

But then our colleague Ed O’Keefe obtained the sequester plan released by the Architect for the Capitol, which employs Capitol Hill janitors on the House side. (The Sergeant at Arms employs the janitorial staff on the Senate side.) UPDATE: Obama’s remarks also prompted a warning from AOC officials that his comments were “not true.”

The Facts

We have embedded an image of the first AOC document below. Stephen T. Ayers, the  architect of the Capitol, listed a number of steps being taken to reduce expenses, including limiting new hiring and postponing repairs. This line jumped out at us: “We do not anticipate furloughs for AOC employees as a result of Sequestration.””

“(The White House officials’ aggressive pushback of this column ended after we sent a copy of this email to them.)

On the Senate side of the building, Sergeant at Arms Terry Gainer said the cleaning technicians are his employees–not contract employees, except for setting up rooms for meetings and events.

“None of my employees will have their pay cut nor will they face furloughs assuming the cost saving strategies initiated months ago (hiring freeze, overtime reduction and delayed in equipment replacement etc.), in conjunction with a very aggressive early retirement program we began two weeks ago, reap the savings anticipated,” he said in an e-mail.

As for security guards at the Capitol, Gainer, who is chairman of the Capitol Hill Police Board, added:

“Our Centurions will face neither pay cuts nor furloughs; they are standing tall through sequestration and all. (We are saving $ by reducing overtime which is accomplished by closing doors of convenience, safety will not be compromised but health improved for visitors and staff by longer treks. )”

The Pinocchio Test

Obama’s remarks continue the administration’s pattern of overstating the potential impact of the sequester, which we have explored this week. But this error is particularly bad–and nerve-wracking to the janitors and security guards who were misled by the president’s comments.

We originally thought this was maybe a Two Pinocchio rating, but in light of the AOC memo and the confirmation that security guards will not face a pay cut, nothing in Obama’s statement came close to being correct.

Four Pinocchios”

Read more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/sequester-spin-obamas-incorrect-claim-of-capitol-janitors-receiving-a-pay-cut/2013/03/01/3407535c-82a9-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_blog.html

In the spirit of Edward R. Murrow and his never ending search for the truth, I award the Washington Post 4 Murrows.

Romney right Washington Post wrong, Health care costs higher for families and students, Obama promised $2,500 per family per year lower by end of first term, Washington Post receives 5 Orwells

Romney right Washington Post wrong, Health care costs higher for families and students, Obama promised $2,500 per family per year lower by end of first term,  Washington Post receives 5 Orwells

“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”…Barack Obama

“If you’ve got health insurance we’re going to work with you to lower your premiums by $2,500 per family per year. But we will not wait 20 years from now to do it, or 10 years from now to do it, we will do it by the end of my first term as president”…Barack Obama Ohio State University February 27, 2008

“the Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today’s issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston’s job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones.”…George Orwell, “1984″

Any way you slice it, health care premiums are higher for families and students and we are near the end of Obama’s first term. In a speech at Ohio State University on February 27, 2008 Obama stated:

“If you’ve got health insurance we’re going to work with you to lower your premiums by $2,500 per family per year. But we will not wait 20 years from now to do it, or 10 years from now to do it, we will do it by the end of my first term as president”

From Citizen Wells September 26, 2012.

“Health Insurance Costs Skyrocket For College Students Due To ObamaCare”

“Can we stop calling ObamaCare the Affordable Care Act now?

A Young America’s Foundation activist forwarded an email from the Vice President for Finance at his school, Guilford College (Greensboro, NC), informing him that, “For the 2012-13 academic year, the annual cost of the student health insurance is increasing from $668 to $1,179. This insurance premium has been charged to your student account.”

Why the increase? “Our student health insurance policy premium has been substantially increased due to changes required by federal regulations issued on March 16, 2012 under the Affordable Care Act.”

“Guilford joins a long list of colleges raising their premiums. Virtually all current student insurance plans do not meet ObamaCare’s mandates, and Forbes reports colleges have been forced to drop their plans or raise their premiums rates as much as 1,112% (and no, that’s not a typo).”

“Lenoir-Rhyne University (Hickory, NC) raised theirs from $245 to $2,507″

“During his first run for president, Barack Obama made one very specific promise to voters: He would cut health insurance premiums for families by $2,500, and do so in his first term.

But it turns out that family premiums have increased by more than $3,000 since Obama’s vow, according to the latest annual Kaiser Family Foundation employee health benefits survey.

Premiums for employer-provided family coverage rose $3,065 — 24% — from 2008 to 2012, the Kaiser survey found. Even if you start counting in 2009, premiums have climbed $2,370.

What’s more, premiums climbed faster in Obama’s four years than they did in the previous four under President Bush, the survey data show.

There’s no question about what Obama was promising the country, since he repeated it constantly during his 2008 campaign.”

http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/health-premiums-up-3000-obama-promised-2500-cut-student-health-care-doubles-triples-and-more-obamacare-another-obama-lie-kaiser-survey/

Romney was right and the Washington Post was wrong.

From the Washington Post July 3, 2012.

““Promise: President Obama promised to lower annual health insurance premiums by $2,500…Result: Annual health insurance premiums have increased by $2,393….Gap: health premium costs are $4,893 higher per family than President Obama promised.”

— new Facebook/Twitter post by the Romney campaign

Promises made during the heat of an election campaign sometimes come back to haunt politicians.

The campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is trying to nail President Obama for making an iffy promise during the 2008 campaign — that premiums will be $2,500 lower under his health care plan. Instead, the Romney campaign argues in an effort to create a viral Facebook post, the swing has gone $4,893 the other way.

The Romney graphic is false on several levels, though Obama certainly left himself open to scrutiny with imprecise language in the 2008 campaign. Let’s take a look.

The Facts

The Romney campaign cites a statement from a 2007 speech by Obama, but it’s a pledge that was repeated often: “When I am president, we will have universal health care in this country by the end of my first term in office. It’s a plan that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family’s premiums by $2,500 a year.”

This particular quote is not very clear on when the savings would be realized, but in another speech, in 2008, Obama suggested it would be at the end of his first term — though to be fair, it is not clear if he is talking about the savings or enacting a new health care law:

 “In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year. And we’ll do it by investing in disease prevention, not just disease management; by investing in a paperless health care system to reduce administrative costs; and by covering every single American and making sure that they can take their health care with them if they lose their job. We’ll also reduce costs for business and their workers by picking up the tab for some of the most expensive illnesses. And we won’t do all this twenty years from now, or ten years from now. We’ll do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States.”

The details of this number were further explained in an Obama campaign memo:

“Combining all of these effects — from improved health IT [information technology], better disease management, reduced insurance overhead, reinsurance, and reduced uncompensated care — under our “best-guess” assumptions, we estimate that businesses will save $140 billion annually in insurance premiums. The typical family will save $2500 per year.”

But note that Obama’s pledge came with an asterisk: He was not saying premiums would fall by that amount, as the Romney graphic asserts, but that costs would be that much lower than anticipated. In other words, if premiums were expected to rise by $5,000, they would only rise by $2,500 — that’s what Obama’s pledge meant, even if he was not too clear about it.

Michael Dobbs, our predecessor as The Fact Checker, awarded Obama Two Pinocchios for the pledge, saying it was based on shaky assumptions (such as a Rand Corp. study that was criticized by the Congressional Budget Office) and there was no guarantee that any savings would be passed on to consumers. Our colleagues at FactCheck.org also thought Obama’s pledge was highly dubious.

Of course, once Obama became president, the health care proposal he advocated as a candidate was significantly changed, even to the point of accepting the individual mandate that he had so criticized when Hillary Rodham Clinton promoted it. But the White House more or less stuck to the idea that costs would not rise as quickly as previously estimated — except that it would result in $2,000 in savings by 2019. (Recall also that the health care law will not be implemented until 2014, making a first-term pledge problematic.)

Now, let’s look at what the Romney campaign has done with the pledge. First, it assumes that Obama was saying that premiums would actually decline by $2,500, rather than decline from a projected increase. Then, it takes the 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation survey estimate (Exhibit 1.11) and subtracts the cost of a 2008 family premium ($12,680) from the cost of a 2011 premium ($15,073). Viola, an increase of $2,393—and a promise gap of $4,893.

The Romney campaign’s math is nonsensical. First of all, the Kaiser survey is conducted from January to May each year, so starting with the 2008 date makes little sense, since that is still George W. Bush’s term. Then the health care law was not passed until 2010, so the first year in which any impact could be seen from the law was in 2011.

But, as the Kaiser report notes, most of the provisions of the new law will not take effect in 2014. Thus far, other provisions, such as providing coverage for adult children up to age 26, appear to have had a modest impact on premiums–perhaps 1 to 2 percentage points. (The White House disputes even that effect.) Still, the full effect on premiums — including any possible savings — will not be seen until the law is completely implemented.

We had previously given the Republican National Committee Three Pinocchios for an ad that had focused on the single data point — the increase in premiums from 2010 to 2011 — and blamed all of the increase on the health care law. Now the Romney campaign has quadrupled the same error in an effort to claim that “health premium costs are $4,893 higher per family than President Obama promised.”

The Pinocchio Test

Obama in 2008 made a foolish, dubious pledge about health care premiums. As we have noted, he will have to answer to Americans if his law fails to live up to that promise by 2019 or if people feel misled by his lawyerly wording. He was warned when he got Two Pinocchios back in 2008.

But two wrongs don’t make a right. The Romney campaign has twisted the meaning of that pledge, and then blamed a partially implemented, one-year-old law for three years of premium increases, in order to concoct an absurd claim.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/romneys-whopper-claim-on-an-obama-health-care-pledge/2012/07/03/gJQAVhk3IW_blog.html

For their efforts to discredit Romney and protect Obama the Washington Post is awarded 5 Orwells.

Al Jazeera distorts Santorum euthanasia comments and Citizen Wells article, Professor Ian Buruma article biased assumptive selective quoting, Elitist condescension

Al Jazeera distorts Santorum euthanasia comments and Citizen Wells article, Professor Ian Buruma article biased assumptive selective quoting, Elitist condescension

“As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in it’s stead. This process of continuation alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs–to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to be correct; nor was any item of news, or expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to be on record.”…George Orwell, “1984″ 

“Not every item of news should be published: rather must
those who control news policies endeavor to make every item
of news serve a certain purpose.”… Joseph Goebbels

“Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news,”…Hillary Clinton 

Al Jazeera has published an article by Professor Ian Buruma on the Washington Post article about Rick Santorum’s comments about euthanasia in the Netherlands. In an attempt to lend credence to the Washington Post article, Professor Buruma cited a Citizen Wells article that was critical of the Post article. The point made at Citizen Wells was that the Washington Post tried to completely discredit Santorum when in fact Santorum painted an accurate picture of most aspects of euthanasia in Holland. Professor Buruma quoted little of the Citizen Wells article and made many assumptions. He also used Alinsky like tactics of elitist condescension.

I came across the Post article by chance. The article could have been about any non Democrat candidate being maligned by the media, it just happened to be Santorum in this case. The point was the biased angle taken by the Post in an attempt to discredit him. The convenient ommission of facts, just as Professor Buruma has done. For example:

I stated: “Santorum may have been guilty of hyperbole but his fundamental message rings true.”

“From Dutch News November 9, 2011.

“A 64-year-old woman suffering from severe senile dementia has become the first person in the Netherlands to be given euthanasia even though she could no
longer express her wish to die, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.”

“The case has serious implications for Dutch euthanasia law because it means patients who are no longer able to state their wish can still be helped to die,
Constance de Vries, who acts as a second opinion doctor for euthanasia cases, told the paper.””
“From Forbes February 26, 2012.

“But Rick Santorum’s Sorta Right About Dutch Euthanasia”
“Not that I particularly care to defend a politician I most certainly don’t support: but the piling in on Rick Santorum over his remarks on the prevalence of involuntary euthanasia in Holland does seem a little over the top.”

“The numbers the Senator puts forward are also wrong: euthanasia, voluntary, involuntary, is not 10% of all deaths.

Well, actually, that’s not quite true either. It depends upon how you define these different activities.”

http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/washington-post-attacks-santorum-on-dutch-euthanasia-statement-post-bias-trumps-facts-santorum-point-valid-citizen-wells-awards-4-orwells/

Al Jazeera March 12, 2012.

“A new idea of truth
Quality journalism has suffered as the internet allows individuals to select ‘truth’ based on their prejudices.”

“Rick Santorum, a former United States senator seeking the Republican Party’s nomination to challenge President Barack Obama this year, has been saying some very strange things about the Netherlands. Ten per cent of all deaths in that country, he recently claimed, are from euthanasia, half of which are forced upon helpless patients. Old people are so frightened of being killed by homicidal doctors that they wear bracelets that read: “Do not euthanise me.”

In a way, Santorum’s canards must come as a relief to a country that has increasingly been in the news for outrageous statements by right-wing populists about Muslims and Greeks. Indeed, Santorum’s view of the Netherlands as a kind of progressive dystopia has a slightly old-fashioned ring to it nowadays.

The Dutch were nonetheless disturbed. Some in the country’s parliament even asked whether the foreign minister should lodge a complaint in Washington.

In fact, Santorum’s fantasies were swiftly refuted in the US itself. The Washington Post concluded that “there was not a shred of evidence to back up Santorum’s claims”, and found it “telling” that his campaign managers did not even bother to defend them. One US television station even apologised to a Dutch reporter in the name of the American people.

As the Post pointed out, there is no such thing as involuntary euthanasia in the Netherlands. The patient’s consent is essential, and at least two doctors must agree that the patient’s suffering is unbearable and beyond cure. Besides, the share of assisted deaths in Dutch mortality is nowhere near 10 per cent. As for those bracelets, well…

But does any of this matter to Santorum’s followers? Probably not. Corrections from the “elitist” mainstream media are dismissed as enemy propaganda. As a blogger sympathetic to Santorum  put it: ”The Washington Post, as one would expect, attempted to discredit Santorum.”

No more filter

It is disturbing, to say the least, that the most cogent refutations of bald-faced lies no longer make any impression. After all, a democracy cannot function without a public that is properly informed. Informing the public used to be the role of serious newspapers and television networks. Of course, not everything in the mainstream media is always true: Mistakes are made. News organisations have political biases, sometimes reflecting the views and interests of their owners.

But high-quality journalism has always relied on its reputation for probity. Editors, as well as reporters, at least tried to get the facts right. That is why people read Le Monde, The New York Times, or, indeed, The Washington Post. Filtering nonsense was one of their duties – and their main selling point.

That has changed. Populist demagogues in politics and the mass media are doing everything they can to discredit the quality press as propaganda organs for left-wing elites who sneer at the views of ordinary Americans. Santorum pretends to speak for these people – that is, for a minority of Americans who are mostly white, provincial, highly religious, deeply conservative on cultural and social issues, and convinced that Obama and all Europeans are dangerous godless socialists.

The point is not whether Santorum is right or wrong factually. What he says “feels” right to his followers, because it conforms to their prejudices. And the internet, having swamped the quality press, feeds and reinforces those prejudices, making it more difficult to distinguish the truth from lies.

The public is increasingly segmented into groups of likeminded people who see their views echoed back to them in blogs, comments and tweets. There is no need to be exposed to different opinions, which are, in any case, considered to be propaganda. Indeed, Santorum’s new fame will afford him a rich career as a media demagogue, even if he fails as a politician.

The truth is relative

The first people to argue that all truth is relative and that all information is a form of propaganda that reflects society’s power relations, were far removed from the world inhabited by Santorum and his supporters. Several decades ago, a number of European and American intellectuals, often with a background in Marxism, developed a “post-modern” critique of the written word. We might think, they argued, that what we read in The New York Times or Le Monde is objectively true, but everything that appears there is, in fact, a disguised form of propaganda for bourgeois class interests.

There is no such thing, the post-modern critic believes, as independence of thought. Objective truth is an illusion. Everyone is promoting class interests of one kind or another. The real lie, in this view, is the claim of objectivity. What is necessary to change the world is not the truth, but another form of propaganda, promoting different interests. Everything is political; that is the only truth that counts.

It is unlikely that Rick Santorum, or many of his followers, have read any post-modern theorists. Santorum, after all, recently called Obama a “snob” for claiming that all Americans should be entitled to a college education. So he must surely loath writers who represent everything that the Tea Party and other radical right-wingers abhor: the highly educated, intellectual, urban, secular and not always white. These writers are the left-wing elite, at least in academia.

But, as so often happens, ideas have a way of migrating in unexpected ways. The blogger who dismissed The Washington Post’s corrections of Santorum’s fictional portrayal of the Netherlands expressed himself like a perfect post-modernist. The most faithful followers of obscure leftist thinkers in Paris, New York or Berkeley are the most reactionary elements in the American heartland. Of course, if this were pointed out to them, they would no doubt dismiss it as elitist propaganda.

Ian Buruma is Professor of Democracy and Human Rights at Bard College and the author of Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents.”

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/201238132531800215.html

Original article:

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma60/English

I have more to say on this article and will do so soon. It is a teachable moment.

Washington Post attacks Santorum on Dutch euthanasia statement, Post bias trumps facts, Santorum point valid, Citizen Wells awards 4 Orwells

Washington Post attacks Santorum on Dutch euthanasia statement, Post bias trumps facts, Santorum point valid, Citizen Wells awards 4 Orwells

“As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any partiucular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in it’s stead. This process of continuation alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs–to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to be correct; nor was any item of news, or expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to be on record.”…George Orwell, “1984″ 

“Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room.”
“the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically.”
“He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia.”
“There were also whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies”
“In it’s second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices”… George Orwell, “1984?

“Not every item of news should be published: rather must
those who control news policies endeavor to make every item
of news serve a certain purpose.”… Joseph Goebbels

Rick Santorum made the following statement at the American Heartland Forum in Columbia, Missouri on February 3, 2012:

“In the Netherlands, people wear different bracelets if they are elderly. And the bracelet is: ‘Do not euthanize me.’ Because they have voluntary euthanasia
in the Netherlands but half of the people who are euthanized — ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands — half of those people are enthanized
involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don’t go to the hospital. They go to another country,
because they are afraid, because of budget purposes, they will not come out of that hospital if they go in there with sickness.”

Santorum may have been guilty of hyperbole but his fundamental message rings true.

The Washington Post, as one would expect, attempted to discredit Santorum,  one of the Republican frontrunners.

From the Washington Post February 22, 2012.

“In 2001, The Netherlands became the first country to legalize euthanasia, setting forth a complex process. The law, which went into effect a year later,
codified a practice that has been unofficially tolerated for many years.

Under the Dutch law, a doctor must diagnose the illness as incurable and the patient must have full control of his or her mental faculties. The patient must
voluntarily and repeatedly request the procedure, and another doctor must provide a written opinion agreeing with the diagnosis. After the death, a
commission made up of a doctor, a jurist and an ethical expert also are required to verify that the requirements for euthanasia have been met.

Late last year, in the first such case, a 64-year-old woman with advanced Alzheimer’s disease was euthanized, on the strength of her insisting for years that she wanted the procedure to be done.

Nevertheless, the statistics show it is still a relatively uncommon form of death. In 2010, the number of euthanasia cases reported to one of five special
commissions was 3,136, according to their annual report. This was a 19 percent increase over 2009, but “this amounts to 2.3 percent of all 136,058 deaths in
the Netherlands in 2010,” said Carla Bundy, spokeswoman for the Dutch embassy in Washington.

At the time of the annual report, the commissions had been able to reach conclusions in 2,667 euthanasia notifications reported to the agency and found only nine in which “the physician had not acted in accordance with the due care criteria,” the annual report said. More than 80 percent of the patients were
suffering from cancer; almost 80 percent died at home.

A 2005 study by the New England Journal of Medicine found only a minimal number of the cases — 0.4 percent — in which there was an ending of life without
explicit request by the patient. The study concluded the rate had actually been cut in half since the euthanasia law was passed.

These statistics were so at odds with Santorum’s claims that we wondered how he could have thought that 50 percent of the elderly were put to death
involuntarily (or that 10 percent of all deaths in Holland were from euthanasia.) Spokesmen for Santorum did not respond to a query, but the best we can
tell, he is grossly misinterpreting the results of a 1991 survey known as the Remmelink Report, which was influential in crafting the 2001 law.”

“The Pinocchio Test

There appears to be not a shred of evidence to back up Santorum’s claims about euthanasia in the Netherlands. It is telling that his campaign did not even
bother to defend his comments.

Four Pinocchios”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/euthanasia-in-the-netherlands-rick-santorums-bogus-statistics/2012/02/21/gIQAJaRbSR_blog.html

From Dutch News November 9, 2011.

“A 64-year-old woman suffering from severe senile dementia has become the first person in the Netherlands to be given euthanasia even though she could no
longer express her wish to die, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.”

“The case has serious implications for Dutch euthanasia law because it means patients who are no longer able to state their wish can still be helped to die,
Constance de Vries, who acts as a second opinion doctor for euthanasia cases, told the paper.”

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2011/11/doctors_back_euthanasia_in_sev.php

From Forbes February 26, 2012.

“But Rick Santorum’s Sorta Right About Dutch Euthanasia”
“Not that I particularly care to defend a politician I most certainly don’t support: but the piling in on Rick Santorum over his remarks on the prevalence of involuntary euthanasia in Holland does seem a little over the top.”

“The numbers the Senator puts forward are also wrong: euthanasia, voluntary, involuntary, is not 10% of all deaths.

Well, actually, that’s not quite true either. It depends upon how you define these different activities. If we say that voluntary euthanasia is the doctor or
medics ending the life of someone who has requested that their life be ended, involuntary that they use perhaps the same drugs or treatments to deliberately
end the life of someone who has not so requested then no, the two together do not amount to 10% of all deaths.

However, there’s a third category. From an overdose of painkillers (and we should note that European hospitals still use opiates in a manner which I believe
US hospitals do not: heroin is not an unusual treatment for final stage cancer over here although whether you think that diamorphine is quite the same thing
or not is really up to you) through to a complete withdrawal of treatment. That withdrawal including a complete withdrawal of not just food but also
hydration. Whether you consider starving to death a terminal cancer patient euthanasia is again something really up to you. Ditto with your opinions of
dehydration.

If we include these latter then the numbers are rather over 10%. Indeed, withdrawal of nutrition and hydration counts for an observable portion of deaths in the British medical system where we most certainly do not have any form of right to any form of euthanasia.”

“How about a current advisor to the Obama Administration? Even the Special Advisor for Health Policy to Peter Orszag? A previous Chief of the Department of Bioethics at the Clinical Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health? A supporter of health care reform indeed one of the architects of it?

Yes, why not Ezekiel Emanuel? Dr. Emanuel is using the above mentioned Remmelink Report and an update to it as the basis of his figures:

First, the update found that beyond the roughly 3,600 cases of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia reported in a given year, there are about 1,000
instances of nonvoluntary euthanasia. Most frequently, patients who were no longer competent were given euthanasia even though they could not have freely,
explicitly, and repeatedly requested it. Before becoming unconscious or mentally incompetent about half these patients did discuss or express a wish for
euthanasia; nevertheless, they were unable to reaffirm their wishes when the euthanasia was performed. Similarly, a study of nursing-home patients found that in only 41 percent of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia cases did doctors adhere to all the guidelines. Although most of the violations were minor
(usually deviations in the notification procedure), in 15 percent of cases the patient did not initiate the request for physician-assisted suicide or
euthanasia; in 15 percent there was no consultation with a second physician; in seven percent no more than one day elapsed between the first request and the
actual physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, violating the guideline calling for repeated requests; and in nine percent interventions other than
physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia could have been tried to relieve the patient’s suffering.

Second, euthanasia of newborns has been acknowledged. The reported cases have involved babies suffering from well-recognized fatal or severely disabling
defects, though the babies were not in fact dying. Precisely how many cases have occurred is not known. One estimate is that ten to fifteen such cases occur
each year. Whether ethically justified or not, providing euthanasia to newborns (upon parental request) is not voluntary euthanasia and does constitute a
kind of “mercy killing.”

The Netherlands studies fail to demonstrate that permitting physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia will not lead to the nonvoluntary euthanasia of
children, the demented, the mentally ill, the old, and others. Indeed, the persistence of abuse and the violation of safeguards, despite publicity and
condemnation, suggest that the feared consequences of legalization are exactly its inherent consequences.”

“It is of course possible to look at this in various different ways. The most obvious to me is that the Senator’s audience would not have been any less
shocked to be told that 0.5%, or 1%, are, according to the views of that audience, murdered by their doctors than they were by being told it was 5%. On these matters ethical it’s not how often it happens but that it happens at all which shocks. We wouldn’t be all that impressed by the school principal who said he
only killed a couple of the kids, not the 5% of the entire student population that was alleged.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/02/26/but-rick-santorums-sorta-right-about-dutch-euthanasia/

From the Daily Caller February 21, 2012.

“But the media mocking had a purpose beyond making fun of a conservative. It distracted people from the fact that Santorum’s overarching message is true —
euthanasia consciousness breaches the dikes of morality and exposes the weak and vulnerable to great risk. Indeed, while Santorum overstated some of the
details — the elderly are not flocking to out-of-country hospitals — he was spot-on regarding the charge that many Dutch doctors practice death medicine.
Indeed, anyone paying attention to recent stories from the Netherlands knows that things have gone from very bad to much, much worse.

Official Dutch euthanasia statistics undercount the actual toll: Much was made out of Santorum’s claim of a 10% euthanasia rate when official statistics
generally report that 2-3% of Dutch deaths come from doctor-administered lethal injection. (The same rate in the USA would amount to about 70,000 euthanasia killings per year.) But realize, about 1/3 of the Dutch die suddenly, e.g. by sudden stroke, heart attack, or accident, without significant end-of-life
medical intervention. Take those deaths away from the total count, and using the Dutch government’s estimate, the percentage of euthanasia deaths in cases
involving end-of-life medical treatment rises to 3-4%.

But even that number is far too low. Repeated studies have shown that Dutch doctors fail to report at least 20% (or more) of actual euthanasia deaths, which
means that hundreds of euthanasias aren’t included in the official statistical count. Moreover, about 1% of all Dutch deaths come as a result, to use Dutch
parlance, of being “terminated without request or consent” — e.g. non-voluntary euthanasia. Such deaths are also not technically part of the official
euthanasia count. That gets us up to about 6% of all deaths involving medical treatment at the time of death. Add in a few hundred assisted suicides each
year where the patient takes the final death action rather than being lethally injected, and suddenly, Santorum’s 10% claim becomes far less problematic.

Wait, there’s more: Dutch doctors also kill patients by intentionally overdosing them with pain killers. I am not referring here to death caused as a side
effect of legitimate pain control, but overdosing with the intent of causing death. The exact number of these deaths isn’t known, but the authoritative 1990
government study known as the Remmelink Report found that there were 8,100 deaths from intentional opioid overdose, of which 61% were done without the
request or consent of patients. Now, add in, say, half of the nearly 10% of deaths that occur after Dutch doctors place patients into artificial comas and
deny them food and water — that is, those cases in which palliative sedation is not medically necessary to control otherwise irremediable suffering — and we
see that Santorum’s claim of a 10% euthanasia rate isn’t materially overstated at all.

The Dutch are moving toward euthanizing the elderly: A Dutch elderly dementia patient was recently euthanized in the Netherlands without request and despite
being incompetent — and the killing received the approval of the state. Meanwhile, the Dutch parliament is actively debating whether to expand the practice of assisted suicide to the elderly “tired of life” or who want to die because they “consider their lives complete.” Not coincidentally, a Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) ethics opinion advocated including “loneliness,” loss of social skills and money problems among the factors for allowing the elderly to receive legal doctor-prescribed or doctor-administered death.”

“I could go on and on:

● Dutch doctors have published the Groningen Protocol, a bureaucratic checklist for committing infanticide on terminally ill and seriously disabled babies, as two studies in The Lancet show that 8% of all babies who die in the Netherlands each year (about 90) are terminated by doctors.

● Mobile euthanasia “clinics” will soon be operating to bring euthanasia to the homes of patients whose own doctors say no.

● The Dutch media also mocked Santorum for claiming that thousands of Dutch citizens wear bracelets saying they don’t want to be euthanized. Fair is fair.
Santorum was wrong. They don’t wear bracelets — they carry please-don’t-euthanize-me cards in their wallets or purses.

Enough. Rick Santorum is exactly right in his broader criticism that the Netherlands as leaping head-first off a vertical moral cliff. Maybe if Dutch
reporters paid closer attention to what is happening under their very noses, they’d stop laughing at Santorum’s minor factual errors and start acting like
journalists.”

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/21/santorum-more-right-than-wrong-about-dutch-euthanasia/

It is apparent that the Washington Post, just as their counterpart the Times in “1984″ did, is doing their part to take down the opposition to the “party.” The Post let biased reporting interfere with the facts. It is for that reason that I bestow 4 Orwells upon the Washington Post for their Orwellian efforts.

William Cellini trial, Chicago Tribune article removed?, Blagojevich Cellini Rezko Levine Obama, Chicago Pay to play politics

William Cellini trial, Chicago Tribune article removed?, Blagojevich Cellini Rezko Levine Obama, Chicago Pay to play politics

“Why did the Illinois Senate Health & Human Services Committee, with Obama as chairman, create and push Bill 1332, “Illinois Health Facilities Planning Act,” early in 2003, which reduced the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, just prior to rigging by Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich?”…Citizen Wells

I was doing some followup research on William Cellini, who was a codefendant in the original Blagojevich indictment and later indicted separately, and referencing Citizen Wells and Chicago Tribune articles. I noticed two interesting things when I searched the internet and Tribune site for articles on Cellini. There seemed to be a lack of articles from 2010 and when I clicked on a Citizen Wells article link to the Tribune, the article was missing. This is what I discovered.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/sns-ap-il–cellinitrial,0,6721744.story

The missing article contained this statement:

“Cellini is a longtime fundraiser and behind-the-scenes power broker in Illinois politics”

“I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances, but allow me to introduce myself.
I’m Colonel Tribune, the Web ambassador for chicagotribune.com.

Perhaps I can help you find what you wanted when you hit this error page? Try our search or our topics pages. If you are looking for an article that is more than a month old, you may find it in our archives.

If that doesn’t work, please feel free to leave us a question here.

Meantime, I hope I run into you surfing the Web. You can find me on Twitter and Facebook.

Have a good day!”

A internet search on “2010 chicago tribune William Cellini” yielded:

“ Search ResultsBlago trial has a mover and shaker ready to blow – Chicago TribuneGuys like the indicted gazillionaire Bill Cellini don’t do time for anybody. August 13, 2010|By John Kass. The jury deliberating the fate of former Illinois …
articles.chicagotribune.com › Collections – CachedProsecutors, lawyers seek to drop William Cellini from Blagojevich …Nov 14, 2009 … You are here: ChicagoTribune.com>Collections. Prosecutors …
articles.chicagotribune.com › Collections – CachedClout St: Read the Cellini indictment documents – Chicago TribuneOct 30, 2008 … Posted by Tribune staff at 12:46 p.m. A federal grand jury …
newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/…/read-the-cellin.html – Cached – SimilarClout St: Rezko trial – Chicago TribuneOct 20, 2009 … Political heavyweight William Cellini, who was indicted …
newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/rezko_trial/ – Cached – SimilarShow more results from chicagotribune.comCitizen WElls | Obama eligibility, Obama news – 226 visits – 5:51amWilliam Tecumseh Sherman. Bill O’Reilly and Barack Obama will be holding their narcissim …. From John Kass of the Chicago Tribune November 18, 2010. …
citizenwells.wordpress.com/ – Cached – SimilarWilliam Cellini – News, photos, topics, and quotesThe latest news on William Cellini, from thousands of sources worldwide. … Chicago Tribune logo Chicago Tribune 1 month ago. Rod Blagojevich. …
www.daylife.com/topic/William_Cellini – CachedWilliam Cellini: Latest News, Videos, PhotosSee William Cellini Latest News, Photos, Biography, Videos and Wallpapers. … At a routine status… Full Article at Chicago Tribune …
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/William-Cellini – CachedThe Life and Death of Blago Aide Christopher Kelly – Chicago …Kelly was also implicated (along with William Cellini, Stuart Levine, and Tony Rezko) in … This article appears in the May 2010 issue of Chicago Magazine. …
www.chicagomag.com/Chicago…/May-2010/…/index.php?…4… – CachedTony Rezko – Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaRezko threw an early fundraiser for Obama that Chicago Tribune reporter ….. William F. Cellini, Sr., Indicted – fbi.gov – October 30, 2008; ^ now Miner, Barnhill & Galland. …. This page was last modified on 25 October 2010 at 12:29 . …”

A Chicago Tribune search on “2010 William Cellini” Yielded:

“April 15, 2009 |Article
Big money
…investments. Blagojevich and Springfield businessman William Cellini face federal charges stemming from alleged pension fund…both fiscal year 2009 ($550 million) and fiscal year 2010 ($2.3 billion), which would further weaken pension…
TAGS: Death, Rod Blagojevich, Cook County Board of Commissioners, Employees, Executive Branch
December 5, 2008 |Article
Feds taped Blagojevich
By Jeff Coen, John Chase and David Kidwell ,Tribune staff reporters
…governor, a Democrat contemplating seeking a third term in 2010, has not been charged with any wrongdoing and has denied…came in October, when longtime Springfield power broker William Cellini was accused of extorting campaign contributions for Blagojevich…”

The December 10, 2010 Citizen Wells article referencing the Tribune article is reprinted:

“(Highlighting done by Citizen Wells)

From the Chicago Tribune December 2, 2010.

“A date has finally been set for the long-delayed trial of a Springfield businessman charged with illegally plotting to raise campaign funds for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

At a status hearing Thursday, a federal judge in Chicago scheduled William Cellini‘s trial for Aug. 22.

Cellini is a longtime fundraiser and behind-the-scenes power broker in Illinois politics.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/sns-ap-il–cellinitrial,0,6721744.story

All searches lead back to Obama and Rezko

From Citizen Wells November 1, 2010.

“I was following up on news on Obama corruption cronies in Chicago and Illinois and the Blagojevich trial saga and came across an article that was probably much unnoticed.”

“From the Chicago Tribune November 16, 2008 reported on Citizen Wells April 29, 2010.

“Connections could touch every somebody”

“To fully appreciate our politics you’ve got to look at the connections. Sadly, this task is beyond the national press and some locals besotted with our renowned vintage, Combine Kool Aid.”

“Cellini is accused of helping shake down a Hollywood producer and politically connected Chicago investor Thomas Rosenberg for $1.5 million in campaign cash for Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Cellini also is accused as a point man in a plot to remove U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald as federal prosecutor.”

“Cellini really began to pile up the cash when then-Gov. Thompson gave him a state gaming license. Webb and Zagel were young prosecutors under then-U.S. Atty. Thompson. Later, Zagel was director of the state’s Department of Revenue under Thompson. Webb ran the State Police.
Everybody knows somebody. So, no, Illinois politics isn’t a Robert Ludlum novel.
Illinois is Six Degrees of Bill Cellini.”

“The Combine wants Fitzgerald promoted out of town. But President-elect Barack Obama has promised newspaper editorial boards he would keep Fitzgerald in Chicago to fight political corruption.

That’s the same President-elect Obama with Mayor Daley’s guy Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, and another Daley guy, David Axelrod, as Obama’s chief strategist. The mayor’s brother Billy is one of Obama’s chief economic advisers. Whew!

Some political analysts become quite upset when “Daley machine” and “Obama” are mentioned in my column. They feel compelled to give me a vigorous corrective. But this same Flat Earth society denied the existence of a Combine for years, then shut up for a while when Obama’s real estate fairy Tony Rezko was convicted in the federal government’s Operation Board Games probe.”

“Obama was chairman of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee in January 2003. A few articles in the media have mentioned that Obama sat on a committee that reviewed matters related to the Planning Board in conjunction with the Governor’s staff but none have discussed his integral part in getting the bill passed.

A review of senate records from January 2003 to August 2003, shows Obama played a major role as chairman of that committee, in pushing through Senate Bill 1332, that led to the “Illinois Health Facilities Planning Act,” which reduced the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, making the votes much easier to rig.”

“The bill was filed with the senate secretary on February 20, 2003, and assigned to Human Services Committee for review on February 27. Less than a month later, as chairman, Obama sent word that the bill should be passed on March 13, 2003.

On May 31, 2003, the House and Senate passed the bill and the only senator listed in the “yes” votes mentioned in the Board Games indictments is Obama.

Blagojevich made the effective date June 27, 2003, and the co-schemers already had the people lined up to stack the Board and rig the votes with full approval from Obama.”

“During the trial, Stuart Levine testified that when he sought reappointment to the Planning Board, he told Republican co-schemer, Bill Cellini, to tell the Blagojevich administration he would vote however they wanted when approving projects.”

“A June 2003 email exchange produced in the trial shows Obama was one of eight officials who received the names of the nominees for the new Board ahead of time, from the office of David Wilhelm, who headed Blagojevich’s 2002 campaign for governor.”

“Corrupt appointees fund Obama and Blagojevich campaigns”

“A few weeks later, Beck said, Rezko called to say he would be reappointed along with a Republican holdover Levine. Beck also testified that Rezko told him Blagojevich was set to appoint Rezko’s three doctor friends to complete the rigged voting bloc. He said he met the doctors in August 2003, at the first meeting of the new Board.

Dr Michel Malek gave Obama $10,000 a little over a month before the first meeting on June 30, 2003. He also donated $25,000 to Blagojevich three weeks later on July 25, 2003, and gave Obama another $500 in September 2003. Malek was an investor in Riverside Park.

Dr Fortunee Massuda donated $25,000 to Blagojevich on July 25, 2003, and gave a total of $2,000 to Obama on different dates. Massuda’s husband, Charles Hannon, is a co-schemer in the pension fund case and testified against Rezko in the trial.

Dr Imad Almanaseer contributed a total of $3,000 to Obama after he landed the appointment. On March 13, 2008, Almanaseer testified against Rezko and told the jury he was an investor in Rezko’s fast-food businesses.”
http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/william-cellini-obama-rezko-levine-et-al-all-searches-lead-back-to-obama-and-rezko-citizen-wells-open-thread-november-1-2010/

“

http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/william-cellini-trial-date-set-cellini-blagojevich-rezko-levine-obama-all-searches-lead-back-to-obama-citizen-wells-open-thread-december-10-2010/

The missing article contained the following statement:

“Cellini is a longtime fundraiser and behind-the-scenes power broker in Illinois politics”

William Cellini’s trial is scheduled August 22, 2011.

Perhaps this was a reminder that the trials of Blagojevich and Cellini really are about the rampant corruption in Chicago, not just about the diversion of selling the senate seat, and most definitely the involvement of Obama.

Alan Keyes to Republicans, Lower debt, Refuse to raise the debt ceiling, House Republicans chastised

Alan Keyes to Republicans, Lower debt, Refuse to raise the debt ceiling, House Republicans chastised

From World Net Daily February 7, 2011.

“Former GOP presidential candidate and Reagan administration official Alan Keyes has joined the ranks of those calling on House Republicans to reject another hike in the debt limit that will permit the federal government to keep borrowing money to propel its spending programs.

He joins Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., in rejecting House Speaker John Boehner’s concession to raise the debt limit, which is expected to be reached toward the end of next month.

“We should demand of our representatives in Congress that they refuse to raise the debt ceiling,” said Keyes. “But we must also demand of ourselves that we refuse any longer to choose our political leaders from candidates produced by political parties intrinsically dependent on political vehicles fueled by unbridled government spending. Where politics is concerned, restoring the ceiling must be just the first expression of our determination to rebuild, as a home for responsible freedom, the house of constitutional liberty our forsworn elites are determined to destroy.”

Shock the Washington establishment by participating in the “No More Red Ink” campaign and shut down all new plans for bailouts, “stimulus” spending and even the funding for Obamacare.

Keyes, whose coming book, “And Crown Thy Good: Restoring America’s Covenant in 2012,” will address the issue, said Boehner tipped his hand late last year when he spoke to House Republicans sent to Washington by Americans fed up with business as usual in Washington: “We’re going to have to deal with it as adults,” Boehner instructed his colleagues. “Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part.”

“U.S. government finance has evidently become a Ponzi scheme predicated upon access to fresh streams of borrowed capital,” said Keyes. “If done in ignorance, we might excuse the scheme as childish. Otherwise, we call it crooked, and treat adults who knowingly perpetrate it as criminals. Many of those who voted Republican in 2008 are demanding an end to precisely this kind of institutionalized chicanery. Sadly they may have cast their votes in vain. Of course, in order to mask the fact that the Republicans mean to go on with ‘business as usual’ GOP leaders are claiming instead that it’s ‘business as necessary.’ Naturally, the Obama faction Democrats heartily agree.”

Keyes continues: “They agree because what’s happening isn’t child’s play, it is power play. The GOP leaders blather about ‘meaningful cuts in government spending,’ but as I’ve pointed out before neither wing of the sham two-party system can have any intention of fundamentally curbing the U.S. government’s appetite for the nation’s resources. The political power of both parties depends on it. They won’t give up that power until the force of circumstances compels them to do so.”

Keyes made his comments in support of a plan led by Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, to persuade House Republicans to defy their own leadership and refuse to raise the debt limit – an act that will force government to live within its means.

Called the “No More Red Ink” campaign, it empowers America citizens to send messages to every member of the House Republican caucus inexpensively and efficiently – with guaranteed delivery by Fed Ex.”

Read more:

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=258801

Ezra Klein, Constitution has no binding power, Text confusing, 112th Congress reads US Constitution

Ezra Klein, Constitution has no binding power, Text confusing, 112th Congress reads US Constitution

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post was interviewed on MSNBC. He was asked to respond to the 112th Congress reading the US Constitution on January 6, 2011. His response, though stupefying, was consistent with the attitudes of the left and what would be expected from an associate of the Washington Post.

In the interview he states:

“it has no binding power on anything.”

“The text is confusing”

Ezra Klein, which of these provisions of the US Constitution do you consider confusing and non binding?

“Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

“Amendment XV

Section 1.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude–”

“Amendment XIX

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Ezra Klein, after being bombarded with responses to his idiotic statements, posted a “clarification” of his remarks. The problem I mostly have with Mr. Klein is his cavalier attitude in regard to the US Constitution. He must have a great many followers on the left.

“This morning, I gave a quick interview to MSNBC where I made, I thought, some fairly banal points on the GOP’s plan to honor the Constitution by having it read aloud on the House floor. Asked if it was a gimmick, I replied that it was, because, well, it is. It’s our founding document, not a spell that makes the traitors among us glow green. It’s also, I noted, a completely nonbinding act: It doesn’t impose a particular interpretation of the Constitution on legislators, and will have no practical impact on how they legislate.”

“But my inbox suggests that my comments weren’t taken that way: The initial interpretation was that I’d said the Constitution is too complicated to understand because it was written a long time ago, and then, as the day went on, that I’d said the document itself is nonbinding. I went back and watched the clip — or at least the part someone clipped and sent me, which is above — and thought I was clear enough. But when a lot of people misunderstand you at once, the fault is usually yours. So if I was unclear: Yes, the Constitution is binding. No, it’s not clear which interpretation of the Constitution the Supreme Court will declare binding at any given moment.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/12/yes_the_constitution_is_bindin.html

Yes, Ezra Klein, the fault is yours. And once again, which provision is ok for you or the Supreme Court to declare not binding?

Ezra Klein, welcome the the US Constitution Hall of Shame.

USS Cole trial on hold, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Obama administration, Political decision

USS Cole trial on hold, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Obama administration, Political decision

From the Washington Post.

“The Obama administration has shelved the planned prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged coordinator of the Oct. 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, according to a court filing.
The decision at least temporarily scuttles what was supposed to be the signature trial of a major al-Qaeda figure under a reformed system of military commissions. And it comes practically on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attack, which killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens when a boat packed with explosives ripped a hole in the side of the warship in the port of Aden.

In a filing this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department said that “no charges are either pending or contemplated with respect to al-Nashiri in the near future.”

The statement, tucked into a motion to dismiss a petition by Nashiri’s attorneys, suggests that the prospect of further military trials for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has all but ground to a halt, much as the administration’s plan to try the accused plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in federal court has stalled.
Only two cases are moving forward at Guantanamo Bay, and both were sworn and referred for trial by the time Obama took office. In January 2009, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates directed the Convening Authority for Military Commissions to stop referring cases for trial, an order that 20 months later has not been rescinded.

Military officials said a team of prosecutors in the Nashiri case has been ready go to trial for some time. And several months ago, military officials seemed confident that Nashiri would be arraigned this summer.

“It’s politics at this point,” said one military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy. He said he thinks the administration does not want to proceed against a high-value detainee without some prospect of civilian trials for other major figures at Guantanamo Bay.”

Read more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082606353.html?wprss=rss_nation

Arlen Specter loses, Rand Paul wins big, Blanche Lincoln in runoff, Democrats Tim Holden Larry Kissell Heath Shuler voted against health care, Fared well

Arlen Specter loses, Rand Paul wins big, Blanche Lincoln in runoff

From the Washington Post May 19, 2010.

“How (and why) Arlen Specter lost”

“1. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s defeat at the hands of upstart Rep. Joe Sestak made him the second Senate incumbent to lose an intraparty battle in the 2010 elections — the largest number since four incumbents fell in 1980.

Specter’s loss will be endlessly examined (and then re-examined) in the days to come but, at its root, there were two main factors to blame for it: the perils of party switching and an anti-incumbent national environment.

Party switchers almost uniformly struggle the first time they are on the ballot after the switch. The party they abandoned detests them and will do anything to try to bring about their demise while the party they joined is distrustful of both their motives and loyalties.

Specter never seemed to adequately explain to Democrats why he switched parties — beyond the fact that it would allow him to be re-elected. Sestak, in what is the early frontrunner for ad of the year, brilliantly exploited Specter’s seeming lack of principle on the switch with a commercial that said the incumbent’s party switch was designed to “save one job…his…not yours.”

Specter’s inability to articulate why he had decided to go from “R” to “D” after spending nearly three decades on the GOP side was compounded by a strong sentiment among voters that the people they have been sending to Washington aren’t getting the job done and a course correction is required.

Specter, 80 years old and having spent five terms in the Senate, was a living and breathing embodiment of the traits that voters across the country seem fed up with these days. Sestak, again, brilliantly played to voters’ resentments about politics-as-usual — casting himself as a part of a “new generation” of leadership who could bring about real change.

While Specter’s defeat is somewhat unique due to his party switch, the loss will have considerable implications on how incumbents — in both parties — run their races moving forward this fall. Running with the establishment is clearly out; outsider messages are, ironically, in.”

3. Ophthalmologist Rand Paul’s (R) victory in Kentucky and Lt. Governor Bill Halter’s (D) pushing of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) to a June 8 “runoff didn’t come as big surprises. More telling than the head-to-head battles in each state, however, is what the ballots cast reveal about voter intensity this cycle.

Paul’s win wasn’t just big — it was massive. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Paul won with 59 percent of the vote, 24 points ahead of Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R). Over 350,000 voters took part in the GOP primary — all of them registered Republicans, given the state’s closed primary system. As Post pollster Jon Cohen notes, that’s the highest GOP primary turnout in at least twenty years with about one-third of registered Republicans casting ballots.”

“* Rep. Tim Holden, who voted against the party’s health care bill, won 66 percent to 34 percent against Sheila Dow Ford, an unknown and underfunded candidate. Holden joins Reps. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) and Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) as Members who voted against health care and experienced similar primary results.”

Read more:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/1-2-3-4.html

William M. Daley, Democrat party, Obama approval rating, Listen to American people, Alabama Representative Parker Griffith, Washington Post warning, Far left agenda

A warning to the Democrat Party from the Washington Post (hardly a conservative rag) to listen to the American public and embrace centrist viewpoints.

“Keep the Big Tent big”

“The announcement by Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith that he is switching to the Republican Party is just the latest warning sign that the Democratic Party — my lifelong political home — has a critical decision to make: Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.
Rep. Griffith’s decision makes him the fifth centrist Democrat to either switch parties or announce plans to retire rather than stand for reelection in 2010. These announcements are a sharp reversal from the progress the Democratic Party made starting in 2006 and continuing in 2008, when it reestablished itself as the nation’s majority party for the first time in more than a decade. That success happened for one major reason: Democrats made inroads in geographies and constituencies that had trended Republican since the 1960s. In these two elections, a majority of independents and a sizable number of moderate Republicans joined the traditional Democratic base to sweep Democrats to commanding majorities in Congress and to bring Barack Obama to the White House.
These independents and Republicans supported Democrats based on a message indicating that the party would be a true Big Tent — that we would welcome a diversity of views even on tough issues such as abortion, gun rights and the role of government in the economy.
This call was answered not just by voters but by a surge of smart, talented candidates who came forward to run and win under the Democratic banner in districts dominated by Republicans for a generation. These centrists swelled the party’s ranks in Congress and contributed to Obama’s victories in states such as Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado and other Republican bastions.
But now they face a grim political fate. On the one hand, centrist Democrats are being vilified by left-wing bloggers, pundits and partisan news outlets for not being sufficiently liberal, “true” Democrats. On the other, Republicans are pounding them for their association with a party that seems to be advancing an agenda far to the left of most voters.

The political dangers of this situation could not be clearer.
Witness the losses in New Jersey and Virginia in this year’s off-year elections. In those gubernatorial contests, the margin of victory was provided to Republicans by independents — many of whom had voted for Obama. Just one year later, they had crossed back to the Republicans by 2-to-1 margins.
Witness the drumbeat of ominous poll results. Obama’s approval rating has fallen below 49 percent overall and is even lower — 41 percent — among independents. On the question of which party is best suited to manage the economy, there has been a 30-point swing toward Republicans since November 2008, according to Ipsos. Gallup’s generic congressional ballot shows Republicans leading Democrats. There is not a hint of silver lining in these numbers. They are the quantitative expression of the swing bloc of American politics slipping away.”

Read more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122302439_pf.html