Tag Archives: Obama

News

CRISIS! Obama cuts off funding for pro-democracy movement in Iran!

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Why doesn't Obama speak out?
Why did Obama cut off her funding?

Saturday news

Obama cuts funding for pro-democracy groups in Iran. He’s finally choosing a side!

From Newsmax:

Newsmax has learned that the Obama administration also has zeroed out funding for pro-democracy programs inside Iran from the State Department budget for fiscal 2010, just as protests in Iran are ramping up.

Funding for pro-democracy programs began in 2004, when Congress earmarked $1.5 million of the State Department budget for “educational, humanitarian, and non-governmental organizations and individuals inside Iran to support the advancement of democracy and human rights in Iran.”

The funding ramped up dramatically two years later, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested $75 million for pro-democracy programs. More than half of the $66.1 million Congress finally appropriated went to expand U.S. government-funded Persian language broadcasting services at Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

But no money has been earmarked for such programs in the administration’s fiscal 2010 foreign operations budget request. Congressional sources told Newsmax they doubted that a Democrat-controlled Congress would add it when the budget comes before a committee next week.

Iranian fascists shoot women and student protesters dead, on camera. Graphic videos at the linked story.

Iranian fascists beat women and student protesters, on camera. Graphic video at the linked story.

Iranian fascists shoot a young man on the street, on camera. Graphic video at the linked story.

Iranian fascists open fire on crowds of pro-democracy protesters.

Michelle Malkin has photos here.

Hot Air reports that Obama takes a leisurely trip to the ice cream parlor.

Obama’s tepid response

Here is Obama’s lame, insecure, moral equivalence, moral relativist, politically correct response:

“The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost,” Obama said in a statement.

Something tells me that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush would have gone a lot further. But those two are coming from a worldview where humans have certain inalienable rights, grounded by a Creator, and that no one has a right to take away those rights. Reagan and Bush were not afraid to speak divisively in order to condemn evil, and praise the good. Is that so hard for Democrats to do?

Hot Air notes that even the extremist left-wing web site “The Nation” is criticizing Obama’s response to Iranian fascism.

Excerpt: (H/T Hot Air)

President Obama’s tepid response to the evidence the Iranian election was stolen from the people of that country by current president President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his thuggish allies is disappointing. …

The president says he entertains “deep concerns about the election” in Iran. Well, who doesn’t? Expressing concern is “nice,” it’s “diplomatic”–in the worst sense–but it is not sufficient to the circumstance…

The Nation article also has some nice citations of conservative French leader Sarkozy, who has courage, moral conviction, and moral clarity.

ECM sent me this link to a post on Ace of Spades, regarding the Department of Defense written exam. Do you know know what counts as a form of “low-level terrorism” in Obama’s regime? Is it attacking the Pentagon? IEDs? Hate crimes? or PROTESTS? Click here to find out.

Ralph Peters

Very angry column is here. (H/T Berman Post)

Excerpt:

SILENCE is complicity. Our president’s refusal to take a forthright moral stand on the side of the Iranian freedom marchers is read in Tehran as a blank check for the current regime.

The fundamentalist junta has begun arresting opposition figures, with regime mouthpieces raising the prospect of the death penalty. Inevitably, there are claims that dissidents have been “hoarding weapons and explosives.”

Foreign media reps are under house arrest. Cellphone frequencies are jammed. Students are killed and the killings disavowed.

And our president is “troubled,” but doesn’t believe we should “meddle” in Iran’s internal affairs. (Meddling in Israel’s domestic affairs is just fine, though.)

We just turned our backs on freedom.

This article by Ralph Peters is MUST-READ. We used to be a great nation that cared about the plight of the oppressed peoples abroad. But not anymore.

The Berman Post post has a HUGE number of links, if you’re into this story, as I am.

Republican Mike Pence

His resolution condemning the Islamic fascists brutal suppression of peaceful pro-democracy protesters passed in the House.

His speech can be viewed here:

Excerpt:

“This resolution simply states that the House of Representatives expresses its support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law. It also condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cell phones. And lastly, it affirms the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic and fair elections.

His full statement following the passage of his pro-democracy bill is here. I should just note that Mike Pence is a devout Christian, and that human rights and human dignity are grounded by his worldview. He is saying such things because it is rational for him to say such things, on his worldview of Christian theism.

Commentary

How government forces private firms out of business with predatory pricing

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This article on Fox News’ Forum is by John Lott. He explains the threat of predatory pricing as it relates to Obama’s health care plan.

First, Lott explains the stated goal of Obama’s plan:

President Obama is selling government health insurance to the American people as the way to save money.  That government health insurance will merely provide competition to keep private insurance companies from gouging their customers.

But here is the problem with a parallel system run by the government:

There are a couple of problems with Obama’s argument.  Government is just not known for its cost effectiveness or quality.  And the way for government enterprises to survive is with massive taxpayer subsidies and charging customers prices below the firm’s actual costs, driving more efficient private firms out of business.  These subsidies mean that when government enterprises “win” they do so by driving more efficient private firms out of business.

Here is an an example of how it works with USPS vs Fedex:

The U.S. Postal Service would often increase its first-class mail rate, where it had a monopoly, to raise money to subsidize its overnight delivery service where it faced stiff competition.  For example, it raised first-class mail to thirty-three cents in January 1999 and simultaneously reduced the price of domestic overnight express mail from $15.00 to $13.70, even though it was already losing money at the $15.00 rate. The price, which was lowered in response to increasingly successful competition in overnight delivery from FedEx and UPS Overnight, remained below $15.00 for the next seven years.  Clearly the Postal Service was not able to drive its competitors out of business with this maneuver, in part because its on-time delivery record and quality was poorer.

The Postal Service lost money on its overnight deliveries despite advantages that FedEx and UPS could only dream of.  The Postal Service is exempt from paying state sales, property and income taxes.  And it uses some of the most expensive real estate in the country — rent-free. The competition that Obama advocates between government and private insurance companies isn’t going to be any fairer.

The government can run huge deficits, effectively transferring money from the productive private sector into their parallel public competitor, with the end goal being complete control of consumer purchases. Obama intends to run private companies out of business so that you have only one place where you can go to purchase health care: OBAMA. And you will do anything he tells you in order to get that health care.

It’s all about controlling your behavior by taking your money and then restricting your access to services. The end goal is that everyone will have equal life outcomes regardless of how hard they work, and how risky and/or immoral their lifestyle. Democrats do not trust you to keep the money you earn, and to spend your money on the things that you want. They think government knows best.

In his book “Freedomnomics”, Lott has even more examples of predatory pricing. I recommend that book, especially for the chapter on abortion and crime. Pro-lifers will find the book very useful. It’s important for people to understand that the more involved government gets in the free market, the less liberty we have as consumers.

News

What can the political contributions of journalists tell us about media bias?

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Commenter ECM sent me this link from Ace of Spades.

The story is from Riehl Worldview.

Excerpt:

In the face of ABC’s pending Obamanation on health care reform, that’s especially troubling given the tremendous imbalance in ABC’s record of recent political contributions.

None of the four McCain contributors, which includes Elizabeth Hasselbeck, are from journalists at ABC. Meanwhile, approximately 130 ABC employees gave money to Obama. That’s close to a 33 – 1 ratio. Yet, ABC officially announced that they and they alone would manage what questions were asked of Obama about his program, including from the audience.

It strikes me as simply unwise to entrust such a significant portion of the debate around a policy that will impact American lives, potentially forever, to just one organization with such an imbalance in their political views.

An analysis of contributions to the Obama and McCain campaign shows that ABC employees contributed more than $160,000 to the Obama campaign versus less than $5,000 to the McCain campaign.

And ECM also sent me this link on Ace of Spades.

Apparently, the left-wing New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are re-writing headlines to make Obama look better, despite polls showing that the public is growing increasingly disenchanted with his amateurish bumbling.

Ace writes:

The NYT poll I hadn’t heard of, so I clicked on it. The headline…
Obama Poll Sees Doubt on Budget and Health Care

…But the article originally ran with a more interesting headline, as the Rhetorican notes.
In Poll, Obama Is Seen as Ineffective on the Economy

…Similarly, the WSJ article on their own poll went from…
Rising Doubts Threaten to Overshadow Obama’s Agenda

to…
Public Wary of Deficit, Economic Intervention

Here are my previous posts on media bias at the left-wing ABCNews and the left-wing MSNBC.