Thursday, December 30, 2004

Socialized medicine, Michael Moore, Tsunami Victims, and the UN

By: Kimmymac

Two areas I will touch on in this piece: the first being the planned Michael “The Blob” Moore’s planned expose crapumentary in the style of Farenfraud 9/11, this one a hit piece aimed at the health care industry. One can only assume it is being made in order to create the perceived need to socialize medicine in this country, thereby giving the next Democrat candidate for president an “issue” to run on, since “I hate Bush” will no longer be viable as an “issue” in 2008. I would remind my dear friends out there in cyber land that Hilary “Stand by my man, providing it is expedient to do so” Clinton’s big issue was socialized medicine.

The second issue is UN Jan (short for “Janice”) Hageland’s remarks that the US is “stingy” in our initial pledge of 35 million dollars in aid for the tsunami victims.

So, let’s look at these issues, somewhat in parallel, shall we?

In response to the tsunami disaster: Drug makers and medical companies are responding with shipments of medical supplies and cash donations. Pfizer Inc. announced plans to donate $10 million to local and international relief organizations, including Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee, and said it would contribute about $25 million of its health-care products to the relief efforts.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is sending antibiotics and other supplies, in addition to a $100,000 donation through the American Red Cross.

Abbott Laboratories' charitable fund has donated supplies, including nutritional supplements, valued at $2 million, as well as an additional $2 million in cash.

Merck & Co. is making an initial cash donation of $250,000.

Johnson & Johnson, in addition to contributing $2 million in cash, will match employee donations to the Red Cross.

Greedy Americans. Evil big business. Selfish capitalists. How dare these companies make a profit on the products they develop and market? What gall! The government should be regulating them so profits are kept within government guidelines; why, any Socialist will tell you that is the only humane way to go...then maybe we could be like China, who is giving a *whopping* 2.6 Million. Yes. 2.6 Million. With an "M". I mean, what the hell--China profited 2.6 million this past Christmas shopping season alone, on junk sold through the Wal-Mart down the road from me.

I'm sorry...what did the Prune Danish over at the UN say about American stinginess?

And the drug companies are not the only businesses sending aid.

General Electric has given 1 million to the American Red Cross and another 100,000 dollars to UNICEF.

The retailer Amazon.com set up a solicitation on their home page. So far they have garnered 3.4 million dollars from a total of 54,000 donors.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. have both sent thousands and thousands of cases of bottled water.

American owned airlines are giving free air transportation to aid workers.

Americans have so far contributed 18 million to the American Red Cross for tsunami relief, plus an additional 3.5 million to CARE USA. The ARC reports it is the largest outpouring of private donations since 9/11, when it was Americans helping Americans. Now Americans have once again opened their hearts and wallets for people half way around the world, never once considering that if the shoe were on the other foot it is highly doubtful they would respond in kind, even if they were able. Which they are not, because they are the victims first of European colonization, and then for much of that area at least, they are the self-made victims of ignorance--which always leads to poverty.

Except for leftists weasels, who seem to dodge the bullet of poverty by parasitically attaching themselves to host economies.

But I digress.

So, Jan “My name is not Janice, stop calling me that” Hageland, Internationalist Weasel Mouthpiece for the UN, and professional America basher at-large; do the math: I calculate that the partial list of private corporations and American citizens is more than any single donation of a European country.

Surprise, surprise.

NOT!

ACHOOOOOOOOO!

They walked in tandem, each of the ninety-two students filing into the already crowded auditorium. With rich maroon gowns flowing and the traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they felt. Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and moms freely brushed away
tears.

This class would not pray during the commencements ----- not by choice but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it. The principal and several students were careful to stay within the guidelines allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and challenging speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one asked for blessings on the graduates or their families.

The speeches were nice, but they were routine.......until the final speech received a standing ovation.

A solitary student walked proudly to the microphone. He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then, it happened. All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED!!!!

The student on stage simply looked at the audience and said, "GOD BLESS YOU, each and every one of you!" And he walked off stage.........

The audience exploded into applause. The graduating class found a unique way to invoke God's blessing on their future with or without the court's approval.

This story has been circulated by email but actually happened at the
2001 graduation ceremonies of Washington Community High School in Peoria, Illinois.

Moral of the story: When you feel like you need God's blessing, Sneeze.

2004: Highlights And Lowlifes

Ann's POV... Who could not love this woman?

December 29, 2004

The single biggest event of 2004 was the Election Day exit poll, which, like John Steinbeck's "The Short Reign of Pippin IV," made John Kerry the president for a few moments. But in a move that stunned the experts, American voters chose "moral values" over an America-bashing trophy husband and his blow-dried, ambulance-chasing sidekick.

The second biggest event in 2004 came on Sunday, Dec. 26, when The New York Times referred to an organization as a "liberal research group." (I think it may have been the Communist Party USA, Trotskyite wing, but, still, it's progress.)

CBS eminence Dan Rather was driven off the air in disgrace after he tried to take down a sitting president by brandishing Microsoft Word documents he claimed were authentic Texas Air National Guard memos from the '70s. By liberals' own account, the pompous blowhard was exposed by people sitting around their living rooms in pajamas.

John Kerry's meal ticket, Teresa Heinz, continuously made remarks that were wildly inappropriate, such as when she strangely referred to the "seven-year itch" in relation to herself and John Kerry, creating at least three images I didn't want in my head. On the other hand, for any voters who considered the most important campaign issue to be whether the first lady was an earthy, condescending foreigner who had traveled extensively and spoke several languages, Teresa was a huge asset.

Surprisingly, Teresa never became a major campaign issue. It turned out that supporters of a phony war hero who preyed on rich widows were also OK with the notion of a first lady who might use the F-word during Rose Garden press conferences. By the same token, anyone who was put off by the not-so-affable Eva Peron of American politics already didn't like John Kerry -- thanks largely to John O'Neal and the Swiftboat Veterans.

Like the archers of Agincourt, John O'Neill and the 254 Swiftboat Veterans took down their own haughty Frenchman.

Meanwhile, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is nipping at O'Neal's heels as the man second-most responsible for Bush's re-election. Thanks largely to Newsom's hard work, gay marriage was big news all year.

In retrospect, the Democrats would have been better off if they had found every gay guy in America who actually wanted to get married and offered each one a million dollars in exchange for the Democrats not having to talk about gay marriage. (Finally -- a problem that could have been solved by throwing money at it!)

On the basis solely of media coverage, Abu Ghraib was the biggest story of 2004, maybe the biggest story ever. And for good reason: An American soldier was caught on film not only humiliating Iraqi prisoners -- but smoking!

The New York Times even had to drop its coverage of Augusta National Golf Course to give Abu Ghraib due prominence. Only the Rumsfeld autopen scandal was big enough to knock Abu Ghraib off the front page.

I personally haven't been so singularly disturbed by an atrocity since I had to sit through all of "The Matrix: Reloaded."

By contrast, the least important story -- again, judging by media coverage -- was the peculiar development of a Clintonite caught trying to get into his own pants. Sandy Berger was spotted by National Archives staff repeatedly stuffing top-secret documents into his undergarments in preparation for defending the Clinton administration's record on fighting terrorism before the 9/11 Commission. If you happened to take a long nap the day the Berger story broke, you would have missed it entirely.

On the bright side, The New York Times has adopted an all-new standard for covering the extramarital affairs of public figures. With no fanfare, the Times quickly abandoned its earlier position that a U.S. president molesting White House staff -- including while on the phone discussing sending troops into battle -- is not news. The new rule rolled out for Bernie Kerik makes extramarital affairs major front-page news deserving of nonstop coverage, even after the public figure has withdrawn his name from consideration for any government office.

American hero Pat Tillman won a Silver Star this year. But unlike Kerry, he did not write his own recommendation or live to throw his medals over the White House fence in an anti-war rally.

Tillman was an American original: virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be. The stunningly handsome athlete walked away from a three-year, $3.6 million NFL contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the U.S. military and fight in Afghanistan, where he was killed in April.

He wanted no publicity and granted no interviews about his decision to leave pro football in the prime of his career and join the Army Rangers. (Most perplexing to Democrats, he didn't even take a home movie camera to a war zone in order to create fake footage for future political campaigns in which he would constantly palaver about his military service and drag around his "Band of Brothers" for the media.)

Tillman gave only an indirect explanation for his decision on the day after 9/11, when he said: "My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor, and a lot of my family has gone and fought in wars, and I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that." He said he wanted to "pay something back" to America.

He died bringing freedom and democracy to 28 million Afghans -- pretty much confirming Michael Moore's view of America as an imperialist cowboy predator. There is not another country in the world -- certainly not in continental Europe -- that could have produced a Pat Tillman.

On the anniversary of D-Day, as Americans like Pat Tillman risked their lives to liberate 50 million Iraqis and Afghans, in a year when Americans poured into theaters to see a movie about Christ and reaffirmed their support for moral values at the polling booth, America's greatest president died. Ronald Reagan appealed to what is best about America and so transformed the nation that we are now safe to carry on without him.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Susan "Pepe" Sontag dies at 71

Eulogy by Kimmymac:

She died at Sloan-Kettering? Isn't that one of the leading CANCER hospitals of the "self-proclaimed super power" United States? Why didn't she go to pFrance and die in the Yasser Arafat/Uday Hussein wing? What's the matter? The treatment there not as good?

Are you telling me that the woman that declared the white race was a cancer died of....cancer?

Ooohhhh, the irony. God has quite the sense of humor. Remind me to pray I am never subject to it.

Maybe she poisoned herself. Maybe she was so full of vitriol her genes actually mutated. Hmmm....I wonder if I could get a couple of million dollars in grant money to study the correlation between weaselness and cancer in bitter white people...

I thought maybe she died at home; I figured she would be pfornicating with Michael Moore in her Manhattan loft, and he rolled over on her in his sleep. Now that! would be true suffering.

So long, Sontag. Good riddance. And hey! You even wear your hair like a weasel.

Who was she supposed to be, anyway? Frickin' Pepe Le Peu?

Sunday, December 26, 2004

What's Next For John Kerry?

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Swift Boat Vets To Get Courage Award

WASHINGTON — For one night only, it'll be spitballs and Swift Boats together on the same stage — a who's who of Sen. John Kerry bashing.

The American Conservative Union on Thursday announced it has tapped Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., to present the "Courage Under Fire" award to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth at the Conservative Political Action Conference's Feb. 16 banquet.

Miller and the group of Vietnam veterans were behind perhaps the campaign's two fiercest and most memorable attacks on Kerry's unsuccessful presidential bid.

Miller, who is retiring next month, scorched Kerry in a Republican National Convention keynote address in which he suggested the four-term Massachusetts Democrat had voted to cut so many weapons systems, it appeared he wanted to send the military to war with only spitballs.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ran ads after the Democratic convention questioning whether Kerry was in fact the decorated Vietnam War veteran that he claimed to be.

"The swift boat veterans performed an invaluable service to America," Miller said in a statement. "These veterans took a lot of undeserved criticism for daring to speak the truth."

Official military records and even statements from Swift Boat veterans in Navy documents raised questions about their largely unsubstantiated claims, but the political damage had been done. At a post-election forum Wednesday in Boston, Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry's campaign manager, said she regretted underestimating the impact of the Swift Boat ads.

Roy Hoffmann, the retired Navy rear admiral who founded the Swift Boat group, said he didn't know much about Miller but was pleased with the honor. The real goal, he said, was to ensure that Kerry didn't become commander in chief.

"We achieved our goal," Hoffmann said. "That was our primary concern, and we are pleased someone recognized the effort — or at least the impact — we had on the election."

Richard Lessner, executive director of the American Conservative Union, said Miller had spoken at a previous banquet and "lit up the crowd."

Democrats shrugged off the choices of both honorees and presenter.

"It seems fitting that a Republican in Democratic clothing is recognizing the work of Republican agents, namely the smears that the Swift Boat veterans launched against John Kerry," said Jano Cabrera, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

How Kerry whistleblower suffered for truth

BY MARY LANEY

http://www.suntimes.com/output/laney/cst-edt-laney29.html

This is the story of a military veteran whistleblower. He spoke out against someone he thought was dangerous for the nation, talked to local newspapers, and appeared on talk shows. In return, he was vilified by reporters, threatened by a political operative, fired by his company, and now he's broke.

His name is Steve Gardner. He's also known as "The 10th Brother," as in Band of Brothers. He's one of two members of Sen. John Kerry's 12 Vietnam swift boat crew members who refused to stand with Kerry at the Democratic Convention. The other man remained silent.

"They said I had a political agenda. I had no and have no political agenda whatsoever. I saw John Kerry on television saying he was running for the Democratic nomination for president, and I knew I couldn't ever see him as commander in chief -- not after what I saw in Vietnam, not after the lies I heard him tell about what he says he did and what he says others did."

Gardner explains he was sitting at home in Clover, S.C., when he first saw Kerry on television. It was before the primary races. For 35 years, Gardner says, he hadn't talked about his tour of duty in Vietnam. But when he saw Kerry talking about running, he says he got up, called the newspaper in town, called radio stations and "talked to anyone I could about why this man should never be president." Eventually he got a call from Adm. Roy Huffman, who had been in charge of the coastal division in Vietnam, reunited with other swift boat veterans, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Gardner's story is one that bears telling. He volunteered for the Navy, enlisting on his 18th birthday in February 1966. After training, he was shipped to Vietnam and served for two years as a gunner in the swift boat division. His superior, for four months, was none other than Lt. j.g. John F. Kerry.

"I had confrontations with him there. He nearly got us rammed by the VC one night because he wasn't watching the helm. I heard the motor coming close, turned on the spotlight, and the boat was only 90 feet away, coming fast. The VC was aiming an AK47 at us. I shot him out of the boat. We pulled a woman and a baby off the boat. Kerry wrote it up that we captured two VC and killed four more on the beach. None of that was true. The only thing true on Kerry's report was the date. The woman was catatonic and wouldn't call her baby VC and there were no VC on the beach. If we had seen that report before Kerry sent it up the chain of command, he would have been court-martialed and never allowed to run for office. And that's just the San Pan incident. There was much more. He is a self-aggrandizing bold-faced liar. I believe he caused the extension of that war."

Gardner told this story and others to radio stations and he wrote a piece for the local paper. Then, he says, he received a phone call from John Hurley, the veterans organizer for Kerry's campaign. Hurley, Gardner says, asked him to come out for Kerry. He told Hurley to leave him alone and that he'd never be for Kerry. It was then Gardner says, he was threatened with, "You better watch your step. We can look into your finances."

Next, Gardner said he received a call from Douglas Brinkley, the author of Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. Brinkley told Gardner he was calling only to "fact check" the book -- which was already in print. "I told him that the guy in the book is not the same guy I served with. I told him Kerry was a coward. He would patrol the middle of the river. The canals were dangerous. He wouldn't go there unless he had another boat pushing him."

Days later, Brinkley called again, warning Gardner to expect some calls. It seems Brinkley had used the "fact checking" conversation to write an inflammatory article about Gardner for Time.com. The article, implying that Gardner was politically motivated, appeared under the headline "The 10th Brother."

Twenty-four hours later, Gardner got an e-mail from his company, Millennium Information Services, informing him that his services would no longer be necessary. He was laid off in an e-mail -- by the same man who only days before had congratulated him for his exemplary work in a territory which covered North and South Carolina. The e-mail stated that his position was being eliminated. Since then, he's seen the company advertising for his old position. Gardner doesn't have the money to sue to get the job back.

"I'm broke. I've been hurt every way I can be hurt. I have no money in the bank but am doing little bits here and there to pay the bills," he said.

All the millions of dollars raised by Gardner and his fellow Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and all the proceeds from John O'Neill's book, Unfit for Command, go to families of veterans, POWs and MIAs.

And, even though Gardner is broke and jobless for speaking out, the husband and father of three says he'd do it all over again. He says it wasn't for politics. It was for America.