I Got My Choppers In

September 09, 2007

As far as Sundays go, this one is nice. The Florida weather is usually stiflingly-hot through these months, and only tolerable in the winter, but this afternoon, at 1pm, it's only up to 88 degrees. Usually by this time it's in the low 90's. Perhaps the tilting of the Earth is about to bring some relief.

I hope so for my grandfather's sake. I'm hoping that he can remain as comfortable as possible in these days of his twilight. He was supposed to see one of his three doctors this past Wednesday, but instead it turned out to be the day he finally gave in, allowing my grandmother to call for EMS. He was succumbing to the fluid collecting around and in his lungs, completely immobilized at this point. His heart can't take much longer of this. I was trying to do something, anything, but I was completely helpless, watching my poor Poppaw turn grey, losing consciousness.

The EMS people came quickly. A team of five of them were strangely quiet and grim as they tried to prepare him to be moved. Watching them made me realize that poor Poppaw should have been in a hospital at least a week ago, before Labor Day's incident. It took them a half hour to get him out of his chair. His breathing was preventing him from the smallest of movements. My Granny was starting to become inconsolable. Frantic, panicked, and beside herself. I have been her watchdog and pincushion. I'm trying my best to build her up and console her through all of this. As they wheeled him out, I was standing there, holding onto my grandmother, as she called to him for what seemed like one last time. He didn't respond.

I saw him trying to throw back his head, involuntarily trying to make a gasp for air. The EMS folks had trouble rounding him by the corner on our patio, and I was a little upset when they just muscled him through it, jostling him to the point of visibly shaking his frail body. I told myself that they were probably worried about getting him to the ambulance quickly. Otherwise, in my mind, I saw myself grabbing the one who was pushing him, and throwing him through a window. Pure emotion at this point. "Don't you know that's not just some sack of potatoes, there?"

He took even longer in the ambulance to be transported to Cape Coral Hospital. After several minutes of standing with Granny, watching nothing but the side of the ambulance, I realized that I needed to take her upstairs to sit down. I guided her there, and we spoke about it all. She began to tell me everything that needed to be done. After letting her recite everything she needed to say, I saw her getting up, saying she was gonna drive herself to the hospital. She was worried about me being able to make it to my last night class that night, to take my last finals exam in order to graduate.

It was a silly concern to me, but I acted like it was kind of her to be worried about me, but that I was going to take her to the hospital. She gave in to allow me. "Granny, you need to change your slippers, and put on a pretty face for Poppaw in case he becomes cognizant. Give him something nice to look at." She got a look of determination on her face, and told me she'd be downstairs in ten minutes.

We got to the Cape Coral hospital, me carrying my grandmother's night bag and shawl. We came up to the lady behind the desk, and I could feel the trepidation from Granny as she asked about where he was. Would he be safely in a room, or already expired? The nurse behind the desk began to flip through paperwork on a clipboard, obviously not finding his name. Suddenly, a man appeared from behind her. They compared notes, and the lady looked at us. "He's not here, ma'am." I was alarmed. "He's at Health Park—they had complications along the way, and diverted him. It's his heart, isn't it?", she asked. "Well, it's his lungs, but I don't…", my Granny stammered back to her.

We drove twenty more minutes to Park Health, with my grandmother in a mix of emotions. "That's a good place, we've been there before", she was saying. "We wasted 30 minutes by going to Cape Coral! I don't know why they didn't call to let me know!", she said. I was trying to offer anything I could to keep her from losing it. "Maybe they called home while we were on the road", I said.

We made it to Park Health, and went past the grand piano player, who was set up in their atrium. They volunteer to come and play for us, I was told later. Nice touch, I thought. We were given sticky badges and allowed to enter the double doors into their critical care unit. Deep breath as we neared the rooms. I entered behind Granny, and was relieved to see him alive. Hooked up to massive amounts of machinery, but alive. We made it, I thought.

He looked pitiful. A once-proud, strong, Indian, shaped by 31 years of vigorous training in the US Army, resulting in a quiet, spiritual man who was thankful for his life, and always tried to look at the good in people. But also a man who would reach across a desk and put the fear of God in you if he thought you were doing him wrong. He was now shriveled, paralyzed, and had so many tubes keeping him alive. I eased myself around to the other side of his bed as Granny was seeing if he was in any pain. After a few hospital folks had come in and out, and Granny wasn't talking to him, it was ok for me to try to speak to him. His oxygen mask muffled his words, making an already-awkward moment even more so. I tried to keep a pleasant expression on my face while I had his attention, but I was awash in fear.

"How are they treating you, Poppaw?", I said, forcing something out of my mouth. "Oh, not bad, son", he said back to me. It was hard to make the words out through the mask. He suddenly looked at me with a sign of life and energy in his eyes, and wanted to say something to me.

"I got…chopper…in", he said with a smile, and it became obvious to me that he must be on some painkillers, because he didn't have enough consciousness an hour ago to even recognize me and Granny telling him goodbye as they wheeled him away. I didn't know what he meant by choppers, but didn't want to ask him to repeat it, due to his lack of oxygen. So I just smiled back and nodded to him. I assumed he meant that he had his upper teeth in ("I got my choppers in"). He hadn't been able to get them in for the past week, having lost so much weight that they wouldn't form correctly in his mouth.

About that time, my grandmother started talking to him again. They exchanged a couple of words, and then Poppaw repeated what he had told me, almost like an excited kid who's telling everyone that he's got a new tooth in. "I got choppered in", he said. Granny and I looked at each other with wonderment. The doctor explained that the ambulance had to call in for an airlift to meet them on the side of the road to transport him even quicker to a better facility. His heart had gone into arrhythmia within a few minutes of the ambulance ride, and the EMS folks were worried that they'd lose him on the way to Cape Coral Hospital.

Luckily, it's not just me and Phoebe here to help, anymore. My mother flew in that day. It was very questionable as to whether she'd make it to the hospital in time to say goodbye to him. The long and short of it is this: he can't walk, and his time here is short. The doctors are saying that if he can't walk, then he should be heading to a rest home. He is against that, and is preferring to die at home. His vitals are weak, but miraculously (their words) almost stable. They can't believe he hasn't passed, given his condition on Wednesday when he was admitted. He may come home in a wheelchair within a week.

The Buddhist Bell

September 03, 2007

Today is Labor Day. My regular AM talk shows won't be live on this holiday. Except for Dennis Prager. Dennis makes a point of working on most holidays throughout the year. It's more of a feat than it sounds, really. Performers who get behind a microphone every day for a living are doing something that rare and few people can achieve successfully: they present a consistent mental attitude EVERY day, on cue, without fail. Can you imagine doing that? How often is it that you come to work with a less-than-positive attitude? How about occasionally being mentally distracted while you go about your workday? It happens, doesn't it? It's understandable, too. We're only human, and it's next to impossible to come in 5 days a week to our workplace and be the exact same person, day in and day out, year round. And I'm not even mentioning the added pressure of being a performer on a stage in front of thousands or millions. Could you open your mouth and have every syllable scrutinized for 3 or 4 hours a day without occasionally sounding like you're running out of things to say? Do you have a mastery of facts, and enough well-rounded knowledge to speak in an entertaining fashion without missing a beat for hours on end?

Few of us do. And that's why I say that these guys on the airwaves deserve a break when they can take one. Those of us who enjoy their shows can almost immediately tell when we're listening to a recycled broadcast. For many of us who don't like to listen to reruns, we're left with little alternative to occupy our minds while we go about our day.

That's not the case for me this Labor Day, though. My grandfather is dying. He's upstairs right now, in his bed, struggling to draw his next breath. My morning started with my grandmother's voice piercing the stillness of my sleep, as she yelled into the intercom we installed a few years ago. I hopped out of bed immediately after responding back to her, and then hustled outside to climb the stairs to their front door. I live in their hurricane room downstairs, a 12 x 12, with my dog Phoebe.

As I scaled the stairs, I barely had time to anticipate what I would find when I got there. All I could think about was my poor grandmother's state of mind. She sounded awful on the speaker. I was roused from a sleep, so it all was a cloudy mix of fear, panic, and sorrow. When I got there, she was wide-eyed and frantic. He was in bed, reaching upwards into thin air, with a look of someone who was submerged in the water, trying to surface to the top. "I'm OK", he was saying, with a dazed, far-away look in his eyes. My grandmother was trying to catch her breath, explaining to me that he was slipping away, unable to breathe when she called me. She had apparently startled him back to consciousness when she screamed for me into the intercom by his bedside.

The EMT people called within the minute after I was there with them. Granny had mashed his 'life alert' button that he wears on his wrist amidst the whole ordeal. They were calling to see if they needed to send a rescue unit to our house. She was nervous on the phone to them, but told them it wasn't necessary to send one out at this time. My grandfather kept saying, "I'm OK, I'm ok", in an effort to keep her from sending them out to get him.

He's a proud man who doesn't like for people to make a fuss over them. At 85, he's well outlived his expectation for at least 10 years, by now. He's been on oxygen for 8 years, has heart disease and emphysema, and was an Army infantry soldier for 31 years. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes for 40 years, a pipe for ten years after that. Between the stresses that are inflicted on a body from infantry training for thirty-one years, and all of the smoking with heart disease, it's obvious that the only reason he's still with us is because of Granny's constant care and feeding of him. She tries not to take any credit for it, saying that he's held on this long because he doesn't want her to be left alone. And that's true, too.

I stood around and tried to ensure that this was indeed a false alarm. After it became obvious that my grandfather was conscious and somewhat cognizant, I tried to ease myself away from the room, not wanting to alarm my proud grandfather or embarrass him. We men are like that, and I can feel it from Poppaw that he's still a proud Indian, not wanting to admit weakness or that he needs others to do the simplest of things for him. I turned my attention to my grandmother, who was easing out of the bedroom with me, telling me of his symptoms just before she called for me, keeping a furtive eye back towards the bedroom the entire time.

The conditions and details are grave, and I can't bring myself to write them out at this point. Let's just say that the doctors have diagnosed him as of Thursday as being in the "end-stage". The end for him is near. I thank God that it is at least somewhat peaceful for him, and that he's not in some sterile hospital room, being attended by nurses he doesn't know. My grandmother warns me that it still may come to that, but at this point we're not so sure. He is pretty immobilized in his bed after not sleeping too well last night. For the past week, he has been in his recliner, unable to make it into his bedroom at night. The fact that he made it to the bedroom seems almost ominous, being in a horizontal state for perhaps the last and final time.

I went to the Winn-Dixie down the road to get Granny some food for lunch. She didn't ask me to do it, but I know she's too petrified to leave the house at this point. When I asked her what she wanted to eat, she grabbed her stomach and made a gesture to say that she didn't feel like eating. I said, "I know, Granny, but I'll get something that you can put back in the fridge to eat later if you can't finish it." After saying that she'd made some meatloaf yesterday that didn't turn out that well, I said, "Granny, I'm going down to the store anyway, so I'm gonna get you something from the deli—fried chicken, roast beef, or something." She told me that her and Poppaw like the chicken tenders they make there.

When I got back home, she seemed glad that I'd made the trip. Poppaw was awake, and almost lucid. I went in to talk to him briefly. I could tell that he wanted to say something to me as soon as I entered his room. I tried my best to relax, and to lean against his dresser, as if it was just any old day. What was it he was going to say to me? Was he going to have an awkward talk about how he's dying, right in front of me? Was he going to say the things one thinks might be said just before we pass? I listened intently as he asked me for some peppermint hard candy. "Sure, Poppaw", I said.

I got right back into the car and drove back down the road to Winn-Dixie. Peppermint candy. In a way, I was somewhat calmed by this request. Kinda Zen. With all of the obvious things in the air at this moment: tension, fear, panic…and my dying grandfather just wants some simple candy. I hope it's this way for me when I'm about to go. He's a model for me. Always has been. His precarious health is the reason I moved down here almost three years ago. It is now time to be there for both Granny and Poppaw.

I sat with my Granny in the living room as she ate one of the chicken tenders. I listened intently as she ran through all of her worries, nearing tears all the time. I tried to remain strong for her sake. "Granny, don't worry about everything that's about to come—I'll be here to help with the house, the paperwork, and everything else. You just need to watch out for your health, and don't worry about more than you need to right now." My attempts to reassure her were only mildly calming for her. She's a sharp woman, and has waited on my Poppaw all of his life. It's instinctual for her to be a chronic worrier, especially with his bad health for the past 10 years.

"You know, Granny, his life has been a blessing because of you. He wouldn't have made it anywhere near this long without you taking such good care of him." She tried to deflect my sentiments, but she and everyone in the family knows it's true. "I just don't think I can live here, in this house, if he…" she says as she begins to cry. "I know, Granny. There's no reason why you'd have to. Momma has plenty of room back in Virginia, and so does Aunt Erlene in North Carolina, and you could easily divide your time between both…"

Just about that time, we hear a little 'tinkle-tinkle-tinkle.' I looked at her with a quizzical look. She stopped eating, and a look of purpose quickly came across her face. "That's your Poppaw. He must be awake. That's his Buddhist temple bell I told him to ring if he needed to go to the bathroom."

Leading A Double Standard, er, I Mean Life

August 29, 2007

Yes, we've all heard about it by now. Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig was caught signaling an undercover policeman in a Minnesota airport bathroom for sex. Sounds kinda seedy, doesn't it? Especially if you're a heterosexual male. Hell, it's really gross, if you want to get down to it. Guys like me can't even understand the attraction to another male's genitals, but that's a topic for another blog, I guess. When regular guys hear about a sex scandal, we're at first thinking, A) someone got caught cheating on their wife; or B) some teacher got caught having sex with an underage student; or something along those lines.

And for the brief seconds before we hear the details in a "sex scandal" like Senator Craig's, our mind has already calculated the possible scenarios (see above), and in our mind we're already seeing the genitals of a man meeting the genitals of a female. It's something that regular heterosexual men have to deal with every day, several times a day. It is our curse to have to beat back the urge to tell the little cute brunette working behind the counter at Starbucks that morning that she has a nice blouse on today, while really, we're seeing our hands and mouth all over her chest. Instead, we politely get our coffee, never acknowledging our lustful thoughts about her. That thought has barely left our mental fantasy by the time we arrive at work, halfway-anxious to see what outfit the excellent blond down the hall has on today, and the cycle repeats itself…over and over and over again.

We aren't EVEN calculating man-on-man. It throws us into some other-world of ugliness to calculate the conclusion of what Senator Craig could have been trying to accomplish when he stands at the door of a guy who's already using the stall, peering through the doorjamb crack for minutes on end, fiddling with his pants while peeping, then entering the next door stall. We don't even understand why a man like us would then take his nearby foot, and repeatedly tap the foot of the same guy while he's supposed to be sitting down to do his business and get the hell out of there. What NORMAL guy does those sequences of events? And, as if that isn't odd (queer?) enough, he decides to stick his hand beneath the dividing wall between the two, and turn his hand palm-up, to repeatedly 'wave' at the guy. What the hell??

Indeed, 'what the hell', we guys think. Is that how they do it? How creepy! How sloppy. How indiscriminate. How unsafe. How disgusting.

Now, I can hear some people right now, saying, "John, how would you like to live in a society where you were forced to take such measures to express your desires?" Frankly, that kind of an unrealistic comment has no bearing on me. I've known my fair share of homosexuals in my life, and I'd say that at least half of the ones I know are more oversexed than my friend Jason, the most sexually-busy heterosexual friend I have and know. The homosexual man doesn't have to negotiate for sex ANYWHERE near as hard and unsuccessfully as we heterosexual men do. Women need to have a reason to have sex—men just need to have a place. Does anyone ever see the heterosexual equivalent of a bathhouse for anonymous sex in most major cities across this great country? I've lived all over this world, and I've yet to see one. How about the amount of public parks, rest areas, and truck stops that are the prime markets for New Jersey Governors and those like him?

Swinger's clubs aren't the same thing, and you know it. It was common for San Francisco bathhouses to have something known as a "fantasy wall" in their establishments, where a plywood wall in the back of the establishment had waist-level holes cut into them. Depends on whether you wanted to pitch or catch as to what side you got on. Swinger's clubs are nowhere as anonymous, plentiful, or as indiscriminate as these meeting grounds for homosexuals. Most swingers' clubs I've known of were exclusive to members only or at least by invite-only. And you couldn't show up alone, either. Not that I've gone to any.

Nope, there's no similarity between the amounts of anonymous sexual contact a heterosexual man can get, versus the amount that homosexuals live with. My 40 years of experience with men doesn't compute with this sympathetic talk about how poor Senator Craig was forced into bathroom stalls to express his feelings. That's female sentimentality, and it doesn't hold up in comparison to the reason why us men have sex. We men have the same amount of testosterone coursing through our veins, whether we're homosexual or heterosexual. It's just that we heterosexual men are forced into negotiating for it from another person who attaches a LOT more conditions to it.

So Senator Craig turns out to be a married man who trolls bathrooms looking for homosexual sex, eh? Well, before I can even figure out if it's ok for me to express my reaction that he 1) cheats on his wife; and 2) engages in something I can't relate to (see, I'm a Southern White Christian Male, and the American culture says that I'm the reason that gays are forced into such a second-class status), the Leftist blowhard Chris Matthews takes the criticism even further than I was ready to say: he's a "sexual deviant", according to Matthews.

How about that! The Left has the best of both worlds! When Barney Frank gets caught running a male prostitution ring out of his apartment as a sitting US Representative, the Left says, "Hands off, you right-wing moralists! We're so proud of poor Barney's alternative lifestyle that we're going to promote him to committee chairman and re-elect him for the next 20 years! And we just DARE you to bring up Gary Studds for committing statutory rape of a sixteen year-old boy when he was a sitting US representative!" But let there be a Representative Mark Foley who answered racy e-mails from a teenage male congressional page, or a Senator Larry Craig who waves at another man beneath a bathroom stall, well…it's time to act OFFENDED and INDIGNANT!

Sorry, I just don't believe all the hype. The Left has tipped its hand WAY too much about this stuff for the past 50 years for me to believe their hyperbole. Don't tell me about how hypocritical it is for Senator Craig to be a right-wing moral crusader against gay rights while he's secretly knocking on stalls, and I won't tell you how hypocritical it is for Bill Clinton to be a crusader for women's rights while he's secretly raping and objectifying them.

Radio Free Florida

June 21 2007

I am listening to 1240 AM here in southwest Florida, and am hearing for the first time one of Rush's parody spots. It's in the style of old-radio comedy—quick, punchy, and relevant. Pretty witty, too. It's a skit about the anti-tobacco nazi's finding you and your last, safe, refuge in which to light up your cigarette—your own home. It beautifully illustrates the intrusion that the Left's cabal of shadow agencies, known as political correctness, are positioned to inflict on the good American people.

This skit was preceded by a quick local news roundup minute. In it, we heard that a local jewelry store was the latest in a multitude of robberies in Ft Myers of late. According to the news anchor, the owner of the store believed that he was the victim of a copycat robbery. A quarter of a million dollars was taken from the store.

A copycat crime? Involving these high-dollar jewelry stores with better-than-average security systems? Incredible. This metro includes Naples, and the stores there aren't run like many other businesses--that is, on the cheap.

Times must be getting rough. Crime does escalate in times of economic depression. Is it a repression or a depression? I don't think we're in a depression, as defined by most economists (that is, x amount of consecutive quarters with little to no growth), but then again, it doesn't matter what I think. Some people think that our condition here in America is so dire, that they would risk their lives to rob jewelry stores. And that's all it takes.

Shall we empathize with them? That's what our current elite in academia are constantly emphasizing to the hordes of young minds to bask in—Empathy. They don't give them any way out, either. It's always delivered as a mental straight-jacket: "How would you have liked to have been the slave to someone who beat you?"; "How would you like to be so poor and ignored that all you could do is strap bombs on yourselves to get your point across?"; "How would you like to be told to stay home and raise the children?"

I don't think we should empathize with these jewelry thieves. But then again, it doesn't matter what I think. I am a white male, Southern, and Christian. I know my place in this culture. It is because of me and my people that America is what it is: a racist, oppressive, reactionary empire. I've gotten the full load—I achieved a Liberal Arts degree in the early-mid 90's. Specifically, Political Science. Ask me if I understand that all we are is a product of society, and I'll ask what postmodernist book have you been reading lately.

But I digress.

This spot that I heard of Rush's highlighted one thing to me: that radio sales can't even fill the top-of-the-hour avails during the Rush Limbaugh Show. Incredible. This city metro of Fort Myers/Naples is nothing if not a high-end retail oasis. Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's, and many, many other boutique-style stores litter Tamiami Trail. Sure, we don't expect them to be bread-and-butter clients of radio advertising, but my point is that with that many high-end stores, there has got to be a considerable amount of mid-size and little businesses surrounding these premiere businesses. Don't the rich need transmission work on their luxury cars? Don't their landscapers need to buy their groceries at Wal-Mart, Publix, and Winn-Dixie? Sure they do.
And the abundance of retail stores here is staggering. Recent estimates are that 1,000 people a month move into Cape Coral. This place is known as such an expensive place to live that most of the housebuilders live in surrounding counties. Tons of realtors, title offices, and specialty clinics dot the entire county. If a business is trying to spread their message to an audience that has disposable income, this county is full of them.

But no, this local affiliate couldn't even fill this 60-second avail, positioned at such a high-profile placement, too. Top of the hour, between Rush's second and third hour. He plays these wonderful gems of radio production from his flagship, while MOST other affiliates drop it for broadcast of their local elements: either commercials or local news. If you are hearing one of these Johnny Donovan-produced spots about some subject you've never heard addressed before, you're hearing the sound of some jewelry store shutting the cash drawer in the face of a radio salesman.

The Queen Wears No Clothes

The Queen Wears No Clothes
April 12, 2007

We are constantly bleated with the cries of Nancy Pelosi, Hillary, and CNN, that the American People spoke loudly and clearly last November. "The people want us out of Iraq, NOW!", they rant.

The laughingly-ridiculous notion of actually defunding the military to bring our Iraqi mission to a grinding halt has turned into a serious notion for Pelosi et al. Perhaps it was serious for all this time. However, we were treated to emphatic, wide-eyed promises last year, leading up to the election date, that she wouldn't try to pull us out of Iraq if she was indeed to become Speaker of The House. That she wouldn't allow ANY bills to come to the floor if they involved de-funding our men and women in uniform.

Now that the EXACT OPPOSITE has occurred in just five short months, our vanguard of freedom, [American mainstream media] collectively working to cast her as America's last hope, have ignored yet another Democratic Party lie which results in blood and tragedy. The press just eats up her silly, sad, rhetoric announcing troop funding reductions without batting an eye.
But the media hypocrisy is even older than this past six months in American history. In 1995, a newly-elected 104th Congress was endeavoring to uphold their pre-election promise to bring to the House floor ten items, referred to as the Contract With America. They actually did what they said they would do during the run-up to that election. When the next fiscal year approached, the Congress actually passed bills with slight curbs on the rate of growth of many department budgets.

What? A new Congress actually passing bills based on campaign promises? And what bunch of grown-ups were in control at that time?

Our Leftist Lapdog press breathlessly took their microphones and cameras to Bill Clinton, awaiting some antidote from their leader. "I am still relevant", was all that he could say. That, and that he wouldn't be able to abide by the Congress' legislative designs to balance the federal budget in the proposed 7 years in Newt's blueprints. He said that that would bring too much pain to the country. Of course, seven years later, Clinton was all too happy to take the credit for a balanced budget. Did the media question Clinton's earlier reluctance to pass those deficit-trimming bills? Of course not.

In fact, when Clinton shut down the government by vetoing those initial bills, Newsweek ran a caricature of Newt as the Scrooge on its cover. The press was on the side of the president when the will of the people had put in Republicans at 52.9% against the Democrats' 46.9%. The American media protected the president for trying to thwart honest campaign promises-turned-reality. They painted Gengrich, the Speaker of The House, as conducting a 'contract ON America', heaping much distortion on his quote concerning the health care administration, where he issued a quick statement about letting it, "wither on the vine."

But now the press LOVES the 'will of the people'. And for what? It couldn't be for some perceived greater Democratic majority than what the 104th Congressional Republicans had: it is currently only .8% different of a balance than it was in 1995 (Dems presently enjoy 53.7% in Congress). Who can forget ABC news anchor Peter Jennings making the snide remark when announcing the 1994 election results, huffing that "America had thrown a temper tantrum". No such childish remarks are hurled at Pelosi, of course.

The recitation of all of this Newt vs Clinton, and Pelosi vs Bush serves to illustrate an often-overlooked fact: Clinton lost the Congress in his FIRST off-year election. And he had a willing partner in the American media. President Bush beat back historic forces for 6 years before the press finally won the tug-of-war for congress. They fought like children against the parental guidance of our commander-in-chief. And now, while they're patting themselves on the back for defeating American security, our men and women in uniform stand to lose everything they've fought like warriors to achieve for the past 6 years.

Islamoile: 5 Arrested In Plot To Attack Prophet Cartoon Paper

In this Oct. 27, 2009 file photo, the exterior of a building housing the Jyllands-Posten Copenhagen office is seen. Denmark's intelligence service on Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010 arrested four people suspected of planning an 'imminent' terror attack against a newspaper that printed the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Police in Denmark and Sweden halted an imminent terrorist attack Wednesday by arresting five men who planned to shoot as many people as possible in a building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, officials said.

Denmark's intelligence service said that after months of surveillance it arrested four men in two raids in suburbs of the capital, Copenhagen, and seized a submachine gun, a silencer and ammunition. Swedish police said they arrested a 37-year-old Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin living in Stockholm.

"An imminent terror attack has been foiled," said Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, or PET. He described some the suspects as "militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks" and said that more arrests were possible.

PET said it seized a 44-year-old Tunisian, a 29-year-old Lebanese-born man and a 30-year-old who were living in Sweden and had entered Denmark late Tuesday or early Wednesday. The fourth person detained was a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum-seeker living in Copenhagen.

The Danish intelligence service said the group had been planning to enter the building where the Jyllands-Posten daily has its Copenhagen newsdesk and "to kill as many of the people present as possible." The four men face preliminary charges of attempting to carry out an act of terrorism. They will face a custody hearing Thursday.

"I am shocked that a group of people have concrete plans to commit a serious terrorist attack in this country," Danish Prime Minister Loekke Rasmussen told reporters. "I want to stress that regardless of today's event it remains my conviction that terrorism must not lead us to change our open society and our values, especially democracy and free speech."

Danish and Swedish police, who appeared at a joint new conference with Loekke Rasmussen in Copenhagen, said they had been tailing the suspects for several months.

Anders Danielsson, the head of Sweden's security police, said they had followed a car rented by the suspects from Stockholm to the Danish border.

"We knew that there were weapons in the car," he said.

Zubair Butt Hussain, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Denmark, called the plan "extremely worrying."

The organization "absolutely condemns any act of terrorism regardless of the motives and motivations that may lie behind," Hussain said.

There have been at least four plots to attack Jyllands-Posten or Kurt Westergaard, the artist who drew the most contentious of 12 cartoons, which were published by the daily in 2005 as a challenge to perceived self-censorship.

"The foiled plot is a direct attack on democracy and freedom of press," Westergaard told the German tabloid Bild. "We may not and won't let anyone forbid us to criticize radical Islamism. We may not be intimidated when it comes to our values."

In January, a Somali man broke into Westergaard's home wielding an ax and a knife but the artist escaped unharmed by locking himself in a safe-room in the house. In 2008, two Tunisians with Danish residence permits were arrested for plotting to kill him.

In September, a man was wounded when a letter bomb he was preparing exploded in a Copenhagen hotel. Police said it was intended for the daily, which also has been targeted in a number of thwarted terror plots in Norway and the United States.

U.S. citizen Tahawwur Rana faces trial in Chicago in February in connection with the 2008 terrorist attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai and a planned attack on the Jyllands-Posten.

The cartoons also provoked massive and violent protests in 2006 in Muslim countries where demonstrators considered the drawings as having profoundly insulted Islam. Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

In 2008, the Danish Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, was targeted by a car bomb that killed six people outside the mission.

The attacks and threats have caused concern and unprecedented security measures in Denmark, a country that prides itself on personal freedom and openness.

The JPPOL media group building, which includes Jyllands-Posten, is protected by metal fences and guards at all entrances. Mail is scanned and newspaper staff need identity cards to enter the buildings and the various floors.

Lars Munch, JPPOL chief executive, said his workers were worried.

"It is appalling for our group, for our employees and their families to see their workplace threatened," Munch said.

Scharf said "there was no need to raise the terror threat alert level" in Denmark, although Danish Justice Minister Lars Barfoed described the plot as "terrifying."

"The group's plan to kill as many as possible is very frightening and is probably the most serious terror attempt in Denmark," Barfoed said.

The head of Sweden's security police, Anders Danielsson, said that "it has been possible to avert a serious terror crime in Denmark through efficient and close cooperation between PET and the (Swedish) security police."

Danielsson said the suspects who are residents in Sweden also are being investigated for suspected terror crimes in that country. (source)

111th Congress Added More Debt Than First 100 Congresses Combined: $10,429 Per Person in U.S.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds one of the pens used by President Barack Obama to sign the health care bill, Tuesday, March 23, 2010, in the East Room of the White House in Washington.

The federal government has accumulated more new debt--$3.22 trillion ($3,220,103,625,307.29)—during the tenure of the 111th Congress than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to official debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury.

That equals $10,429.64 in new debt for each and every one of the 308,745,538 people counted in the United States by the 2010 Census.

The total national debt of $13,858,529,371,601.09 (or $13.859 trillion), as recorded by the U.S. Treasury at the close of business on Dec. 22, now equals $44,886.57 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

In fact, the 111th Congress not only has set the record as the most debt-accumulating Congress in U.S. history, but also has out-stripped its nearest competitor, the 110th, by an astounding $1.262 trillion in new debt.

During the 110th Congress—which, according to the Clerk of the House, officially convened on Jan. 4, 2007 and adjourned on Jan. 4, 2009--the national debt increased $1.957 trillion. When that Congress adjourned less than two years ago, it claimed the record as the most debt-accumulating Congress in U.S. history. As it turned out, however, its record did not last long.

The $3.22 trillion in new federal debt run up during the 111th Congress exceeds by 64 percent the $1.957 trillion in new debt run up during the 110th.

Although the 111th Congress cast its last vote on Dec. 22, it will not officially adjourn until next week.

Democrats controlled both the House and Senate in the 110th and 111th Congresses.

The 108th Congress ($1.159 trillion in new debt) and 109th ($1.054 trillion in new debt) take third and fourth place among all U.S. Congresses for accumulating debt. In both these Congresses, Republicans controlled both the House and Senate.

Still, the $3.22 trillion in new debt accumulated during the record-setting 111th Congress is more than three times the $1.054 trillion in new debt accumulated by the last Republican-majority Congress (the 109th) which adjourned on Dec. 8, 2006.

Historically, according to the U.S. Treasury, the federal debt did not reach $3.22 trillion until September 1990, during the 101st Congress. Between the first Congress, which adjourned in 1791 leaving behind approximately $75 million in debt, and the convening of the 101st Congress, which occurred on Jan. 3, 1989, the national debt grew to $2.684 trillion.

During the Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) tenure as speaker, which commenced on Jan. 4, 2007, the federal government has run up $5.177 trillion in new debt. That is about equal to the total debt the federal government accumulated in the first 220 years of the nation's existence, with the federal debt rising from $5.173 trillion on July 23, 1996 to $5.181 trillion on July 24, 1996.

In her inaugural address as speaker, Pelosi vowed that Congress would engage in no new deficit spending.

"After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” she said in an address from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt."


Here is an accounting of the new debt accumulated during the tenure of each Congress since the 101st. The convening and adjourning dates are reported by the Clerk of the House and the debt levels are recorded by the U.S. Treasury:

Congress Convening/Adjourning Debt Levels

111th Congress

Jan. 6, 2009 $10,638,425,746,293.80

Dec. 22, 2010 $13,858,529,371,601.09

New Debt: $3,220,103,625,307.29

110th Congress

Jan. 4, 2007 8,670,596,242,973.04

Jan. 3, 2009 10,627,961,295,930.67

New Debt: 1,957,365,052,957.63

109th Congress

Jan. 4, 2005 7,601,016,892,663.19

Dec. 8, 2006 8,655,403,967,590.98

New Debt: 1,054,387,074,927.79

108th Congress

Jan. 7, 2003 6,387,381,983,103.35

Dec. 9, 2004 7,546,778,677,941.37

New Debt: 1,159,396,694,838.02

107th Congress

Jan. 3, 2001 5,723,237,439,563.59

Nov. 22, 2002 6,332,715,758,032.33

New Debt: 609,478,318,468.74

106th Congress

Jan. 6, 1999 5,615,428,551,461.33

Dec. 15, 2000 5,706,990,981,165.37

New Debt: 91,562,429,704.04

105th Congress

Jan. 7, 1997 5,312,781,237,956.91

Dec. 19, 1998 5,583,950,306,972.53

New Debt: 271,169,069,015.62

104th Congress

Jan. 4, 1995 4,801,793,426,032.89

Oct. 4, 1996 5,222,049,625,819.53

New Debt: 420,256,199,786.64

103rd Congress

Jan.5, 1993 4,169,232,407,244.75

Dec. 1, 1994 4,774,851,353,596.54

New Debt: 605,618,946,351.79

102nd Congress

Jan. 3, 1991 (Dec. 31, 1990) 3,364,820,000,000.00

Oct. 9, 1992 (Sept. 30, 1992) 4,064,621,000,000.00

New Debt: 699,801,000,000.00

101st Congress

Jan. 3, 1989 (Dec. 31, 1988) 2,684,392,000,000.00

Oct. 28, 1990 (Oct. 31, 1990) 3,274,950,000.000.00

New Debt: 590,558,000,000.00 (source)

How The Left Resembles The Third Reich: GESTAPO ALERT! (Sacramento-area pilot punished for YouTube video)

SACRAMENTO, CA - An airline pilot is being disciplined by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for posting video on YouTube pointing out what he believes are serious flaws in airport security.

Update: Whistleblowing pilot explains why he did it

The 50-year-old pilot, who lives outside Sacramento, asked that neither he nor his airline be identified. He has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputized by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit.

He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia.

Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff's deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10.

At the same time as the federal marshals took the pilot's gun, a deputy sheriff asked him to surrender his state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A follow-up letter from the sheriff's department said the CCW permit would be reevaluated following the outcome of the federal investigation.

The YouTube videos, posted Nov. 28, show what the pilot calls the irony of flight crews being forced to go through TSA screening while ground crew who service the aircraft are able to access secure areas simply by swiping a card.

"As you can see, airport security is kind of a farce. It's only smoke and mirrors so you people believe there is actually something going on here," the pilot narrates.

Video shot in the cockpit shows a medieval-looking rescue ax available on the flight deck after the pilots have gone through the metal detectors. "I would say a two-foot crash ax looks a lot more formidable than a box cutter," the pilot remarked.

A letter from the TSA dated Dec. 6 informed the pilot that "an administrative review into your deputation status as a Federal Flight Deck Officer has been initiated."

According to the letter, the review was directly related to the discovery by TSA staff of the YouTube videos. "The content and subject of these videos may have violated regulations concerning disclosure of sensitive security information," the letter said.

The pilot's attorney, Don Werno of Santa Ana, said he believed the federal government sent six people to the house to send a message.

"And the message was you've angered us by telling the truth and by showing America that there are major security problems despite the fact that we've spent billions of dollars allegedly to improve airline safety," Werno said.

The pilot said he is not in trouble with his airline, but a supervisor asked him to remove public access to the YouTube videos.

He does, however, face potential civil penalties from the TSA. He said he would likely go public when it becomes clear what the government plans to do with him. (source)

Obama's Health-Care Law Ruled Unconstitutional Over Insurance Requirement

The Obama administration’s health- care overhaul unconstitutionally requires Americans to maintain a minimum level of health insurance, a federal judge ruled, striking down the linchpin of the plan.

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Virginia, said yesterday that the mandate on individuals in President Barack Obama’s health-care legislation goes beyond Congress’s powers to regulate interstate commerce. Hudson severed the issue of the mandate, which is set to become effective in 2014, and didn’t address other provisions such as expanding Medicaid.

“At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance -- or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage -- it’s about an individual’s right to choose to participate,” wrote Hudson, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002.

The ruling is the government’s first loss in a series of challenges to the law mounted in federal courts in Virginia, Michigan and Florida, where 20 states have joined an effort to have the statute thrown out. Constitutional scholars said unless Congress changes the law, its fate on appeal will probably be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who brought the suit, said his office has spoken with lawyers from the Justice Department about asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case without a review by the federal appeals court in Richmond. Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said she had no comment on Cuccinelli’s statement.

Appeal Likely

A senior Obama administration official said that an appeal of Hudson’s ruling was likely and also expressed confidence that the legislation would be upheld.

“This is only round one,” Cuccinelli said, during a news conference at his office in Richmond. “This lawsuit is not about health-care, it’s about liberty.”

In his 42-page opinion, Hudson said the “unchecked expansion” of congressional power represented by the insurance requirement “would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers.” No Supreme Court decision has authorized Congress to “compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market,” he wrote.

To overcome that conclusion, the Obama administration ultimately may have to persuade at least one of the five Republican-appointed justices on a Supreme Court that in recent years has limited Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.

Commerce Clause Cases

The court hasn’t directly considered a challenge to Congress’ power under the Constitution’s commerce clause since John Roberts became chief justice in 2005.

“There’s a lot of activity focused now on alternatives to the mandate,” said Dan Mendelson, chief executive officer of Avalere Health, a Washington-based consulting firm.

Hudson, who didn’t order the government to stop work on implementing the law during an appeal, limited his ruling to the mandatory insurance provision.

Peter Urbanowicz, a managing director at Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group in Washington, said he read the decision to leave in place all of the law’s obligations on insurers for expanded coverage. If Hudson’s decision is upheld, insurance companies would be required to provide new benefits without expanding the pool of insureds, he said in an e-mail.

That would cause “skyrocketing costs” for insurers, said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for the Washington lobby group, America’s Health Insurance Plans.

Health-Insurance Stocks

Health plans rose as much as 2.7 percent after the ruling was announced, and then fell back. The Standard & Poor’s Managed Health Index of six insurers climbed 0.3 percent in New York trading, led by a 1 percent increase for Aetna Inc. of Hartford, Connecticut. UnitedHealth Group Inc. of Minnetonka, Minnesota, the largest medical plan by sales, rose 0.6 percent.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said at a press briefing yesterday said that the administration still believes the legislation is constitutional.

“One hundred and fifteen miles away, a different judge in a different district rendered a different decision,” Gibbs said, referring to a Nov. 30 ruling by U.S. District Judge Norman Moon, in Lynchburg, Virginia, named by President Bill Clinton. That decision upheld the act in a lawsuit brought by the evangelical Liberty University and five individuals. U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh in Michigan, another Clinton appointee, also sided with the government.

‘Will Be Upheld’

“Our belief is that when all the legal wrangling is done, this is something that will be upheld,” Gibbs said.

Justice Department lawyers in court papers called the mandatory insurance measure the cornerstone of the overhaul as it pushes younger and healthier people into the insurance pool. Through the individual mandate and expansions of Medicaid and employer-based coverage, the law is estimated to provide 32 million more people with coverage by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The law bars insurers from denying coverage to people who are sick or imposing lifetime limits on costs. Without payments generated from the required policies, the health-insurance market would face extinction, the government argued. The mandate falls under Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce as $43 billion in unpaid medical bills are absorbed by the market each year, U.S. lawyers said.

‘Simply Wait’

“If people aren’t compelled to buy insurance and the insurance carriers are compelled to offer it, then many will simply wait until they are sick,” said John Sullivan, an analyst at Leerink Swann & Co. in Boston. “You can’t just pull this part out of it.”

Virginia’s suit claimed Congress has only the power to tax, not to force participation in a market. Its case defended the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act, a state law barring compulsory purchase of health insurance by its citizens.

Florida, joined by 19 other states, filed a separate lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality and arguing it puts too big a burden on its budget by expanding state-run Medicaid programs. U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola, Florida, is slated to hear arguments Dec. 16 on motions by each side to decide the case in their favor.

In the Florida case, the states are backed by 63 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, mostly Republicans, in a court brief. Incoming House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, and 32 Republican U.S. senators separately submitted papers arguing the legislation represents an unconstitutional expansion of congressional legislative powers.

Expansion of Medicaid

Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum said he is hopeful Vinson will strike down the individual mandate and halt the expansion of Medicaid.

“The implementation of this law could add more than 1.9 million Floridians to the Medicaid program, a tremendous financial burden on our state at a time when our budget has no room for extra expenses,” he said in a statement.

A group of about 40 economics scholars, including Nobel laureates Eric Maskin, George Akerlof and Kenneth Arrow, filed their own brief, arguing in favor of the legislative package.

The Virginia and Florida cases are the most likely to reach the Supreme Court, according to health-care and constitutional lawyers.

Both have been “well briefed and well drafted,” Urbanowicz said.

The case is Commonwealth of Virginia v. Sebelius, 10-cv-00188, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia (Richmond).(source)

Why Obama Surrendered the Missile Shield

Cloward-Piven

Documents from the State Department published by WikiLeaks show that the Obama administration surrendered the missile shield previously planned by the Bush administration to Europe because of Russian demands, not because of any supposed intel reports.


The original missile defense scheme was devised by the Bush administration, which persuaded Poland and the Czech Republic to authorize missile defense systems (ten unarmed interceptors and a radar) to be deployed on their soil. In April 2008, Bush outmaneuvered Vladimir Putin by obtaining an endorsement of this scheme from all NATO allies before the Russian leader reached Bucharest for the NATO-Russia summit.


Russia has always opposed this scheme, putatively because the scheme would undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent (which it wouldn't -- ten unarmed interceptors can't undermine an arsenal of hundreds of ICBMs and SLBMs as well as 113 strategic bombers). Really, Russia is in the middle of selling a nuclear reactor and tons of nuclear fuel to Iran, and the Kremlin doesn't want the West to be able to defend itself against the incipient Iranian nuclear threat. Russia is also eager to claw Central Europe back into its sphere of influence.


Bush wisely chose not to succumb to Moscow, but he was replaced in 2009 by Barack Obama.


The leaked documents indicate that Obama's first eight months as president boiled over with Russian threats not to cooperate with the U.S. on any issue whatsoever (be it Iran, North Korea, space exploration, START negotiations, or anything else) barring cancelation of U.S. missile defense plans. During meetings with American officials, the Russians would repeatedly interrupt American diplomats who tried to discuss anything but missile defense.


The Kremlin's message was this: you must capitulate on missile defense (and strategic arms), or else we won't even discuss (let alone cooperate on) other issues. Eager to appease Russia, the Obama Administration naïvely surrendered missile defense plans on September 17, 2009.


Administration officials, including Obama and Bob Gates, are now falsely claiming that their surrender had nothing to do with Russia and was instead dictated by claimed new intel. Supposedly, Iran's priority is now the development of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles rather than IRBMs and ICBMs (against which the Bush missile shield was designed to be effective).


But the leaked documents, reproduced by the NYT, show that the Iranians still prioritize the development and acquisition of long-range ballistic missiles.


The documents say that before Obama made his decision, Iran acquired BM25 (Rodong) IRBMs from North Korea. These can reach Western Europe and Moscow. Other publicly available intel reports say that Iran aims by 2015 to acquire ICBMs meant to reach the U.S. Iran also has R-27 Zyb SLBMs bought from North Korea (with a range of 3,000 kilometers; Rodong missiles were derived from them) and is reportedly now developing Shahab-4 IRBMs and Koussar missiles that could fly as far as 5,000 kilometers. And Iran possesses missiles that can deliver satellites into the Earth's orbit -- missiles that can reach Europe just as easily. Iran's Fajr-3 and Sajjil missiles can fly as far as 2,500 kilometers. So the Iranian long-range-missile threat is growing, not declining.


Moreover, thanks to geography, long-range ballistic missiles are the only ones which could ever reach Western Europe. Iran is too far away from Western Europe for its SRBMs and MRBMs to reach the Old Continent, let alone the U.S. Its Shahab-3 MRBMs can fly no farther than 2,000 km, meaning it can reach only Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, etc.).


Whoever wants to protect Europe and the U.S. should first and foremost provide defenses against long-range ballistic missiles.


Obama's putative replacement for the Bush missile defense plan (which, for the record, was based on a proven technology designed against a real threat) is a fantasy scheme partially based on technology that doesn't even exist. Obama plans to first deploy Burke- and Ticonderoga-class BMD-capable warships to Europe. The problem is that the Navy has only 24 BMD-capable combatants. The deployment would strain the BMD ship fleet (which must also defend Gulf states and eastern Asian countries) and would be more expensive than the deployment of ten interceptors and a radar on land.


The second and third phases, Obama says, would be to deploy a ground version of the SM-3 interceptor missile (which doesn't exist) in Romania and later Poland, plus "enhanced sensors" that will be inferior to the radar Bush planned to deploy.


In the fourth phase, Obama says, SM-3s will be upgraded to become able to intercept long-range missiles, and such interceptors might be deployed to Europe. Of course, that would be contingent on the Congress and whatever government succeeds the Obama administration (assuming he will even be reelected in 2012) providing the necessary funding. Moreover, it would emerge five years after Iran is projected to acquire ICBMs. This means that even if such an interceptor was ever developed, produced, and deployed in Europe by 2020, the U.S.* and Europe would totally lack any defense against Iranian LRBMs for five years! And even if Iran does not acquire ICBMs by 2015, it will still have much time to construct them before any defensive systems go up in Europe.


The Heritage Foundation and the nonpartisan CBO say that the deployment of ten interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic would be only half as expensive as the deployment of Aegis-type warships to Europe. And these Bush-planned defensive systems would protect Europe much better against Iranian missiles than the systems Obama has offered.


Nor has Obama's concession to Russia been reciprocated. Russia has not stopped backing Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Syria. It has not allowed any serious sanctions to be approved by the UNSC. Putin hasn't even toned down his comments about the U.S.


In short, Obama has succumbed to Moscow for nothing. Now he is advertising a pseudo-missile-defense scheme which is decisively inferior to the Bush plan. It is time for the Congress and GOP presidential candidates to review this issue.


*Even the U.S. is unprotected against Iranian missiles. The interceptors stationed in California and Alaska can protect only against missiles flying over the Pacific Ocean, e.g. from North Korea or China. They cannot protect the U.S. against missiles from over the Atlantic Ocean.(source)