Question the doctor, lose your child:

PARENTS are being threatened with having their children taken into care after questioning doctors’ diagnoses or objecting to their medical care.

John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, who campaigns to stop injustices in the family court, said: “Very often care proceedings are used as retaliation by local authorities against ‘uppity’ people who question the system.”

Cases are emerging across the UK:

The mother of a 13-year-old girl who became partly paralysed after being given a cervical cancer vaccination says social workers have told her the child may be removed if she (the mother) continues to link her condition with the vaccination.

A couple had all six of their children removed from their care after they disputed the necessity of an invasive medical test on their eldest daughter. Doctors, who suspected she might have had a blood disease, called for social services to obtain an emergency protection order, although it was subsequently confirmed that she was not suffering from the condition. The parents were still considered unstable, and all their children were taken from them.

A single mother whose teenage son is terminally ill and confined to a wheelchair has been told he is to become the subject of a care order after she complained that her local authority’s failure to provide bathroom facilities for him has left her struggling to maintain sanitary standards.

Given the zest the left already has for weakening the bonds of family and undermining parental authority, this sort of thing is to be expected. The the most advanced leftists, parents are the worst roadblocks imaginable – they keep thinking they have all this worn out, moldy authority over their children and even think they have a right to impart their morals to the children (the impudence!). Couple this natural leftist tendency with leftist control over health care and this is what you get – threats to take away your children if you question the authorities decisions about them.

Always, always, always keep in mind that health care isn’t about health care – not to the left. Its all about control – they want us as their wards so they can remake us in to what they think of as good. Obamacare is sputtering right now, but its not dead – look for the Democrats to try and shove through something vague and then hope to just tack on amendments and regulations when no one is looking. They really will risk their political power on this – because they figure that even if they lose in 2010 and 2012, they’ll gain it all back once a majority of the American people are locked in to government health care.

Don’t for a moment give up the fight – until the Democrats are out of office, we must presume that their every move is to undermine our liberty and impose their socialist schemes upon us.

UPDATE: WSJ says Obama will endorse public plan.

George Will recently called for our exit from Afghanistan. The story seems to be building that we simply cannot win – too many enemies, too weak allies, too many other things on our plate…plus, unspoken, a President who is strongly suspected of weakness in this area.

We cannot allow this to become our guiding principle – we must win in Afghanistan. The costs of victory will always pale in comparison with the cost of defeat – and anything short of outright US victory in Afghanistan is a defeat, just as it was in Iraq. Whatever the cost might be, however long it might take, we must persevere until victory is secured.

Now, how do we do that? I’m not sufficiently grounded in military tactics to work out exactly how things must be done on the ground – I doubt that anyone, as of this point, has entirely worked out what needs to be done. Various things are ongoing which probably constitute the elements of a victorious campaign, but I don’t get the impression that we’ve put together the right elements, as I was convinced we had when President Bush announced the “surge” in Iraq. I can say, however, that whatever plan we create must keep the Iranians out, keep the Taliban/al Qaeda in Pakistan pinned down and must, in the end, win the support of enough of the Afghan people that they back our side rather than back the enemy, or even stay neutral.

The troops will do whatever we ask of them. Their performance in Iraq should put to rest any doubt about that – given the time and the tools, they will hit upon the right combination of means to our end. This requires, however, that we remain staunch here at home – and calls for withdrawal, even if well meant by people like Mr. Will, just play in to the enemy’s hands…they do as much today coming from a conservative thinker as they did in 2006 coming from leftist kooks. The enemy does watch our MSM – they do search out signs of political weakness, because everyone in the world has learned the lesson of Vietnam – America cannot be defeated in the field, but only in the White House and Congress.

The task of all patriots is to insist upon victory – to stiffen the spine of President Obama and to quiet the fears of leftists in the Congressional majority who are looking for the first chance to cut and run. We must win, and we can win – all we need is to will it so.

The story:

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China’s green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed’s recourse to “credit easing”.

“We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again,” he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.

“If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies,” he said.

China would have a stronger leg to stand on if they hadn’t recently increased their money supply by 26% and then ordered the banks to lend it on easy terms…thus creating a stock market and real estate bubble and the appearance of continued growth while China’s real economy (ie, the exporting part of it) declines for 9 straight months. No doubt about it, we’re being monumentally stupid in printing money to buy our own bonds – but China is the home of the economic geniuses, either.

The whole system of global finance is what has failed – and shooting it up with more fiat money isn’t the way to fix it. This is because it can’t be fixed – we’ve bankrupted ourselves and until we create new wealth, we can’t even begin to pay back the debts we’ve already got. This, in turn, means that any borrowing we do will be counter-productive…as will any increases in money supply as that will just drive down the real value of the already battered wealth we’ve currently got. We need sound money and all we’re getting from everyone is printing presses on steroids.

Its all going to fly apart – and quite soon. A the maximum, we can stave off disaster for two years – but I think we’ve got less than six months before all this stimulus nonsense (here and around the world) comes back to bite us.

And the big show isn’t for another five days yet:

…the sheriff’s office is reporting to us that the crowd estimate for the rally here is 10,000+ and they are shutting down a portion of Interstate 80 for traffic control do to the massive influx of people…

The linked article has some pictures – 10,000 seems about right. And this is from Illinois, good people – one of the bluest of blue States and Obama’s backyard. You liberals just keep ignoring this – it’ll make election day that much more fun for us.

Don’t forget, patriots, if you can get to DC on Saturday, do it – your nation needs you, now more than ever.

One thing I am greatly heartened by is the fact that the crowds are growing in number and intensity – remember, we’re being call racists bent on violence. This sort of thing used to be intimidating – in fact, shouting “racist” used to be the left’s most reliable tactic. Not any more – the people are just not taking it. I think we all sense that if we allow ourselves to be bamboozled now then its all over for our nation – America will cease to be the nation of the Founders and become the nation of the Socialists.

The lines are drawn, let the battle commence.

Seeing as I have to labor on this day, I’ll just put up an Open Thread (seems my employer is still living in 2006 and hopes that people will demand huge amounts of new, retail credit today…ROFL!). Anyways, have fun.

Mark Steyn was mis-quoted in the New York Times…so, what did the rest of the MSM do? Steyn lays it out:

…in my weekend column I noted my rare appearance in its august pages (well, okay, September pages):

Mark Steyn, a Canadian author and political commentator, speaking on the Rush Limbaugh show on Wednesday, accused Mr. Obama of trying to create a cult of personality, comparing him to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader.

Tim Blair, the great Australian wag, has a round-up of those hardworking types at other publications whose concept of journalism begins and ends with seeing what’s in The New York Times and passing it on. Tim missed a few, like The Sacramento Bee:

On Wednesday, Canadian-born writer Mark Steyn said on Rush Limbaugh’s nationally broadcast radio show that Obama’s ambitions to create a “cult of personality” were similar to those of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il or former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.

And The Las Vegas Sun:

The New York Times quoted Mark Steyn, filling in for conservative radio demagogue Rush Limbaugh, as saying Obama was trying to create a cult of personality like Saddam Hussein or North Korea’s Kim Jong Il.

“Quoted”, eh? Actually, if you read the Times piece – by two reporters, no less – the striking feature is that there’s no direct quote, is there? Not to worry. It’s even been picked up overseas. Lara Marlowe in Ireland’s newspaper of record, The Irish Times:

First prize for lunacy goes to Canadian commentator Mark Steyn, who accuses Obama of trying to establish a “personality cult” like Saddam Hussein or North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

And first prize for laziness goes to Irish commentator Lara Marlowe. For the record, here’s the only thing I actually said about Kim and Saddam on Wednesday’s Rush show:

Obviously we’re not talking about the cult of personality on the kind of Saddam Hussein/Kim Jong-Il scale. (emphasis added)

The level of incompetence here is breathtaking – and it is just stunning that so many in the MSM still think the New York Times is something other than an adjunct of the DNC these days. I mean, I can understand if you’re a well-meaning, earnest liberal who wants to hopeychange the world with Obama…but isn’t there also a desire to not appear an idiot? A simple bit of fact-checking and anyone could find out that Steyn was mis-quoted. Its not like we needed secret agents to bring out the truth, here, ya know?

Telling Obama that he’d better toe the line:

Leading liberals are already thinking the unthinkable: Challenging President Obama for the Democratic nomination in 2012.

According to a report on the left-leaning Huffington Post website, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann and Eugene Robinson, an African-American national columnist for The Washington Post, discussed just such a possibility Thursday night. Robinson said Obama needs to be careful how he handles the health care reform issue and the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Olbermann said the president has “compromised on everything so far and as self-defeating as it may be, the progressive caucus and progressives would abandon him if necessary, if this was to be the policy of this administration into 2012. If it’s necessary to find somebody to run against him, I think they’d do it, no matter how destructive that may seem.”

This is something that I’m picking up on in leftist circles: a dismay that Obama and Co aren’t just muscling leftism through. After all, with the White House and solid majorities in Congress, it should be easy, right? It seems so, but only if you’re a liberal and thus think in tyrannical terms. To liberals, a win means absolutely – in other words, if they cross the finish line first, they get it all. They forget that Obama only got 52% of the vote – ie, one percentage point more than Bush got in 2004, and no liberal out there in 2005 thought that President Bush should have been able to rule by decree. Meanwhile, the Democrats House majority is by grace of 50 Democrats holding GOP seats – and winning those seats by being as close to GOP as you can get without changing party registration. Take away those 50 and pare away the Senate Democrats who also ran on GOP platforms, and you can see that even in this glory day of Obamunism, the Democrat majority is thin and easily broken.

But that, once again, is not how our liberals view it – Obama won and the Democrats won and the war in Iraq is supposed to be over, gay marriage implemented and President Bush up on war crimes charges. That they aren’t getting these things is starting to anger the left. Right now, its mostly being directed at Congressional Democrats – but it can easily be swung in Obama’s direction.

So, Obama will shortly have a choice – ditch the left and possibly draw a primary or Third Party challenger in 2012 (but still have a chance of winning) or embrace the left and have a united Democratic party to be trounced by the GOP and Independents coming together. Be interesting to see how it plays out.

Here’s a story about Pelosi’s reluctance to dump ethics-challenged Rangel – but here’s the part I found most interesting:

…Rangel has told supporters he’s committed to running for re-election next year and plans to run again in 2012 – when he’s 82 — health permitting…

…If Pelosi were to supplant Rangel, she’d face the prospect of choosing from a unappetizing menu of potential replacements at the Ways and Means helm.

“There are not a lot of good choices for her on that committee,” said a leadership aide.

The next Democrat in line would be Pete Stark, an outspoken 77-year-old liberal with a firebrand reputation and a penchant for intemperate cracks – like calling Blue Dog Democrats “brain dead.”

Next up: Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, also 77, and Washington Rep. Jim McDermott, 72, who are not considered favored choices of Pelosi based on their ages and temperament. (emphasis added)

Nothing says “corrupt establishment” better than a collection of aged, political barnacles. Not a lot of good choices? Well, you Democrats did this to yourselves – continually re-electing the same, old cretins. These are the people who are supposed to lead us in to a vibrant, 21st century world?

Now, you liberals really need to think about this – you’ve got aged leaders who are in their positions entirely by seniority and they are becoming ever more corrupt as they feel their position is unassailable. Is this what you want?

If it isn’t, then you’d better vote Republican in 2010 – its the only way you’ll get rid of these guys.

Victor Davis Hanson starts the ball rolling:

In America of 2009 the following are “true”:

The Arabs invented the printing press, and spurred us on to the Enlightenment and Renaissance. Muslims in Cordoba advised the brutal Christians to show tolerance during the Inquisition. Slavery ended in America without violence. The Berlin Airlift was a worldwide effort. The Americans liberated Auschwitz. There are 57 states. FDR was President in 1929 and gave television addresses. We can either drill offshore or inflate our tires properly.

There are no terrorists or a war on same, but only overseas contingency operations and man-made catastrophes. Those who object to health care are ungodly, and the nation’s children must go to school and see the messiah address them en masse on state-run television screens. Nazis, brown shirts, a mob, insurance lackeys, Brooks brothers elites, etc. all go to Town Halls. Doctors chop off limbs and gleefully take out tonsils for profit. George Bush is our Emmanuel Goldstein whom we must hate collectively each morning for a couple of minutes.

Now, are there really people who believe that obvious, laughable falsehoods are true? The continuing popularity of horoscopes says, “yes”. Additionally, the continued prosperity of those who peddle theories about things like the Kennedy assassination and aliens at “Area 51” demonstrate the unwillingness of people to contradict those who will state something with great earnestness. This is especially true if the person making the assertion has a college degree and/or has published a book. We can be suckered and even when not easily taken in, we are ill-disposed to make trouble by calling a huckster on his scam.

The unfortunate thing for us is that those who are most susceptible to this sort of thing managed to elevate one of their own to the White House this past November. This is not to say that Obama, himself, believes in horoscopes and Kennedy conspiracies (though I’ll bet money he does, at least, believe in some sort of Kennedy conspiracy) – but those who most ardently back him are that incapable of critical thought and/or unwilling to contradict what they see as the consensus. In short, we’re dealing not just with nitwits, but nitwits holding power.

Now, we must not excuse this. The knaves who vend and the fools who swallow are responsible for their actions. The con artists are, of course, engaged in an act of deception and know they are doing it – but the rubes who believe it are not innocent victims. No, not at all – you see, once a person steps in to a false position, only a humble admission of error will get him out of it. You’d think this would be easy to do but the fact that God had to come down here and sacrifice himself in order to redeem us from our sins indicates our unwillingness to admit error. Its much easier – and appears safer – for the gullible to keep up the pretense. To, in a large sense, become part of the con – there being a false sense of safety in having larger numbers believe the lie.

We can’t argue these people out of their position – because, once again, they’d have to admit error. Personal error; the hardest thing to do (come now, you know it is – how often have you reviewed your errors and discovered a hundred reasons to justify or mitigate your sin?). All we can do is fend them off and delay them until we regain power – and once we do regain power, we really have to root-and-branch this sort of thing out of our public life. We must, once and for all, expose these liars for what they are – lest they come back, again, with new lies to deceive the people.

A timely warning:

What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving. – Jeane Kirkpatrick