The jihadi virus in our jails
Photo source: NYPost
The jihadi virus in our jails
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009
President Obama’s speech on homeland security was 6,072 words long. Curiously, he chose not to spare an “a,” “and,” or “uh” on the New York City terror bust that dominated headlines the morning of his Tuesday address. Did the teleprompter run out of room?
After a year-long investigation launched by the Bush administration, the feds cracked down on a ring of murder-minded black Muslim jailhouse converts preparing to bomb two Bronx synagogues and “eager to bring death to Jews.” They also planned to attack a New York National Guard air base in Newburgh, New York, where the suspects lived and worshiped at a local mosque.
Not one word from the president on the jihadists’ intended victims, motives, or means.
No comfort for the reported targets in the Big Apple, still raw from the Scare Force One rattling that so vainly and recklessly simulated 9/11.
No condemnation for the accused plotters.
Why? Because doing so would force Obama to abandon his cottony “extremist ideology” euphemisms and confront the concrete truth. To borrow one of our obtuse president’s favorite clichés, “let me be perfectly clear” about the reality Obama won’t touch: America faces an ongoing Islamic jihad at home and abroad. Not merely “man-caused.” But Koran-inspired. Yet, Obama refuses to spell out the centuries-old roots of the war that he claims he’ll win faster, better, and cleaner than any of his predecessors.
Moreover, his push to transfer violent Muslim warmongers into our civilian prisons – where they have proselytized and plotted with impunity– will only make the problem worse. A brief refresher course for the Left’s amnesiacs about the festering jihadi virus in our jails and overseas:
In 2005, Bush administration officials busted a terrorist plot to attack infidels at military and Jewish sites in the Los Angeles on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 or the Jewish holy days. It was devised by militant Muslim converts of Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (Arabic for “Assembly of Authentic Islam”) who had sworn allegiance to violent jihad at California’s New Folsom State Prison.
Jose Padilla, the convicted terror conspirator, converted to Islam during a stint at a Broward County, Fla., jail and reportedly fell in with terrorist recruiters after his release. Convicted Shoe Bomber Richard Reid converted to Islam with the help of an extremist imam in a British prison.
Aqil Collins, a self-confessed jihadist turned FBI informant, converted to Islam while doing time in a California juvenile detention center. At a terrorist camp in Afghanistan, he went on to train with one of the men accused of kidnapping and beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
In East Texas, inmates were recruited with a half-hour videotape featuring the anti-Semitic rants of California-based Imam Muhammad Abdullah, who claims that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were actually carried out by the Israeli and U.S. governments.
Federal corrections officials told congressional investigators during the Bush years “that convicted terrorists from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing were put into their prisons’ general population , where they radicalized inmates and told them that terrorism was part of Islam.”
Despite the insistence of Obama and the Jihadi Welcome Wagon that our civilian prisons are perfectly secure, convicted terror helper Lynne Stewart helped jailed 1993 World Trade Center bombing/NY landmark bombing plot mastermind Omar Abdel-Rahman smuggle coded messages of Islamic violence from the imprisoned sheik to outside followers in violation of an explicit pledge to abide by her client’s court-ordered isolation.
As I’ve reported previously, U.S. Bureau of Prison reports have warned for years that our civilian detention facilities are major breeding grounds for Islamic terrorists. There are still not enough legitimately trained and screened Muslim religious leaders to counsel an estimated 9,000 U.S. prison inmates who demand Islamic services. Under the Bush administration, the federal prison bureaucracy had no policy in place to screen out extremist, violence-advocating Islamic chaplains; failed to properly screen the many contractors and volunteers who help provide religious services to Islamic inmates; and shied away from religious profiling.
What’s Obama’s plan to prevent the jihadi virus from spreading? Washing hands and covering mouths won’t work for this disease.
***
More from the NYPost on the jailhouse conversions of the would-be synagogue bombers:
Richard Williams said that his 32-year-old nephew fell under the sway of dangerously radical Islamo-fascists while serving time on drug charges — and that he became “brainwashed” after his mother died and his ex-wife fought him for custody of their child.
“They played on his weaknesses and what was going on with his family,” Richard said. “He was brainwashed and manipulated in the system.”
Authorities say Onta Williams fell in with his three alleged co-conspirators, James Cromitie, 45, David Williams, 28, and 37-year-old Laguerre Payen, at a Newburgh mosque, where they bonded when they discovered they were all ex-cons.
Relatives and friends of the other three men charged in the horrific plot to blow up two Bronx synagogues and shoot down an Air National Guard plane said the men never expressed any interest in terrorism. But they all quickly developed a deep interest in Islam in jail.
Williams’ uncle — who himself once served 10 years on a drug charge — said he was familiar with prison converts to Islam.
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Trackbacks
- Tel-Chai Nation
- The “Jihad Virus” « Gunservatively!
- One of the Reasons That I Want Gitmo To Stay Open | Pirates! Man Your Women!
- Jihadi Jailbirds - The Underground Conservative
- Muslim Terrorists Offer To Lay Down Their Arms, Renounce Terrorism, To Thank Obama For Closing Gitmo « Peace and Freedom Promises
- Obama’s New/Old Plan For Terrorists | NEOAVATARA
- American Jihadists in our Prison system | Generic Rant - NOT usually Politcally Correct!
- PAXALLES
- Black Muslims: An Overlooked Threat to Domestic Security? « The Right Knight
- Bookworm Room » Islam and prisoners *UPDATED*
- Michelle Malkin » Supermax: No, we’re not ready, President Obama
- Jihad is Real and It’s Still in New York : Stop The Liberals Now
- Jules Crittenden » Everyone Else Did
- The Greenroom » Forum Archive » WaPo tells terrorism story from wrong point of view
- Jihadi scum within the US jails | Fire Andrea Mitchell!
- Forget Cheney, Obama Has Trouble On Gitmo: From Judith Miller, Michelle Malkin, Joe Biden….. « Peace and Freedom Promises
- Why would Notre Dame grant Obama an honorary degree? The text. « Jim Blazsik
- Obama & Cheney Duke It Out on National Security — Majority of Americans Support Cheney More per Informal MSNBC Poll « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- Biden Speaks: On Guantanamo, Obama Doesn’t Have a Clue « DONE (Democrats Over Nominating Elitists)
- The Jihadi Virus Morey Warned About
- Jules Crittenden » Jump-Shark Waterboarded!
- Imagine Jihadi Mentality in U.S. Prisons ~ Imagine President Obama’s Plan : Thinking it through… or Just something to think about…
- Democrats Worried: Cheney vs. Obama, America’s National Security, Keeping Us Safe from Terrorist Attacks (video links) « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- U.S. Jails: Breeding Ground for Islam | Be John Galt
- Saturday Afternoon - Short Version - Laundry Time , An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings
- Cheney Scores With National Security Speech « Nice Deb
- Be a Dick like Cheney | Ft. Hard Knox
- WHERE’S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE ($45K in 5 days for ‘truth and transparency’ billboard campaign) « Goodtimepolitics
- Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog » Blog Archive » “The Jihadi Virus in Our Jails” By Michelle Malkin
- What I’m Reading: Things You Should Read, Too « Fastidious
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- Obama’s Speech in Cairo: 6,000 Words and What Some are Already Saying - Updated w/ Even More Stuff Other People Are Saying | All American Blogger
- Jihadists in American prisons — Cranach: The Blog of Veith
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Categories: Homeland Security, Islam
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I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.
Anybody check out dKOS lately?
Ragspierre said:
Don’t you have to destroy something first, before you can “remake” it?
I think the demolition crews are already in action. Haven’t some U.S. financial companies and car companies already been destroyed, and are now in the process of being remade in Obama’s image?
Actually I am afraid of the leftist lawyers like Lynn Stewart who sympathize with terrorists and will smuggle notes out for their buddies plotting other attacks.
I’m also miffed at the thought of paying thousands in taxes to be paid to some leftist lawyer and their support staff riding the gravy train to litigate every little detail of Mr. Nice Terrorists existence.
Uh…the too little sunlight lawsuit is being filed next week, this week is the chunky peanut butter suit, but the week after is the invasion of privacy suit for reading your mail.
Of course there is none. It is a typical blanket attack where he was pushed into a corner, thus lashes out with the old tried and true, “Everyone in the military is a baby raping, killing, murderous thug and that’s OK with Christians” number.
Yeah, there are people in the military who have committed crimes. See, the military, like any other organization, has a large number of different people in it. There is NOTHING anywhere that states, “Once a person takes the Oath into the military and puts on a uniform, that person will forever be magically removed from all human frailties and issues. They are now pure as the driven snow and will remain such.”
No, they are no different than anyone else, other than the fact they chose to serve their country. There are SEVERAL MILLION people serving in this nation’s military. The law of averages states that in any said number of people, there will be a certain number who are rapists, criminals, murderers, and other bad things.
So, since there was a rape in your town at some point last year, can we state that everyone in that town in a rapist?
If someone in your company is arrested for embezlement, can we then state that everyone at your company are theives?
No, but Liberals will go ahead and claim that because someone who is a criminal was in the military, committed a crime and was caught, therefore the entire military is guilty, and anyone who dares support said military now, by default, has no issue what-so-ever with rapists…so long as they are in uniform,
This is known as Lib-think. The only ones that can understand said Lib-think is another Lib, for it leaves the rational minded scratching their heads wondering just what kinds of chemical intoxicants their mothers repeatedly used while they were in the womb that created such a warped thought pattern.
They cannot provide a shred of evidence anywhere that shows ANYONE supporting anyone in the military raping, murdering or committing crimes. But that is not the issue. It is just enough to make the claim, then the other sycophants will all nod, cluck their teeth and do the “superior dance” on the way to the bong.
Bush didn’t end EIT’s, they were still available if it was determined that some jihadi had information and he needed it.
As for bailout mania, Bush did take one step in that direction, at the suggestion of Hank Paulson, a democrat, without regard to fixing problems caused by other democrats like Barney the Frank, Dodd and Clinton. Bush has been soundly criticized for doing it.
It was Urkel who went wild with changing what Bush passed, strong-arming private business, flat-out ignoring the law regarding secured creditors, and threatening others…while bailing out numerous entities he wants to control, or to pay back the UAW. In contrast to Bush, Urkel has been applauded and encouraged to do more by his sycophants.
Really? Is that what they are using in Iraq and Afghanistan? Well, considering the noise all you Liberals have been making since 2002, I thought it was something a bit more than that. After all, why were they wanting all the extra armor? Super sharp sticks?
Or is that some sort of sideways slam at the military for not having finished them off, since we have the big guns and the enemy is one step away from a Geico commercial?
No, see, we are concerned about those that are attempting to obtain nuclear material, whether in actual bomb form or in a different manner which can be used to irradiate several city blocks causing pandemonium and death. We are concerned with those planning and plotting to murder men, women and children in the name of their moon god simply because we do not ascribe to their way of thought.
But it is the unbelieveably idiotic and backwards thinking of immature, moronic children such as yourselves that has allowed this to continue the way it has, has hamstrung the men and women fighting this war with assinine rules of engagement, and who believes that these “stick and rock throwers” deserve American privileges and rights, even when they are in BLATANT violation of the Geneva Convention as well as any and all modern “rules” of warfare.
Keep that head in the sand, and make sure to save your voice. I am sure you will be one of the louder ones who is screaming and whining about why more wasn’t done to stop them, all the while pretending that the crap you did to hinder the process never happened.
At least the Internet is forever, so for whatever good it will do anyone, at least people will be able to trace who it was who mocked this when they should have been working to stop them.
You know, I just love these arguments that they keep using. “Well Bush did this too, and he did that too etc., etc., etc.,”
Oh, OK…so if he jumped off a bridge, Obama should have too?
Criminy, did you see anyone here claiming what Bush was doing was a GOOD THING? No! We were all decrying it as WRONG!
And just because what he did was wrong does not make what Obama did correct. Instead, what it does is make it WORSE because we saw that it did not help. In response, Obama spent BILLIONS MORE. So what is the Liberals and Democrat response? Nothing more than an immature, Kindergarten playground response of, “Oh yeah? Well he did it first.”
Real nice.
I guess I am currently living in a constant state of thoughtlessness and gracelessness, because I feel the same way all the time.
Yes it does seem that way. It is becoming intolerable to live with socialists and socialism. I daydream about seceding and starting a new Republic, just as it was meant to be… I will not submit to their tyranny.
Most cowards can’t look into the eyes of the person they plan to betray.
Notice how their Islamic names are not being used? The MSM has a tendancy to do that to draw attention AWAY from the fact they were Muslim and that this was an act of Islamic terror. Same with the shoe bomber, the dirty bomber, the Washington D.C. Sniper…
Scumbag Dirtball is Islamic?
Yeah, but as soon as I heard the target was a Jewish synagogue, I knew it was Muslims.
Thats not my point, my point is that when Bush passed a bailout, saving Bear Sterns, took over AIG, Fannie, and Freddie, he wasn’t called a socialist by most Republicans. When Obama did it he was. Also, can’t anyone one here come to admit to themselves that Bush left an HUGE mess. So far Obama has done a good job of stabilizing a financial system that was teetering on collapse. Now I agree there is much to be seen as to whether this is just temporary or we have really hit the bottom. Also, I am very concerned about or national debt, the deficits, as well as the dollar. However, lets be real here, even if Obama didn’t pass the bailout package and we just continued the same budget as last year, we would still be facing massive deficits for years to come. Why? Because entitlement spending is rising rapidly year after year, and during a recession tax receipts are down dramatically. If Bush had been as fiscally responsible as Clinton, and kept running up surpluses instead of passing massive tax cuts and engaging in the war in Iraq, we would be in ALOT better position then we are now. However, Bush knew the only way to winover Republicans is to buy there vote through passing tax cuts and passing the bill on to the grandkids.
Why admit to an untrue, you guys always lead off with it was Bush, Bush, Bush’s fault. There is so many others with their fingers in that pie, Clinton…. Frank, Dodd, Reid…. and the Dem list goes way long on the loan shinanigans. 2002 Frank said Fannie and Freddie were “GREAT” when President Bush called those crapweasels in Congress out on it, so did McCain. “The Mess” you say was created, invented, used, abused and scammed to the Hilt by….. drumroll….. your buddies, “THE DEMS” but if it turns your ears red to blame Bush for everything, go for it, that Mantra is getting O.L.D.
Have a nice Memorial Day.
Dang, all Shuttle landings postponed until Sunday, and if thats not good, Cali here they come.
Wow, I was under the misunderstanding that the Republicans controlled congress and the White House till 2007. I guess I was wrong on that count. So to sum up your argument, Bush who was in office for 8 years leading up to and including the financial meltdown bears no responsibility for the meltdown. Democrats who controlled congress for about a little less than two years are as well Obama who has been in office for about 3 months are the real culprits. What exactly was Bush doing in all those years? I mean he bears no responsibilities for anything that happened on his watch. OH thats right he kept America safe, well if you just exclude that minor blip in his protection on 9/11/01, but then again that was Clinton’s fault. Please lay off the Fox News and enter the real world.
Tax cuts alone cannot solve the problem and create a sustained and prosperous economy. There must also be a MAJOR reduction in the size of government and its out of control spending on social programs.
Don’t try to put words in my mouth free. I said…. “A lot of fingers in that pie”
Stop being so myopic on Bush and get the Facts.
I agree that sources and methods should not be released. (Although, that horse has already left the barn.)
I am asking to see the results. We have seen the pizza guy arrested and booked. Where are the LA attackers? We were told the plot was thwarted. OK, fine. We were told that information was learned from EIT. OK, fine. Where are the perps? Have they been shot? Are they going on trial? A little verification is all I ask, otherwise we are being asked to “trust us.”
I am with Pres Reagan when he said, ‘trust but verify.’ Are you with Pres Reagan on this?
OK
OK
Though I would like to see everything, well, as much as can be released without compromising sources, methods and individuals. For instance, I would like to know the questions asked during EIT. My hope is that one question was, “Where are Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar?”
Why, yes. Yes, you were. Consistent, and so the Z-troll would approve.
“Control of Congress” is far too broad. If the GOP were “in control”, dozens of federal judges would have been appointed timely, instead of leaving some districts around the country in “emergency” status for lack of judges to fill the bench.
Had the GOP been in “control”, when Mr. Bush, Mr. McAnus, and several others warned of the impending housing bubble caused by the market distortions passed by Congress, and mau-maued by Janet Reno, they would have effected change. Instead, they were blown off by Bawney Frank-lover (yes, pun intended), Maxine Waters and their corrupt ilk.
I could go on.
But the GOP was NOT in “control”. They could have been. They had every right to be. And many, many of us here wonder why they were not….
In that case, I sure hope California has not already cut the budget to maintain the landing strip out there. Just kidding. But I do hope they can make it to Florida for their landing!! Prayers for their safety.
“the Republicans controlled congress “and the White House till 2007.”
To say that the Republicans, including President Bush, are not responsible in some way for the mess would of course be untrue. Bush does share some of the responsibility. He could have, at least should have, known and addressed it. But to put the mess at the feet of the Republicans because they “controlled” anything is also untrue. There is plenty of blame to go around and if one wants to honestly and with integrity assess blame then Regan gets some, Bush #1 gets some, Clinton and his buddies get some, Bush 2 gets some.
Really the President was impotent compared to the all powerful Barney Frank and Maxine Waters. He somehow was able to muscle through the congress two massive tax cuts and an enormous expansion of entitlement programs, i.e. Medicare Part D, but he could not put in the regulations needed to reign in the financial industry. Also, if you believe the problems began and ended with Fannie and Freddie, than you have no concept of what happened. Yes they played a part in the mess, but it was also caused by the lack of regulation of derivatives products and the very wrong view by many on Wall Street that housing prices would never go down. The SEC was AWOL and Bush had no desire to reign in his pals on wall street with more regulation. Firms were allowed to leverge themselves 40-1 and grow too big too fail. All this while Bush’s economic policy’s failed to keep job growth on pace with population, wages stagnated, and household wealth was all derived from the temporarily inflated value of peoples homes. All the while Bush promoted this inflation with his drive for the “Ownership Society.” I will grant you Democrats share some of this blame, but the majority goes to the majority, Bush and his Republican friends in congress.
Happy, they scratched California also.
For today anyway……
Free, I have determined from your last response you are not acquainted with reality.
Thank you for playing our game. We want you to leave with our consolation prize; a HopeyChange soap-on-a-rope in the likeness of THE ONE.
Great response, very detailed. I work on Wall Street in a firm that traded heavily in CDS ( Credit Default Swaps), and know how these products have destroyed firms. I dont know your knowledge level and the subject, but am confident to say mine is at least on par with yours. Anyway, its been fun debating, but Im off the enjoy my Memorial Day weekend. I hope you all have a good weekend too!
Enjoy. Be safe.
Lets just shoot them and get it done.
If they were on the battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan, they probably would be shot. I haven’t heard of any prisoners being taken lately, have you? They finally got the message…prisoners are too much trouble and we don’t even know what to do with the ones we have now!
If you really think all that is true freemind, I suggest you need a new sign on. You cherry pick rather conveniently.
Gitmo is the greatest tool since the screwdriver. All these libtards are sooooooo wrong on this one, especially Odopey.
Bush was, again, SOUNDLY DENOUNCED for passing any kind of bailout. Fannie and Freddie? As AJM said, look at your own party for some serious culpability in why that money pit went down the tubes. Would it have anything to do with creative accounting by the heads of that organization (Jamie Gorelick included) who manipulated their books to maximize their yearly bonuses? Down to the penny? How about the connections of some in that group to members of your party? Why would Frank protect them from oversight?
See above.
They may not have hit bottom, but he’s done a good job?
If you truly had a clue about what you are talking about here, you would be VERY concerned with the dictatorial actions of Obama just in the last 45 days.
So….entitlement spending may contribute to deficits. I guess you should get a golf clap for at least recognizing that. Why are they rising? Which party seeks to expand them even more?
Clinton fiscally responsible? In what manner? He was forced to sign welfare reform by a Republican congress so he would get re-elected. I don’t recall any other way he could be considered fiscally responsible…including the war he started in Bosnia…where we still have troops. Weren’t they supposed to be out of there by Christmas 1996? How much is that costing?
Tax cuts allow TAXPAYERS to keep more of their money to invest or spend as they see fit, growing the economy, and resulting in more tax revenue (due to the increased spending in the private sector) to the treasury.
Oh, and Bush and the Republicans have tried to be fiscally responsible regarding Medicare and Social Security (entitlements??) for years now, yet the donks refuse to do anything about it.
When it collapses, will you be blaming Bush for that too?
But, you forgot Halliburton!!!
You truly are a leftist….most have no shame showing how shockingly ignorant they are in public…like you have done with the above comment.
Congress, lead by your party, just passed a $3.5 TRILLION budget…and you are concerned with the paltry sums Bush may have added to the deficit?
Do you suppose your socialist representatives in Congress, who added massive sums of pork to every bill passed after 2006 had anything to do with adding to the deficit?
You really need to find a better source for your talking points because they are rather inadequate, and you don’t have the ability to enhance them.
A reasoned discussion, thank you.
I believe the article linked above in the comments (at CNN no less)
Bush details foiled 2002 al Qaeda attack on L.A.
from 2006 provided pretty good detail.
I got the sense from reading it more details/players may not have been known at that time, and KSM may have had the wood (or water) put to him to find the other cells/individual operators.
A 4 man cell is pretty small, particularly if each could care out their own operation individually.
KSM getting caught, Richard Reid getting caught, the TSA changes in airline security regarding shoes and carry-on liquids (which I believe was a result of a specific group) the airline in Russia being blown up….
The time line fits with getting good information from KSM once he had his face washed.
The only other question I have then is…if Pelosi knew some of this, even a little, or knew what was gained, what other member of Congress also knew, yet took a public stance against EIT’s, Gitmo, Bush, etc.?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30896807/
Sounds like a great Dimocrat candidate for Congress…
Fits the profile down to a “T”.
Freemind, that’s not what happened and you know it!
Deregulation, starting with President Reagan, built America into an economic power house by inspiring growth through investment, innovation and intellectual capital.
It was Democrats like Dodd and Frank who abused deregulation by circumventing its intents via the tools of government, specifically through taxation (constant revisions in shelters and limitations on credits above given amounts) and sponsored agencies (Fannie and Freddie), in order to line their own pockets and insure their political futures while making deregulation a scapegoat to cover their actions.
care=carry
Of course, you are asking all the wrong people.
Does Mr. Cheney want the information declassified?
Do we conservatives want the information declassified?
Who has the power to make that information public?
Does anyone on this thread have any power to make the information public?
When THE ONE tells people that he’s making the US safer, what have you done to make sure that you are not simply “trusting” an unsupported and irrational claim?
When did you write to people who have the power to release information in the current government, instead of a bunch of ordinary citizens?
How consistent are you?
There is MORE than adequate regulation.
That’s like saying Geitner cheated on his taxes because there isn’t enough tax law.
People with sufficient motive (incentives) will break any regulation they can’t circumvent. Regulations are like fixed fortifications…a monument to the folly of man. Cleaver, motivated people will ALWAYS find ways around, over, through, or under them.
When fascist economic policy…practiced by BOTH stinking Parties in this country…distorts markets on the fundamental level (as they have at VARIOUS times in my life-time) you eventually have a collapse. The S&L crisis, this current crisis, etc. Each time it happens, the culprits responsible froth at the mouth about a market failure, failure of regulation, and point in every direction but at themselves.
That’s the facts.
Hmmm…
More nails for Nancy “Perfidious” Pelosi’s coffin…
The media is not going to do anything to assist in Pelosi’s demise. Her lying is going to be and already has been ignored.
There is good news about this whole Pelosi thing though. Even though the media is being used to keep Pelosi in office the people I work with, mostly liberals, even THEY are talking about Pelosi obviously lying and the media not reporting it.
There will be a tipping point with all this leftist media stuff. Could be we are getting close to that point which will cause the masses to turn on the media and the left.
Oh, yeah…! People are getting it, even if it ISN’T via the MSM. The MSM has made itself an unnecessary and dispensable expense in most ordinary Americans’ view. Toilet-bound subscription rates and ratings. Well deserved.
Some of the comments at work today caught me kinda by surprise. Gotta wonder now that Obama is announcing “we” are out of money how much longer before those same folks start to wonder what they did when they voted for “The One”…..
I wish. I think the pot has to have the heat turned up before the frogs decide to jump out. Unfortunately, it may take another terrorist attack to do that.
Yep, so true.
The dangerous statist idiots themselves start a destructive fire; then, they scream frantically for more gasoline to be thrown onto it.
They’ve been doing it for decades.
Yeppers. The worm is already turning. Maybe not fast enough or hard enough…yet.
I loved the, “Dude, we’re out of money…!!!” speech! Trouble is, it was rolled into another call for a magical nationalized health-care plan that will SAVE money!!!
Soon, now… The tide is still going out, but will turn soon…
Tarred and Feathered, the best way I see P and VP leaving town.
While we’ve been off topic for awhile and I don’t like to contribute too much to getting on tangents, I find myself wondering when SOMEONE will ask Obama this question. “Mr. President. A few weeks ago you said it was our unregulated banking industry that was causing our problems. Before that unregulated Wall Street types. NOW you are saying it IS healthcare that caused this crisis. Just which one of these do you want us to belive is the real culprit sir? When you “fix” healthcare who will be the target of your blame next sir?”
Or this question….
“Along that trajectory, we will see health care cost as an overall share of our federal spending grow and grow and grow and grow until essentially it consumes everything…”
I think we are aware of the increase cost of health care Mr. President. I’d like to ask you two questions. 1. How do you place the entitlement mindset of many Americans and the entitlement mindset your party has encouraged in the mix so that one can understand the bigger picture regarding increases in health care spending? 2. When are you going to address tort reform and malpractice law suit regulation?
I just had a happy dream sequence…
THE ONE, forced by reality, converts to a liberty-loving, market respecting Reaganite. Got outside himself and the universe of Alinski and Ayers, and into the world of the American people. Sat down and read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers in the light of the Jefferson Memorial. Came to grips with what he was doing, and the costs he was imposing.
Think what a power for good that would be.
As I said…dreaming.
Shellie would kill him, personally, with her own well-toned hands.
http://www.forhealthfreedom.org/Publications/Choice/ThenAndNow.html
Since we are SO off-topic…
read that piece. Remember what I said about fascist economic policy distorting markets….
You can see the devolution of our health-care economics displayed right before your eyes.
I’ve been in health care since 1985. Been on both sides of the equation, provider and insurer. HMO’s were smoke and mirrors and cost shifting, not cost containment. It did not take long to squeeze every appearance of cost savings out of the “system” with the HMO or managed care framework.
Cost containment will come when we stop thinking of health care as a “right”, offer tort reform, allow people pay for and then see how much their desires to have every test and procedure known to mankind cost, we actually do ration healthcare in terms of offering pointless and costly medication-procedures-diagnostics to patients who bodies are worn out, we move from a fix me mindset to a prevent disease mindset, etc.
In other words, aint’ a snowball chance in hell we are going to change healthcare healthfully. It will be changed in a painful and most dysfunctional process imagineable.
You do know that an honest discussion about health care cost and reducing cost puts one on a path to butt heads with Mrs. Malkin right? You can’t get to doing everything and anything to sustain brain dead people AND be serious about cost controls. Sorry but there it is. These bleeding heart stories about one person here or there who after decades of being in a coma suddenly wakes up only tell part of the story. The incredible cost to keep folks who are in fact brain dead alive is usually lurks in the shadows. Getting health care cost under control means folks who are brain dead may need to be allowed to let their bodies catch up with their souls.
I can take you to so many places in just a mere 1/2 day filled with folks whose bodies are alive but their souls are gone, folks who are taking a huge chunk of health care dollars, that you’d be sick and depressed by lunch and wonder just what are we really doing with long term chronic disease brain dead patients in this country. I can take you to a building that houses nothing but those kinds of patients, on ventilators, at any given time 1/2 of them on antibiotics, feeding tubes, most of them have had all sorts of surgical procedures as their bodies seem to want to die, folks who are kept alive and we are paying for them.
The very same kind of folks that when the “system” says, “Hey its time to let them go…” we see a bazillion bleeding heart stories about how they are being murdered by a heartless and cruel system. AND the folks who may have a clue and understand why patients like that need to be let go, WE are told our faith is suspect.
There are plenty of places that need some serious consideration IF we are going to get health care cost under control.
But everything you said has this behind it; someone, other than the someone most intimately involved in the decision-making, will decide.
That is unacceptable to me, and to millions of others like me.
To argue that we each should make that decision up-stream of an ultimate extremity is fine, and I would totally support that.
But you…or I…are not in the place where we can say when a life is expendable unless and until we have the power to restore it. You…or I…may have an opinion as to when the soul is gone, or when it arrives. As things now stand, they are totally without merit, because they are based on nothing. You…or I…can’t say with any authority…knowledge…when those events occur.
So, until we can, we default to life. The alternative is to default to death, and I find that fundamentally unconscionable.
Now, as to the economics of all that, there are ways and means (as I noted above) for each of us to be provident in how we decide our egress should be conducted, and what means will be used for how long to forestall it. We can, and arguably should, face the disquieting certainty of our own mortality and its impact on those around us, and leave instructions that comport with our wishes.
But I will always resist any impulse to put that set of choices in the hands of a stranger. There is much about that concept that is profoundly wrong to me.
I know that there are ways and means to provide health-care in this nation via individual liberty and markets that return us to a system where we and our chosen care-givers are the deciders of what will and will not be done.
It is not as though that never happened, or is not happening now. Before the wage and price controls of WWII (again, fascist economic policy distorting markets), it was the norm in the US.
Millions of us (me included) are not beholden to anyone to pay our normal medical costs. We pay as we go. We are much more savvy consumers when there is no third-party payer.
“But you…or I…are not in the place where we can say when a life is expendable unless and until we have the power to restore it.”
Sorry but your framing is wrong and it is the kind of framing that ends up supporting a label on those of us in this industry who understand the wasted resources and the futility of it as being entrenched in some culture of death. As you have done. When we are not.
Setting this matter up as a culture of life, as in somehow you are better than a person like myself who by your premise is therefore part of a culture or decision of death, is precisely why we will continue to waste outrageous amounts of money on hopelessly lost and vegetative patients. I dare say most of whom IF they had a voice would have said long ago, “This is NOT how I want to live. Let me die…”
The funding issue might force the matter and remove it from the kind of framing you seem to insist on.
Keeping grandma or grandpa whose minds are gone and are being fed through a tube and live in a bed in a fetal position for a long time or baby john doe alive who due to a near drowning experience does nothing but spew endless streams of mucous out of her ET tube is NOT about chosen a culture of death or a culture of life.
It is about how some folks don’t like the way having to decide makes THEM feel. I’m sure you can connect the dots that much of this issue is selfishly motivated and we keep these folks alive so that the rest of us don’t “feel bad”.
Its all quite sickening and VERY expensive.
“I know that there are ways and means to provide health-care in this nation via individual liberty and markets that return us to a system where we and our chosen care-givers are the deciders of what will and will not be done.”
I will disagree. Not supporting socialized single payor healthcare of course. However the health care industry today and what it is, what it is capable of, the technology and skill now practiced in it means today’s health care is nothing like health care of WWII time frame. The idea that we can go back a funding it like we did “back then in the good old days” simply is illogical. If the health care system today was just like the “good old days”, okay. Maybe we could. Health care is very different in practice and the idea that it can be funded in the same way as it was ignores the huge and quite significant difference between then and now.
Really? In what way? I mean, considering that transportation was mostly by horse and mule in the US right up to WWII, and cars and trucks the exception. MARKETS changed that. They do that, you know.
And, considering that essentially NOBODY had a television set prior to WWII (they were toys for the very wealthy), how do you explain the fact that the average POOR American has at least one color TV and a recorder?
Our standard of living TENDS in that direction. What were once exotic EXPENSIVE procedures are now common-place and affordable. That is the way of markets. A cutting-edge imagining technique of a few years ago is now common and available in many places throughout the US, and affordable to people of ordinary means. IF market forces are allowed to work, they will become more so in a short time.
I find it disturbing that you think that someone…you, perhaps…should have the POWER to decide when Grandpa goes, when Grandpa can’t himself say, and when his next-of-kin (who have the legal right to stand as his proxies) continue to hope for Grandpa’s recovery.
Where would that POWER come from? I can only think of one agency…THE STATE. Give the state that power, to be used as you deem wise, and what guarantees it will stay within the bounds you set for it initially?
jsmiddleton4:
The only objection I have to the “brain dead” who are on life support is letting them die of starvation or thirst.
I don’t object if they or their loved ones decide to pull the plug. If they continue to live, then continue to feed and water them; if they die, their time was up.
And I agree with Ragspierre – no faceless bureaucrat has a right to decide – it’s up to the family.
The masses have been turning against the leftist media. Their bottom line and dropping subscriptions prove that.
Wow. So some bean-counting bureaucrat such as yourself should decide who gets whacked? Will you also decide exactly when they should be whacked? 1 month? 6 months? Will it matter if they have insurance or not?
I suggest we start first with some serious prison time, forfeiture of all assets and heavy fines for anyone involved in Medicare/Medicaid fraud. At the same time, ALL medical care provided to illegal aliens is immediately halted, then tort reform is implemented with loser pays as one part of it.
Once that is done, then move on to other areas to clean up health care, and there would be no need to start killing people because someone thinks they are a drain on the bottom line.
“So some bean-counting bureaucrat such as yourself should decide who gets whacked?”
So the best you and some others can do in reply is to make up some scenario about who will make the decision?
And if the family decides to keep a body alive that is no longer viable who pays? Which is the issue. Who pays for their deciding to avoid the pain of letting a body die? You? Me? You do know folks generally can’t afford what it cost. And even if they can, the “standard” that is set from which lawyers can sue is then established for all time. If it is/was the standard for one patient, it is the standard for all.
Nope, not much of an argument there propping up straw men.
People who know will decide. Generally physicians who have experience with what is left of a person’s body disease. As has been done already and for some time.
It is funny how quickly folks want to paint a Solyent Green scenario though. Quite hilarious.
Like I’ve already posted, framed in two ways, culture of life vs. culture of death. And that is a flawed framing.
“ALL medical care provided to illegal aliens is immediately halted”
Sorry but as a person of faith I can’t get to “ALL”. Limited? Yes. Stabilize and transport? Yes. “ALL”? Nope, can’t get behind “ALL”.
There is quite a lubricated and establish system to enroll immigrants, legal or otherwise, on to our state’s medicaid rooster. That has to stop. But that is part of shutting the border down and stopping illegal immigration.
But “ALL”? So a kid shows up at an ER because his/her parents brought him/her into the US illegally. You want to deny that kid care to stabilize them?
You did say “ALL”……
“killing people because someone thinks they are a drain on the bottom line.”
They are already dead!
…and so is any moral compass you thought you had.
ER’s, particularly those along the southern border are overrun with illegal aliens, hospitals are being forced to close…yet you have no problem cutting off someone you have decided is better off dead.
Take Religion out of Jail totally. Religion whether cults or mainstream, or a little bit of both pry on angry young men, where else but jail can you get this group of people?
Silky:
You’re throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Knew about this in California- the Prisons are hot beds of islamic activity- radical type also all the Universities…in the states
#248 silky said:
Oh yeah. I shiver at the prospect of hordes of newly-minted Roman Catholics streaming out of our prison systems, ready to take down the US Government and co-opt our way of life.
Might we admit to agree (just for a quick moment) that some religions are more deviant than others?
But Brian won’t that drive up the price of Friday Night fish frys?
And Bingo…don’t forget Bingo.
Hey…if you have to frisk grandma at the airport, you gotta worry about Catholics.
Not necessarily. I remember reading that Jesus once solved the whole “supply and demand” issue with not only fish, but with bread loaves as well.
I still wonder if #248’s basis for censoring Catholic prison chaplains is centered in:
1. A dangerous reality that I am not aware of, or…
2. A typically liberal, “Bill Maherish” knee-jerkiness, directed towards something that is greater than their own reality.
What about The Lutheran Revolutionay Guards…? Don’t forget the threat they pose…
Or the LDSAA (Latter-Day Saint Armed Accountants). BIG prison gang in Utah…
And, thank you. We, all of us, are well served by sharing our thoughts, asking questions, and not calling each other names.
I followed and read the provided link.
My sense from the article is that it was more of a compilation and back dating stringing facts together of separate and distinct events. (i.e., Twonsends comments were from a separate breifing.) Connecting dots that may have no connection. Speculations and guesses stated as facts. Not being forthcoming with the complete story.
Richard Reid is a bumbling nincompoop who got caught, not as the result of EIT, but because he was incapable of setting off his device.
Explore and examine what the article said. There were to be four men cells. OK, where are the other three guys that were supposed to be traveling with Reid? Very well, maybe Reid was a test run to see if explosives could be smuggled onto a plane. That seems logical to me and I accept that.
Understand the sequence of events. First Reid was caught, and then KSM was captured (in Pakistan.) It was big news and it is likely that KSM was aware of this. KSM was introduced to EIT and repeated the Reid story. I would confess to being the Queen of England if I were subject to EIT.
That being said, there was mention of recruits from South East Asia. Please note that Reid was a French citizen of North African descent. Mind you, yes Reid’s efforts may have been a trial run.
Hambali was arrested after KSM was captured. It is reasonable to believe that this was the result of KSM’s EIT.
The article mentions the arrest of the leader of a four man cell. OK, where is he? Tell me about the trial. Townsend was purposeful in not saying the arrested leader and Hambali are one in the same. She did not say they were different people either.
Note the skepticism of Sens. Rockerfeller and Feinstein at the end of the article.
The article raises more questions than it answers. I remain skeptical.
I am certain that there is a priori knowledge on the part of members of Congress. Yes, it is hypocritical to know and not complain about EIT then, and to complain about it later.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24pubed.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
If you read that piece, you will see clearly how sick the NYT really is.
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/ron_paul_guantanamo/2009/05/22/217350.html
We in Texas have known two things about Ron Paul for years…
1. He’s nuts
2. He is a lot of things, but a conservative is not one
As always, that is not to say he never has anything useful to say. He should just be kept COMPLETELY away from elective office…and sharp objects.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/627eoasp.asp
Bad Books Behind Bars
An inventory of extremist Islamic texts in federal prisons.
Why…?
Ragspierre:
I really wonder if Ron Paul lives in reality. While I admire his adherence to the Constitution, I think his foreign policy ideas are idiotic.
And his greatest liability are his supporters. Whew.
Paul, as I said, is not devoid of good, insightful stuff…on occasion.
Generally, he’s a self-described Libertarian. Problem with that is that he ran for Pres. under a false flag, or…as we say in Texas…he lied. He portrayed himself to be a conservative, which was no more true than Mr. McAnus’s claim.
He has a rep for party loyalty…with him being the party.
“…and so is any moral compass you thought you had.”
Yeah, I’m sure that’s accurate. I’m a member of the culture of death and I have lost my moral compass.
Just so you know, that kind of labeling and judgmentalism does nothing to help further the discussion nor contribute anything positive to the attempt to have a discussion with integrity. A discussion that will need to be had if we are serious about controlling the cost of health care.
My point has been adequately demonstrated by the many responses here.
IF we are going to have a serious and effective discussion and solutions in regards to the cost of health care, the attitudes reflected in many of the replies directed towards me, the attitudes folks who are posting them, it is your attitude that contributes to that cost.
The idea that everyone gets everything for as long as someone wants them to get that everything IS part of what drives the high cost of health care.
Labeling those of us who understand that reality and propose any alternative point of view being labeled as belonging to the culture of death or have lost our moral compass is an indication that we will not address health care cost effectively and healthfully.
Holding on to do everything for everyone for as long as someone wants that everything done is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
People who are dead, whose bodies have outlived their souls, folks who need to be let go AND letting them go has nothing to do with losing one’s moral compass nor being from a culture of death. Quite the contrary. It means I value life and my moral compass is quite intact.
You see I’m not so selfish regarding my own emotions that I allow avoiding pain to force another human being to suffer endlessly and needlessly.
How sad it is that other folks insist on preserving themselves from sadness and pain SO much, that they will doom another human being to endless days of nothingness to keep them alive at all cost.
Quite sad and the epitome of selfishness. Moral compass has been lost by which one of us?
Long term chronic diseases and how we care for those folks simply has to be addressed IF we are serious about managing health care cost. A healthy dialog about that issue will not be had if it is framed as can be seen in this very thread.
It isn’t going to be easy but it needs to be done. Like it or not.
That tracks very nicely with the Swiss model.
I go back to this question: Who do you propose to decide when we terminate life?
You keep going back to this shortage argument. Shortages are predictable results of market distortions.
Scarcity is a fact of life for ALL economic systems. There is always a scarcity of any thing or good. Markets are brilliant in MAKING people face the reality of scarcity, and compelling calibrated decisions about where they put their own SCARCE resources.
When you distort the market…as in shifting the payment for any good or thing to a third-payer…you have a PREDICTABLE shortage, because people will DEMAND more of that for which they are not required to have to pay.
You have never tried to explain how medical treatment is different now…fundamentally…from the period before WWII wage and price controls, which first started the market distortions for medical care. I understand why; you cannot.
Markets are the answer here, as in so many other areas that seem to present Gordian Knots. Some people consider their effect “magical”, and for good reason. They work.
Remove the market distortions for health care, and…almost by magic…people will find that DEMANDING what they cannot afford will cease. Some people will expend their scarce resources in ways you do not approve. That is called FREEDOM.
But that is your naked, unsupported opinion. Yours is not better than anyone’s who disagrees. YOU have decided they are “dead”. Others, with every bit as much validity and support, feel otherwise.
They elect, sometimes, life. You call them selfish. You are allowed, but you cannot expect others to concede that you are right, merely because you say it, no matter how sincerely. I sincerely think you are dead wrong.
The people in this country need to remember that if they want things to get worse, just let the government run it.
The proof is very easy to come by, ask yourself, have you ever voted for a bureaucrat?