The Insidious Welfare State: suicide

... when it comes to state hand-outs and social ills Britain always seems to be a shade worse than other countries, its insidious influence more pronounced; physician-author Theodore Dalrymple has a theory: traditionally it was the Church and the monasteries that cared for the poor; with the onset of Protestantism the monasteries were abolished and Queen Elizabeth I established the first 'welfare state' in Britain; given its age, its ills and evils are far more engrained in Britain than elsewhere - surely a sign of things to come on a global scale ...

EURSOC: "Civilisations Commit Suicide"

(...) "Last week I visited (as a doctor) a family in a council estate. The mother was concerned about her 12 year old son. She was very pleased that her older son was now on incapacity and would therefore do well for himself in terms of money. There is nothing wrong with this older boy that makes him incapacitated, but that is another story. She also had a 14 year old daughter, who while I was there, constantly argued with her mother demanding money for cigarettes. The three children had three different fathers, all absent. The kids, while I could see were still children, gleamed with malignant insolence. I can see them turning into damaged adults. I feel sorry for the trap they are in – the trap created directly by the welfare state whereby the family, and all those in the neighbourhood, see welfare as a lifestyle option. They live in squalor but have more wealth than most people I knew in India; they certainly have more material comforts than I ever had growing up in Delhi.

"The Guardian describes such families as poor. The Labour party wants to throw money at the family. The Guardian readers blame Margaret Thatcher for this state of affairs, smug in their modern pieties, their intellectual laziness, and their stupidity masquerading as sanctimonious concern. I used to work with slum children in Delhi; they had very little, but even the most physically disabled amongst them made an effort. "There is no hope for Britian. Civilisations dont die, they commit suicide. And before they commit suicide, they read and believe the Guardian.

"I truly and deeply feel sorry for all the children who are the victims of the welfare state. Things are much, much worse for the slum children in India, I saw more dignity among them and certainly greater hope. "I am not sure if you will understand this message. I am too tired to explain further. Either you will get or you wont. Either way, it will make no difference to anything." (...) >>>

Nov 27, 2008
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The McCain-Palin Ticket: objective analysis

“If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”

– John McCain, May 25, 2006 (video footage)

File closed and continued in "GOP, the Loyal Opposition"
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... with objective analysis how both policy proposals would work out in practice ... RECOMMENDED reading ...

WSJ: "McCain's Honor"

A curiosity of this Presidential campaign has been the way former media idolaters of John McCain have suddenly turned on him. (...) John McCain of this campaign is the same as he ever was. The former Navy pilot's politics has always been more personal than ideological. His core convictions are duty, honor and country. He has always been passionate to the point of being impulsive, an unguided policy missile until he locks on target. Then he can be tenacious, and sometimes moralistic. These traits have characterized the McCain candidacy for better or worse and, we suspect, would also mark his Presidency. What the media can't say with a straight face is that they are shocked by any of this; they should admit they've simply found a new romance in Barack Obama. (...) >>>

2nd Nov 2008
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... The Press From Hell are at it again - CNN proudly present their exclusive with Sarah Palin and transcribe it, replete with ehh...ehm ... headlined in screaming graphics in the email quote Palin exclusive: I'm more experienced than Obama unquote - so she is, and that's OBJECTIVELY TRUE ...

CNN: "Palin discusses potential plans for America"

"It's going to be government reform because that, that is what I've been able to do as a mayor and as a governor, you, you take on the special interests and the self-dealings. Yep, you ruffle feathers and you have the scars to prove it," Palin said Tuesday in an interview with CNN's Drew Griffin. (...) >>>
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... and the old war horse is analyzed after ingratiating himself as a turncoat - an Internet rumor has it he's a partner in a clean tech business that has quite a bit to gain from a green tenure ...

WSJ: "Powell Catches the Beltway Breeze - An endorsement of Obama dictated by political winds."

read it all >>>

22nd Oct 2008
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... welcome the agent provocateur (that's a classic!) - this entire thing of 'Mcnasty and his mad followers' has all the hallmarks of a classic agitator set-up ... it has the same phony feel of the stage managed "Kosovo genocide" - I'll tell ya, the media are either in the tank or exceedingly stupid (and no one would ever believe that): WSJ: "The Angry Right-Some disturbing--and embarrassing--behavior by McCain supporters" (...) t

American Thinker: "Sabotaging GOP rallies"

The left is fighting a battle to define Republicans, as exemplified by Sarah Palin (who horrifies them), as a frightening mob, not just unfair to Barack Obama, but a clear and present danger.
Rick Moran defines the 'angry mob' meme, and the double standard at work in media coverage today in a superb AT blog. We have to take these efforts to discredit us seriously. Agents provocateurs cannot be ruled out. We know that leftists infiltrate GOP rallies with intent to harm. The sneering left has outed itself on Kos and Mother Jones, by publishing a picture of a leftist infiltrator, who carefully placed herself to be picked up by cameras. (...) >>>

14th Oct 2008
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... sounds like a political tag to a judicial verdict (or is it? it's an bipartisan ethics committee) ... the US is becoming a banana republic (God keep us all) ...

“Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda,” the report concludes."

... is it "advancing a personal agenda" to help withdraw from society a loose state trooper, whose moral compass is clearly faulty (tasering a 10 year old)? ...

Thanks to Palin: "SHOCKING: Democratic Ethics Probe Says Palin Abused Her Power"

The troopergate issue has ended in a Democratic-led ethics probe saying Palin was unethical in firing Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan. But, they admitted that she did NOT fire Monegan for his refusal to dismiss Mike Wooten, a state tooper. Instead, they say she abused her power by refusing to stop her husband from using state resources to encourage the firing of Wooten. If that’s not a thin enough case for you, then let me remind you that Mike Wooten, ex-husband of Palin’s sister, was accused of threatening the Governor as well as using a taser on a 10 year old. (...) >>>

12th Oct 2008
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CNN: "Panel: Palin abused power in trooper case"

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her power as Alaska's governor and violated state ethics law by trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from the state police, a state investigator's report concluded Friday. "Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda," the report states. (...) The investigator's report states Palin's efforts to get Wooten fired broke a state ethics law that bars public officials from pursuing personal interest through official action.

The lawyers representing both Sarah and Todd Palin issued a three-page attack on the investigative report, including the contention that Ethics Act violations can only involve financial motives and financial "potential gain, or the avoidance of a potential loss." "Here, there is no accusation, no finding and no facts that money or financial gain to the Governor was involved in the decision to replace Monegan," the lawyers said. Any abuse of power, they said, was on the part of the Legislative Council members, not the Palins. "Sen. French and Sen. Green may have abused their government power by using public money to pursue a personal vendetta against the Governor, and then agreeing to pursue the PSEA attack against an administration that would not cave in to outrageous union demands." "Put bluntly, Branchflower completely misapplied the Ethics Act and has instead sought to create a headline to smear the Governor," the lawyers wrote.

About 1,000 more pages of documents compiled during the inquiry will remain confidential because they involve private personnel matters, according to the council's chairman, state Sen. Kim Elton. "I believe that these findings may help people come to a conclusion on how they should vote" in the presidential election, Elton said. McCain-Palin campaign spokeswoman Meg Stapleton said Palin would cooperate with the Personnel Board investigation. The Palins' lawyer has said an investigator named by that board wants to question them in late October. Stapleton called the investigation "a partisan-led inquiry" run by supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, but hailed its finding that Monegan's firing broke no law.

"Gov. Palin was cleared of the allegation of an improper firing, which is what this investigation was approved to look into," she said. Stapleton went on to say that the Legislature exceeded its mandate in finding an ethics violation. "Lacking evidence to support the original Monegan allegation, the Legislative Council seriously overreached, making a tortured argument to find fault without basis in law or fact." Rep. John Coghill, a Republican who criticized the handling of the investigation, said it was "well-done professionally." He said Palin "bumped right against the edges" of the state's ethics laws but that he would give "the benefit of the doubt to the governor, though, at this point." (...)

The state senator managing the probe, Sen. Hollis French, fueled those complaints with a September 2 interview in which he warned the inquiry could yield an "October Surprise" for the GOP. But Palin's lawyers already had begun pushing for the state Personnel Board to launch its own investigation, calling it the proper legal venue for the matter. "The report speaks for itself," French told CNN Friday night. >>>

11th Oct 2008
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The Minority Report: "The Absurdity of the Keating 5 Smear"

The McCain campaign pushed back hard against the new Obama attack over the Keating Five, arguing that the Arizona senator was treated unfairly by the Senate ethics investigation and asserting that John McCain had been much more open about his relationship with disgraced thrift executive Charles Keating than Obama has been about his connection with one-time radical William Ayers. In a conference call with reporters this afternoon, John Dowd, the Washington lawyer who represented McCain during the Senate investigation, called the inquiry a "classic political smear job" by the Democrats running the Senate at the time, saying that they only included McCain to make sure that a Republican was among the targets. "John had not done anything wrong," Dowd said. (...)

In an interview, Bennett said McCain should never have been dragged into the ethics case to begin with. He said that after his own lengthy investigation, he came to the conclusion that the case against McCain and former Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) “should have been dropped” because the evidence suggested that once McCain understood that the Justice Department was investigating Keating, he backed off any involvement. Dowd noted that McCain threw Keating,once a strong supporter, out of his office after Keating pressed him to intervene in his case. (...) >>>

6th Oct 2008
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Regarding the Veep Debate: Palin vs Biden:

- The Next Right: Matt Moon Live Blogs the Debate
- Politeia: "Palin vs Binden: the fourteen lies he told"
- Ms Underestimated: "Sara’cuda Vs. Joe ‘Gaffemaster’ Biden" (includes the complete debate on video)
- Thanks to Palin: "In Case You Missed It"
- Glenn Beck: "Battle of the Headlines - VP debate" (here are Glenn's debate notes)
- NewsMax: "Palin Gets Rave Reviews for Debate"
- Culture 11: "Did Katie Couric win the election for John McCain last night?", by Justin Hart
- Front Page Magazine: "The "Pit Bull" Returns"
- Mensa Barbie: "Bravo Governor Palin!! (VP08!)"
- Atlas Shrugs: "Palin Wins Debate"
- PJM: "Palin Steps Up and Stuns", by Jennifer Rubin

2nd Oct 2008
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The official sites:

- McCain-Palin Campaign official website
- National Black Republican Association
- Not Ready Yet rapid response to Obama Campaign

Private initiatives:
- Thanks to Palin, the Exciting GOP ticket
- Sarah Palin for America, Vice President of the United States - "Change we really can believe in"
- Dissecting the Palin Rumor Mill - keeping tally of the smear machine: 91 to date
- The Palin Lipstick Brigade
- The Other McCain
- Women for Palin
- Jews for Sarah Palin
- Precise News: Palin all the time

Related:

- "The Pomo White House"
- "Americana"


To archive >>>