TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES

CONSEQUENCES
By James Cook

I had a few hours to kill last Sunday before a flock of grandkids showed up to open Christmas presents.  Since I was caught up on my reading I clicked on the TV and channel surfed until I came across the 1965 movie, Dr. Zhivago, which was just starting.  The part I remembered and wanted to see again came about half way through the movie.  The doctor, played by Omar Sharif, had returned to Moscow after two years at the front in World War I.  The Bolsheviks were now firmly entrenched, running the country.
Zhivago had married into a wealthy family before the war and when he returned to their large and once lovely household he was in for a shock.  A couple of dozen shabbily dressed party members had taken over the house.  He and his family were relegated to one bedroom.  Any complaints about their misfortune would be cause for arrest.  They acquiesced to this theft of their property out of fear.
Frankly, the difference between the Russian Bolsheviks and today’s leftists in American isn’t that great.  They differ only by a matter of degree.  The Communists in Russia got everything you owned.  So far the liberals have only been successful in getting half of what you earn, plus half of what you own when you die.  Philosophically, the liberals, the Marxists and the socialist are blood brothers.  They all wish to address social injustice, raise taxes, put the government in control of the economy and redistribute the wealth of the nation through subsidies.  They’re heightened sense of social sympathy makes them antagonistic to the accomplishments of capitalism.  Their outrage over the inequality of incomes overrides any concern for the dire economic consequences of their policies.
What the liberals stand for has always failed when put into practice.  It is failing now before our eyes.  It will always fail.  These leftist schemes promise national ruin. That the historical failure of collectivism is not properly acknowledged by the left speaks of their myopic stubbornness.
            Once you commit the first dollar to a government social program it’s the beginning of the end.  The number of these programs never stops expanding.  At first there was one now there are thousands.  Furthermore, the existing programs never stop growing and costs rise relentlessly.  You have a three-headed monster; new programs, growth of existing programs and runaway costs of all programs.  When the government can’t pay for them they borrow or print new money to keep them funded.  This debases our currency, acts as a hidden tax and spreads a contagion of ills associated with inflation.  It’s how nations go bankrupt.
That’s not the worst of it.  Government social programs don’t work.  None of them accomplish what they set out to do.  In fact, they make matters worse.  We’ve spent hundreds of billions to eradicate poverty.  Yet the economic and social condition of welfare recipients is much worse than when these programs started.  Despite public housing, rent subsidies, food stamps, welfare payments and more, the long-term recipients of entitlements have essentially become a hoard of drug addicts and alcoholics.  Bad character has triumphed.
Worst of all, the attitudes of the underclass and  their sympathizers have turned into a frightful animosity towards the prevailing culture.  The more money they get the louder their accusations of racism, inequality and injustice.  The more they are subsidized, the more they express hatred for America, curse capitalism and support a radical agenda.  They make up false charges to justify their shakedown of America.  Their leadership gains money and power while encouraging a belief in victimhood.
Whatever you subsidize, you get more of.  That’s why the numbers of the unproductive are overtaking the producers.  When that day ultimately comes we are all Doctor Zhivagos, sharing our property through government edicts.  It’s quite possible America will go broke first and the social welfare edifice be dismantled.  On the other hand we could all be collectivized. Whatever the outcome, one thing stands as an historical certainty.  We will either do away with socialism or socialism will do away with us.

SORRY JIMBO, YOU ARE ONLY TIED FOR WORST...

A Headline In The Not Too Distant Future...

TWO LIES

Control

• janUARY 2, 2010

The States and the Stimulus

How a supposed boon has become a fiscal burden.

Remember how $200 billion in federal stimulus cash was supposed to save the states from fiscal calamity? Well, hold on to your paychecks, because a big story of 2010 will be how all that free money has set the states up for an even bigger mess this year and into the future.

The combined deficits of the states for 2010 and 2011 could hit $260 billion, according to a survey by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Ten states have a deficit, relative to the size of their expenditures, as bleak as that of near-bankrupt California. The Golden State starts the year another $6 billion in arrears despite a large income and sales tax hike last year. New York is literally down to its last dollar. Revenues are down, to be sure, but in several ways the stimulus has also made things worse.

First, in most state capitals the stimulus enticed state lawmakers to spend on new programs rather than adjusting to lean times. They added health and welfare benefits and child care programs. Now they have to pay for those additions with their own state's money.

For example, the stimulus offered $80 billion for Medicaid to cover health-care costs for unemployed workers and single workers without kids. But in 2011 most of that extra federal Medicaid money vanishes. Then states will have one million more people on Medicaid with no money to pay for it.

A few governors, such as Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Rick Perry of Texas, had the foresight to turn down their share of the $7 billion for unemployment insurance, realizing that once the federal funds run out, benefits would be unpayable. "One of the smartest decisions we made," says Mr. Daniels. Many governors now probably wish they had done the same.

Second, stimulus dollars came with strings attached that are now causing enormous budget headaches. Many environmental grants have matching requirements, so to get a federal dollar, states and cities had to spend a dollar even when they were facing huge deficits. The new construction projects built with federal funds also have federal Davis-Bacon wage requirements that raise state building costs to pay inflated union salaries.

Worst of all, at the behest of the public employee unions, Congress imposed "maintenance of effort" spending requirements on states. These federal laws prohibit state legislatures from cutting spending on 15 programs, from road building to welfare, if the state took even a dollar of stimulus cash for these purposes.

One provision prohibits states from cutting Medicaid benefits or eligibility below levels in effect on July 1, 2008. That date, not coincidentally, was the peak of the last economic cycle when states were awash in revenue. State spending soared at a nearly 8% annual rate from 2004-2008, far faster than inflation and population growth, and liberals want to keep funding at that level.

A study by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation in Seattle found that "because Washington state lawmakers accepted $820 million in education stimulus dollars, only 9 percent of the state's $6.8 billion K-12 budget is eligible for reductions in fiscal year 2010 or 2011." More than 85% of Washington state's Medicaid budget is exempt from cuts and nearly 75% of college funding is off the table. It's bad enough that Congress can't balance its own budget, but now it is making it nearly impossible for states to balance theirs.

These spending requirements come when state revenues are on a downward spiral. State revenues declined by more than 10% in 2009, and tax collections are expected to be flat at best in 2010. In Indiana, nominal revenues in 2011 may be lower than in 2006. Arizona's revenues are expected to be lower this year than they were in 2004. Some states don't expect to regain their 2007 revenue peak until 2012.

So when states should be reducing outlays to match a new normal of lower revenue collections, federal stimulus rules mean many states will have little choice but to raise taxes to meet their constitutional balanced budget requirements. Thank you, Nancy Pelosi.

This is the opposite of what the White House and Congress claimed when they said the stimulus funds would prevent economically harmful state tax increases. In 2009, 10 states raised income or sales taxes, and another 15 introduced new fees on everything from beer to cellphone ringers to hunting and fishing. The states pocketed the federal money and raised taxes anyway.

Now, in an election year, Congress wants to pass another $100 billion aid package for ailing states to sustain the mess the first stimulus helped to create. Governors would be smarter to unite and tell Congress to keep the money and mandates, and let the states adjust to the new reality of lower revenues. Meanwhile, Mr. Perry and other governors who warned that the stimulus would have precisely this effect can consider themselves vindicated.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A10

Remembering Afghanistan Part 2...A Continuation From October :)

I met a lot of great people in Afghanistan.  A safe return home to all of them and a Happy New Year.

The Year Gets Going On The Right Foot

And from a friend still in Afghanistan...I agree with you 100% and already I have commented to this article on the yahoo news I receive here. The media has spun this as they always do to their advantage, to sell time and create confusion, we that have had the experience to see for ourselves how contractors react when someone is trying to kill you, as they clearly were, have no doubt as to there truthfulness. I would gladly go outside the wire with any Blackwater Personnel and not have an issue with regard to my feeling safe, I wonder if the media can still speak those same words....maybe they can hire some taliban personnel to protect them next time they venture into country for some stories ??!!!!  The media is more dangerous than any gun on the ground here that's the truth, and they don't pass the stories around for free, so who's really the mercenaries here......GLH

I met several Blackwater guys while in Afghanistan for ten months.  None of them were crazy, gun toting thugs.  Yes, they carried guns and other weapons but, they knew when to use them and when not to use them.  They were professionals all the time and I would want them guarding me in any situation.  They are NOT blood thirsty, trigger happy mercenaries as the liberal media has portrayed them to be.

Judge Dismisses Blackwater Case

January 01, 2010

Associated Press

A federal judge cited repeated government missteps in dismissing all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in a case that inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed the case against the guards accused of the shooting in a crowded Baghdad intersection in 2007.

The shooting in busy Nisoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead. The Iraqi government wanted the guards to face trial in Iraq and officials there said they would closely watch how the U.S. judicial system handled the case.

Urbina said the prosecutors ignored the advice of senior Justice Department officials and built their case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. Urbina said that violated the guards' constitutional rights. He dismissed the government's explanations as "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility."

"We're obviously disappointed by the decision," Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said. "We're still in the process of reviewing the opinion and considering our options."

Prosecutors can appeal the ruling.

In Baghdad, Dr. Haitham Ahmed, whose wife and son were killed in the shooting, said Friday the decision casts doubt on the integrity of the entire U.S. justice system.

"If a judge ... dismissed the trial, that is ridiculous and the whole thing has been but a farce," Ahmed said. "The rights of our victims and the rights of the innocent people should not be wasted."

Dozens of Iraqis, including the estates of some of the victims allegedly killed by Blackwater employees, filed a separate lawsuit last year alleging that Blackwater employees engaged in indiscriminate killings and beatings. The civil case is still before a Virginia court.

Blackwater contractors had been hired to guard U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The guards said insurgents ambushed them in a traffic circle. Prosecutors said the men unleashed an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.

The shooting led to the unraveling of the North Carolina-based company, which since has replaced its management and changed its name to Xe Services.

The five guards are Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas.

Defense attorneys said the guards were thrilled by the ruling after more than two years of scrutiny.

"It's tremendously gratifying to see the court allow us to celebrate the new year the way it has," said attorney Bill Coffield, who represents Liberty. "It really invigorates your belief in our court system."

"It's indescribable," said Ball's attorney, Steven McCool. "It feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off his shoulders. Here's a guy that's a decorated war hero who we maintain should never have been charged in the first place."

The five guards had been charged with manslaughter and weapons violations. The charges carried mandatory 30-year prison terms.

Urbina's ruling does not resolve whether the shooting was proper. Rather, the 90-page opinion underscores some of the conflicting evidence in the case. Some Blackwater guards told prosecutors they were concerned about the shooting and offered to cooperate. Others said the convoy had been attacked. By the time the FBI began investigating, Nisoor Square had been picked clean of bullets that might have proven whether there had been a firefight or a massacre.

The Iraqi government has refused to grant Blackwater a license to continue operating in the country, prompting the State Department to refuse to renew its contracts with the company.

In a statement released by its president, Joseph Yorio, the company said it was happy to have the shooting behind it.

"Like the people they were protecting, our Xe professionals were working for a free, safe and democratic Iraq for the Iraqi people," Yorio said. "With this decision, we feel we can move forward and continue to assist the United States in its mission to help the people of Iraq and Afghanistan find a peaceful, democratic future."

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, declined to comment on the specifics of the case, but said, "I do worry about it, because clearly there were innocent people killed in that attack ... it is heart-wrenching."

The case against the five men fell apart because, after the shooting, the State Department ordered the guards to explain what happened. In exchange for those statements, the State Department promised the statements would not be used in a criminal case. Such limited immunity deals are common in police departments so officers involved in shootings cannot hold up internal investigations by refusing to cooperate.

The five guards told investigators they fired their weapons, an admission that was crucial because forensic evidence could not determine who had fired.

Because of the immunity deal, prosecutors had to build their case without those statements, a high legal hurdle that Urbina said the Justice Department failed to clear. Prosecutors read those statements, reviewed them in the investigation and used them to question witnesses and get search warrants, Urbina said. Key witnesses also reviewed the statements and the grand jury heard evidence that had been tainted by those statements, the judge said.

The Justice Department set up a process to avoid those problems, but Urbina said lead prosecutor Ken Kohl and others "purposefully flouted the advice" of senior Justice Department officials telling them not to use the statements.

It was unclear what the ruling means for a sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, who turned on his former colleagues and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another. Had he gone to trial, the case against him would likely have fallen apart, but it's unclear whether Urbina will let him out of his plea deal.