Brothers at War, A New Film

GARY SINESE IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. GOD BLESS HIM AND GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS!

BROTHERS AT WAR is an intimate portrait of an American family during a turbulent time. Jake Rademacher sets out to understand the experience, sacrifice, and motivation of his two brothers serving in Iraq. The film follows Jake’s exploits as he risks everything—including his life—to tell his brothers’ story. Often humorous, but sometimes downright lethal, BROTHERS AT WAR is a remarkable journey where Jake embeds with four combat units in Iraq. Unprecedented access to U.S. and Iraqi combat units take him behind the camouflage curtain with secret reconnaissance troops on the Syrian border, into sniper “Hide Sites” in the Sunni Triangle, through raging machine gun battles with the Iraqi Army. Ultimately, the film follows his brothers home where separations and life-threatening work ripple through their parents, siblings, wives and children. BROTHERS AT WAR provides a rare look at the bonds and service of our soldiers on the frontlines and the profound effects their service has on the loved ones they leave behind.

Please Visit the official WEBSITE for more information

The Obama Song

Happy Birthday, Mom 3/30/1926 to 6/7/2007

I miss you lots and think about you every day. I will see you again some day. Mom is on the right and my Aunt Louise, her oldest sister, on the left. The picture was taken in North Kansas City at my Aunt Louise's 80th birthday. It was a wonderful time and the last time the two were together, almost ten years ago now.

The Great Mark Levin and a Book Signing

I have followed Mark for years, as I have said on this blog. This does not surprise me. This is a book signing in Virginia. One enterprising young man decided to show how long the line was to get in to get their book signed. Manly Rash wrote about this on his blog a few days ago at a book signing he happened to go to. Mark's book is still #1 on Amazon. I have mine ordered. The book is called "Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto." You can order it on Amazon here:

NewsBusters, a little comedy relief for Friday night

Zo Does Obama on Leno - Brilliant

I just love this man!

The Great Mark Levin on Neil Cavuto

I have the book on order. I have such a crush on Mark Levin. Years ago, when the Clinton fiascos were hitting us daily, he used to be on Hannity and Colmes a lot. That was my first introduction to him. I have been a huge admirer since then. I have written him several times and he has always written me back.

Stephen Baldwin talks about the Hollywood Agenda

Stephen Baldwin has been very outspoken about his conservative and Christian views. It has cost him tremendously as it has other conservatives in the Hollywood community who have spoken out. I truly admire him. Here, he talks about the Hollywood Agenda to produce movies not only unfit for family viewing, but those that negatively influence our children, who view them.

FIVE SIGNS OF A FLAILING PRESIDENCY BY FRED BARNES, WEEKLY STANDARD

I used to watch the Beltway Boys all the time, when Fred and Mort would discuss the goings on in DC. I really enjoyed both of them, but I found Fred to be the more colorful of the two. He's been around long enough, like I have. He knows what he is talking about. I found Obama's decision to appear on Jay Leno extremely odd and out of place. All he needed was a fiddle.

Five Signs of a Flailing Presidency
The White House tries its hand at damage control.
by Fred Barnes
03/30/2009, Volume 014, Issue 27


You don't have to be an old Washington hand to spot the telltale signs of a presidency and an administration in serious trouble. There's nothing new about these clues. The inability to get their stories straight--that's a hardy perennial of high-level officials caught in the vise of political embarrassment. A president who skips town to avoid the White House press corps and speak directly to the American people--we've sure seen that before. So in a sense the AIG mess has touched off nothing more than business as usual.

What goes on in Washington usually comes across as background noise to the public, but not this time. Bonuses for AIG executives are like the infamous Bridge to Nowhere--an issue that's broken through outside Washington. And we know it's become a major political problem for the president because he and his administration act as if it has. Here are five signs of this:

1. His allies are moving to protect the president. In a political emergency, this is the highest obligation of everyone in the administration. The president must be distanced as far as possible from decisions that led to the problem, even if he is made to look out-of-touch or actually incompetent.

In the AIG case, Obama is like a cuckolded spouse, portrayed by administration officials as the last person to learn about the bonuses, though he signed the economic stimulus legislation with a provision assuring they'd be paid. A front-page account in the Washington Post played along, absolving the entire administration of blame. Attributed to "government and company officials," the story said Federal Reserve officials were at fault, having failed to alert anyone in the administration, much less Obama, in a timely fashion.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said he didn't tell the White House until March 12, two days after he learned of bonuses totaling $165 million and the day before the checks went out. What could Obama do? He was "stunned," the president told Jay Leno last week. Obama said he takes full responsibility for the mess. Then he went on to blame others.

2. The president gets out of town. In the final stages of the Watergate scandal in 1974, President Nixon flew to Cairo, where he was greeted by one million Egyptians along the route of his motorcade. This prompted a question: Can a million Egyptians be wrong? The answer turned out to be yes. Nixon resigned a few weeks later.

Okay, the AIG flap isn't Watergate. But last week was a good time for Obama to skip town, mingle with worshipful fans, and dodge the (suddenly) unfriendly Washington media mob. The idea is to get through to the American people directly, without the press's filtering his every word. So in California, he spoke to a town hall meeting, the preferred venue of presidents under political stress. He was interviewed by a sympathizer on talk radio, then by Jay Leno, who invariably makes his guests look good, then went to a research center for electric cars. He put off a White House press conference until the following week, when the AIG frenzy may have eased.

3. Top spokesmen dismiss the crisis as a distraction. Anything the president doesn't want to deal with or discuss, like AIG bonuses, is automatically a distraction from the important business the American people have elected him to focus on. And Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said AIG wasn't just a minor distraction. As furious as Obama was over the bonuses, Emanuel said last week, the president's "main priority is getting the financial system stabilized, and he believes this is a big distraction."

Though David Axelrod, Obama's White House political adviser, didn't use the word "distraction," the Washington Post reported that he was making the same point. "People are not sitting around their kitchen tables thinking about AIG," he said. "They are thinking about their own jobs." And that's what Obama is thinking about.

4. Administration figures can't keep their stories straight. It's easy to keep your story straight when you're telling the truth. It gets harder when you're not. Geithner initially said he learned of the AIG bonuses on March 10. He tried to give himself wiggle room by saying this was when he was informed about the size and scope of the bonuses. This isn't true. It turns out he was questioned on March 3 by Democratic congressman Joe Crowley of New York in very specific terms about the bonuses. Crowley noted that AIG was "slated to pay an additional $162 million in bonuses to 393 participants in the coming weeks." Geithner responded to Crowley that he "very much share[s] your concern" about the bonuses. But don't try to square Geithner's two statements. That would be a distraction.

Democrat Chris Dodd of Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, tied himself in knots denying his role in crafting the provision in the stimulus that kept the bonuses alive. One day he indicated he'd had nothing to do with inserting that provision in the bill. He wasn't even on the Senate-House conference committee that put it in. The next day, he told a different story. Yes, he'd asked senators to include the provision, but he did so only because Treasury officials urged him to. No wonder Dodd is in reelection trouble.

5. The president indulges in hyperbole. Presidents sometimes lose their rhetorical grip during a political controversy. Obama has. He went into high gear defending Geithner. With the exception of Alexander Hamilton, no Treasury secretary has "had to deal with the multiplicity of issues that Secretary Geithner has," he said. "He is making all the right moves in terms of playing a bad hand." Not only that, Obama likened the financial firms Geithner is dealing with to terrorists. "They've got a bomb strapped to them and they've got their hand on the trigger."

For entire article, please go HERE

Bathtub Boy Criticizes Brit Hume for comments Hume made at MRC Gala

I especially loved the last part. Speaking of doing "the news." When was the last actual time, no make that the first actual time, no make that ANY TIME Bathtub Boy actually reported the news. Keith Olbermange is a tool and an especially loathsome one in a kind of girly wimpy cowardly sort of way. Hey, just look at his tie!

I'm just sayin'.

Mark Levin at the Media Research Center (MRC) Gala and Dishonors Awards

The great Mark Levin, tellin' it like it is!

Pam of Atlas Shrugs calls it the BIGGEST FRAUD IN HUMAN HISTORY

I agree with her. Was the "outrage" over the AIG bonuses a smoke screen to divert our attention from the "stimulus packages I and II?" I think so. Each and every day we learn about more earmarks. My friend and I were taking his father to dialysis this morning. The father is over 80 and quite frail. He probably goes to the doctor at least three times a week. And dialysis three times a week. I was thinking about the proposed change to Medicare whereby the government will decide whether healthcare is warranted based on age and life expectancy. In other words, there might come a time when expense three times a week hemodialysis is just too expensive for someone over 80 years of age. The father in question voted for Obama and said, at the time, he thought Obama was going to be "alright." It's all I can do sometimes not to mention that but I am not sure he even knows what is going on out it the world. He voted for Obama because he has "always voted Democrat." He really didn't know anything about him and he didn't want to know. That's how it is. That's how Obama got elected. For some, it was enough that he was probably the most liberal politician ever to come out of the windy city, fresh with his friendly thugs, like Rahm Emanuel, he of the "never let a crisis go to waste" sentiment. Then there were at least four members of his cabinet and/or proposed cabinet who just didn't think paying their taxes was important. In fact, one of them is in charge of the money right now. But all of this pales compared to what is coming. Stem cell already reversed. Mexico City policy reversed. Socialized medicine looking more and more possible each day. I am gong to bed. I have a headache.

DAY BY DAY

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

See more Day by Day by Chris Muir HERE

Nationalizing Life and Death (by John Griffing)

I was searching over at American Thinker for information on another subject when I found this. I think a lot of us realize that the wool was pulled over just about everyone's eyes with the stimulus package. I do remember reading at the time about the manipulation of health care for the elderly. I really had no idea how much more there was to it. This is monstrous. Imagine a world in which the government gets to set the guidelines on who lives and who dies. As it turns out, we don't need to imagine it. It is already happening.


Nationalizing Life and Death
By John Griffing

"Crisis! Crisis! Crisis!" So is it always with petty politicians seeking to enhance their power. Swallow it whole, swallow it now is the word. But just what are we swallowing so fast that we don't even have time to think? Are we really to believe that all we must do is touch the hem of President Obama's garment, and the pains of capitalist dislocation will wash away?


Hidden deep in the stimulus bill is a Trojan horse like no other. I am not speaking of pork. A scheme more dastardly would have been hard to concoct. With the passage of this bill, the US government is now empowered to "ration" healthcare. That means, to treat or not to treat is now a government question.

Within the bill is a line that would sentence millions of people to death:


In addition, $400,000,000 shall be available...to accelerate the development and dissemination of research assessing the comparative effectiveness of health care treatments and strategies, including through efforts that: (1) conduct, support, or synthesize research that compares the clinical outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of items, services, and procedures that are used to prevent, diagnose, or treat diseases, disorders, and other health conditions


For those that don't speak draconian, "comparative effectiveness" means that the cost of an individual's treatment will be divided by the number of years they are likely to benefit. If your treatment is too "costly" you will be thrown out with the bathwater. No country for old men. The bill also created the "Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research" to make comparative effectiveness decisions. Only 20 years after winning the Cold War we are adopting central planning as our preferred model. Only, instead of determining the number of toothbrushes, this committee will determine the value of someone's life. How ironic.

The stimulus bill mandates electronic healthcare records for every American by 2014 and would "encourage the development and use of clinical registries, clinical data networks, and other forms of electronic health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data...." No room for miracles. Computer models will now decide your "outcome." Twilight Zone anybody?


If you are picturing Germany circa 1930, you're right on. With the passing of this bill, government, not doctors, will decide who receives care and who doesn't, in essence, who lives and who dies. The cruelest regimes in history have begun with this premise. Government was responsible for non-war related deaths exceeding 100M in the 20th Century, 80M by Communist governments[i], and now we're going to trust them with our medical care? "Do no harm", the Hippocratic Oath, has been replaced by "cost-benefit analysis."


It will start with the elderly, because after all, they are social burdens and a drain on federal funds. They need to wake up and smell the coffin. "If they're going to die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!" Comrade Tom Daschle, the author of the ominous healthcare provisions, supports this line of thought, saying that healthcare reform "will not be pain free." He goes on to praise Europeans for being willing to accept "hopeless diagnoses" and forgo "experimental treatments".


Next would be the infirmed. Too many resources are wasted on people with incurable diseases. We should allocate money to those who actually have the potential to live and live well.


Then the children with a poor quality of life. One can recall the abortion lobby's virulent argument for killing black babies.


Then newborns. It simply won't end. The medical profession will become the harbinger of death, not health. This is not a slippery slope argument. Holland has already slipped the slope. Holland's healthcare system is so cash-strapped that it views humans as liabilities. A patient must formally request "no euthanasia" before simple outpatient surgery. In fact, involuntary euthanasia accounts for over 1,000 deaths in Holland annually. In addition, 8,000 people in Holland die every year because they are given intentional overdoses of pain medication, not to control pain, but to end life. In 60 percent of these cases, the patient did not give his or her consent to the action.[ii]


If doctors making quality of life decisions doesn't scare you, maybe this will: Holland has a committee to decide who's expendable. It actually slates children, adults-anybody-for euthanasia. Robespierre and the Public Safety Committee are back, ushering in a reign of terror for our times.


Holland has quickly broadened the scope of euthanasia, extending the "right to die" all the way down to 12-year olds, no parental consent required. If they can get an abortion, why can't they kill themselves?


Holland even legalized euthanasia for newborns. In some countries this is still considered infanticide. Recently an abortionist was jailed in the United States for throwing a survivor baby in a dumpster. A few inches is all that determines humanity in this country, but at least there's a standard.

Please read rest of the article HERE

SEBELIUS AND ABORTION

Sebelius' Pro-Choice Incoherence
Michael Gerson
Wednesday, March 11, 2009

WASHINGTON -- There is a common thread running through President Obama's pro-choice agenda: the coercion of those who disagree with it.

Obama has begun providing federal funds for international groups that promote or perform abortions overseas. He has moved to weaken conscience protections for health care professionals. And he has chosen the most radical possible option on the use of embryonic stem cells -- a free license for researchers, with boundaries set only by the National Institutes of Health.

Taxpayers will now likely fund not only the use of "spare" embryos from in vitro fertilization, but also human lives produced and ended for the sole purpose of scientific exploitation. Biotechnicians have been freed from the vulgar moralism of the masses, so they can operate according to the vulgar utilitarianism of their own social clique -- the belief that some human lives can be planted, plucked and processed for the benefit of others.

It is the incurable itch of pro-choice activists to compel everyone's complicity in their agenda. Somehow getting "politics out of science" translates into taxpayer funding for embryo experimentation. "Choice" becomes a demand on doctors and nurses to violate their deepest beliefs or face discrimination.

It is probably not a coincidence that Obama has chosen a Roman Catholic -- Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius -- to implement many of these policies as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Obama has every right to a pro-choice Cabinet. But this appointment seems designed to provide religious cover. It also smacks of religious humiliation -- like asking a rabbi to serve the pork roast or an atheist to bless the meal.

Sebelius, though strongly pro-choice, was capable of occasional compromise. But she consistently fought against the serious enforcement of Kansas' late-term abortion restrictions. Kansas became a magnet for late-term abortions.

Still, Sebelius insists that "my Catholic faith teaches me that all life is sacred." This puts her in the same category as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden -- Catholics who assert the sanctity of life while defending legal abortion. It has also earned Sebelius a firm rebuke from her archbishop.

The explanations of pro-choice Catholics are varied. Some say they will not impose their private religious views on others. But moral beliefs about human dignity are not religious dogmas such as transubstantiation or the Trinity. They are assertions about the nature of political justice. Removing the transcendent basis for human rights would also remove the central argument of the Declaration of Independence and the primary motivation for American social reform from abolition to the civil rights movement.

Others claim they are merely employing an alternative method to secure the rights of the unborn -- through social welfare programs rather than legal restrictions. In Sebelius' case, the overall abortion rate in Kansas did decline slightly more than the national reduction, though it is difficult to trace this drop to her policies. And the question arises: Couldn't a Catholic politician support women in crisis and effective protections for viable children?

See rest of article here

Welcome to Londonistan

British troops returning from war encounter Muslim extremists. I don't think they represent all Muslims, either, but England has a problem and it's a huge one. Maybe even unfixable.

GRADE OBAMA

Click on the link to grade Obama in his first less than 100 days. Don't be shy!

CLICK HERE

Jill Stanek Talks to Bill O'Reilly about the Infant Born Alive Issue

This is a video from 2007 but even more important today with Obama as president and considering the changes he has already made including the Mexico City policy and stem cell research. Something tells me he is not done yet. The proabortion lobby has their dancing shoes on.

We Win!

I saw this on Jill Stanek's site today and decided to repost it here. What a great song. Hang in there, we win. Life wins as well.

Written by Tony Funderburk of Denver Bible Church and converted to video by Rachel Troyer, also from DBC, it encourages pro-lifers to stay at it, we win.

BARAK OBAMA ON ABORTION

I have posted over time many articles and videos regarding Obama's untenable and monstrous stand on abortion, partial birth abortion, and the born alive debate (he feels it would be a "burden" to a mother's "original decision" to assess and treat them.). I thought this was an excellent video by a remarkable and lovely young woman. I can only hope that more young people are getting involved in the abortion debate and in favor of life.

Humor for a Tuesday (Because we really really need it!)

EMBRYONIC CELL RESEARCH AND SCIENCE

President Barack Obama issued an executive order yesterday that lifted President Bush’s order prohibiting federal funding from going to “embryonic stem cell research” in which living human embryos are destroyed for their stem cells.

Federal funding means your tax dollars and mine are going to fund something I find untenable.

While making the announcement, Obama said that he would seek to “ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction.” But neither in his remarks nor in the executive order itself did he say anything about stopping human cloning for purposes other than human reproduction—such as cloning human embryos in order to extract their stem cells for research.

Following are some facts about stem cells:

* Stem cells are the body's master cells, the source of all cells and tissue, including brain, blood, heart, bones and muscles.

* Embryonic stem cells come from days-old embryos and can produce any type of cell in the body.

* Scientists generally harvest embryonic stem cells from embryos left over after in vitro fertilization attempts at fertility clinics. They can also be produced using cloning technology.

* Scientists hope to harness the transformational qualities of stem cells to treat a variety of diseases, including injuries, cancer and cystic fibrosis.

* The issue is controversial because some people believe the destruction of any embryo is wrong.

* U.S. legislation called the Dickey Amendment forbids the use of federal funds for the creation or destruction of human embryos for research.

* In 1998, soon after human embryonic stem cells were discovered, the National Institutes of Health determined that the Dickey Amendment did not apply to researchers working with stem cells, so long as they did not get the cells themselves from human embryos.

* In August 2001, then-President George W. Bush declared otherwise and limited the use of federal funds to stem cell lines, or batches, that existed as of that moment. He vetoed several congressional attempts to override this decision.

* The issue does not fall clearly along party lines and strongly conservative Republicans who oppose abortion, such as Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, have backed broader federal funding of embryonic stem cell research for years.

* Britain, Belgium, Sweden, Canada and New Zealand actively encourage embryonic stem cell research. Austria, Lithuania and Poland have laws banning research into human embryonic stem cell research.

* Researchers have discovered how to make embryonic-like cells from ordinary cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells. Opponents of embryonic stem cell research say research can focus on this field but most scientists agree that all approaches must be pursued at this point.

MOST SCIENTISTS AGREE THAT ALL APPROACHES MUST BE PURSUED AT THIS POINT.

OBAMA SAID THAT HE WOULD SEEK TO ENSURE THAT OUR GOVERNMENT NEVER OPENS THE DOOR TO THE USE OF CLONING FOR HUMAN REPRODUCTION.

What's wrong with this picture?

The Cost of Selling Your Soul

Kathleen Sebelius has sold her soul to obtain political power. I can't see that there is really any other way to come to any other conclusion. She's a practicing Catholic who not only believes in abortion, but supports late-term and partial birth abortion. Watch the video to see how very much she cares about those getting abortions, as well. The question might be, other than herself, what DOES she care about? At what price glory, only I'm not speaking about eternal glory. If you live your life as if there is no God, you had better be right.

The Manchurian Candidate

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Back in the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson gave us the War on Poverty. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon launched the War on Drugs. Now that we have seen President Barack Obama’s first-year legislative agenda, we know what kind of a war he intends to wage.

It is no wonder that markets are imploding around us. Obama is giving us the War on Business.

Imagine that some hypothetical enemy state spent years preparing a “Manchurian Candidate” to destroy the U.S. economy once elected. What policies might that leader pursue?

He might discourage private capital from entering the financial sector by instructing his Treasury secretary to repeatedly promise a brilliant rescue plan, but never actually have one. Private firms, spooked by the thought of what government might do, would shy away from transactions altogether. If the secretary were smooth and played rope-a-dope long enough, the whole financial sector would be gone before voters could demand action.

Another diabolical idea would be to significantly increase taxes on whatever firms are still standing. That would require subterfuge, since increasing tax rates would be too obvious. Our Manchurian Candidate would have plenty of sophisticated ideas on changing the rules to get more revenue without increasing rates, such as auctioning off “permits.”


Thanks to Kimmie for the picture. It was animated but I can't get that to come through here, darn it. Please read rest of article here

Movie Recommendation - La Vie en Rose

I am not a movie critic and I am also not a fan of foreign movies with subtitles. Especially French movies. My oldest daughter sung its praises and I felt compelled to watch. She has very good taste in these things and she knows I am not fond of the French or subtitles. I'm glad I watched. I do very much like Edith Piaf. I was an older teenager when she died so I only have a passing familiarity with her music. I read she had been on Ed Sullivan many times and I was an ardent fan of that show, but I don't remember her. I know I would have remembered her. She was only 47 when she died, ravaged by the effects of drugs and alcohol and a terribly sad life. But she was defiant to the end and the movie is a masterpiece. Here's a You Tube Clip of her singing a song written for her, Non, je ne regrette rien (1961) (No I regret Nothing). Two years later, she would be dead. I have provided the English translation of the song. I certainly fits her life.



No, nothing at all, I regret nothing at all
Not the good, nor the bad. It is all the same.
No, nothing at all, I have no regrets about anything.
It is paid, wiped away, forgotten.
I am not concerned with the past, with my memories.
I set fire to my pains and pleasures,
I don?t need them anymore.
I have wiped away my loves, and my troubles.
Swept them all away.
I am starting again from zero.

No, nothing at all, I have no regrets
Because from today, my life, my happiness, everything,
Starts with you!