GINA COBB

Simple Requests for President Obama and Mexico's President Calderon

Phil, a commenter at Doug Ross's website, has some requests for president Obama and Mexico's president Calderon:

Dear President Obama:

I'm planning to move my family and extended family into Mexico for my health, and I would like to ask you to assist me.

We're planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and we'll need your help to make a few arrangements.

We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws.

I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Calderon, that I'm on my way over?

Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.

2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.

3. Please print all Mexican Government forms in English.

4. I want my grandkids to be taught Spanish by English- speaking (bi-lingual) teachers.

5. Tell their schools they need to include classes on American culture and history.

6. I want my grandkids to see the American flag on one of the flag poles at their school.

7. Please plan to feed my grandkids at school for both breakfast and lunch.

8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.

. . . .

Read the rest.

"Little Noticed" But Long Remembered

A great post at Legal Insurrection on the media's new phrase of choice for attempting to soft-pedal the countless disasters lurking in Obama's health care legislation passed by Congress:  "little noticed."  Some examples from a long, long list:

• "A little-noticed provision in the new health care law may not only dramatically increase paperwork for small businesses, but also put them at a disadvantage against their larger competitors."
  
• Effective for plan years beginning after Sept. 23, 2010, health plans that cover dependent children must continue to cover adult kids until they turn age 26. This little-noticed new requirement is a sure way to increase health insurance costs, which is exactly what Obama-care was supposed to prevent."
  
• "The Obama administration is trying to encourage people to buy annuities to ensure that they don't outlive their savings. But a little-noticed provision of the new health care reform law will slap a 3.8% tax on payouts from annuities purchased by high-income earners outside their workplace."
  
• "Little-noticed (well, except by me) is the fact that Congress has repealed the anti-trust exemption for health insurance and that the reform plan sets up the basics of a federal infrastructure for insurance regulation. The federal government doesn’t just drop by and visit, they move in. Memo to state insurance regulators: the feds are outside, and they have a HUGE moving van.
  
• "As well as these and other major job-killing provisions, two little-noticed tax changes would also affect employment."
  
• "Drug and device companies will soon have to report payments to physicians in a national database, thanks to a little noted section of the health care reform bill called the Physician Payments Sunshine Act."
  
• "UV or not UV? A little-noticed provision in the new healthcare package adds a 10% levy to the cost of tanning sessions."
  
• "A little-noticed provision in the House-passed health-care plan would strip billions of dollars out of privately run Medicare plans that emphasize wellness and are increasingly popular among retirees in Ohio and nationally."

Remember in November.

"Dem Congress Jumps Into Action… Will Quadruple Gas Tax After Gulf Oil Spill"

Gateway Pundit:

The democrats in Congress finally jumped into action. The tax-and-spend liberals decided the best thing they could do to help out in the Gulf after the disastrous oil spill was to quadruple the gas tax.

Sigh.

. . . because what's wrong with America is that taxes are just too darn low.

And if we want a stronger economy, there's nothing like quadrupling taxes to really shake things up!

Thanks to Congress and its foresight, we'll never have another oil spill.

Or if we do, we'll have lots of money that Congress collected and -- spent on something else.

Hey American Taxpayer! How Does Unlimited Liabilty for Paying Union Pensions Sound?

Oops!  The unions promised their members much bigger pensions than they can afford to deliver.

Guess who Democrats plan to stick with the bill?

Political Cartoon Break

  

I think there's a common thread throught these cartoons. I know it's subtle. See if you can catch it!

 

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"Obama's Lazy Tribute to Daniel Pearl"

Mark Steyn:

Like a lot of guys who've been told they're brilliant one time too often, President Obama gets a little lazy, and doesn't always choose his words with care. And so it was that he came to say a few words about Daniel Pearl, upon signing the "Daniel Pearl Press Freedom Act." Pearl was decapitated on video by jihadist Muslims in Karachi on Feb. 1, 2002. That's how I'd put it. This is what the president of the United States said:

FILE PHOTO: Wall Street Journalreporter Daniel Pearl is shown with a gun held to his head in this file photo obtained on Jan. 26, 2002.  AP Photo, HO, File

"Obviously, the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world's imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is."

Now Obama's off the prompter, when his silver-tongued rhetoric invariably turns to sludge. But he's talking about a dead man here, a guy murdered in public for all the world to see. Furthermore, the deceased's family is standing all around him. And, even for a busy president, it's the work of moments to come up with a sentence that would be respectful, moving and true. Indeed, for Obama, it's the work of seconds, because he has a taxpayer-funded staff sitting around all day with nothing to do but provide him with that sentence.

Instead, he delivered the one above, which in its clumsiness and insipidness is most revealing. First of all, note the passivity: "The loss of Daniel Pearl." He wasn't "lost." He was kidnapped and beheaded. He was murdered on a snuff video. He was specifically targeted, seized as a trophy, a high-value scalp. And the circumstances of his "loss" merit some vigor in the prose. Yet Obama can muster none.

Even if Americans don't get the message, the rest of the world does. This week's pictures of the leaders of Brazil and Turkey clasping hands with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are also monuments to American passivity.

Related:  The Lesson of Brother Pearl: "Hatred is their soulcraft," and they are legion

It is further insisted that once a Palestinian state has been created there will be peace.

The murder of Danny Pearl tells a much different story. For these radicals, the issue is not merely a Palestinian state. They do not believe Israel should exist. For them, there is no room in this world for the Jews. By killing Danny Pearl, who no doubt approved of a Palestinian homeland, they reminded us, if we indeed need reminding, that when they chant "kill the Jews" between chanting "death to America," they mean what they say.

For understandable reasons, well-meaning people continue to believe that with the correct aid package and enough economic development, all will be well. Once their bellies are full, we are told, their minds will radiate Karma. The horror of this conflict is that our opponents are not speaking from their stomachs and brains, but from their souls. Hatred is their soulcraft. It may well be true that they comprise only 10 percent of the Islamic population, but that still means 100 million people. A large legion is at the gate.