Who To Kill First: Grandma Or Convicted Murderers?

 
If  the Senate passes Healthcare Reform, will elderly patients be given the same appeals process as convicted murderers?

The execution of Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammed on Tuesday brought to mind a disturbing thought that should trouble anyone regardless of your position on the death penalty. It exposes yet another absurdity of Barack Obama’s Healthcare Reform. 

Staci Lynn Jazvac

In Raiford, Florida, 47 year-old Michael Rivera sits on death row, convicted of the murder of 11 year-old Staci Jazvac in a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale… in 1986. At the time, I was working with John Walsh  (now host of “America’s Most Wanted”) at the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center.  Staci lived about a mile from me. I became close friends with Staci’s mom as we assisted her through the search, recovery and after-effects of this tragedy. Rivera was convicted the following year. It left an impression that still haunts me today.

Twenty-three years have passed and Rivera is still sitting on death row.

According to a 2004 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it costs an average of $22,650 per prisoner, nationally, to maintain our prison systems (the report is available on-line at the above link).

Allowing for the fact that the figures in 1986 were undoubtedly lower, it’s still safe to say, Michael Rivera has been housed and fed for nearly a quarter of a century at the cost of about a half-million dollars of taxpayers money alone. Never mind the fact that Staci’s family never got to see her grow up, but have to deal with the fact that her killer has been able to live on. Rivera has his own web page where he solicits money for his various  appeals and even advertised on a social page, looking to get married… all at our expense, of course. 

Now, add to the above, that if the Healthcare Reform Bill passes in the Senate (the House of Representatives already passed it in the still of the night last week-end), it will mean that strict cost cutting measures will need to be enforced, left up to panels consisting of bureaucrats who, contrary to the lies of the Obama administration, will decide who gets care and who doesn’t. Liberals object when we refer to these review boards as “Death Panels” but, in point of fact, that’s exactly what they will be, at times.

Only the naive would believe otherwise, but the cold hard facts are that there will be people in their senior years who will be told, “Sorry, but you’re too old to get a liver transplant. You no longer contribute to Society. You eat up precious resources that could be used to save younger members of our society that have many years to contribute. You’ve had a long life compared to them, so we’ll have to decline your request.” 

It may not be those exact words, but the sentiment will be the same.

We have our priorities seriously skewed when we can spend a half million dollars to warehouse a convicted murderer for 23 years, yet we have to tell senior citizens who may well have never broken a law in their lives they are being sentenced to a hasty “death by healthcare denial.”

Welcome to the world of “Change You Can Die With,” courtesy of our Democratic Congress and, your host, “Mmm-Mmm-Mmm, Barack Hussein Obama.”

Gerry Ashley

An Unsustainable Narrative

I wonder how much longer the media will attempt to spin the Fort Hood massacre as  “pre-virtual vicarious Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”. ABC News reports today:

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

So, Chris Wallace, do you now have any thoughts as to whether religion played a role in Hasan’s attacks at Fort Hood? 

And Time Magazine: still think it was “secondary trauma” that caused him to shout, “Allahu Akbar”?

How about you, Cape Cod Times? Still mystified as to Hasan’s motives?

Closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge does not mean that the situation does not exist. It is the somewhat more dignified version of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing, “La la la la, I can’t hear you!”

Retired Army lieutenant colonel Allan West doesn’t have his fingers in his ears, and his eyes are wide open. Via Stacy McCain, here’s West’s take on the situation:

We have become so politically correct that our media is more concerned about the stress of the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. The misplaced benevolence intending to portray him as a victim is despicable…

This is not a “man caused disaster”. It is what it is, an Islamic jihadist attack…

As Stacy says, read the whole thing.

If we continue to allow ourselves to be lulled back into a 9/10 mentality, we are doomed to see a repeat of 9/11, and on a larger, more horrific scale.

In the meantime, how much longer will the media persist in their narrative? These aren’t the jihadis you’re looking for. You can go about your business. Move along. Move along.

UPDATE:  Sissy Willis says “The media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.” And they do.

Stoutcat

They Still Don’t Get It

I just don’t understand how so many people/groups/media sources can remain in a 9/10 mindset. But they persist. The latest example comes from my local paper, the Cape Cod Times, which ran a front page headline yesterday on the Fort Hood massacre:

“A mystery”? A mystery?! Are you kidding me?

When our media can’t even face the concept that a horrible act of islamist terrorism was perpetrated on an Army base in our very heartland, there’s something extremely wrong.

Or as Jim Treacher tweeted: “If this idiot had been wearing an I Kill Unbelievers 4 the Glory of Allah t-shirt, they’d still be going whuh-whuh-why did he do this?”

H/T: Vanderleun at AmericanDigest

Stoutcat

Stay Classy, Code Pink

This is just pathetic. The harpies from Code Pink were out tonight harrassing the children – yes, the children! – waiting in line for the White House Hallowe’en party.

What a bunch of witches.

Stoutcat

Source: Yahoo News

Leftists’ Post-Ironic Convergence

 

In a hilarious display of no doubt unintentional irony, the director and several stars of the new film, “The Age of Stupid“, avoid a reporter’s question on just how they arrived at the premiere. Given that the film posits that the most damaging threat to the human race is air travel, it seems a reasonable question to ask.

Clearly, not only is it not a reasonable question, anyone who asks it becomes persona non grata, as the director demands that the hapless reporter be removed from the press area.

Age of Stupid, indeed.

Stoutcat

H/T: Weasel Zippers

I’ll Take LOSERS for $2000, Please, Alex

Awful. Awesomely bad. Embarrassing. A train wreck in slow motion.

It’s all over the internet already, of course. Wolf Blitzer, host of one of CNN’s prime programs, The Situation Room, has just lost all credibility as an anchor. Why? Because he lost on Celebrity Jeopardy! And he didn’t just lose, he bombed. He crashed and burned. He absolutely tanked.

And this isn’t the regular Jeopardy! show. No, this is the watered down version; Jeopardy Lite; Jeopardy for Dummies. Because of course you can’t allow celebrities to look like idiots, so you have to keep the questions basic. But no matter how hard they tried to keep it simple, no matter how easy the questions were, Mr. Blitzer defied all expectations and made a complete idiot of himself.

He ended the Double Jeopardy round with a score of -$4,600. Not just a negative number, but a huge negative number. But since it was Celebrity Jeopardy!, he qualified for a bail-out. In effect, the studio gave him back the $4,600 he lost, and then another $1,000 to compete in Final Jeopardy. Of course, the Final question was so easy that had Wolf missed it, CNN would have had to fire him immediately.

How bad was it? This bad:

And I speak from experience. As a former Jeopardy contestant, I know it’s not easy being on a stage, in front of bright lights, with people running around, clocks ticking, neon blinking, having to think quickly on your feet, and having to answer actual hard questions. But face it: here’s a man who’s accustomed to being on camera, he’s used to the lights, the bustle, the pressure of a TV show, he’s comfortable with deadlines and quick changes. He reports and discusses national and international news as his job, for Heaven’s sake.

There’s simply no excuse for his disastrous performance on a game show with questions already diluted to “very easy”; and if I were CNN, I’d seriously consider not renewing his contract when it’s up.

Because he’s proven to the country that he’s just not very bright.

Stoutcat

We Are All Racists Now

Good grief! I always thought Maureen Dowd was simply a clueless self-centered whiney bratty liberal occasional plagiarist, but clearly I underestimated her: she’s all that and more!

Not content with writing her usual screeds, lifting a paragraph here and there from pals, and basically baring all her post-menopausal insecurities for the world to see, Ms. Dowd is now making things up out of whole cloth.

In her latest “opinion piece“, Dowd has fabricated, and then reacted to, an imagined quote shouted by Joe Wilson during President Obama’s State of Obamaland speech to the Congress last Wednesday evening. As we all know by now, Rep. Wilson shouted, “You lie,” as the President assured Congress and the nation that illegal immigrants would not be covered by HR32oo HR3200, the bill he was discussing at the time.

Bizarrely, Ms. Dowd’s fevered imagination heard not a rude-but-understandable knee-jerk reaction to a proveable falsehood proclaimed by the president , but instead a racist threat. Or in her words:

Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.

But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

Poor Maureen! She then goes on to use this auditory hallucination as a springboard to accuse pretty much everyone on the right of unmitigated racism, tossing out lovely descriptors like “shrieking lunacy,” frantic efforts,” “frothing response from paranoids”…

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race…

…unable or unwilling to realize that those adjectives are merely describing herself.

Among lots of other commentary about La Diva Dowd, Snark and Boobs tells her off in a post super-saturated with, well, snark, ending with:

It’s funny, that – once again, the people constantly hurling the “Racist!” slur at others seem to be the people whom only see color. What is THAT called, hmmm, Maureen?

Most people call it “projection.”

But to Maureen “I hear racists” Dowd and so many others, it’ll always be about racism. Because we’re all racists now.

Stoutcat

Boxer Proves Her Idiocy Once Again

 

I simply have to wonder how this woman got elected. What is wrong with the people in her state? Oh, yeah, I forgot. It’s California.

In the clip below, she not only sounds like an idiot, but the words themselves are idiotic as well.

Let me get this straight: You can’t be an authentic protester if you’re too well dressed? And she knows this because she went to Florida and saw the same thing? Wow! And then, to put the capper on it, she invoked Ronald Reagan. That’ll shut ‘em up, all right.

But given her constituency, I can see where she might have trouble distinguishing between her usual hippie, rabble-rouser, Code Pink, ACORN, SEIU pals, and a gathering of well-dressed people with actual jobs who feel strongly enough about an issue to take some time off and make their voices heard.

Babs is an idiot as well as a racist, and she’s just proved the “idiot” part of it all over again.

H/T: HotAir

Stoutcat

Fed Inspector General: I Know Nothing!

Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman has absolutely no clue where any of the trillions of dollars went that the Fed has lent, or how it’s being spent, or anything. Video courtesy of the questioner, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-FL, who did a great job calmly asking pertinent questions and getting absolutely nowhere.

This is a trainwreck to watch. Don’t miss it.

Stoutcat

New Campaign: Buy a Dem a Dictionary

 

It’s not their fault, they just don’t understand what they’re saying. But you can help, and here’s how! 

First we had the original Conjugator-in-Chief, Bill Clinton, who attempted to weasel his way out of saying he lied under oath by trying to re-define the words he used.

“”It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the–if he–if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not–that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement…”

If he’d had a dictionary, he could have looked up the word “is”.

Then we have a whole host of Democrats who claim they didn’t actually understand they voted for authorization for the President (Bush, of course) to attack Iraq…

“…the next section authorizes the president “to use the armed forces of the U.S. as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the U.S. against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant UNSC resolutions regarding Iraq.”

“The third section says that if the president decides to exercise the authority granted in the previous section, he must report to Congress no later than 48 hours after exercising that authority.”

… and subsequently claimed that they didn’t realize that’s what they were actually voting for. What part of ‘authorizes the president “to use the armed forces of the U.S. as he determines to be necessary and appropriate’ did they mis-understand?

If they’d had dictionaries, they could have looked up the word “authorization”.

Later, we have another President (Obama, in this case) who doesn’t understand what he meant when he declared that “lobbyists won’t find a job in my White House.” Because, of course, it depends on what the word “lobbyist” means…

Ron Kirk has never been a registered federal lobbyist,” White House spokesman Ben LaBolt told ABC News….”How precisely is it a loophole when we never pledged to bar state lobbyists?” a Democratic official asks.

So, in ObamaLand, “lobbyist” doesn’t always mean “lobbyist“. Sometimes, “lobbyist” means “not a lobbyist at all–look over there at that unicorn!“

If Obama had a dictionary, he could have looked up the word “lobbyist”.

And now, we have the Speaker of the House, who adamantly refuses to admit that she understood that in enhanced interrogations, waterboarding is a technique that was available and could or would be used in certain cases. This in light of the documents recently released that clearly state that she and select others in Congress were briefed on harsh tactics to be used on Abu Zubaydah.

Nancy, there are some pretty good reference books in the Library of Congress…

Do you have friends who are Democrats? If so, please buy them a dictionary and teach them how to use it. It could save them untold embarrassment and perhaps prevent them from using words they don’t understand under oath, in legislation, in campaign promises, in security briefings.

Folks, have a heart. Buy a Dem a dictionary! Don’t wait; do it today. You won’t be sorry–and neither will your Deomcratic friends.

Stoutcat