From Christine O'Donnell:

Obama/Biden's plan for a U.N. tax on Americans

Townhall.com recently asked me to write an op-ed about the "Global Tax" supported by Obama and Biden. Below is what I wrote on this abominable attach on our sovereignty.

For an entire week, Americans watched as Senator Barack Obama took his act on the road, courting the European elitists and cowtowing to an endless array of foreign politicians. At this point it may be easy to take Obama's "celebri-plomacy" lightly. Yet, his trip highlights a dangerous threat to America's national sovereignty in the form of his globalist policies that will diminish America's role in the world and outsource decisions of vital national interest to the United Nations.

His Global Poverty Act, currently under consideration in Congress, is just one such policy. Despite its seemingly innocuous title, the Global Poverty Act would force America to adopt the U.N.'s "Millennium Development Goals" as official U.S. policy. This means outsourcing to the United Nations all important decisions concerning the use of U.S. foreign aid dollars. Not only that, but the fee for allowing the U.N. to play the "middle man" in our global war on poverty would be a tax of .7 percent of the U.S. Gross National Product. That's right. Barack Obama and his liberal allies such as Senator Biden have signed on to a bill that would allow the U.N. to tax America (and Americans) an estimated $845 billion over the next 13 years. Obama's plan represents perhaps the greatest affront to our national sovereignty since the War of 1812.

The Global Poverty Act dismisses the American ideals of a free-market economy and responsible government for a global bureaucracy that has already lost tens of millions in development funds to corruption. The measure demands virtually no accountability or reform from the impoverished and often oppressive nations who are the recipients of our charitable largess. Furthermore, the United Nations Development Program has become the favorite "rich uncle" of terrorist states and rogue regimes, accidentally funneling millions to North Korea's illicit weapons programs and violating 95 U.S. export laws in the process.

You might ask how this abomination has quietly made its way through Congress with barely a mention on mainstream media or by our representatives in Washington. The Global Poverty Act began in the U.S. House with only 84 co-sponsors and was quietly passed by a voice vote by Democrats and some well-meaning Republicans who did not know what was in the bill. Now, Obama has "taken the football" and launched a continuous effort to ram the bill through the Senate with the help of his new foreign policy lap dog, Senator Joe Biden (In the interest of full-disclosure, I should note that I am currently the Republican running against Joe Biden for the U.S. Senate in Delaware).

Senator Biden rushed the bill through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with another voice vote and without any hearings. The Senate voted against the bill in February 2008, but now Obama, Biden and their liberal cohorts lay in wait to slip the bill past the American people by rolling it into another larger spending package like the so-called "Coburn Omnibus."

If we are not vigilant and allow Democrats in the Senate to sneak the "Global Poverty Tax" past the voters, we will sacrifice our national sovereignty and set the dangerous precedent of allowing the United Nations to tax Americans. Our "reward" for our benevolence will be a bureaucracy that provides little accountability and no measurable returns on our hefty global investment.

Without an insistence on serious economic and government reforms and accountability for every dollar spent, the U.S. will continue to spend hundreds of billions attempting to treat the symptoms of global poverty while at the same time feeding the disease. Reform and accountability are key to insuring that our investment in the fight against global poverty produces immediate and measurable results while providing freedom and long-term economic reform that give individuals the tools to lift themselves out of poverty and partake in the benefits of a free-market economy.

Throwing more money at the problem is not the answer. Handing over the job to an organization renowned for its incompetence is a recipe for disaster. Our greatest export is our unique system of government and the ingenuity it fosters. Economic assistance coupled with measurable reform provides a pathway to prosperity and a petri dish for burgeoning economic opportunity—not just for developing nations but also for the U.S. We have only to look at our $17.5 billion in annual exports to India's growing middle class to see the long-term benefits of promoting government and economic reform both through responsible development aid and private sector partnerships.

America as a nation is at a critical time in her history. For 200 years, the United States has been a beacon of freedom and prosperity for the world. If we subjugate our leadership role to the U.N. and outsource our responsibilities to the United Nations' Development Program, we will leave global prosperity and freedom to chance, crush the American economy with an $845 billion tax and fail all people throughout the world who aspire to all that we have achieved.

The Global Poverty Act is the first battle in what is no-doubt a far-reaching liberal assault on our sovereignty, our prosperity and our role as the leader of the free world. Obama, Biden and other globalist Democrats want to turn the United States into a nation of followers, but I still believe that America has a unique role as a defender of the oppressed and an example to every person with the capacity to dream of a better life. If we shirk our responsibility now, we will lose our national soul and the free world will pay the price for our passing the buck.

To view the original article go to:
http://townhall.com/columnists/ChristineODonnell/2008/08/08/obama_supports_global_tax_from_united_nations

May 18, 2006

On the bright side, if President Bush's amnesty proposal for illegal immigrants ends up hurting Republicans and we lose Congress this November, maybe the Democrats will impeach him and we'll get Cheney as president.

At least Bush has dropped his infernal references to slacker Americans when talking about illegal immigrants. In his speech Monday night, instead of 47 mentions of "jobs Americans won't do," Bush referred only once to "jobs Americans are not doing" -- which I take it means other than border enforcement and intelligence-gathering at the CIA. For the record, I'll volunteer right now to clean other people's apartments if I don't have to pay taxes on what I earn.

Also, someone must have finally told Bush that the point about America being a "nation of immigrants" is moronic. All nations are "nations of immigrants" -- as Peter Brimelow pointed out brilliantly in his 1992 article in National Review on immigration, which left nothing for anyone else to say.

Of the "nation of immigrants" locution, Brimelow says:

"No discussion of U.S. immigration policy gets far without someone making this helpful remark. As an immigrant myself, I always pause respectfully. You never know. Maybe this is what they're taught to chant in schools nowadays, a sort of multicultural Pledge of Allegiance. ... Do they really think other nations sprouted up out of the ground?"

Brimelow then ran through the Roman, Saxon, Viking, Norman-French, Welsh and Celtic immigrant influences in Britain alone.

Instead of a moratorium on new immigration, I'd settle for a moratorium on the use of the expression "We're a nation of immigrants." Throw in a ban on "Diversity is our strength" and you've got my vote for life.

Bush has also apparently learned that the word "amnesty" does not poll well. On Monday night, he angrily denounced the idea of amnesty just before proposing his own amnesty program. The difference between Bush's amnesty program and "amnesty" is: He'd give amnesty only to people who have been breaking our laws for many years -- not just a few months. (It's the same program that allows Ted Kennedy to stay in the Senate.)

Bush calls this the "rational middle ground" because it recognizes the difference between "an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years." Yes, the difference is: One of them has been breaking the law longer. If our criminal justice system used that logic, a single murder would get you the death penalty, while serial killers would get probation.

Bush claimed the only other alternative -- I assume this is the "irrational extreme" -- is "a program of mass deportation." Really? Is the only alternative to legalizing tax cheats "a program of mass arrest of tax cheats"?

This is the logic of the pro-abortion zealots (aka "the Democratic Party"): Either lift every single restriction on abortion or ... every woman in America will be impregnated by her father and die in a back-alley abortion!

Those are your only two answers? Do you need another minute?

How about the proposal made on Brimelow's Web site, Vdare.com, that illegal immigrants be told they have two months to leave the country voluntarily and not have their breaking of our immigration laws held against them when they apply for citizenship from their home countries -- or not leave and be banned from U.S. citizenship forever?

Or how about just not giving illegal aliens green cards -- as Bush is proposing -- and deport them when we catch them?

Instead of choosing immigrants based on the longevity of their lawbreaking, another idea is to choose the immigrants we want, for example, those who speak English or have special skills. (And by "special skills" I don't mean giving birth to an anchor baby in a border-town emergency room.)

Why not use immigration the way sports teams use the draft -- to upgrade our roster? We could take our pick of the world's engineers, doctors, scientists, uh ... smoking-hot Latin guys who stand around not wearing shirts between workouts. Or, you know, whatever ...

As Peter Brimelow says in his book "Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster," why not choose immigrants who are better than us?

Bush thinks it's not fair to favor people with special skills -- a policy evidenced by his Harriet Miers pick.

How about this: It's not fair to want to go out with someone just because that person is attractive and has a good personality because it discriminates against people who are ugly with bad social skills! That's our immigration policy.

Press "1" for English; press "2" for a new president ...

May 04, 2006

Tuition Soars Due To Knowledge Shortfall

By: Ann Coulter

Every sentient, literate adult knows that the current spike in gas prices is 90 percent due to forces completely beyond the control of Congress, the White House or even "Big Oil" itself. The laws of supply and demand determine gas prices the same way those laws determine the price of eggs, acid-washed blue jeans and Kanye West downloads.

What determines the price of college tuition? It certainly isn't the quality of the product as copiously demonstrated in David Horowitz's new book, "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America."

The two big topics on CNN last week were (1) high gas prices and (2) the high cost of college tuition. (Also a story about an angry Hispanic lacrosse player who vanished from a cruise ship during Bush's low poll numbers.)

CNN reports that college tuition has risen an astonishing 40 percent since 2000. But the proposed solutions to the exact same problem high prices for gasoline and tuition, respectively were diametrically opposed.

Scientists investigating the phenomenon of global climate change in regards to man made activities have found the greatest culprit. HEB. HEB or Hypo Etherial Bentene, is a byproduct of reprocessing certian manmade materials. HEB is given off in the reprocessing of newsprint and many forms of plastics when they are cleaned and heated. These processes are most often used in EPA mandated recycling programs. During the reprocessing of recyleable materials, HEB is released into the atmosphere and due to its unique molecular structure, it is not removed from the air by rainfall, lightning or escaping into space. It is also a highly efficient converter of the entire light spectrum into heat. Unlike other so called greenhouse gasses, HEB doesn't cause its own counter effect naturally.

Researchers have begun to urge the immediate cessation of recycling programs that release HEB into the atmosphere. They are currently working on a new process to destroy HEB before it destroys our planet. The new process, Bentene Inversion Granular Etherial Depletion, is currently being tested in private laboratories in several countries. No funding or grants for this research have been granted as yet.

Please contact your state and federal representatives and urge them to take action on this urgent research.  Send this to all your email contacts and urge everyone you know to spread the word.

It seems the Bush administration – being a group of sane, informed adults – has been secretly tapping Arab terrorists without warrants.

During the CIA raids in Afghanistan in early 2002 that captured Abu Zubaydah and his associates, the government seized computers, cell phones and personal phone books. Soon after the raids, the National Security Agency began trying to listen to calls placed to the phone numbers found in al-Qaida Rolodexes.

That was true even if you were "an American citizen" making the call from U.S. territory – like convicted al-Qaida associate Iyman Faris who, after being arrested, confessed to plotting to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge. If you think the government should not be spying on people like Faris, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

By intercepting phone calls to people on Zubaydah's speed-dial, the NSA arrested not only "American citizen" Faris, but other Arab terrorists, including al-Qaida members plotting to bomb British pubs and train stations.

.. type=text/javascript> .. src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" type=text/javascript> <[iframe] name=google_ads_frame marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-8292780307372447&dt=1136845866710&lmt=1136568452&prev_fmts=728x90_as&format=234x60_as&output=html&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstatesusa.com%2Farchives%2F2006%2F01%2Fwhy_we_dont_tru.html&color_bg=FFFFFF&color_text=000000&color_link=000066&color_url=000066&color_border=000000&ad_type=text&u_h=600&u_w=800&u_ah=549&u_aw=800&u_cd=16&u_tz=-300&u_java=true" frameBorder=0 width=234 scrolling=no height=60 allowTransparency>

The most innocent-sounding target of the NSA's spying cited by the Treason Times was "an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden." Whatever softening adjectives the Times wants to put in front of the words "ties to Osama bin Laden," we're still left with those words – "ties to Osama bin Laden." The government better be watching that person.

The Democratic Party has decided to express indignation at the idea that an American citizen who happens to be a member of al-Qaida is not allowed to have a private conversation with Osama bin Laden. If they run on that in 2008, it could be the first time in history a Republican president takes even the District of Columbia.

On this one, I'm pretty sure Americans are going with the president.

If the Democrats had any brains, they'd distance themselves from the cranks demanding Bush's impeachment for listening in on terrorists' phone calls to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (Then again, if they had any brains, they'd be Republicans.)

To the contrary! It is Democrats like Sen. Barbara Boxer who are leading the charge to have Bush impeached for spying on people with Osama's cell phone number.

That's all you need to know about the Democrats to remember that they can't be trusted with national security. (That and Jimmy Carter.)

Thanks to the Treason Times' exposure of this highly classified government program, admitted terrorists like Iyman Faris are going to be appealing their convictions. Perhaps they can call Democratic senators as expert witnesses to testify that it was illegal for the Bush administration to eavesdrop on their completely private calls to al-Zarqawi.

Democrats and other traitors have tried to couch their opposition to the NSA program in civil libertarian terms, claiming Bush could have gone to the court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and gotten warrants for the interceptions.

The Treason Times reported FISA virtually rubber-stamps warrant requests all the time. As proof, the Times added this irrelevant statistic: In 2004, "1,754 warrants were approved." No one thought to ask how many requests were rejected.

Over and over we heard how the FISA court never turns down an application for a warrant. USA Today quoted liberal darling and author James Bamford saying: "The FISA court is as big a rubber stamp as you can possibly get within the federal judiciary." He "wondered why Bush sought the warrantless searches, since the FISA court rarely rejects search requests," said USA Today.

Put aside the question of why it's so vitally important to get a warrant from a rubber-stamp court if it's nothing but an empty formality anyway. After all the ballyhoo about how it was duck soup to get a warrant from FISA, I thought it was pretty big news when it later turned out that the FISA court had been denying warrant requests from the Bush administration like never before. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the FISA court "modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined."

In the 20 years preceding the attack of 9-11, the FISA court did not modify – much less reject – one single warrant request. But starting in 2001, the judges "modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for court-ordered surveillance by the Bush administration." In the years 2003 and 2004, the court issued 173 "substantive modifications" to warrant requests and rejected or "deferred" six warrant requests outright.

What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack. Also, perhaps as a gesture of inclusion and tolerance, hold an Oval Office reception for the suspected al-Qaida operatives. After another terrorist attack, I'm sure a New York Times reporter could explain to the victims' families that, after all, the killer's ties to al-Qaida were merely "dubious" and the FISA court had a very good reason for denying the warrant request.

Every once in a while the nation needs little reminder of why the Democrats can't be trusted with national security. This is today's lesson.

I'm getting a little insulted that no Democratic prosecutor has indicted me. Liberals bring trumped-up criminal charges against all the most dangerous conservatives. Why not me?

Democrat prosecutor Barry Krischer has spent two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find some criminal charge to bring against Rush Limbaugh. Political hack Ronnie Earle spent three years and went through six grand juries to indict Tom DeLay. Liberals spent the last two years fantasizing in public about Karl Rove being indicted. Newt Gingrich was under criminal investigation for 3 1/2 years back in the '90s when liberals were afraid of him. Final result: No crime.

And of course, everybody cool in the Reagan administration was indicted. Or at least investigated and persecuted. Reagan's sainted attorney general Ed Meese was criminally investigated for 14 months before the prosecutor announced that he didn't have anything (but denounced Meese as a crook anyway).

Democrat prosecutor Ronnie Earle's conspiracy charge against Tom DeLay was thrown out this week, which came as a surprise to people who think it's normal for a prosecutor to have to empanel six grand juries in order to get an indictment on simple fund-raising violations. Mr. Earle will presumably assemble a seventh grand jury as soon as he locates someone in the county who hasn't served on a previous one.

It probably goes without saying that it is extraordinary for criminal charges to be thrown out by a judge before any jury ever hears the evidence. Juries decide guilt or innocence in this country. For the judge to dismiss an indictment before trial, it means he concluded that — even if the jury finds everything Ronnie Earle alleges to be true — no crime was committed.

Obviously, this was a huge victory for DeLay and, as The Washington Post put it, "a slap at Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle." (More bad news for Ronnie Earle: Today President Bush said the embattled Texas D.A. was doing "a heck of a job.")

Or, in the words of CNN's Bill Schneider on what this means for Tom DeLay: "Not good." In the expert analysis of Schneider, it was "not good" for DeLay to have charges thrown out because it would have been even better if all the charges had been thrown out. It also would have been better if the judge had dismissed the conspiracy charges andgiven DeLay an ice cream cone.

But that doesn't mean having criminal charges against you dismissed is, I quote, "not good." And they think Fox News has twice CNN's ratings just because it's fair and balanced. The accountants at Fox could give a more penetrating legal analysis.

In the past few years, all TV news has become less biased due to the salubrious influence of Fox News. But Bill Schneider isn't backing off one inch! Watching Schneider is like entering a time machine and seeing how news was reported in the '80s. CNN ought to start broadcasting Schneider's appearances only in black and white.

According to Schneider, the judge's failure to dismiss the money laundering charges proves "obviously, on at least one charge the judge disagreed" with DeLay's claim that the prosecutor was politically motivated. Schneider's entire understanding of criminal law was apparently shaped during the Ally McBeal years.

Schneider would have said more, but he had to run off to file a story about how 4.3 percent growth, 215,000 new jobs, record productivity gains and continued growth in real estate prices were "not good" news for the economy.

In fact, all we know as a result of the judge's ruling on Monday is that the remaining charge against DeLay, if proved, would at least constitute a crime.

To repeat what you might already have heard in third grade: In America, the validity of criminal charges is determined by the trier of fact after a trial. A judge is not authorized to dismiss a criminal indictment handed up by a grand jury just because the prosecutor is a political hack.

This is true even if the prosecutor had to spend three years and empanel six grand juries to get an indictment.

It is true even if the same prosecutor also indicted Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison days after she was elected to the U.S. Senate, but after spending a year holding press conferences in which he called Hutchinson a criminal, still had no evidence and folded his hand.

It is true even if the prosecutor is participating in a documentary about a brave liberal prosecutor (Ronnie Earle) exposing a black-hearted Republican (Tom DeLay) — which wouldn't make much of a movie if no charges were ever brought.

Thus, for example, Earle's baseless charges against Hutchison — like the remaining charges against DeLay — were not dismissed before trial. What happened was, the trial date came and Earle had no evidence. The judge ordered the jury to acquit.

Earle never admitted he had no evidence against Hutchison. Instead, he made a preposterous request of the judge. He asked the judge to issue a pre-emptive ruling declaring all documents that Earle planned to admit throughout the trial admissible — without allowing the judge to know what those documents were or allowing the defense an opportunity to object. Obviously, the judge said he would have to see the documents first and decide admissibility on a case-by-case basis.

So now and forevermore, Earle claims his case against Hutchison was watertight, but because the judge ruled against him, he was prevented from presenting his "evidence" to the jury. Remember that when liberals call Bill O'Reilly a "liar" because he won a Polk award, but one time he got confused and called it a Peabody award.

When Democratic Rep. John Murtha called for the withdrawal of American troops in the middle of the war, Republicans immediately leapt to action by calling Murtha a war hero, a patriot and a great American.

I haven't heard Republicans issue this many encomiums to one man since Ronald Reagan died. By now, Murtha has been transformed into the greatest warrior since Alexander the Great and is probably dating Jennifer Aniston.

In response to Murtha's demand for the "immediate withdrawal of American troops" – as the New York Times put it – President Bush called Murtha a "fine man, a good man" who served with "honor and distinction," who "is a strong supporter of the United States military." He said he knew Murtha's "decision to call for an immediate withdrawal of our troops ... was done in a careful and thoughtful way."

As noted here previously, George Clooney's movie "Good Night, and Good Luck," about pious parson Edward R. Murrow and Sen. Joseph McCarthy, failed to produce one person unjustly accused by McCarthy. Since I described McCarthy as a great American patriot defamed by liberals in my 2003 book, "Treason," liberals have had two more years to produce a person – just one person – falsely accused by McCarthy. They still can't do it.

Meanwhile, I can prove that Murrow's good friend Lawrence Duggan was a Soviet spy responsible for having innocent people murdered. The brilliant and perceptive journalist Murrow was not only unaware of the hundreds of Soviet spies running loose in the U.S. government, he was also unaware that his own dear friend Duggan was a Soviet spy – his friend on whose behalf corpses littered the Swiss landscape.