If you're trying to follow the health care debate, you know there are some "truths" which have been repeated so frequently, and with such vehemence, that they have become gospel. How often have you heard "the costs are skyrocketing" or "our system is broken" or "Americans overwhelmingly support reform"?

Here's a heads-up: Some of these are simply baloney.

For instance, those pushing reform have described our healthcare system as "broken," thus in desperate need of overhaul. The primary evidence for this claim is a report issued by the World Health Organization in 2000 which ranked the U.S. 37th in overall "health performance" despite being number one in spending. (It is noteworthy that the WHO no longer publishes such a ranking -- deeming the process "too difficult.") Betsy McCaughey, in a recent talk before the Manhattan Institute, noted that the rankings were heavily weighted towards social goals, and less towards the effectiveness of medical care. In other words, the WHO studied the distribution of medical attention, and the fairness in financial contribution, placing as much weight on such issues as on actual performance.

That place, of course, is Russia, which Obama plans to visit this month. The president will find a Kremlin amenable to doing business with him on traditional diplomatic matters like reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles, so long as Moscow is convinced the deal is an even one.

But if Obama, more ambitiously, hopes to win over the hearts of the Russian people -- along the lines of his recent Cairo address, pitched over the heads of the governments of the Islamic world and straight at their citizenry -- he can expect to leave disappointed.

Analysis of figures from the European Commission showed a 77 per cent increase in murders, robberies, assaults and sexual offences in the UK since Labour came to power.

The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

Opposition leaders said the disclosures were a "damning indictment" of the Government's failure to tackle deep-rooted social problems.

The figures combined crime statistics for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The UK had a greater number of murders in 2007 than any other EU country – 927 – and at a relative rate higher than most western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

A "WHITE flight" to Facebook has turned MySpace into a black ghetto, according to a social analyst in the US.

Danah Boyd said Facebook's arrival sparked a migration from MySpace of white users, the educated and the wealthy, while non-whites had stuck together on MySpace.

The London-based human rights group also accused Hamas of war crimes, but said it found no evidence that the Islamist rulers of Gaza used civilians as human shields during the 22-day offensive Israel launched on December 28.

It also reiterated its call for an international arms embargo against Israel.

"Much of the destruction was wanton and resulted from direct attacks on civilian objects," Amnesty said in a study.

Israeli troops forced Palestinians to stay in one room of their home while turning the rest of the house into a base and sniper position, "effectively using the families, both adults and children, as human shields and putting them at risk," the group said.

The Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the case of the New Haven firefighters, was a ringing endorsement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964's ban on racial discrimination and a repudiation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's decision in the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. While five justices flatly rejected Sotomayor's ruling, even the four dissenters wouldn't have let stand her ruling allowing the results of a promotion exam to be set aside because no black firefighter had a top score.

Ricci is also something else: a riveting lesson in political sociology, thanks to the concurring opinion by Justice Samuel Alito. It shows how a combination of vote-hungry politicians and local political agitators -- you might call them community organizers -- worked with the approval of elite legal professionals like Sotomayor to employ racial quotas and preferences in defiance of the words of the Civil Rights Act.

One of the chief actors was the Rev. Boise Kimber, a supporter of Mayor John DeStefano. The mayor testified for him as a character witness in a 1996 trial in which he was convicted of stealing prepaid funeral expenses from an elderly woman. DeStefano later appointed Kimber the head of the board of fire commissioners, but Kimber resigned after saying he wouldn't hire certain recruits because "they just have too many vowels in their name."

Tell me how an apology for slavery and Jim Crow makes blacks any better off. The answer, of course, is that it doesn't. But to that point, it never was about apologies was it? It has always been about reparations.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., head of the Congressional Black Caucus said, "I would not want to have any language in place that would deny anyone, any citizen, the right to address a grievance." For those not familiar with legalese – "right to address a grievance" is a benign way of saying, "right to sue for megabucks based on a real or perceived wrong."

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said, "I feel that some method other than just an apology should be made – people should be whole." Once again, for those not familiar with the language, "should be made whole," simplistically put, means "should get a ton of money to repair a complaint."

Three of the Supreme Court justices who voted against New Haven in Monday’s landmark firefighters case ruling zeroed in on one character they saw playing a nefarious role: the Rev. Boise Kimber (pictured right).

In fact, Kimber’s role as a New Haven politico, felon, and FOJ (Friend of John, Mayor DeStefano) ended up sparking a lively debate between the Supreme Court’s conservative and liberal wings.

This is the latest in a two-decade-long saga of how Kimber (pictured) has caused political headaches for DeStefano while receiving repeated political plums from the mayor, including a controversial “consulting” housing contract that figured prominently in a 1998 City Hall corruption scandal.

DeStefano in turn has relied on the Newhallville preacher to carry his banner in the black community in pivotal Democratic mayoral primaries dating back to his 1989 contest against John Daniels and his 2001 race against Martin Looney.

A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days.

Rival factions close to the McCain campaign have been feuding since last fall over Palin, usually waging the battle in the shadows with anonymous quotes. Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting.

The French political establishment scrambled yesterday to try to block a significant electoral breakthrough by the daughter of the veteran far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Marine Le Pen, 40, and her running-mate topped the poll on Sunday night's municipal by-election in Hénin-Beaumont, an impoverished former coal mining town near Lens in the Pas de Calais. Having won nearly 40 per cent of the votes cast in the first round, the Le Pens' National Front party is in a strong position to capture its first town hall for seven years in the run-off ballot this Sunday. It would be the first time that the ultra-nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-European party has taken control of a town council in the depressed industrial areas of northern France. Victory would also strengthen Mme Le Pen's chances of inheriting, and attempting to modernize the NF, when her 81-year-old father retires in the next two to three years.

by David Hamilton

Conservative philosopher Roger Scruton has written that “ an ideology needs an enemy”.  In the West that is us - “whites”.  The chosen method is to dehumanise the enemy so that it can be persecuted or even assassinated without conscience.  They think it will fool the public when they try to outlaw the BNP’s racial admission rules, despite leaving the various black and Asian groups to operate their own racial membership policies.

These comments show the Ideological Caste’s dehumanisation of its enemies in language they would otherwise eagerly attribute to Nazis:

Trevor Phillips: “The BNP should be treated as less than human”.
Nick Bourne - Welsh Tory MP: “The BNP are subhuman”

On March 29, 2009, Steven Bierfeldt was detained in a small room at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and interrogated by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials for nearly half an hour after he passed a metal box containing cash through a security checkpoint X-ray machine. Today an official lawsuit was brought against Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security.

On June 18, 2009, the ACLU filed a complaint on behalf of Bierfeldt, charging that TSA is subjecting innocent Americans to unreasonable searches and detentions that violate the Constitution. See the official legal document and listen to the recording by clicking here.

Pres. Barack Obama took the first step on Thursday towards immigration reform and an amnesty for more than 11 million illegal aliens. Members of the Administration met with 30 Members of Congress from both sides of the issue and both sides of the aisle to get the debate rolling, but Pres. Obama said after the meeting that there was "not by any means consensus across the table."

Despite the differing opinions on how to handle the illegal alien population, how to secure the borders and how to monitor the flow of future immigrants, Pres. Obama said he's committed to getting an amnesty through Congress.

"It's going to require some heavy lifting," Pres. Obama said. "It's going to require a victory of practicality and common sense and good policy making over short-term politics. That's what I'm committed to doing as president.

And Americans should take a good, long look at the fiscal and social wreck of the Golden Land, because California is at a place to which all of America is heading.

In May, when five fund-raising proposals were put on the ballot, Gov. Schwarzenegger pleaded with the overtaxed Californians not to make their state "the poster child for dysfunction."

As The Economist writes, "On May 18th, they did exactly that."

Very Important for you to be aware of a new bill HR 45 introduced into the House. This is the Blair Holt Firearm  Licensing & Record of Sale Act of 2009.

 

Even gun shop owners didn't know about this because the government  is trying to fly it under the radar.