The same people who have brought you 10 percent unemployment, government run health care and a national energy tax are now attempting to bequeath you with another unwanted holiday gift.  This time, however, the stakes are even higher as they want to bring terrorists to US soil.

The White House has just announced their plan to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois.  From my briefings at GITMO and speaking with people who know the situation well, I can say that moving GITMO terrorists to Thomson, is a huge unnecessary gamble.

Those terrorists still remaining in GITMO are among the world’s most dangerous warriors. They are wickedly creative in thinking out of the box when contemplating doing us harm, as evidenced by the attacks of September 11, 2001.  They command the loyalty of thousands of fellow jihadists around the world and have complete control over the minds of followers, both in detention and on the outside.  On a whim, they can—and have—ordered those under their command to commit suicide at a moment’s notice.

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With the onset of the holiday season, Washington, D.C., is getting quieter by the day.  However, opponents of net neutrality—which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering implementing—are not taking a break from tough policy debate quite yet.  With the FCC expected to reach a decision on net neutrality early next year, one major foe of the policy spoke out against it again last week in harsh terms, suggesting that if net neutrality rules were implemented, they might fall afoul of the First Amendment’s intent and purpose.

Kyle McSlarrow, President of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said at a lunch held last Wednesday by the Media Institute that the implementation of net neutrality rules “would ultimately decrease the overall amount of speech on the Internet, thus harming, not helping, First Amendment interests.”  Furthermore, he argued, net neutrality proponents who claim the policy is needed to protect First Amendment rights have their facts “upside down.”  McSlarrow went on to add, “By its plain terms and history, the First Amendment is a limitation on government power, not an empowerment of government.  Making these arguments is, ironically, almost proof that First Amendment rights are being implicated…let’s not forget that the First Amendment is framed as a shield for citizens, not a sword for government.”

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Greg Sargent, at the blog Plum Line Reports:

In a blow to the bill grinding through the Senate, Howard Dean bluntly called for the bill to be killed in a pre-recorded interview set to air later this afternoon, denouncing it as “the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” the reporter who conducted the interview tells me.

Dean said the removal of the Medicare buy-in made the bill not worth supporting, and urged Dem leaders to start over with the process of reconciliation in the interview, which is set to air at 5:50 PM today on Vermont Public Radio, political reporter Bob Kinzel confirms to me. (more…)

To me, one of the most disturbing – and starkly honest – one-liners that came out of the 2008 campaign was this: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”  It was delivered by Sen. Barack Obama while rallying a crowd at the University of Missouri on October 30, 2008.

That definitely was not the standard message that Obama conveyed to the masses. “Change” is a much different concept than “transforming America.” We wonder how many voters would have thought twice if they knew they were voting for a revolutionary transformation of our nation’s economy and the government’s involvement in private affairs.

Like his off-the-cuff remark to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth around,” Obama opened a little window into his soul with that statement.

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Scott Baker from Breitbart-TV.com and Co-Host of ‘The B-Cast‘ submitted a shocking report to Gateway Pundit blog back on December 4, 2009. The report detailed the reading list promoted to 7-12 grade students by Kevin Jennings’ GLSEN organization. This material has not been reported in detail at Big Government website. Remember as you read this that Kevin Jennings is today the nation’s Safe Schools Czar.

—-Warning on Content—–

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Today the Obama Administration is announcing it plans to import the terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay prison – some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world – to the Thomson Correctional Center located outside Chicago, Illinois.  This decision puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people.  Here’s how I addressed this issue at a press conference on Capitol Hill this morning:

The American people don’t want dangerous terrorists imported on to U.S. soil, and time after time the House and Senate have reaffirmed this position with bipartisan votes rejecting the Administration’s plan. Yet this Administration is defying the will of the American people and importing them anyway. What’s worse, this decision is completely unnecessary considering that these terrorists were already being tried by military commissions, which were specifically designed under the law to prosecute such heinous acts.

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Leftist troublemaker George Soros has already made it explicitly clear he wishes to destroy capitalism.

Maybe the Third World will help the hedge fund manager and currency manipulator do it.

The preeminent funder of the left in America wants the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to become a kind of globetrotting Bernard Madoff, offering low-interest loans to poor countries so they can invest in the doomed global warming industry.

George Soros, owner, Democratic Party

According to Soros, the loans would allow developing countries to “jump-start forestry, land use, and agricultural projects – areas that offer the greatest scope for reducing or mitigating carbon emissions, and that could produce substantial returns from carbon markets.”

Soros, who personally wants to invest $1 billion in “clean” technology, wants the IMF to help stimulate demand for the technology he plans to underwrite.

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If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that we should never doubt the abilities of Joe Lieberman to get what he wants, and the willingness of Harry Reid to cave in the clutch. We’ll discuss where health care goes from here, the latest on the markets, and a disturbing trend in food prices on today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, a daily podcast from The New Ledger on politics, policy and the marketplace with Francis Cianfrocca, brought to you by BigGovernment.com.

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You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

The Hill: Lieberman and Nelson Get What They Want
New Ledger: On Lieberman, How Reality Based Are Klein and Yglesias?
Business Insider: If You Thought The Economy Was Being Inflated By The Stimulus, You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
Bloomberg: Fastest Food Inflation Since Riots Means Milk Up 39%

Francis adds: Keep your eyes peeled on food prices, because it’s an explosive sleeper issue. For the first eight months of 2008, nobody except finance geeks was aware that we were in a financial crisis. The Lehman collapse took an ongoing situation and planted it into public consciousness.

But during those months before Lehman, commodity prices around the world were on an insane tear. Oil at $147 wasn’t the only thing affected by huge inflation. And it was starting to cause real social upheaval in places like the Philippines (which couldn’t beg borrow or steal enough rice) and West Africa (which couldn’t beg borrow or steal anything).

The acute financial crisis of late 2008 damped out the inflation, because it damped out all economic activity. But I never felt like I really understood the food-price inflation, and I don’t think anyone else did either. If it’s back, it’ll be a major story in 2010.

Sorry, that headline comes from an alternate universe where Media Matters isn’t a political hack tank devoted to defending Progressive Democrats at all costs.

It only took 6 hours for them to begin glossing over an audio interview Jim Hoft conducted with a retired teacher who had the misfortune of attending one of the GLSEN events associated with Fistgate.

The teacher, who wants to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, offers her opinion about the event, and Obama “safe schools czar” Kevin Jennings’ awareness of the overtly sexualized curriculum.

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[Ed Note: Recently, City Hall in New York published an amazing multi-part investigative piece on possible corruption, illegal activities and general shadiness within the multi-pronged Working Families Party in New York. For those of you searching for examples of what investigative journalism used to be like, this series is a good place to start. Under the direction of lead reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere, the series explored the tangled web the Party in New York. Big Government readers will note that one of the co-chairs of the Party is Working Families Party is Bertha Lewis, CEO of ACORN. So, for those keeping score at home, this is the second organization headed by Lewis is that marked by opaque and confusing interrelationships and ethically-challenged legal boundaries. Hmm, what are the odds? Today begins Part I]

In August, City Hall published an investigative report explaining the operations of the Working Families Party’s for-profit company, Data & Field Services. In early September, after conducting its own review, the New York City Campaign Finance Board officially declared that “DFS exists as an arm of the Working Families Party.” Over the last three months, City Hall has continued the investigation, relying on dozens of interviews with people within and outside the organization, in addition to a review of tax, lobbying and campaign finance records, as well as confidential internal documents.

Following weeks of in-depth inquiries from City Hall, the Working Families Party announced on Nov. 6 that it was hiring the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to conduct a review of its practices, with the effort to be led by Judith Kaye, the former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals.

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Today, in 1791, the Bill of Rights become law, ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.

Uninsurance is portrayed as being like a disease; it has even been called an epidemic. At a minimum, it puts you one medical bill away from bankruptcy, and you might even die from it, they say.

Yet some people I know, even doctors, do not want to buy health insurance.

And I know of at least one person who was very lucky to have had hers cancelled.

Here’s her story. She told an acquaintance, who happened to be a physician, about her eye symptoms. “Wouldn’t you know! I lost my insurance a couple months ago, and now this!”

The physician happened to have an ophthalmoscope in her truck, and took a look in the patient’s eye. Then she called a retinal surgery practice and told the receptionist the patient’s history, and the results of the limited examination she could do. She thought the patient might have a detached retina.

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The House and Senate are wrapping up work on the last appropriations bill of the year and rumors are swirling that the controversial Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, also known as the “Akaka Bill,” will be included in the Defense Appropriations bill.  The defense measure is proving to be controversial, because House and Senate appropriators are using it to carry non related matters like a $1.9 trillion debt limit increase, an extension of unemployment benefits and the Native Hawaiian measure.

The Native Hawaiian bill, a long time priority of Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI), would set up a race based government of “indigenous, native people of Hawaii.”  Opponents argue that this bill is unconstitutional and unwise.  National Review Online sounded the alarm bells today and sources on Capitol Hill confirmed to Big Government that a version of the Native Hawaiian Bill may end up in the Defense Appropriations bill.  (more…)

Let’s first get THIS out of the way:  I do NOT believe the President is a Muslim.  OK?  I believe he is a Christian.  I’ve seen his Pastor in action.

That being said, I DO believe that a pattern has developed in the Obama White House to not only bend over backwards in praise of the Islamic faith, but to give what can only be described as short shrift (bordering on insult) to the Jewish faith.

The recent news about the second-class status given to the White House Hanukkah Party, in comparison with the Bush Administration’s handling of the event, brings to light a continual diminishing of the importance of the Jewish Holy Days.  Case in point:

Last Fall, the Jewish Holy time of Rosh Hashanah was acknowledged by the President with a 2:37 video greeting.  Unfortunately, President Obama used the occasion of the Rosh Hashanah greeting to lecture Jews around the world about the importance of tolerance.  (Lecturing JEWS about the importance of tolerance???  Because THEY keep blowing children up at pizza parlors?)

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As Congress prepares to raise the debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion, there are renewed calls from political elites for a value-added tax in America. The New York Times all but campaigned for the idea while touting it as a possible “cure for deficits.” But a VAT would do nothing to solve our deficit problem. Rather, it would supply new fuel to big government bureaucrats addicted to spending.

Supporters of a VAT mistakenly assume that increasing government revenues will lead to reduced budget deficits. While raising additional revenue may be part of any long term budgetary solution, it is not sufficient by itself – and probably not needed at all. Unless systemic changes are made, there is every reason to believe that additional revenues will simply be used to provide additional entitlements, pork barrel projects, and other wasteful government spending initiatives designed solely to enhance the reelection prospects of politicians. So long as deficit spending provides tangible benefits to the political class, they will continue to run deficits regardless of the amount of revenue raised.

Even in the midst of recession, federal revenues exceeded $2 trillion in fiscal year 2009. Can anyone really argue that $2 trillion is not enough for the federal government to perform the duties outlined in the Constitution?

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Kaiser Permanente (KP) would appear to be the frontrunner to head up the government-administered Medicare buy-in plan devised by Senate Democrats, especially since the company was ranked as the number one Medicare plan in November. In addition, KP–in compliance with the Obama agenda to have all medical records electronic by 2014–has heavily invested in electronic medical records (EMR) and has even linked two of the largest electronic medical record systems in the country—allowing doctors and nurses at Kaiser and VA hospitals and clinics in San Diego county to access certain information about patients who receive care from both health systems. KP’s merging of the two systems also can be thought of as the flagship model for EMR convergence, leading to an EMR platform under a single-payer, universal health system.

With this type of progress and plan ratings, KP would be a natural fit and even help facilitate the transition to a single-payer system. Even the Democrats in the Senate seem to think that, after demonizing the insurance companies, they could overlook the insurance industry’s greed and other flaws and have them run their new compromise “non-public” option plan.

Furthermore, KP’s chairman and CEO George Halvorson, who took the helm in 2002, has met with Obama and has had several meetings with key figures in the health care debate, including:

March 27–Meeting with Keith Fontenot, who manages the financial resources of government agencies related to health. He oversees funds for Medicare, Medicaid, all U.S. public health agencies, and the entire Health and Human Services Department, from the Food and Drug Administration to the National Institutes of Health.

June 5–Meeting with Peter Orszag, director of the CBO.

July 23–Meeting with Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)

July 24–Meeting with Sarah Fenn, who is a $36,000-a-year White House assistant. Fenn is an attorney and also served as the state legal Voter Protection Director for the Obama campaign in Indiana, Kentucky, and New Hampshire, as well as campaign field staff in Iowa, Idaho, Texas, and Florida.

Halvorson was the only insurance executive to meet with Sebelius.

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From wine elves to classy pitchmen, American winemakers have tried just about everything to challenge the dominance of French vintners. And yet, with infamous labels like Ripple and Thunderbird, Yankee wines had long endured the reputation of being good for just one one thing—getting blitzed.

So it must have seemed like a cruel joke in 1976 when a British wine merchant arranged The Paris Tasting, a one-of-its-kind competition that pitted mighty France versus lowly America in a blind taste test judged entirely by Gallic wine experts.

But as viewers of the movie Bottle Shock and the documentary Mondovino can tell you, the unthinkable happened: America took home top honors for both red and white wine.

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As one Change to Win labor union blocks a Red Cross blood delivery today, what will a health care system taken hostage by labor unions look like tomorrow?

As Change to Win’s Anna Burger is leading her coalition of unions to lobby all around the country “until every man, woman and child has quality, affordable care they can count on,” one of her unions is busy blocking the delivery of a Red Cross blood donation to a hospital and picketing private companies’ blood drives.

The Red Cross, which has union workers in various locations who are covered both by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and SEIU, says union leaders are trying to disrupt the Red Cross Blood Services operations by going on strike.

That’s right.  At a time of year when blood donations are at their lowest levels and are the most urgently needed, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, SEIU’s sister union and member of Burger’s Change to Win labor coalition, took advantage of the opportunity to go on strike on December 4th against the American Red Cross Blood Services Penn-Jersey Region.  Local 929  initiated the strike at midnight just as their contract expired.  Hours later, the Red Cross was forced to take legal action when some strikers illegally blocked one blood delivery in particular

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ClimateGate is devastating to the global warming industry, as alarmists are admitting, if mostly off-the-record and to sympathetic journalists (but I repeat myself). On its heels, however, and particularly for those dealing with insistent alarmists whimpering how ClimateGate reveals nothing, this is a must read. In context, it might be just as damning in the eyes of those open to reason.

It comes from an IPCC coordinating lead author who details the IPCC process’s inherent corruption — affirming the details thereof that I also painted after speaking to former lead authors in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism — and he joins the impressive ranks of actual “leading scientists” cutting their IPCC ties for the same reason. As you read it recall the specific defenses against ClimateGate’s meaning.

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