Spooky

In “Anti-Halloween attacks are downright ghastly,” columnist Ellis Henican bemoans all the assaults on this “greatest kids’ holiday of the year.” Mr. Henican does list a surprising number of Halloween critics: “Fundamentalist Christians warn the celebration promotes devil worship. Prudes and feminists say the costumes have gotten too risqué. Civil-rights groups complain that too many Halloween ghosts resemble lynching victims. Even the witches feel aggrieved - and you probably thought Halloween was the witches' big night!” I was quite amused that those frightening “fundamentalist Christians” are no longer the only antagonists of Halloween as the ubiquitous political correctness continues to run amuck. Trick or treat!

What caught my attention, though, was Mr. Henican’s failure to include today’s primary criticism of Halloween celebration. With rising alarms over childhood obesity and diabetes, how can we possibly justify celebrating a holiday that has as its major component the doling out of mountains of candy to little trick or treaters? Certainly this is nothing short of child abuse perpetuated by big candy!

Since Mr. Henican missed this obvious worry (is he, perhaps, in league with big candy?), I offer my suggestions to rectify this critical concern. (1) Give only tofu bar and rice cake treats. (2) Give these treats only after the overweight little munchkins do wind sprints from door to door. (3) Implore the ACLU to bring a suit against big candy and adult co-conspirators who insist on perpetuating this form of child abuse. There has to be a Constitutional violation in here someplace.



Spooky, isn’t it?

House Fails to Override S-CHIP Veto

House Democrats were unable to muster enough votes to override the President’s veto of their expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) in spite of their emotional appeals using two children, Graeme Frost and Bethany Wilkerson, to front for their deceptions. This does not end the debate on the program, of course, as the confusing exaggerations continue.

I am confused, for instance, by the Associated Press coverage of the veto. “…The State Children's Health Insurance Program now subsidizes health care insurance coverage for about 6 million children at a cost of about $5 billion a year. The vetoed bill would have added 4 million more children, most of them from low-income families, to the program at an added cost of $7 billion annually…. But Democrats said the bill's original focus remained intact. States would be given bonuses for signing up low-income children already eligible for the program but not enrolled. ‘Under current law, these boys and girls are entitled to their benefits,’ said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. ‘Continuing to not provide them with coverage is a travesty.’”

Democrats continue to act as if the failure of their expansion plans for the program amounts to an elimination of the current benefits, which fails all truth detector tests. From the same AP article: “Bush has recommended a $1 billion annual increase in the program, bringing total spending over five years to $30 billion -- half the level called for in the bill that he vetoed.” Does that sound like someone intent on eliminating the S-CHIP program? Only if you live in the land of left-believe.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) typifies the confusing gobbledy-gook of the Democrat’s rationalizations to muster the votes needed to override the veto: “…But that does not include people earning $83,000 a year. So while some of you may use that as an excuse not to vote for this program, I hope you know intellectually that it is not a reason to vote against SCHIP. They are currently no children enrolled in SCHIP with family income of 400 percent of the federal poverty level, $83,000 for a family of four. In fact, 91.3 percent of the children enrolled in SCHIP are in families of four that make less than 200 percent of poverty. And 99.95 percent of them are in families under 300 percent of poverty…” (Use the Bethany Wilkerson link to view the transcript of Rep. Pelosi’s remarks).

As far as I can make out from her remarks, the current S-CHIP program already covers the families who Democrats imply will not be covered unless their expansion is approved. Only in the land of left-believe.

How to anger a conservative: Tell her a lie.
How to anger a liberal: Tell him the truth.

(Photo: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, meets with Dara Wilkerson and her daughter Bethany.)

Democrats Parade New S-CHIP Poster Child

Recognizing at last that the family of Graeme Frost has not evoked the sympathy they hoped for (perhaps due to the family’s two properties, three vehicles, private school, and reticence to validate their reported income), Democrats have once again paraded a new State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) poster child for public consumption. Bethany Wilkerson is a two-year-old with a heart defect. Her mother is a waitress, and her father works at the restaurant doing minor repairs and odd jobs. Their employer does not provide health insurance. They rent, drive one beat-up car, and have a combined income of $34,000. This sounds like a family with genuine need worthy of good, old-fashioned American compassion and worthy S-CHIP recipients. Writing for National Review Online, Mark Hemingway offers some further thoughts on this new S-CHIP family.

Whether or not Mr. Hemingway’s interview insights are accurate or not is not my main interest. It does seem that the Wilkerson’s, like great numbers of Americans today, expect their fellow citizens to pony up when their choices don’t pan out. What is more troublesome is that Democrats and their liberal cronies insist on using children to forward their deceptions. Whose heart isn’t going to melt with two-year-old Bethany holding up a crayon sign reading, “Don’t Veto Me”? The image is too cute and criticism would just have to be too mean-spirited.

Except that little Bethany has not been vetoed! Nor have any of the other little Bethanys or little Graemes. They are covered under the S-CHIP program today – before the veto and after the veto!

Only in the land of left-believe does one call not expanding a social program a “cut” or an “elimination” of benefits. President Bush told Congress plainly enough that he would accept a more modest expansion of the S-CHIP program, but would veto the full Democrat-proposed expansion which includes eligibility for families earning up to $83,000 and “children” up to age 25. When that bill reached his desk, he vetoed it.

Guess what, Democrats and liberals. The S-CHIP program is still out there covering little Bethanys and Graemes and anyone else you want to enlist to parade your falsehoods.

And guess what else, Democrats and liberals. Productive conservatives are still demonstrating their compassion on a daily basis. We are, after all, still paying for Graeme Frost’s and Bethany Wilkerson’s health care.

How to anger a conservative: Tell her a lie.
How to anger a liberal: Tell him the truth.

(image: Conservatives confront Democrats & liberals... again & again & again.)

Democrats Enlist Child to Espouse Falsehoods

Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, columnists – well, conservatives – are being assaulted across the board for openly criticizing the use of a twelve year old by the Democrat Party to espouse their falsehoods about the S-CHIP program. Democrat politicians recoil “in horror” that conservative “vindictiveness” would single out Graeme Frost to point out the discrepancies of the Democrats’ hyperbole.

Graeme Frost is the twelve year old who Democrats used to respond to President Bush’s veto of the children’s health care program expansion. The Democrats trot out anyone they please to be the mouthpiece for their falsehoods, then act oh-so self-righteous when their claims are challenged. Democrat liberals still fail to comprehend the difference between debating issues and assaulting character. They consistently fail at the former and make the latter their practiced art.

The fact is that young Master Frost is the recipient of the S-CHIP program as it is currently crafted. The Democrat message that he was coached to parrot – that the President’s veto prevents other children like him from receiving health care through the program – is patently false. The program works! He received health care coverage under the S-CHIP program! (Interestingly, Master Frost’s self-employed father opts to not purchase health care coverage. I suppose I can understand his decision. Why give up family vacations and such for some inconvenient necessity like health care coverage? After all, someone else can be coerced to pick up the tab). The President’s veto does not eliminate the current program. Indeed, the President would not have vetoed a bill calling for a more limited expansion. But Democrat leadership insists on expanding it to families who can afford health care coverage as well as to adult “children” as old as 25 years of age. Can we say “expanded entitlements” boys and girls?

Because of this veto, Democrats and their liberal cronies are howling their heads off about the lack of compassion among conservatives. Of course, this, too, is a falsehood. Productive conservatives demonstrate their compassion on a daily basis. We are, after all, paying for Graeme Frost’s health care.

How to anger a conservative: Tell her a lie.
How to anger a liberal: Tell him the truth.

(image: Conservatives confront Democrats & liberals... again.)

Terrorists Endorse Democrat Candidates

Once again, Democrats find themselves in a touchy debacle as the election season proceeds. They may not have been actively seeking this endorsement, but they have received it: terrorists are endorsing Democrats.

“In Schmoozing, every terrorist leader out of dozens interviewed stated they hope a Democrat becomes president in 2008. Some terror leaders explained their endorsement of [Sen. Hillary] Clinton is not necessarily at the expense of other Democratic presidential candidates, whose policies are not as well known to them. ‘All Americans must vote Democrat,’ stated Jihad Jaara, an exiled member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group and the infamous leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.”
(www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57970)

Democrats and liberals are quick to cry “Foul!” when charged with being unpatriotic, yet the enemies of America love their messages and policies! So let us get this straight: anyone who advocates policies that America’s enemies endorse is a patriot. Does this seem even remotely logical? The leaders of the North Vietnamese army were given hope through the actions of liberals and their political party in the 1960s & 1970s. Obviously nothing has changed, except our new enemies have declared war on us and attacked us. I have asked before: when armed militant enemies of the United States endorse the campaign promises of one of America’s major political policies, don’t you think it might be time for that political party to review and reconsider their messages?

War Is War

I have not been watching the new Ken Burns production about the Second World War in its entirety. I have read and watched World War Two histories and documentaries before I was even a teenager; I doubt that there is anything too startlingly new even in this major series. Still, I have stopped to watch parts of it during breaks in other programs. So far I am right.

The portions I did see from the episode entitled “A Necessary War” caused me to reflect once more on the miraculous accomplishment of American forces in this war. I continue to be amazed at the results of the American military even when they faced a better equipped, better experienced, and numerically superior enemy. On both the European and Pacific Theaters, the German and the Japanese military were the most developed “fighting machines” in their day. The German Army slashed across the Polish and European frontiers with hardly a pause. The Japanese forces were victorious against Russia, China, and the Pacific forces of Great Britain and France. They had been actively engaged in military action for years. None of them believed that Americans had any willpower or resolve necessary to mount a major threat against them.

Yet, engage them we did. Undermanned, undersupplied, and undertrained, American military forces stood up to the best that the world could muster in the 1940s, and we beat them. We beat them with essentially civilian soldiers, not professional military forces. We beat them soundly. How?

First, our military forces and civilians on the home front knew we were right. We knew who was on the side of liberty and who was on the side of tyranny. Lest anyone be confused, I clarify: Allied forces (America, Great Britain, France, and some others) were fighting for liberty and freedom; Axis forces (Germany, Italy, and Japan) were fighting for tyranny. There was no significant debate about this.

Second, our forces were allowed to prosecute the war to its successful conclusion. No armies of silly lawyers and liberals running around whining about whose rights had been violated. The portion of “A Necessary War” episode I saw featured the Rangers in the Pacific. These elite members of the Army were sent into enemy occupied areas to harass them. The Rangers lived off the land and killed Japanese. They did not shout “Throw down your weapons!” before attacking. They did not take prisoners. They were there for one reason: kill the enemy.

War is war. In some ways, militants can conduct the war as civilly and humanely as possible, but if ethical behavior is really the main issue, then do not go to war. Accept defeat and take whatever comes – which will be immoral behavior, by the way. Our military personnel today are engaged in war just like the Rangers and other World War Two forces. But today, liberals condemn our military men and women for killing the enemy. At the same time, liberals try to convince me that they honor the legacy of our Armed Forces from World War Two. Puh-lease. As I wrote in my last post, liberals would no more support our military men and women in World War Two any more than they do today. Liberals are either pathetically ignorant of the historical reality of warfare or they are attempting to be cunningly deceptive in order to convince some that they exhibit any American patriotism. Take your pick. This is certain: no rational human being can claim to support our victorious military forces of World War Two and, at the same time, protest the conduct of war today. They do not mix.

War is war.

(Photo: an American G.I. using a flamethrower in WWII)