Green outside, red inside – that describes Obama’s pick for a ‘czar’ of climate and energy policy, Carol Browner.  Greener and redder than a czar ever was, she’d be better described as the climate and energy ‘commissar’. 

This from Investor’s Business Daily:

Carol Browner, who’ll run the new White House office of climate and energy policies, isn’t new to Washington. The public will recognize her name from the years she served as Environmental Protection Agency administrator under Bill Clinton.

The public, however, knows little or nothing about her work with Socialist International, a group that describes itself as a worldwide organization of social democratic, socialist and labor parties that envisions a "new, democratic world society" and typically takes anti-U.S. positions.

Within its declaration of principles there are clear signs it’s comfortable with using the authority of the state to establish a global socialist regime.

Equally as telling are its member groups, including Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front, Democratic Socialists of America, and socialist and labor parties from dozens of nations.

Browner was linked to Socialist International through her leadership post on the group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society. The Washington Times reports Browner was also listed as an individual member of Socialist International.

In her role as a White House aide, Browner should be looking out for U.S. interests. Yet, according to the Times, Socialist International’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society not only wants America, as well as other developed nations, to cut their current levels of consumption. It has called for a "fair approach" to global warming and climate change that "must be centered on solidarity and aim to reduce the disparity between the developed and the developing countries."

Reducing the disparity will come, of course, at the expense of wealthy nations. Socialists dream of an egalitarianism that is reached not by lifting the fortunes of everyone but by redistributing wealth downward. They pretend to be interested only in taking care of the planet. But another purpose seems to be containing or even shrinking thriving economies. They are little more than socialists disguised as activists.

Evidence of Browner’s association with Socialist International has been largely scrubbed from the group’s Web site. Someone in the incoming administration — Browner herself? — must have felt it wouldn’t be wise for people to know about it.

This we can understand. What we can’t understand is why those ties didn’t disqualify her for the job.

 

 Christopher Hitchens, in an article on the manifest corruption of the Clintons, asks – and we too would like to know the answer:

Why is Sen. Clinton, the spouse of the great influence-peddler, being nominated in the first place? In exchange for giving the painful impression that our State Department will be an attractive destination for lobbyists and donors, what exactly are we getting? George Marshall? Dean Acheson? Even Madeleine Albright? No, we are getting a notoriously ambitious woman who made a fool of herself over Bosnia, at the time and during the recent campaign, and who otherwise has no command of foreign affairs except what she’s picked up second-hand from an impeached ex-president, a disbarred lawyer, and a renter of the Lincoln Bedroom. If the Senate waves this through, it will have reinforced its recent image as the rubber-stamp chamber of a bankrupt banana republic. Not an especially good start to the brave new era.

From Yahoo! news:

Secretary of State nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting companies and others that later contributed to her husband’s foundation, an Associated Press review of her official correspondence found.

The overlap of names on former President Bill Clinton’s foundation donor list and business interests whose issues she championed raise new questions about potential ethics conflicts between her official actions and her husband’s fundraising. The AP obtained three of the senator’s government letters under the Freedom of Information Act…

The letters and donations involve pharmaceutical companies and telecommunications and energy interests. An aide to the senator said she made no secret of her involvement in many of the issues. Bill Clinton’s foundation declined to say when it received the donations or precisely how much was contributed.

"Throughout her tenure, Senator Clinton has proven that she acts solely based on what she believes is best for the state and people she represents, without consideration to any other factor," said spokesman Philippe Reines. "In these instances, she was doing what the people of New York elected her to do: Work hard on the issues of importance to them."

Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Clinton Foundation both declined to answer questions about whether the senator tried to step away from issues directly affecting donors to her husband’s charity, and whether the foundation tried to screen out money from those on whose issues the senator had intervened.

"Generally, through a combination of rigorous adherence to Senate and FEC income and asset disclosure rules, coupled with the voluntary and unprecedented release of the names of every single Foundation supporter since its inception, the Clintons are by far the most financially transparent former first couple in American history," Reines said.

 From American Thinker:

In fact, it is the media themselves who are criminally complicit in the internment of Gaza’s civilians in the line of fire. They could stop the terrorists simply by headlining Hamas’ responsibility for the plight of the Arabs of Gaza, over and over again. That’s the real story — if only they could headline the facts right in front of their eyes.  But they don’t.

That shows us the real values of CNN and BBC; morally they are no better than the terrorists. The media are essential to the Kabuki play of terror, response, and renewed terror. They are constantly fanning the flames.

So when the media and the Left predictably demand Israeli appeasement of Hamas, let’s just ask them: where is your compassion for the Arab victims of a jihadist internment camp called Gaza? How much longer do you want civilians to be turned into the bloody victims of the terrorist publicity machine?

The next time you turn on CNN, remember that you are looking at smiling faces that knowingly collude in the deaths of civilians, both Jews and Arabs. Without the leftist media there is no payoff for terrorists. Shut off the oxygen of publicity and Hamas shrivels to a powerless gang of thugs.

The media-terrorist collusion is completely symbiotic – they are both essential for the drama to work. Separate the terrorists from the media, and you have heat without oxygen – no explosion.

The simple fact is that we are seeing repeated crimes against humanity, an endless collusion between the terror masters and the dominant media, resulting in a reign of terror that blights the lives of millions of people and kills unforgiveable numbers, both in Israel and its neighbors.

 Joe the Plumber reports from Israel on PJTV.

In our view, this modest, intelligent, independent, sensible, honest man – brave too, making sure others get into a rocket-shelter before himself, as the video shows – embodies much that is good about America. 

We’d also like to think of him as typical of Americans, but after the recent election we know that cannot, unfortunately, be the case.

The New York Times claims that President Bush turned down an Israeli request for bunker-busting bombs and permission to overfly Iraq so that the Israeli Air Force could disable or destroy Iran’s nuclear-bomb production.

The NYT cannot be trusted to report the truth, but in this instance it’s not easy to see how lying would be in the interests of that traitorous newspaper.

If the report is true, then Bush has imperiled the world. By letting Iran become a nuclear power, he becomes a co-author of the terror and destruction Iran will inflict on Israel and all of us.  

We praise President Bush for eliminating the tyrant Saddam Hussein, for leading America to victory in Iraq, and for keeping Americans safe from more terrorist attacks after 9/11.

But if he is now tolerating Iran’s arming itself with nuclear bombs, he is undoing the good he has done. A nuclear armed Iran is a far greater threat to America than Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden ever were.

President Clinton had a number of opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden and each time made the bad judgment not to do so. If President Bush has really stopped Israel from destroying Iran’s bomb-producing sites,  he has made a worse misjudgment. America will pay dearly for it.

All hope that the US itself will act effectively to stop Iran ends, we believe, with the Bush presidency. It seems to us most unlikely that Obama will do anything but make futile attempts to appease that evil regime.

 Mark Steyn writes and comments – right-on as always:

"I want Hizb’Allah to wipe the state of terrorism off the planet…"   

"The state of terrorism – Israel – will be wiped off the planet, Inshallah."

Teheran? Ramallah? Islamabad? No, a speaker at yesterday’s demo in Toronto. And, for those who patiently point out that measured criticism of Israeli government policies is not anti-Semitism, check out the lady yelling, "Jewish child, you’re gonna f—-in’ die!"

During the last year, as the Canadian Islamic Congress and their eunuch stooges in the "human rights" commissions attempted to criminalize my books and columns as "hate crimes", various leftie groups – including PEN Canada and the Canadian Association of Journalists – came to see the country’s censorship laws as incompatible with freedom. The only public defenders of the "human rights" commissions were, of all people, the Canadian Jewish Congress, B’nai Brith Canada and other "official Jews" (in Ezra Levant’s words) who insisted state censorship was necessary in order to cow the last three "white supremacists" in Saskatchewan into submission and prevent such horrifying crimes as scrawling swastikas at knee height in public toilets.

So the Canadian Jewish Congress made common cause with the Canadian Islamic Congress and the neo-Nazi takeover of the prairies (or, at any rate, prairie toilets) has been prevented. And now explicitly genocidal eliminationist threats against Jews are being bellowed out at public rallies. But that’s okay, because it’s not a hate crime, unlike my book. Which may explain the curious silence of the CJC and the toilet warriors.

Congratulations to the CJC on helping build a tolerant hate-free Canada. In 20 years’ time, I hope there’ll still be enough Jews in Toronto and Montreal to man the CJC offices. Or maybe by then the Canadian Jewish Congress will be operating out of a PO box in the Turks and Caicos.

 The Wall Street Journal has published an article by Deepak Chopra and others declaring that  ‘Alternative’  Medicine is Mainstream. 

In the account below of the failure of the British National Health Service, Madeleine Westrop writes that the NHS pays for ‘complementary medicine such as homeopathy and reflexology, hands on healing.’

Deepak Chopra wants this to happen in America too.

Who is Deepak Chopra? He’s into ‘self-awareness’; he’s pro-Hamas; he suffers from ‘Bush derangement syndrome’.

Will American patients be forcibly put into the hands of shamans – and shams – like this man?

In an Obama-run America, it’s more than possible, it’s very likely. 

 The Wall Street Journal has published an article by Deepak Chopra and others declaring that  ‘Alternative’  Medicine is Mainstream. 

In the account below of the failure of the British National Health Service, Madeleine Westrop writes that the NHS pays for ‘complementary medicine such as homeopathy and reflexology, hands on healing.’

Deepak Chopra wants this to happen in America too.

Who is Deepak Chopra? He’s into ‘self-awareness’; he’s pro-Hamas; he suffers from ‘Bush derangement syndrome’.

Will American patients be forcibly put into the hands of shamans – and shams – like this man?

In an Obama-run America, it’s more than possible, it’s very likely. 

 Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD) has been nominated to be the new secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Heritage Foundation has published an article by Robert E Moffit asking Senator Daschle ‘key questions’ and giving the ‘right answers’. The whole thing is worth reading. 

Here is an extract, relevant to the account posted below in 3 installment, Health of the nation by Madeleine Westrop, which provides a horrifying description of a patient’s experience at the hands of the British National Health Service:

Question #4: The British Experience with NICE

On page 127 of your book, you write, "In other countries, national health boards have helped to ensure quality and rein in costs in the face of these challenges. In Great Britain, for example, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which is part of the National Health Service (NHS), is the single entity responsible for providing guidance on the use of new and existing drugs, treatments, and procedures." If that British agency determines that a treatment is cost effective, it must then be available within the NHS, but it also denies reimbursement for treatments, making them practically unavailable for patients. Based on your assessment of the record of NICE, would you like to see similar results for doctors and patients in the United States?

Answer. The right answer is that Americans should never have to endure anything remotely like the centralized, bureaucratic health care decision-making process that characterizes the British National Health Service.

Increasingly, the British media is reporting on the consequences of the role of NICE, and those results are nasty. For example, The Telegraph of London reports that NICE denied access to Velcade, a new drug for the treatment of cancer.Jacky Pickles, a 44-year-old mother with the disease, made a direct plea to Britain’s health secretary for coverage of the medication. Ms. Pickles, working in the British system as a midwife for 25 years, said, "I am going to give them the last years of my life. I’ve got to go to work in a Health Service that won’t support me when I most need it. I have given my life to the NHS, but it is a system that won’t give me something I need to save my life." Britain’s health secretary would not intervene to help Ms. Pickles, and NICE officials refused to comment, noting that while the drug for cancer treatment is "clinically effective" compared to chemotherapy, they deemed it not to be "cost effective." If members of the incoming Administration and the Congress really want such a system, they should thoroughly brief ordinary Americans what it would entail.