Predictably, Hamas fumes at the killing rocking of Osama bin Laden's casbah.
"We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood," Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, told reporters.
Though he noted doctrinal differences between bin Laden's al Qaeda and Hamas, Haniyeh said: "We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs."
Wait a minute! I thought that it was the goal of every Muslim to kill a bunch of infidels in life and be taken down by them in death. Why doesn't Hamas realize that the United States military did Osama a favor, according to their own beliefs?
The villain of September 11, 2001 has gone to his reward—courtesy of the United States military, specifically US Navy SEALS—while he sat in a Pakistani mansion rather that in an Afghani cave. Of course, there are reports of it everywhere.
President Obama’s announcement regarding the demise of bin Laden had its usual allotment of first-person singular references, but, for a change, it struck the right tone. Former President Bush responded as well.
Early this morning, there was celebration outside of the White House gates, reminiscent of the celebration that occurred in the Palestinian Territories in response to 9/11. One of my Facebook friends compared the celebrations, noting that we two peoples are not that different after all. Well, he’s right. All people fall short of the glory of God.
But there is this: Osama bin Laden continuously attacked US entities outside of the physical country and twice inside of it. His most successful attacks, in terms of body count, were the synchronized attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the attack for which United Airlines Flight 93 was meant. He planned them and carried them out because of the god he believed in and served.
Our military had no such motive. All we wanted to do was to neutralize a threat to our country, personalized in the man who declared war on it in the 1990s in the name of Islam. And while I question the appropriateness (and the spontaneity) of the mass celebration of our sworn enemy’s demise, it cannot be said that Osama bin Laden was killed in the name of the God of Jews and Christians—not that this will matter to bin Laden’s like-minded co-religionists.
Speaking of them, one wonders how this victory—and it is a victory—will play out in the Muslim world.
Anyway, congratulations to Presidents Obama and Bush, and, most importantly, congratulations to the men of our United States Armed Forces.
Donald Trump has been making President Obama's failure to release his long-form birth certificate a huge public issue for several weeks now, though it has been much discussed in Internet political circles for the last three years. But now that the president has finally made the birth certificate public, I have a few thoughts about it.
The timing of the release is a strategic blunder two-fer.
Trump has said that he would run as an independent in the 2012 presidential race if he didn't get the GOP nomination. Such a race would ensure President Obama's reelection. However, since the president released the certificate today, he has effectively deflated a Trump spoiler candidacy and neutralized a potential weapon against the GOP candidate (it would have been far more damaging to the GOP candidate had the president released the certificate, say, in September 2012).
I don't think that was what the president intended to do. But, thanks anyway, Mr. President!
I ask because that's the only reason I can figure why he pwns himself, then doubles down on stupid via his Twitter stream.
In a recent post at the Washington Post's site, juicebox mafia capo Klein thinks he's figured out who Barack Obama really is.
Perhaps this is just the logical endpoint of two years spent arguing over what Barack Obama is — or isn’t. Muslim. Socialist. Marxist. Anti-colonialist. Racial healer. We’ve obsessed over every answer except the right one: President Obama, if you look closely at his positions, is a moderate Republican from the early 1990s. And the Republican Party he’s facing has abandoned many of its best ideas in its effort to oppose him.
If you put aside the emergency measures required by the financial crisis, three major policy ideas have dominated American politics in recent years: a health-care plan that uses an individual mandate and tax subsidies to achieve near-universal coverage; a cap-and-trade plan that attempts to raise the prices of environmental pollutants to better account for their costs; and bringing tax rates up from their Bush-era lows as part of a bid to reduce the deficit. In each case, the position that Obama and the Democrats have staked out is the very position that moderate Republicans staked out in the early ’90s — and often, well into the 2000s.
It's important to note just who is making this wack-job statement. As noted by my new blog homie Proof, Ezra Klein was the founder of the junior high mutual zit-squeezing club Journolist. The four hundred reporters, academics, professional liberals and assorted mouth breathers in the listserv were basically a wing of the Obama presidential campaign in 2008, with future Obambi Cabinet members to boot. Needless to say, Klein has a serious intellectual interest in rehabilitating his teeny bopper fan boi crush's political fortunes.
Now, let's look at the 90's era Republican's 'best ideas'. The individual mandate that some Republicans championed back in the day was...and more importantly, is...unconstitutional. I know Klein thinks the Constitution is just some old impossible to understand scrap of parchment, but when something is plainly unconstitutional that pretty much makes it a stupid idea, not a good one.
As for cap-n-trade, I don't know if paid Washington Post journalist Ezra Klein has been keeping up with current events, but anthropogenic climate change has been revealed to be a fraud. C&T was a policy cooked up in response to fears of global warming caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Why would Republicans keep advocating a policy that supposedly solves a problem that does not in fact exist?
Finally, we get to Klein lauding President George HW Bush for raising taxes. Ezra pats Pappy on the back for 'getting the job done' on the 1990 budget deal in his original piece. Funny thing is that Klein never really specifies how these tax hikes were successful, either as policy or politics. He just sorta says they are and moves on.
When confronted about the shakiness of his 'Republican raises taxes = epic win' theory, Klein has a ready retort:
This is the part when you realize that debating Ezra Klein is like having a discussion with Barry Bonds about the dangers of performance enhancing drugs. No, it's even worse than that. It's like debating a pre-med student on specific techniques and methods involved in neurosurgery. The dude is simply in way over his head.
How did Bush the Elder get wacked for raising taxes? For one thing, Bill Clinton hammered him for it in campaign ads.
That ad was a staple of Clinton's 1992 campaign. What makes the spot so effective--and what Ezra Klein simply cannot grasp--is that HW Bush's raising taxes gave Clinton ammunition that didn't just wound the President, but also damaged the Republican brand on a critical everyday checkbook issue. Why does Klein think people vote for the GOP anyway if not because of tax policy? It must be for the Republican's famous snappy fashion sense and party-hearty attitude [sarc/].
The best part of Klein's journey into fail is when he is again confronted with his stunning lack of understanding, he resorts to the lamest of rhetorical evasions and promptly moves the goalposts. But hey, far be it from me to point out how badly his argument is falling apart. Let's let Klein's own source, that he dutifully pointed out, do it for us.
If politicians are not rewarded at the polls for the choices they make, don't expect other politicians to make similar choices.
What exactly are we dealing with here? Klein brings up a political period from the recent past. It's not like it's a hundred years ago, when the issues and characters involved are far removed from our current context. Nor are we talking about particularly deep or convoluted political theory. No, this stuff is pretty easy to understand.
Which makes me believe that Ezra Klein is not just another overpaid undersmart liberal. By producing such an elementary amateurish piece--and then digging further down into the proverbial hole--it's clear Klein is a masochist.
Ace had a great post the other day that I meant to talk about, but I didn't get to it. Well, I'm getting to it now.
Here's the money chunk.
...And at universities, in the pseudo-sciences, they are constantly attempting to "explain" conservative thinking as a type of cognitive dysfunction. Not willing to give into the faddish and ephemeral? Ah, well, a part of your brain is too small and won't let you sample "new experiences."
Note the normative assumption always packed into these claims: That the conservative brain is "too small" as compared to the liberal brain, defined as normative; the conservative measure represents a deviation away from the assumed norm while the liberal trait is privileged as the norm, or if not the norm, then the ideal.
No pseudo-scientist every finds that liberals have a bigger amygdala (or whatever) and are therefore "too open to new experiences" (a.k.a. too trendy, too faddish, too ephemeral in one's sense of self). None of these guys ever says the liberal trait represents a deviation from the norm or ideal -- no, they're always the norm or idea. It's always the conservative's traits that need to be "explained" as a psychological defect or an actual defect with their physical brain structure.
Yeah, you should definitely read the whole thing.
The thing is, that denormalizing process of conservatives and conservatism Ace talked about has been going on for a long time. To pick just one example, think about guns. For most of America's history, gun ownership wasn't really debated all that much. It was only relatively recently that the Left got the bright idea to limit gun ownership amongst law-abiding citizens.
A key part of the anti-gun strategy was to denormalize the idea of firearms. Guns weren't just supposed to be severely curtailed in the general population. They were weirdo objects for strange people. Whether it was geographic arguments ("Southerners are all gun nuts, of course") or class justifications ("The uneducated are the only ones people who still have guns") the goal was the same. In fact, lefties were so hell bent on making guns abnormal they faked at least one scholar-researched book to make it look like America didn't have widespread gun ownership in it's history.
In general, the Left has had some success in making conservatism seem strange. At the very least, they've reinforced amongst themselves the 'Right=Alien' arguments they always make. For committed progressives, conservatives are not just political rivals anymore. They're the Other.
Truth be told, the hard Left doesn't make up a majority of American citizens. Break it down on a state-by-state basis. Even where they make up the largest percentage of voters, they don't make up a majority. From those perspectives, it's pretty easy to see just how marginal the liberal ideology is in America.
Conservatives should take this vulnerability on the Left--specifically, their lack of numbers-- and use it against them. More importantly, how about we examine and highlight their own behavior. For your viewing pleasure, courtesy of No One Of Any Import, are some lefty protestors barking at a recent Tea Party rally.
Blinkered, moronic and as charming as athlete's foot ? Where's the sign-up sheet for that?
Lefties insist that they are the sane, logical and normal ones.
Yeah, that dude is totally playing with a full deck.
Before we get too cocky, liberals have a few advantages. They still control the MSM and they can still get some progged-up professors to create 'science' to prove their ideological biases. These are no small things. They can dupe a lot of the politically uncommitted folks out there.
However, conservatives have distinct advantages of our own. As stated before, the voter identification numbers are on our side. Best of all, any time the Left goes out in public, they behave like the complete oddballs that they really are. It shouldn't be too hard to make liberals seem strange--because they are strange.
Seriously, you have a group of people that are cool with one of their own shouting that he wipes his ass with the American flag every night. Now that's definitely a little bit of hyperbole on his part, but the fact remains that homeboy's peers were copacetic with his sentiment that the American flag should be disrespected early and often. Just a reminder: THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
The Right can score legislative victories. They can win elections. But in order to really make inroads they have to start beating back progressive culture. That means pointing out just how alien their ideology is when compared with the mainstream of American political thought.
ALSO: Here's the great RS McCain with a story about another Lefty weirdo. How weird are we talking about here? How's about possible jail time sound?
Looks like the Unions are flush with cash. Too bad they don’t spend it on their members.
Haha.
Let's suppose you're a UAW member. You do your job. You toss in your dues. Then you notice that your union has given $29 million dollars to Democrat Party candidates. Now your leadership might be hunky-dory with pro-gun control pro-abortion eco-nut tax-hiker gay friendly candidates, but how cool are you with all that?
Maybe the UAW isn't such a good example. President Obama just gave them a car company. Maybe the guy on the line is willing to put up with the vast variety of lefty crap if he thinks he got a good deal out of hijacking Government Motors.
Lets try a different group. What about the rank-n-file Teamsters? Thirty million dollars were sent from that union's coffers to political candidates, with 93% of that going to Donkey Punchers. The Unicorn-in-Chief's energy policies ("Drill Nowhere, Drill Never, Double Eco-Boner Rainbow All The Way!") have pushed diesel prices up past four dollars a gallon. That's gotta be putting a serious hurt on the wallet of most truckers.
The leadership of unions no doubt enjoys having a cozy relationship with Democrat Party power brokers. Rubbing elbows with the well-connected Donks and getting them to push the union big-wig's agenda is huge. The problem is that the average union member might not think their interests are being represented very well if all their dues money is going to Democrat candidates.
Blogger pal Chris Wysocki of the great Wyblog notes that we're entering a very special season.
Yes, it's that time of the year again. Time for the feminuts to whinge about Lilly Ledbetter and having to work for slave wages just because they don't have a penis.
Except it's not true. None of it. There is no male-female wage gap.
Recent studies have shown that the wage gap shrinks—or even reverses—when relevant factors are taken into account and comparisons are made between men and women in similar circumstances. In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts. Given that women are outpacing men in educational attainment, and that our economy is increasingly geared toward knowledge-based jobs, it makes sense that women's earnings are going up compared to men's.
I want a raise.
Haha, you and me both homie.
First of all, you should be reading Wyblog because he rules, so get to it.
The popping of the male/female pay differential myth is a needed reality check for the ultra orthodox feminist left. As necessary as this story is, it's just as important to recognize that the Feministing/GloriaSteinem cohort absolutely will not budge from their militantly wrong assertion that men get paid more then women. It's a foundational doctrine of feminism; going against that sacred text would be like asking David Brooks to stop writing hand-wringing mush-mouthed columns for the New York Times.
The thing is, the popular understanding of feminism (as opposed to the far-left campus version) got a few things right. Women should be paid the same as men for the same kind of work. That's just fair.
However, the further down the reading list you go on the Sisterhood of The Snarling Harridans' syllabus, the more incorrect stuff you find. From the role of men to the bizarre confused ideas about abortion, lefty feminists can't create paradigms that even sorta resemble reality.
The worst mistake that feminists have made in the last 40 years is their relentless denigration of motherhood. Remember when Academy Award-winning actress Natalie Portman described becoming a mother as "...the most important role of my life"? For many people, this was a charming sentiment. For at least a few feminists, this was simply not kosher. Check out Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams' reaction to Ms. Portman's announcement (quoted from The Other McCain):
Why, at the pinnacle of one’s professional career, would a person feel the need to undercut it by announcing that there’s something else even more important? Even if you feel that way, why downplay your achievement? Why compare the two, as if a grueling acting role and being a parent were somehow in competition? And remind me — when was the last time a male star gave an acceptance speech calling fatherhood his biggest role?
For now, forget the tin-eared insensitivity. That's a feature--not a bug--when it comes to feminist writing. More importantly, Ms. Williams' sentiment is a symptom of fundamental misreading of the importance of being a mother.
The Left in general, and feminism in particular, has spent a great deal of time, effort and money infiltrating the commanding heights of the culture. From the universities to the federal bureaucracy, feminists have carved out a sphere of influence from which they can push their ideas. In the course of a few decades, radicalized women (and not a few indoctrinated men) have become a sizable part of the national discussion on any number of issues.
The problem is that even with all the influence feminists currently wield, it pales in comparison to the power that mothers have in shaping the future. If feminists really wanted to create a society where, in the words of Gloria Steinem we raised girls like boys and boys like girls, feminists would be squeezing out children by the cart-load and raising the kids from the nanosecond they're born. Mothers have the kind of 24/7/365 access to a child's mind that a feminist ideologue can only dream about in her fevered fantasies.
Imagine if feminism hadn't drifted into BettyFriedan/BarbaraEhrenreich employment-centrism in the early 1970's, but instead had focused on actually changing American culture at its roots. The results would be stark. In fact, if that had occurred, the US would be hardly recognizable.
Conservatives and traditionalists often become angry when feminists demean the vital importance of motherhood. It's an understandable reaction; nurturing matriarchs are central to the emotional life of almost everyone and it's hard to hear it when some campus theorist makes it seem like mothers aren't important. Instead of being angry when feminists dismiss motherhood, we should just politely nod and move on, rather than give these leftist maniacs any bright ideas.
It's almost ready. Wait until you see the new front cover!
Because my publisher is a POD publisher, there will be some fees for the re-edit and from the distributor for the revision, around $500. So I'm selling the original version of Tale of the Tigers at the low price of $12.99 at my book site only. Get it now and help me get the new one going! If you buy the old version, I'll throw in the new one for free with proof of purchase from today, March 30, or later.
Or you can donate to my revision fund!
What else do I have in the works? A new novel (what's a little dystopia between friends?) And a book of short stories. It's amazing what one can come up with using the assistance of memory and imagination.
The great Jerome Corsi documents yet another shrapnel fragment flying off the continuing Obama train wreck.
Bill Ayers: One more, one more (question)
Question:Thank you sir, thank you, thank you. Time magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote that President Obama's book, "Dreams from My Father," quote: "may be the best written memoir ever produced by an American politician."
Ayers: I agree with that.
Question:What is your opinion of Barack Obama's style as a writer and uh …
Ayers: I think the book is very good, the second book ("The Audacity of Hope") is more of a political hack book, but uh, the first book is quite good.
Question: Also, you just mentioned the Pentagon and Tomahawk …
Ayers: Did you know that I wrote it, incidentally?
Question: What's that?
Ayers: I wrote that book.
Several audience members: Yeah, we know that.
Question: You wrote that?
Ayers: Yeah, yeah. And if you help me prove it, I’ll split the royalties with you. Thank you very much.
Oooooof.
WND contributor Jack Cashill seems to thinkthis is a shot across Barack Obama's bow. In his opinion, the very anti-war Bill Ayers is angry at Obama for the President's Libyan war kinetic military action. I think that's a pretty good assessment.
I don't believe that's the entire story here though. I think Bill Ayers is suffering from a classic case of 'Tire Tracks From Under Obama's Bus' Syndrome. Peace Prize Barry basically used Ayers like a kleenex. Instead of Ayers catching at least a little credit for penning Dreams--something like 'By Barack Obama and William Ayers'--homeboy got a whole lot of nothing.
It might have been easier on Ayers to get no props for Dreamswhen Obambi was a hack community rabble-rouser or a benchwarming Illinois state Senator. When the former Weatherman watched Obama become a Democrat Party show-horse and media-created President, without ever acknowledging Bill Ayers' full contribution to the St. Bambi mythos, that was probably incredibly grating. Obama's North African adventurism may have been simply the last straw.
More importantly than Bill Ayers needing to recover from his skinned knee and bruised ego, this episode is just one more nail in the coffin for the Barack Obama 2008 campaign narrative. Dreams From My Fatherwas a big piece of Obama's intellectual curriculum vitae. As opposed to the supposedly illiterate Dubya or the crusty old warrior John McCain, Candidate Lightbringer was a serious author who had written not one, but two books. Dreams and The Audacity of Hope were meant to display Barry's intellectual firepower. While the junior Senator from Illinois had almost no legislative accomplishments, his alleged mastery of the written word was supposed to assure nervous voters that they were supporting a true Renaissance man.
And now we see the myth of Obama's intellectualism crumbling. All it took was one of the key enablers in Bamster's web of lies to get pissed off at his former protegé. Barry's chickens are finally coming home to roost.
But really, one can't be completely shocked when a politician as weaselly as Barack Obama is found out to have inflated his resume. To paraphrase Winston Churchill's comments about Clement Atlee, Senator HopeyChangey's barely-there congressional record had much to be humble about. No empty-suit candidate with a similar doughnut hole in his history could do anything else. Obama is clearly no exception to this fibbing phenomenon.
The blame for Obama being able to pull off this sham rests not with the president, but with the American mainstream press. The New York Times/MSNBC/Washington Post Axis of Fail constantly pats itself on the crotch for brave truth-telling. Instead of digging into Obama's shady past, they did everything they could to bury damaging details about their preferred candidate and attacked his opposition.
Better still, this MSM willful blindness also reveals just how badly they suck at the one job in which they're supposed to be experts. They're the ones who were supposed to figure out just how much Bill Ayers figured into Barack Obama's narrative. The lamestream press allowed the illusion of Barack Obama's superior intelligence--a major component of his appeal to voters--to flourish without a question. By doing that, they set themselves up to be punked by bloggers who have shown more initiative in the last two years than Big Media has shown in the last two decades.
UPDATE: Now a big ole' Memeorandum thread too. Time to pile on while the piling on is good, I say.
Via the American Thinker. I think John Hawkins is spot on in detecting the sarcasm here, but if you’re inclined to believe that Ayers is The One’s ghostwriter, you’re bound to detect a “deeper truth” in his tone.
... I think he enjoys mocking people who push this idea and enjoys it doubly when they can’t detect the mockery. In fact, I’d bet that this is his stock response anytime the book is mentioned in his presence — insisting that he wrote it to see if the listener laughs and then toying with them if they seem credulous. But as I say, your mileage may vary.
Yeah, this doesn't exactly work for me. AP's analysis blithely discounts Jack Cashill's work that pretty much proves that Bill Ayers wrote "Dreams". Cashill lays out the bones of his argument here.
To credit Dreamsto Obama alone, one has to posit any number of near miraculous variables: he somehow found the time; he somewhere mastered nautical jargon and postmodern jabberwocky; he in some sudden, inexplicable way developed the technique and the talent to transform himself from stumbling amateur to literary superstar without any stops in between.
If anything, the last few years should make Cashill's thesis even more believable. The Duffer-in-Chief is not exactly breaking his back as President. Dude works harder on his NCAA basketball brackets than on seemingly anything else. The guy requires a teleprompter for both formal and informal occasions. It seems highly unlikely that Barack Obama would put in the work necessary to become a strong writer.
Moreover, why can't two things be true at once? Why can't Bill Ayers be sarcastic and be telling the truth at the same time? I mean, it's sorta weird, but it's not such a strange thing. Ayers is a squirrelly lib hack. It makes weird sense that he'd do something so goofy and underhanded. Homeboy probably gets a little thrill thinking how clever he is laying out this secret in plain view.
It's just wonderful that even a thumb sucking lib like Congressman Weiner can admit he thinks BarryMed stinks on ice. Go ahead, homie. Chug down that sweet refreshing Haterade.
Rep. Anthony Weiner said Wednesday he was looking into how a health law waiver might work for New York City.
Weiner, who is likely to run for mayor of New York, said that because of the city’s special health care infrastructure, his office was looking into alternatives that might make more sense. Weiner is one of the health care law’s biggest supporters; during the debate leading up to reform, he was one of the last holdouts in Congress for the public option.
Why is this happening, Weiner?
“The president said, ‘If you have better ideas that can accomplish the same thing, go for it,’” said Weiner. “I’m in the process now of trying to see if we can take [President Barack Obama] up on it in the city of New York, … and I’m taking a look at all of the money we spend in Medicaid and Medicare and maybe New York City can come up with a better plan.”
Here's a plan for Weiner and the rest of the Democrats: How about we scrap the entire thing and call it a wash? Y'all can make lame sorority girl-style excuses for why you voted for ObamaCare--"I was really drunk," "My ride took off without me," "He said we were cool"--and we'll completely understand. I swear, everybody on the Right will stop laughing at you after a couple of weeks. A month, tops.
It's neat how the people who screamed the loudest about passing this monstrosity--the unions, the media and the progosphere sycophants--are the ones who most desperately want a note from Papa Barry to get out of ObamaCare. What's even better is that the Republicans in Congress are still dawdling along wondering if they should completely defund ObamaCare.
Ummm, here's a clue. If everybody--even Anthony "Brainless Knee-Jerk Statist" Weiner, for God's sake--is begging the government trying to get out of nationalized medicine, that means it's a dog's lunch that can be scrapped with little political risk.
I snagged this story link from Jonah Goldberg's twitter feed.
Baldilocks wondered when President Obambya was gonna get around to asking Congress for authority to...you know...go to war.
I too have a question--Does SuperGenius Hussein McSmartyPants have a plan or is he just making it up as he goes along?
“Our military action is in support of an international mandate from the [United Nations]Security Council that specifically focuses on the humanitarian threat posed by Colonel Qadhafi to his people,” the American president said. “Not only was he carrying out murders of civilians, but he threatened more.”
Okee-dokee, St. Barry. So you're just doing your Euro-hip Nobel Prize winning humanitarian act. Right. Got it.
“I also have stated that it is U.S. policy that Qadhafi needs to go,” Obama said, noting that a United Nations resolution last week authorizing force against Libya is based on humanitarian concerns, not regime change. “When it comes to our military action…we are going to make sure that we stick to that mandate.”
Wait...what?
I hate to get pushy about this, but which one is it Bamster? Are we enforcing a no-fly zone, or are we trying to stick a fork into Mad Moammar?
Maybe we should ask newly butched-up warlord Nicholas Sarkozy what the hell is going on here. He might have a clue. Obama clearly does not. Even better than the President's feckless display of spectacular obliviousness is the fact that he's created a foreign policy scenario where a sawed-off twerpy French Prime Minister probably has the best handle on the situation.
Besides Obama delivering the change we can all be horrified by, it's important to consult history. Erwin Rommel famously remarked, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Very true, but the Field Marshall never told us what would happen to the plan when we finally made contact with our allies. In case you've gotten confused, we're supposed to be protecting Libyan rebels from the predations of Colonel Qadaffi. Nobody really knows who the hell these people are, who they're friends with or what kind of government they want to create in the place of the current. Armed with that lack of information, of course we should throw our support behind the Libyan rebel forces.
Just to be clear: Obama has just gotten us into a war where we're not really calling the shots while we're somehow doing most of the fighting with no clear idea what victory would look like for people who probably despise us with a thousand year old Kaaba-sized chip on their shoulders and who will most likely plot against us once we're done doing the wet work for them.
SEC. 2. (a) It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgement of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicate by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.
(b) Under article I, section 8, of the Constitution, it is specifically provided that the Congress shall have the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution, not only its own powers but also all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
(c) The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
Pray tell, which of the emphasized circumstances exists? Which of these gives President Obama license to order the intervention in Libya?
...among the leftmost wing of the House Democrats. Good to see it.
Reps. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Donna Edwards (Md.), Mike Capuano (Mass.), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Rob Andrews (N.J.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.) “all strongly raised objections to the constitutionality of the president’s actions [in Libya]” during that call, said two Democratic lawmakers who took part.
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) even asked why President Obama's actions aren't impeachable. And from an unnamed Democrat lawmaker:
“They consulted the Arab League. They consulted the United Nations. They did not consult the United States Congress...They’re creating wreckage, and they can’t obviate that by saying there are no boots on the ground. … There aren’t boots on the ground; there are Tomahawks in the air.”
In my previous post, a guest tries to float (verb usage intentional) the idea that there was no congressional authorization for either of the Iraq Wars, among other actions in which the United States Military has been ordered to engage. Of course the assertion about the two Iraq conflicts was easily disputed. I haven't bothered to look up the others, most of which were conducted by Democrat presidential administrations.
I do hope the Left wing of the congressional Democrats stands firm. We will see.
BENGHAZI, Libya — President Barack Obama authorized limited military action against Libya Saturday, saying Moammar Gadhafi's continued assault on his own people left the U.S. and its international partners with no other choice. The Pentagon said it fired 110 cruise missiles at 20 targets along the Libyan coast.
Surely we will soon be seeing the antiwar crowd out and about, blocking traffic and asserting that the president is waging an illegal war, a war-for-oil, etc.
I'm sure we will see this soon.
UPDATE: President Obama is in Brazil. He announced this strike against Gadhafi from the Brazilian capital. It appears that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is running things from Paris.
UPDATE: I knew we could count on the antiwar activists!
The protesters, some shouting anti-war slogans and singing "We Shall Not Be Moved," were arrested after ignoring orders to move away from the gates of the White House. The demonstrators cheered loudly as Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon's secret history of the Vietnam War that was later published in major newspapers, was arrested and led away by police.
And there were protests all around the country! New York, Chicago, San Francisco...
There's only one problem. The protesters were there to mark the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, to call for complete withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan (told ya so) and to support Bradley Manning, the Army private who leaked classified documents to Wikileaks.
It has only been one day, however. I'm sure they'll get around to protesting the US intervention in Libya. I have faith!
A great deal of commentary and comments has been generated which compares the horrendous situation in Japan to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Observers note that while New Orleans residents—and even police officers—took disaster’s opportunity to loot businesses and homes, the Japanese survivors of the 9.0 earthquake and the resultant tsunami have absolutely abstained from such behavior. People who know far more about Japan than I have concluded that the absence of such behavior is due to Japan’s singular, nearly undiluted culture—a thousand-year long tradition in which honor is the only thing one has and the loss of which is the greatest loss imaginable.
This makes sense. After all, most material things that are lost can be accrued again relatively quickly while one is still living. Lost honor, however, is very tough to regain and is, sometimes, gone forever.
Some of the comments have bordered on the racialist—that the Japanese don’t loot because it’s not in their racial make-up and that others—namely blacks—do so because it is part of our racial make-up. Leaving aside the insult, I think the difference goes deeper than that, even deeper than the concept of lost honor. There’s something that the Japanese understand which all too many black and other Americans used to understand but now do not: that what one does in public and how one treats his/her neighbor(s) affects not only the individuals involved but also the entire community. This concept applies to local communities and to the larger community; the nation. Not understanding that is the downside of individualism. (Of course, honor-shame cultures have their downsides as well; Japan has a very high rate of suicide.)
I submit that Katrina’s New Orleans was a manifestation of a people—namely black people—who have voluntarily given up their honor and their sense of shame. They have abandoned themselves.
Black Americans—specifically, the descendants of American slavery--are the most American of Americans; I said this before and I’m certainly not the first to make this observation. Unlike all other immigrants to America, our ancestors were forcibly cut off from all of the totems of their various West African tribes: names, languages, family structures, belief systems. These things have buoyed all other ethnic groups—including recent African immigrants—in their sojourn to this country and all of them had the choice to hold onto the elements of their cultures that fit into the American ideal and discard those which were incompatible. American slaves were granted no such luxury. Our ancestors were emptied of their identities and re-created in the image of what America had for them. And, up until roughly fifty years ago, much of that image was molded by oppression and scorn.
However, most black Americans held on tightly to the universal totems of personal and communal honor: love of God, family, love of community, industriousness, self-reliance--all of which also flow and follow from America’s founding document. (That America strayed away from those principles with respect to black Americans isn’t the point, that those principles even existed is. And, with those concrete principles in hand, black Americans were able to point to them and say to other Americans, “live up to your—to our-- principles.”)
We may stem from Africa, but we are not of Africa—not even me. Our character and (sub)culture are wholly American and, largely, our American ancestors fashioned these for themselves--appropriating most of the good things which America had to offer and which largely insulated them from the bad. That is the inheritance which all too many of us have repudiated.
What we saw in New Orleans after Katrina was a microcosm of the character disintegration of this most American of Americans. It wasn’t born of DNA nor of the historical effects of slavery; it was born of the wholesale abandonment of a character tried and refined by fire and of the principles which held black Americans together in prior times of adversity.
If mother and father don’t love child enough to at least try to create the most tried and true environment for the nurturing of that child, it follows that neither mother, nor father, nor child will love and respect neighbors or community. We declined en masse the prescriptions and proscriptions of God regarding the family and allowed government to usurp the place of the head of the family--the husband/father/leader/protector. We abandoned the identity which our forebears shaped for us and put chaos in its place. And when disaster strikes, it’s every man and woman for self. Multiply that times a few million.
In short, the average Japanese person loves his (Japanese) neighbor and does not covet that which belongs to that neighbor. It’s part of their culture—their belief system. And they’ve held to that system without Judaism or Christianity being a significant part of their society. They know who they are and from whence they’ve come.
The RINO, aka a Republican In Name Only, is a species of political animal that loves self-congratulation. Specifically, if you listen to a RINO, he'll mention platitudes like, "socially moderate, but fiscally conservative'. The RINO will boast about how they don't get bogged down in morality or overly religious debates. A RINO is just concerned about keeping America's fiscal house in order.
All of it is a lie.
The most recent example is Lisa Murkowski, the Senator from Alaska who pitched a fit when she was denied the GOP nomination in the Republican primary, then used a write-in campaign to get her spoiled brat way. That was pretty awful, but there was a razor-thin hope that she would at least be of some utility in this congressional term. Supporters of hers argued that at least she would be decent on economic and budgetary issues.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has come out in opposition to the House’s attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, making her the first Republican senator to specifically support the beleaguered organization.
“I believe Planned Parenthood provides vital services to those in need and disagree with their funding cuts in the bill,”Murkowski wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Vice Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). “I ask you to consider these programs going forward to determine if there is room for allowing continued funding.”
Planned Parenthood provides vital services? What would those vital services be, Lisa? I guess an organization that gleefully provides legal coverfor pimps trying to get abortions for underage girls is now considered an un-cuttable budget item.
Forget Murkowski's blithe brainless notion of what Planned Parenthood really is. She's a classic Ruling Class idiot with a splash of over-entitled nepotism thrown in for good measure. There is no changing that sad fact.
Instead, focus on the description fake-conservative Republicans apply to themselves. They constantly crow about their desire to balance budgets and cut deficits. Yet the minute they come across Planned Parenthood--a corrupt criminal enterprise masquerading as a women's health business--here comes the supposed penny-pinching Lisa Murkowski to the rescue. Instead of advocating for government to stop funding PP, she's tripping over herself trying to give them more taxpayer dollars.
This is exactly why you cannot trust a RINO. All their talk of fiscal conservatism is a line of talk to fool the rubes. If anything is unnecessary for the government to fund, it's abortion clinics. They make plenty of money. They do not need federal support at all.
When it comes down to it, RINOs are creatures of electoral necessity. Seen from that perspective, a fiscal conservative/social moderate is painted into a very difficult corner. They almost have to spend government funds on liberal agenda items.
How else can a RINO declare themselves socially moderate on abortion? Roe v. Wadeis still in place, so a liberal Republican can't do much there. The abortion issue is settled for pro-choicers. Besides being all for late-term abortions, the RINO has very few partisan moves to convince voters that he's pro-choice. The only thing he can do is defend government funding of abortion providers.
The nature of a liberal Republican's partisan stance and the tone of modern politics short-circuits the supposed balance that RINOs believe they've achieved between budgetary stinginess and social issues moderation. They can never be the cost-cutting deficit hawks they advertise themselves to be. Their liberal supporters have to be placated or they won't show up to support lefty GOPers.
Now if rank-n-file republicans can see this, why can't the Beltway GOP?
...how do Washington Republicans respond to this betrayal by Murkowski, who lost the primary, vilified a patriot like Joe Miller, and lied about wanting to use taxpayer funds for abortion? They promote Murkowski as spokeswoman for the Republican Party, of course.
Naturally.
Ya know, maybe I was wrong. Maybe it isn't the RINOs that are useless. Maybe it's the entire ridiculous mind-numbingly incompetent wndow-licking Republican Party leadership that needs to ride on the short bus.
Matt over at the Conservative Hideout has some thoughts on the so-called 'Worst Generation'.
My parent’s generation spent the wealth that was so painfully earned by their parents. Then, they created failed program after failed program, all paid for with trillions of borrowed dollars. And when the programs were clearly failures, and, in fact, made things worse, they plodded on. The kept following the leftist narrative, and never-ever cut their own benefits, no matter how unsustainable they were. They also rejected the spirit of their parents, who had endured the great depression, and survived WW II. Their parents had sacrificed, but the boomers wanted what they wanted, and they wanted it immediately.
Read the whole piece, ya'all.
While I agree with much of Matt's sentiments, I think the Baby Boomers sometimes get a bad rap. After all, they didn't come up with Social Security. That was second-gen progressive Franklin Roosevelt's idea. The Great Society programs--Medicare, Aid To Families With Dependent Children--were dreamed up by Lyndon Johnson.
No, the Boomers didn't create a lot of the now-crumbling social spending architecture that threatens to destroy America. What many folks in the post WWII generation did was assume that the nationalized Ponzi schemes and subsidization of personal failure they inherited from older generations were going to continue without consequence. With that monumentally absurd analysis in place, the New Left movements that arose in the Baby Boom generation set about creating ideologies and rationalizations that reinforced their flawed assumptions.
Look at one example. Conservatives assert that welfare is destroying the American family. Baby Boom feminists (and their intellectual progeny) argue that the traditional family is outdated and sexist. The nuclear familial arrangement, with its coercion and fundamental unfairness towards women, is not worth being concerned about. The dissolution of that unfair institution is not only necessary, it should be welcomed. Welfare might be hurting marriage and the old family arrangements, but it's just doing the needed work to get society to the post-traditonal family that feminists crave.
While some elements of the Boomer left were busy cementing themselves into soft socialism and cultural Marxism, many others entered into the media. Take a gander at who sets the agenda in much of the MSM. Arthur 'Pinch' Sulzberger, the head of the New York Times, was born in 1951. Steve Capus, president of NBC News, was born in 1963. The editor of the Washington Post is Marcus Brauchli, who was born in 1961.
These folks--and many others in the legacy media--are all part of the post-war Baby Boom. How many times have you watched some gauzy nostalgia-laden montage of 60's and 70's era protests/concerts/hippie love-ins/Timothy Leary yammerings? The reason why these dreadful creations are so ubiquitous is because the Boomers who look back at that time so fondly are the ones who make up the majority of American news organizations. Further, most of the contemporary coverage of the baby boom social movements are almost always positive. The excesses of dudes like Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman or Bill Ayers are generally airbrushed away. Even better? The self-congratulation to actual accomplishment ratio is usually quite skewed. "Hooray for us, we stopped the Vietnam War and stuff. Also, we listened to the Velvet Underground, so yeah..." Yikes.
Because Baby Boomers--especially lefty boomers--dominate the media, they paint a distorted picture of 60's/70's youth. If you just watched CNN or read Time Magazine, you'd think every teenager in America from 1966 to 1978 was an idealistic acid-gobbling Vietnam War protester who lived on commune in Southern California with her Native American spirit guide, seven sex partners and five children named after various wildflowers while David Crosby constructed ever more elaborate water bongs and Gloria Steinem ritualistically burned her bra. The reality is that boomers during their formative years inhabited a broad continuum, from stern straight-laced traditionalists to wild-eyed liberal doucherockets, and that many of these neat categorizations we're fed just don't add up.
What is the worst sin of the Baby Boomers? The knee-jerk leftism to which some of them continue to bitterly cling is annoying as hell. The unreal self-descriptions and constant back-patting is tiresome. The thing is that none of them would be particularly fatal. They'd just be aggravating.
The most egregious error committed by the Boomers isn't any of that crap. According to Stanley Kurtz, via the great Pundette, the issue for the 'Worst Generation' is the fact that they didn't make babies.
In 2005, I reviewed some of the first books on the subject and concluded that a demographically induced economic crisis could spark a revival of religious traditionalism, a far more radical decomposition of the family, or both.
At the time, it looked as if a possible demographically-induced economic crisis was at least a couple of decades away. We seem to be running ahead of schedule. To a large extent, the economic troubles here and in Europe already factor in the unsustainable entitlements of the future.
Although an economic crisis is imminent, and the underlying cause demographic, I haven’t noticed many calls for increased child-bearing. That is in striking contrast to the world-wide movement in response to the less proximate and more theoretical global warming crisis. It’s a measure of how unthinkable changes in our post-sixties life-styles still are. Yet it doesn’t mean change won’t happen, if and when a demographic-economic crisis truly strikes.
It probably doesn't matter all that much that a lot of Boomer peeps smoked a gazillion pounds of OG Kush looking for a cheap buzz or a spiritual experience or whatever. The tendency for elf-esteem boosting hagiography of 60's and 70's accomplishments doesn't explain our present difficulties. The leftist leaning of many in that generation by itself doesn't damn the post-war generation.
The fact that they couldn't be bothered to squeeze out a few more kids here and there is the lasting destructive legacy of the baby boom demographic. In many cases, it wasn't purposeful. Their intentions were often noble, or at least not totally self-serving anyway. Often there were perfectly rational rationalizations for their reproductive decisions. Career moves, financial choices, a concern for the environment, bad relationships, high divorce rates; all those things tend to slow down the baby-making. More, all of these factors could've happened to any generation.
I really don't think baby boomers sat down as an entire generational cohort and decided to stop making kids as much as their parents did. I also don't think they all planned a demographic collapse that would threaten the entire economic future of the America. There were definitely more than a few Boomers who were worried about overpopulation, but for the most part it was a host of decisions and life events that slowed the Boomer breeding.
The problem here is, like so many other good (or at least not-evil) intentions, America has managed to pave a road right into the abyss with miles of supposedly good plans and allegedly smart ideas. The Boom generation didn't mean for this to happen. Nonetheless, we find ourselves in dire circumstances due to some very misguided decisions.
One Republican--likely--down for the count before the fight begins.
“In order to run for president last time, I cashed in my life insurance, my annuities, I pretty much went through everything that I ever had as an asset that I thought I might someday live on. One thing I committed to myself, to my wife and God, was that if I do this I’m hopefully going to be in a position that I’m not so completely destitute at the end of it, that I have no idea what to do if I get sick.”
Can I get two cheers for inflation?
Cubachi thinks this signals Huckabee's lack of seriousness about 2012. I think she's right. But then again, has Huckabee ever been a serious candidate in the next presidential election? The only reason anybody paid him any attention in 2008 was because the GOP field was so weak.
Besides that, what's his campaign narrative supposed to be in 2012? I really don't think America--and the GOP in particular--will be in the market for spend-happy compassionate conservative.
Don't get it twisted. I think Huckabee's heart is in the right place on a lot of issues. So was George W. Bush's. Dubya was right about guns, abortion and--broadly--terrorism. But his lack of discipline about spending (and his poor performance in 2004-2006 Iraq) soiled the GOP brand and helped usher in President Obama. In similar ways, Huckabee's compassionate conservatism very well could be just the thing to help re-elect St. Barry of the Sacred Union Payoff.
This is the test of our democracy. Ms Piven must be delighted.
'Delighted?' That repellent old socialist windbag is panting for more of the same as we speak.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, where all but the most blinkered left-wing ideologues actually live, Herman Cain throws down a marker.
Big ups to RS McCain for posting this vid. Read the rest of his piece as he makes some good points and includes a smidge of Breitbart magic as well.
As for Herman Cain, he declares, "Wisconsin in ground zero for the rest of America"
Listen to this man. He speaks the God's honest truth here.
As I said in an earlier post, Obama has sent his troops into this fight. Organizing For America pretty much sat on its hands during the 2010 election season. Unlike in November, the President has decided to enter this battle with both barrels blazing. He is gambling that with OFA assistance, rent-a-goon union tactics and good old fashioned media bias, he can get Wisconsin Republicans to back down.
Obama must not be allowed to win this fight.
Ponder this scenario: The GOP in Wisconsin is broken. They give in to Democrat demands and business as usual reconvenes. The consequences from that loss would be dramatic and immediate. First, this will embolden the Obama political hack groups to pull this kind of stuff anytime a fiscally conservative statehouse gets too uppity. If the Cloward/Piven/Alinsky tactic works in CheeseHeadLand, the Left will naturally seek to use these same political moves everywhere else. Obama will send out OFA to infiltrate, disrupt and disarm any state's attempts to slow the growth of government.
Governors from states that are in similarly dire budgetary straits--like all 50 of them--will look at this hypothetical conservative failure in Wisconsin with great interest. They will learn that there is no political gain to be had from trying to evade the budgetary dilemmas they face. Runaway entitlements, public-sector union issues, basic fiscal discipline...all those concerns will go by the wayside. Politicians will instead recalibrate their messages to voters; the big fight in the next election cycle will be which party can best deliver the gubmint cheeeeeeeez to state-dependent voters.
Just a reminder: Even after the compassionate conservatism of the Bush years, Republicans will never--EVER--win that argument. If faced with the prospect of Republicans offering an efficient well-organized welfare state or Democrats promising a generous fluffy relaxing social safety hammock, voters will choose the Donkey Punchers every time. When a little kid cries for a Snickers bar, he really doesn't care how much money Mommy saved when she bought the thing. No, the child only cares that the chocolate goody gets to him as soon as possible and that there is more where that came from. Same thing with is true with the electorate if faced with that kind of 'choice.'
What Obama and the Dems are trying to do is nothing less than the repeal of the 2010 midterms.
Wisconsin might not be America's political Ragnarok. Perhaps I'm misreading just how big this thing is. However, the fact that Barack Obama has decided to expend such effort and has unleashed his rabble-rousers tells me that this is a massive deal.
Daniel Pipes ponders the notion of an Islam compatible with democracy.
Just as Christianity became part of the democratic process, so can Islam. This transformation will surely be wrenching and require time. The evolution of the Catholic Church from a reactionary force in the medieval period into a democratic one today, an evolution not entirely over, has been taking place for 700 years. When an institution based in Rome took so long, why should a religion from Mecca, replete with its uniquely problematic scriptures, move faster or with less contention?
Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. Pipes breaks down some of the massive hurdles Islam has to leap over in order to embrace democratic ideals.
A point Pipes doesn't touch on is how the modern Western world has treated the various Islamist movements it has run into over the last 50 years. Since Sayyid Qutb gave birth to the modern jihadist movement, elements of the West have been bombarded by various facets of Islamic violence. Whether it has come in the form of stateless entities like al-Qaeda, belligerent theocratic governments or a combination of the two is beside the point.
So how have the elites in America reacted to the decades-long aggression of expansionist Islam? Accomodation, moral equivalence and feckless dhimmitude. Among other pathetic reactions. Then we wonder why Islam continues to pick on us.
Non-Muslims can't do much to reform to Islam. As Pipes notes, that kind of wrenching cultural shift takes a long time. Democratization is not something the West will be capable of accelerating very much.
But that doesn't mean the West has to lay down and accept terrorist Islam's deranged premises about the separation of church and state, the role of women, property rights or religious pluralism. Nor does it have to tolerate the violent acts of murder and mayhem the Qutbist keep throwing at us. Instead of that, the West could decide to tell Islam--through words and deeds--that certain things won't be tolerated. Like honor killings, imposition of sharia, the crushing of religious minorities or female circumsicion.
Would that turn Islam into a religion that welcomes democratic reform? Probably not. But it would probably be better than the subtle message of approval some in the West insist on sending to Islam.
Amy Woodruff just sorta gave the entire game away, didn't she?
So much of the pro-choice side's intellectual argument rests on the utterly vacuous legality defense. Roe v. Wade supposedly brought the process of terminating unwanted pregnancies from the filthy unsafe back allies into the respectable clinical sterile environment of the modern operating room. Remember, according to the pro-abortion crowd, terminating a pregnancy has to be legal or women will be put at risk and denied their constitutional rights.
First, a question for the audience: At what point does the giggling moronic Planned Parenthood hack in the video consider the legality of what she is doing? After all, Amy Woodruff doesn't know she's being set up. As best she can tell this is a real pimp with a real ho who is peddling 14 year old minors for sex. In fact, she is doing everything in her power to help a pimp--a degenerate sex trafficker who is selling children--stay out of trouble with the law.
Human imagination would be sorely tested trying to dream up an ideologically blinkered moral idiot such as Ms. Woodruff. It seems impossible that a person would allow herself to get so confused that she turns a blind eye towards this kind of extreme child endangerment and exploitation. Unfortunately, reality is far more inventive than our darkest nightmares.
Make no mistake-Ms. Woodruff is engaging in criminal behavior. Moreover, it's a crime involving the central justification of Planned Parenthood. That organization breaks its arm patting itself on the back for protecting women from abuse. Yet here we see a gatekeeper of Planned Parenthood making sure that underage girls are kept in sexual bondage. If the situation in the clip isn't exploitation of women, what the hell is?
Speaking of rights, what about the right of fourteen year old girls not to be turned into sex slaves? I mean, I know it's not like the right to abort a child that is so obviously spelled out in the US Constitution [sarc/] but still. I'm not a civil rights expert, but I'm pretty sure that if someone is pimping out minors for sex, that is going to adversely affect that whole 'Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness" equation. I guess the right of Planned Parenthood to make money off of terminating pregnancies trumps the rights of teenagers to not get used like a box of Kleenex.
Instead of preventing abuse, the legality of abortion has created the conditions for ever-uglier forms of anti-female assaults. Better still, the group that considers itself the primary guardian of women's rights is right there giving aid and comfort to the most vile abusers out there. Why, if I didn't know better, I'd think Planned Parenthood was just paying lip service to protecting women while they simultaneously set ladies up for a particularly nasty fall or something.
Prediction: There will be about a hundred times more outrage from the pro-abortion feminist sob sisters about how this video was obtained rather than the fact that Planned Parenthood put itself in the position of helping out a pedophile-enabling pimp.
I snagged the original link at Instapundit. Muchas gracias.
Cross-posted at BDKS. Thank you very much, Juliette. You rule.
Yes, I have paid attention to the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the murder of six other people, and the attempted political assassination by the Leftist media of Former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) in these past few days.
Yes, I'm up to my ears in taking care of my great-aunt--an invalid since her accident on September 24th of last year. Yes, I am grateful to the awesome King Shamus for keeping my blog alive from that time until now.
But what I want to know is this: why is no one on the Left nor the militant atheists saying anything about the fact that, during the memorial services for the Tucson Massacre victims, both Eric Holder--Attorney General of the United States--and Janet Napolitano--Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security--put forth no words other than the Word of God, from Testaments both Old and New?
Where is all the screeching about separation of Church and State, Leftists? Is the dearth of outrage because you suspect that the two were just putting up a front?
Well, hey, if that's what you suspect, I suspect the same--Left and Right in agreement for a change.
(Thanks to my American Dad)
UPDATE: Have I judged the state of Holder's and Napolitano's hearts? Yes, so maybe I should back off. But as for most of the Left, I still want to know why they have said nothing about the Bible quotes from the governmental agents at the Tucson Massacre Memorial Service.
By now, most people have heard about the shooting in Tuscon, Arizona that left six people dead and wounded eighteen others, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords. This pointless act of violence by a deranged young man should be denounced by every right-thinking person. Unfortunately, some of our allegedly right-thinking media commentators are trying way too hard to make their ridiculous political points.
First up, here's Howard Fineman, calling on Obama to use the Tuscon shooting for his own purposes.
Now comes Tucson. The deaths there are not about politics, ideology or party. From what we know, Jared Loughman's acts were those of a madman divorced from reality, let alone from public debate.
But that doesn't make Tucson politically meaningless. The president need not, and should not, speak of ideas or programs or parties. What he can speak about, and what perhaps he will speak about, is civility.
Arizona has become a ferociously divided and dangerous place, in which our indispensable need to argue--arguing is, after all, who we are as a people--seems at times to veer into an abyss.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords--"centrist" Democrat, survivor in a district with more Republicans than Democrats and more independent voters than either--has prospered in Congress by crossing lines and doing so with a sense of earnestness and good will.
Like her, the president has been attacked harshly of late from both sides: by progressives who regard him as a sellout, by Tea Partiers who regard him as a power-mad socialist usurper.
He and Giffords think of themselves as fellow travelers on a middle path of civility and compromise in a dangerous world. The president will likely argue that, implicitly if not explicitly.
Fate works in strange ways. This event is the first on the watch of Obama's new chief of staff, and a deal-making, turn-the-heat-down approach to politics is what Bill Daley is all about.
As was the case with Clinton, Obama may be able to remind voters of what they like best about him: his sensible demeanor. Amid the din and ferocity of our political culture, he respectfully keeps his voice down, his emotions in check and his mind open.
That is the pitch, at least. The trick is to make it without seeming to be trying to make it. He will, after all, be speaking at a funeral.
Jeeeeeeeebus.
There is so much fail here, it almost overwhelms reason.
First, Fineman strains mightily against observable reality to draw a connection between Giffords, an actual moderate, and Barack 'I Won'Obama, a hard left statist who has to be dragged kicking and screaming to split the difference with Republicans. In fact, there is no comparison between the Representative and the President besides the fact that they're both Democrats. Quick tip for Fineman: When you call your partisan opponents hostage-takers, you're reaching across the aisle with a sharp left hook to the jaw. If there is a mood of partisan rancor in Arizona--or America--Obama hasn't done anything to alleviate it and done much to perpetuate it.
Even worse is Fineman's fetishization of 'civility'. Note that liberals only care about civility when they're the one's catching a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whooping at the ballot box. The 2010 midterm elections are still a giant source of pain for Democrats and their media enablers. Now that conservatives have a tiny chance to enact some small-government ideas, the professional Left wants Republicans to 'tone down' all this 'hot rhetoric'. In Fineman's five brain cell math, the GOP's insistence on dismantling Obama's health care reform bill = Tucson shooting.
Here's another problem. Homeboy wants America to have more 'civil' political debates. Forget for a moment that for Fineman, a well-mannered conversation means the Democrat Party gets it's way on every issue forever. The bigger issue here is that Fineman wants Barack Obama to score political points at what sort of event? Oh yeah, a funeral. You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a scenario more impolite than somebody throwing partisan bon mots over the body of a nine year old child.
Wait, did I say 'impolite'? What I meant to say is 'vulgar and nauseating'.
But hey, maybe Howard Fineman is right. After all, the Paul Wellstone funeral was a rousing success.
Next up, here's Paul Krugman. He's a New York Times columnist and a massive douchetool, but I repeat myself. Watch as this Nobel Prize winner completely beclowns himself.
We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list.
...You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.
This is what it sounds like when liberals wet the bed.
Let's break this down. Krugman wants us to believe that elements of the conservative movement created a climate of hate that led to this shooting. A cursory glance at the artifacts left behind by the shooter proves Krugman wrong. Take a look the alleged murderer's Youtube page. Here are his favorite books.
Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver's Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.
Funny. I don't see Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh mentioned in there. Try as I might, I can't find any Tea Party pamphlets or conservative manifestos either. Why, it's almost as if Paul Krugman is using his own political template for what he thinks the American conservative movement is and projecting that distorted image onto the Tucson shooter.
Again, Krugman is arguing that his right-wing bogeymen pushed the attacker to violence. If that were the case, there should be something, even a minute scrap of evidence that suggests that the shooter was influenced by conservatives. In fact, the shooter's most beloved tomes seem far less like a Tea Partier's book club assignment and far more like a slightly off-kilter high school sophomore's summer reading list.
If we want to really pick through the books and find a pattern, you'd be hard-pressed to find any real partisan trend. "Animal Farm", "Fahrenheit 451" and "Brave New World" are well-regarded works of fiction loved by members of the Right, Left and apolitical. If "The Odyssey", "Gulliver's Travels" or "The Old Man and The Sea" are right-wing calls to arms, they're the most well-disguised revolutionary tracts ever. "We The Living" was written by Ayn Rand, so in some bizarre left-wing fever dream, this could be evidence of the shooter's right-wingery. But then what are we supposed to make of "The Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kampf"? These are the holy texts of international and national socialism and not exactly beloved political tracts within the conservative movement.
Contrary to Paul Krugman's bullshit on stilts masquerading as sober analysis, there is no coherent political philosophy to be found in the shooter's favorite books. But surely for Krugman to tar the Palin/Beck/Limbaugh axis as inciting violence, there must be something going on in the shooter's intellectual life. Perhaps the attacker's Youtube videos showed Krugman the indications he needed to make his accusations.
Nope. Nothing here.
Maybe this video?
Once more, we find nothing in the attacker's personal statements that indicate that he had any intellectual connection to the Tea Party, conservatives or Sarah Palin. That begs the question: From what part of the political spectrum did the shooter come from? If you answered "Insane Street In The Nutbar Development Right Smack Dab In the Middle of Crazyville", give yourself a gold star. You just did better at examining the motivations of the Tucson gunman than an overpaid undersmart New York Times hack.
Howard Fineman and Paul Krugman: Kindly go to the back of the short bus, sit down and shut the hell up. Your services are no longer required. For anything. Ever.
UPDATE: RE-Violent political rhetoric.
Paul Krugman had a pathetic crying jag over Sarah Palin's 'infamous' targeting of vulnerable Democrat representatives for the 2010 midterms. If that picture...which I had never seen until today...is so inflammatory, what about the DailyKos? Jim Treacher finds this little gem.
"[Gabrielle Giffords] is dead to me."
BoyBlue posted this diary on January 6th, 2011. By Paul Krugman's dainty standards, this is eliminationist rhetoric that contributes to a climate of violence. But since this angry missive came from the a left-wing site, I guess this doesn't count. It's just sober political talk, right Paul?
What's even cooler is that Markos Moulitsas took down the post. Yup. It's gone down the memory hole. If it was done out of a sense of class or fear of political blowback is anybody's guess.
The Giffords shooting has already turned into a left-wing cluster bang. The problem is that it's only going to get worse.
UPDATE II: Of course, more elements of the progressive movement have chimed in blaming conservatives for the shooting. One problem: It's not right-wingers publicly calling for violence.
Hey Eugene Robinson, Joshua Marshall, and Keith Olbermann: Your propaganda cartoonist, your socialist-apologizing little pissant artist, your tantrum-throwing scribbler is the one that is saying that America needs violent revolution to fix it. It's not the Right that's saying this stuff. It's Ted Rall, respected member of the statist movement, that's proposing a violent overthrow. Then you have the nerve to use some maniac with no political motivation beyond his own insanity as a tool to try to make your patent lies about conservatives stick.
The fact that this leftist narrative coalesced so quickly tells us a few things about liberals. They're liars. Ironically, for a political movement that breaks it's arm patting themselves on the back for being geniuses, the left revels in group-think. Worse, there is absolutely no tactic too low for them. The only thing they care about is if the strategy works to wound their enemies.
UPDATE III: Eugene Robinson says that the Right has a monopoly on violent political rhetoric. Check out this link [WARNING: Not Safe For Work] and you tell me-Is Eugene Robinson senile or is he just conveniently lying about the eight years of liberal demonstrations during the Bush presidency when Robinson talks about the Right's supposed lead-pipe lock on inflamatory partisan rhetoric?
Face facts. Many elements of the Left spent the Dubya years using the most vile, disgusting, hate-filled language against America, Israel, the American conservative movement and others that progressives deemed as enemies of their movement. MSNBC, The New York Times and many other left-of-center media organs did nothing to condemn this broiling leftist rage. In fact, many of them stoked the fires of partisan hate while pretending to be sane comentators. Eugene Robinson and others in the 'respectable' liberal camp want us to forget all that vitriol--again, emanating solely from the Left--and focus on a single political graphic used by Sarah Palin as evidence that the Right is the only part of US political life that employs violent rhetoric.
Check it out ya'all. Robert Stacy McCain finds us an exciting romantic tale. It's called "Senator Max Baucus: Hook-Up Master".
If you’re a regular dude looking for a date, you go to a bar or use an online dating service. If you’re a United States Senator, you just get the taxpayers to hire you a girlfriend:
U.S. Sen. Max Baucus says he plans to marry his girlfriend and former director of his state offices. Baucus said Monday he and Melodee Hanes were engaged over the Christmas holiday in Helena. The 69-year-old veteran Democrat says they intend to marry in Montana this summer.
Baucus and his second wife, Wanda, divorced in early 2009 after 25 years of marriage.
The senator recommended Hanes for Montana’s U.S. attorney post in 2009, a move that later came under scrutiny due to their relationship.
By then, Hanes had withdrawn her name from consideration and instead took a job with the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.
Boy hires Girl, Boy falls in love with Girl, Boy tries to use his position as an elected official to get Girl a high-paying government job--Yep, that's how everybody's love story goes.
By the way, here's Maxi's soon-to-be blushing bride.
I guess Baucus is marrying the Hillary Clinton Circa 2006 Look-Alike Contest Winner. Huzzah.
Say what you will about the Senator's lack of ethics, or his unorthodox taste in the ladies. One thing is certain: He's always a sober legislator. Right?
Montana Max kept asking, "Where's the courage?" Here's an even better question-Where's the breathalyzer? Forget about the blood-alcohol level. This dude is pumping 80 proof flop-sweat.
Hey Treasure Staters, just an FYI for ya here. Max Baucus is up for re-election in 2014. Find a viable candidate that actually represents the interests of your state to beat the drunken sleazeball pile of fail masquerading as your United States Senator. You've got a few years, but I'd say you need to get on it now, just to be on the safe side.
First, Glenn Reynolds on what the GOP should do in 2011:
...ignore the press. The establishment media still have their power, but they've never been weaker, and they're perceived by an ever-greater percentage of Americans as simply an arm of the political-class Democratic Party. If you pay attention, they have power over you. If you do what you think is right, they don't.
Historically speaking, this seems to be the hardest thing for many Republicans inside the Beltway to do.
The social scene in Washington DC is chock full of soft (and hard) statists. If it was up to the swells at the Washington Post, the federal government would always grow. And really, why should any of the smart set in the media-government complex want conservative governance? Getting back to a limited constitutionally based federal apparatus would mean the end of the taxpayer funded gravy train.
The other thing that the incoming Republicans must realize is that the media hates them. Not 'dislikes'. Not even 'disagrees with'. Hates. A freshman GOP congressman might get a few invitations to DC cocktail parties if he votes against some piece of conservative legislation. Attending those soirees comes at a cost. The very necessary reform of our government will be stymied, of course. More importantly for the Republican gadfly, hanging with the Washington kool kid set means being a slave to their whims. The media only loves GOPers when they take a crap on Righties. Once the apostate Representative votes for right-of-center programs, the big media folks will turn off their Strange New Respect.
Next, Jay Cost has some sic transit gloria mundi-style words:
...what's most memorable about the 1946 election is that it wasn't a harbinger of a post-New Deal realignment. Two years later, the Republicans were swept out of power as thoroughly as they had been swept in, and apart from a brief and bare majority at the beginning of the Eisenhower administration, they wouldn't recapture a House majority until they were led by a guy named Newt. What happened?
One major reason for the GOP's failure to retain the majority was the response of the Democratic party to the results of 1946, wherein the party moved quickly to outflank the GOP on the Communist issue. It's no coincidence that Americans for Democratic Action -- a liberal interest group that was resolutely anti-Communist -- was founded in January 1947 just as the 80th Congress convened. President Truman fought the Republicans tooth and nail on domestic politics over the next two years, but on foreign affairs he and the Republicans, led by Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, hammered out a bipartisan policy that would remain in place more or less for the next quarter century. What's more, under the advice of his political counselors, he also went after Henry Wallace, the former cabinet secretary and vice president whom Truman had fired after he publicly promoted a soft stance on the Soviets. Wallace's third party candidacy in 1948 was just what Truman needed to push most of the Soviet sympathizers out of the Democratic coalition, thus undermining one of the major Republican arguments from 1946.
The GOP's big pick ups during the 2010 midterm elections happened--in part--because voters are nervous about galloping Obama style liberalism. There is a deep concern amongst the citizenry about runaway spending, crippling debt, long term unemployment and the perception that government is incompetent when dealing with real world problems. In early January, it seems impossible that Obama and the Democrats could outmaneuver the GOP on the small-government/entitlement reform/jobs front. But it is very possible. The Republicans aren't known as 'The Stupid Party' for nothing.
If the GOP lets Democrats retake the high ground, they will forfeit a massive opportunity. They will throw away the nation's best--and possibly last--chance to get America back to a Constitutional framework. Worse for the GOP, they'll irreparably damage their small government brand. There are already more than a few conservatives who don't trust the Republicans as it is. Let the GOP go back to their Hastert-era big stupid spendaholic ways and you can almost garauntee the formation of a right-wing third party.
The Republicans can take bold solid steps to reform the federal government. Or they can devolve and die. The choice is in their hands.
Ever wonder why there doesn't seem to be a lot of genuine stars in pop culture anymore?
Well, John Nolte comes up with a pretty sharp zinger of an explanation.
Any actor who chooses to make something — anything, including their sexuality – a part of their identity, limits how the public will perceive them up on the screen. This is true for straight actors as well, especially those who have made their sexuality a big part of who they are. Beneath all that Barbie doll there might be a genuine actress, but Pam Anderson’s very public sex kitten persona limits her roles. And just to be fair and non-partisan… In his later years, it simply wouldn’t have been possible for Charlton Heston to play an anti-gun ACLU type without harming the audience’s ability to suspend their disbelief. The whole idea would’ve come off as some kind of in-joke, and if that joke wasn’t meant to be part of the overall story you have something of a disaster on your hands.
Read the whole thing. Nolte takes a few whiney gay actors down a peg or two in his piece. Heads up, Richard Chamberlain. "The Thorn Birds" really wasn't all that great.
Nolte touches on something very basic, but something that a lot of entertainers forget nowadays. It's the mystery that keeps people interested in media personalities long after the person has reached their creative zenith. Nothing sustains a career in pop culture more than some strategic obfuscation to keep the audience guessing.
For instance, the private lives of the members of Led Zeppelin were anything but common knowledge back in the 70's. Beyond the fact that three members were married and that they all lived in England, the public didn't have much access to Zep. The band consciously cultivated a nearly impenetrable mystique, which kept people wondering about them. This aura of mystery--along with the undeniable songwriting talent--helped to make Led Zeppelin a massively successful band.
Consider this little nugget about Zep: In 1975 the band released Physical Graffiti, their sixth studio album. Members of the band gave very few interviews to support the release of their album. There were no cameras following Jimmy Page around to document his every move. Robert Plant didn't discuss his political affiliation or his partisan ideology. John Paul Jones and John Bonham were likely to jokingly sneer or angrily snarl at any reporter who asked them who they voted for in the last election. The group didn't mention the causes or charities they support. Led Zeppelin simply let the music speak for themselves.
The results? Physical Grafitti immediately became a massive seller. Not only that, the group's entire back catalogue re-entered the Top 200 as well. The tour that supported the album was incredibly lucrative as well. Led Zeppelin had become the biggest band of the 1970's.
Distance between the musicians and their audience was critical to Led Zeppelin's success. For actors, that sense of mystery is even more important. A rock vocalist is basically playing himself...or at least some facet of his personality...when he writes, records or performs music. An actor is playing a different person everytime he takes on a new role. That means that the actor's real personality can't be so well-known that it smothers the part he's trying to play.
This is not to say that successful actors don't create personas. However, there's a big difference between a 'type' and 'My actual self and my movie self are pretty much the same'. Sean Penn may have been a talented actor back in the Yuri Andropov era, but any role he takes nowadays is overpowered by his off-screen leftwing douchebaggery. The only movie persona Penn has left is the one he plays in the real world--Thumbsucking Liberal Hack/Commie Dictator Apologist/Smug Peace Creep.
To see how a real star should operate, look at Kurt Russell. Russell is a member of the Libertarian Party, but he doesn't make a huge deal about it. Surely the man has causes that he champions, but you don't hear him talk about them all that much. It's common knowledge that he's in a long term relationship with Goldie Hawn, but Russell hasn't put the intimate details of his sexual history into the public record. Consequently, there is no outsized real-world Kurt Russell that fights against the roles he takes.
Look at Russell's performance in the flawed sci-fi action flick "Soldier". Compare that to his work in the more successful comedy "Overboard". Both movies call for very different kinds of acting, but because Russell doesn't have a lot of off-camera drama going on, he's entirely believable as both a near mute futuristic warrior or as a charming modern day rogue. Viewers might not connect with everything Russell does--homeboy is just as prone to the occasional cinematic dud as anybody else in show biz--but his private life never interferes with movie goers' suspension of disbelief.
The modern entertainment business can't seem to grasp the absolutely vital necessity for mystery. Instead, the stars blab about their politics, their personal lives and their STD's at the drop of a hat. As a result, the lack of separation between the performer and the audience has made the art small and the artists even smaller.
The political composition of U.S. adults held fairly steady in 2010 compared with 2009. Conservatives remained the largest group, followed by moderates and then liberals. At 35%, the percentage of moderates has declined to a new low, highlighting the increased political polarization that has occurred over the past decade.
...While the political pendulum in Washington can swing widely, Americans' political ideology, like their party identification, tends to shift more gradually. Such a shift has been underway in recent years. While the changes are not large, they are unmistakable. Moderates are growing fewer in number while the percentages of conservatives and liberals have expanded. Conservatism has gained ground among Republicans and independents, while the growth in liberalism is strictly among Democrats.
Liberals will look at the Gallup poll and have an immediate response: "What about 2008? Liberalism won in that year."
Sure about all that, Nancy? Obama ran as a sane, cool-headed moderate. Conservatives warned that St. Barry was a flaming lefty, but most voters either couldn't be bothered to dig too deeply into Obama's troubling ideological pedigree or just didn't think it was that big a deal considering the Bamster's GOP opponent. In 2008, Republican George Bush was presiding over a crumbling economy and two foreign wars, one of which was fairly unpopular. John McCain ran a weak-willed feckless campaign that did much to alienate and demoralize his very necessary conservative base. When he did do something right--like pick Sarah Palin for VP--the campaign promptly misused that most valuable asset when it couldn't afford even the slightest mistake. If the Democrats couldn't win big in that electoral year, they were never going to score a major victory.
Again, how did the Donkey-Punchers get their wins in '08 and '06? (I throw 2006 in because it set the table for the unified Democrat government of the last two years.) They ran guys such as Bob Casey, Jon Tester and James Webb, men who could pull off a fake-o-la centrist political stance when needed. Look at the Democrat campaign messages in those years. 'Open, honest, transparent government'. 'Most ethical congress ever.' '95% of Americans will see a tax cut.' The self-description we got from the Democrats in 2006-2008 could be summed up as: "We're in the middle of the road and we're not Bush. Pretty please vote for us and we'll be your BFF's."
By the fall of 2008, Dubya was seen as ideologically brittle and only slightly more popular than raw sewage, shin splints and homelessness. Running in the middle while opposing Bush was smart strategy for the Democrats. However, while it may have been the politically intelligent move, it was not--and is not--what anybody would consider openly left-wing.
Liberalism did not win in 2006. It did not win in 2008. Instead, it cloaked itself in moderation, a reasonable tone and...in the case of Barack Obama... a pretty princess visage. While the Left bided it's time, George Bush, Denny Hastert and most of the elected GOPers busied themselves with soiling the party's small government brand.
Once the Left ascended in 2008, with it's big congressional majorities and an ideologically copacetic presidency, how did it govern? Like progressive statists, of course. Now, if liberalism were truly on the rise, why did America's left-of center party get creamed in the off-year elections of 2009 and subsequently pummelled in the 2010 midterms?
The Gallup poll gives us some very important lessons about American politics. First, it shows just how aberrational the 2008 election was in relation to the ideology of the America electorate. More importantly, the Gallup data indicates that US voters will be potentially quite receptive to conservative policy initiatives if these ideas are articulated and fought for with vigor.
Cross-Posted at Blog De KingShamus. Big ups to the rad Baldilocks for letting me hang out and post here.
How many times have we said that to ourselves or to others? Dozens? Scores? Hundreds?
For conservatives, the freedom-crushing size and liberty-lessening scope of the federal government is an ironclad fact, as true as water being wet or Lady Gaga being a first order publicity whore. Liberals have a ready retort when right-wingers complain about the growth of the DC leviathan. "What would you cut?"
I think it’s time for all Americans to step-up to the plate and help take some pressure off the President, the Senators, the Congressmen, all the Czars and Agency Heads, and etc. I think that We The People have just plain been asking too much from our leaders and the strain is beginning to tell on them.
Here’s the problem. Our leaders in Washington just have too much on their plate and it’s all our fault for demanding so much from them.
...So here is what I think we should do. Let’s institute what I call Government Light. I think We The People need to dramatically reduce the work load on our poor public servants. I’ve got some ideas on how we could do that. Instead of al these zillions of things we’ve been asking government to do for us I have a much shorter lists of what we should be willing to settle for:
Provide for the common defense. You know. A military to protect us from our enemies and to protect our borders from invasion.
To create a body of objective laws to protect the God-given rights of all citizens.
Develop a judicial system to capture those that break the laws and try them and to punish the guilty.
Establish a stable monetary system.
Develop and maintain a national infrastructure in order that commerce can freely occur between state and with other nations.
I think if our government only had to focus on these five things, the mental health of our public servants would improve dramatically and We The People could take care of the rest of our needs instead of burdening government for everything.
Jim from the always-interesting Conservatives On Fire has come up with a nice working framework.
There's just one problem with it. It's not the drastic withdrawl of the central government from citizens' lives. It's not the austerity measures that would result from these new directives. In fact, none of those things are terrible in and of themselves.
No, the issue is that CoF's plan assumes that liberals have created the mega-state in order to actually solve problems. In fact, that's only a very small part of the left's reasoning vis-a-vis the ever-growing federal gubmint beast. The major snag with Jim's program is that it won't allow hacks to rob from the taxpayers.
Ponder the omnibus spending bill that just took a dump in Harry Reid's mattress. The thing was designed to be massive and impenetrable. The Senate Democrats tried to get it passed in December, after the Donkey-Punchers got their heads handed to them in the midterm elections. It was also brought to the Senate during a time when the American voter is most inattentive. The bill was loaded with pork in the hopes that Senators and those constituents who were paying attantion could be bought off.
Limited government is great. But if you're really looking to redistribute wealth and pad you're own fiefdom, there's nothing like the crazy unlimited variety of government to do the trick.
Further thoughts: I realize that the latest omnibus spending toothache was smashed. But over the years, this type of gargantuan budget bill--packed to the rafters with ridiculous earmarks, porktastic programs and barely concealed graft--have passed through Republican and Democrat congresses with relative ease. Conservatives won a victory of sorts by killing Senator Reid's fantasy budget, but it's one win in a sea of defeats.
Let's look at a random year...2003...and see what fiscal idiocy we can find.
$44,239,000for projects in the state of Senate Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee member Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and House Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee member Tom Latham (R-Iowa), including: $33,000,000 for the National Animal Disease Center in Ames; $700,000 for the Midwest Poultry Consortium; $280,000 for the Iowa Vitality Center; $235,000 for dairy education; $210,000 for hoop barns; and $100,000 for the Trees Forever Program.
We can draw a few conclusions from this wee nugget of fail. Maybe there was a need for a National Animal Disease Center in Iowa. The Hawkeye State, like many parts of the Midwest, is deeply invested in agriculture. Perhaps there such an institution had to be started by federal dollars.
This begs the question: What about the private sector? Did nobody ever think to create a company to deal with animal diseases before Tom Harkin...one of the dimmer bulbs in a dimbulb-centric US Senate...came along? Furthermore, what about state governments? Had nobody without DC cash been able to study or treat ailments that afflict our four-legged friends before 2003?
Beyond the dubious need for the National Animal Disease Center comes another realization: We're still paying for it. The NADC is part of the United States Department of Agriculture, thus federal dollars are used to hireand retain workers. What about building maintenance or cafeteria staffing? That's on us as well. Much like the Corporation For Public Broadcasting or Ben Affleck, the NADC is the government-friendly hole that keeps on sucking.
Bear in mind that this is just one relatively small portion of the 2003 federal budget turd sandwich. Buried within that bill was an army of ridiculous spending. Taken individually, these more or less tiny chunks of pork look like the cheesy punchline to a lame joke. Put together, they amount to nothing less than the biggest heist in history, making the most lucrative bank robberies, Ponzi schemes or Soros currency shenanigans seem minute in comparison.
More depressing than that? The 2003 appropriations bill represents just one year's worth of porky goodness. This spending is not an abberation. It was, and pretty much still is, business as usual.
And that's the problem. People do not want to be bothered paging through a gazillion pages of legalese and congress-talk to separate the worthy wheat from the wasteful chaff. More, folks have heard so many stories about $50 hammers and $100 toilet seats that they've become numb to it. Inertia and inattention have conspired to make the federal budget very hard to shrink. The budget creation process was designed to keep people in the dark about just how much they've been getting robbed.
The last omnibus bill was defeated, which is a good thing. With any luck, it's the start of a movement to reign in federal spending and--more importantly--scale back the influence Washington DC has in our daily lives.
A lot of people on the Right are kinda torqued off that the Republicans gave in and extended unemployment benefits in order to get the Bush tax cuts redone. There are legitimate arguments why caving on the unemployment stuff is not ideologically sound. One can also make a case that extending unemployment bennies is not good from a deficit hawk perspective.
But there's at least one good reason why the GOP did the right thing: the deal is a political winner.
Two major elements included in the tax agreement reached Monday between President Barack Obama and Republican leaders in Congress meet with broad public support. Two-thirds of Americans (66%) favor extending the 2001/2003 tax cuts for all Americans for two years, and an identical number support extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. …
Recall the political climate in 1995. The Gingrich-Clinton battle over the federal budget was dutifully portrayed by the lamestream leftist media as Scowling Newt The Puppy-Strangling Kid-Punching Elderly-Hating Scrooge versus Beloved Bill: Defender of All That Was, Is, & Ever Will Be Good. The conservative momentum of the 1994 landslide quickly reversed itself as the Republicans took a public-relations shellacking. It's instructive to note that this scenario played itself out during a time of relative peace, prosperity and strong employment figures.
Fast forward to now. Let's say the Republicans drew a line in the sand and refused to extend unemployment benefits. During a time when 9% of people are out of work, that would be a hard position for the GOP to sell to people. Worse, the Republicans would then fall into the tired but still somewhat potent class warfare game that the Democrats love to play.
Now, it's quite possible that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell might have beaten the Dems in that fight. The problem is that winning would result in the loss of very precious and very finite political capital. There are absolutely gargantuan wars that are coming up very soon. The budget fight with President PantsCrease could become very difficult. Repealing ObamaCare is going to be an epic struggle. Both will require Republicans taking hits from the government-MSM complex. In fact, every battle the Republicans fight with Obama and the Donks over the next two years will require the GOP getting beat up to one degree or another.
Keeping the status quo on unemployment benefits would've been a fiscally wise goal. But it wasn't worth the losses that would've resulted from getting it done. Not when you realize what wars are on the horizon for the Republicans.
Here before us is another reason we, the outsiders, the TEA Party folks in action and spirit, must show no quarter towards the GOP Establishment. Besides living in a collegial and congenial past that no longer is [call it what you will, the Gerald Ford or Bob Michael Era], the GOP and conservative Elites have a track record that is strewn with utter and abysmal failures. In fact, historians not yet born will label them as the Useful Idiots of the Left who, by their weaknesses and naiveté, help bring about the lamentable situation we now find ourselves in.
Bingo. Read the rest of his post; Bob's got some good stuff in there.
This is what kills me when people talk about the Republican establishment and their fetishization of electability. It's one thing to acknowledge that RINOs and moderates can often get elected easier (in certain states/districts/campaigns) than a rock-ribbed across-the-board rightwinger. This is a fact that we shouldn't simply dismiss out of hand. For instance: looking back on the particular circumstances of the race, Mike Castle probably had a better chance of winning the Senate election in Delaware than Christine O'Donnell.
However, what would we--actual factual conservatives--have gained by getting Castle into the Senate? He would've voted for Cap-n-Tax in a potential dead-duck congressional session. He was still going to be pro-choice and anti-Second Amendment. Knowing his record, his first term in the US Senate would've been marked by ArlenSpecterian hands-across-the-aisle moments of capitulation to various facets of the liberal nanny-state agenda. A hug for Obama would not have been completely out of the question.
Would a guy like Mike Castle, a classic go-along-to-get-along DC establishmentarian, have the stomach for repealing ObamaCare? What makes anybody think Castle would be capable of defunding the utterly wretched NPR or abolishing the utterly useless Department of Energy? In what possible scenario would a guy like Mike Castle vote against illegal immigration amnesty? Could Mike Castle, famous for his chummy, clubby attitude towards Democrats, actually go along with his own party on something substantive like real free-market entitlement reforms? Many signs point to an emphatic 'no.'
Not only would a potential Senator Mike Castle be a thorn in the side of conservatives, he'd be doing everything he can to damage the already-tarnished Republican brand. While he was busy building a media-backed Fiefdom of Royal RINOLand, he'd also happily throw monkey wrenches into GOP-backed fiscal discipline measures.
So conservatives would get lots of drawbacks and almost no benefits from a Senator Mike Castle. But the Tea Party and it's allies were supposed to forget all that because Mike Castle happened to have a weak 'R' behind his name? Really?
If you really think about it, the United States has been granted an embarrassment of riches. Within our borders are vast quantities of natural resources. We have abundant fertile land that feeds not only ourselves, but much of the world. America is vast in size, buffeted by oceans that grant her a measure of separation from the potential unrest that has marked the history of the Old World. In short, Americans should spend every Thanksgiving expressing undying gratitude to their Creator for giving the country so many wonderful advantages.
As much as resources, climate and size matter, America has been granted something even greater than all those things. As the writer Julian Simon noted, people are the greatest natural resource. If that's the case--and it is--the US armed forces are a sterling example of Simon's fundamental truth. For Thanksgiving, I decided to take a look at one particular great American.
In his Silver Star citation, Marine 2nd Lt. Brian M. Stann is praised for his "zealous initiative, courageous actions and exceptional presence of mind" during seven days of fighting in Iraq.
But Stann, now a captain, is not into fame or self aggrandizement.
"It’s not about awards, especially when you’re out there," said Stann, 27. "It’s about defeating the enemy and getting your boys out alive."
From May 8 to May 14, 2005, Stann was part of Operation Matador with 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines.
The action started when Stann’s platoon was given about 35 minutes’ notice that it needed to head to the Ramana Bridge, north of Karbala...Aother unit was supposed to provide a blocking position at the bridge, but when they couldn’t make it on time, Stann’s platoon was sent to fill the gap.
As it turned out, a lot of the enemy had settled in that area. Stann said his platoon was engaged in a "constant gunfight" until it was relieved, and then he and his Marines had to fight their way back to base.
The worst fighting was May 10, when his platoon was sent back to the bridge to stay and got ambushed on the way, he said.
The insurgents hit Stann’s platoon with roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and suicide car bombs, destroying a Humvee and a tank recovery vehicle that was hauling wounded, he said.
"We had a rough night."
Stann’s Silver Star citation briefly summarizes his actions during the ambush.
“Second Lieutenant Stann personally directed two casualty operations, three vehicle recovery operations and multiple close air support missions under enemy small arms, machine gun and mortar fire in his 360-degree fight," the citation reads.
Stann didn’t want to get into specifics about what he did during the fighting.
"Everyone has done some courageous things," he said. "It’s just part of our calling. It’s part of our job."
Instead, Stann preferred to talk about his Marines.
Despite the casualties and carnage, they did not panic, he said. They kept their heads, beat back the enemy and evacuated their wounded.
"Because of that, the casualties that we did take did survive," Stann said. "Guys that lost limbs lived. Guys that took shrapnel and things of that nature to the head lived, and they wouldn’t have lived if we hadn’t have done that."
Throughout their deployment, Stann’s Marines focused on their job, whether it meant sleeping in their Humvees on hot nights or manning a machine gun at 2 a.m., he said.
Stann, who was born at Yokota Air Base in Japan and then moved to Scranton, Pa., said his Silver Star represents what the Marines under his command accomplished.
"They executed flawlessly, and we’re talking 19- to 20-year-old kids, and these are tougher situations than 90 percent of Americans will face," he said.
In your time today, please say a prayer for our armed forces.
More importantly, we should thank God that America still produces men and women like Captain Brian Stann. We will chow down on our turkeys and potatoes and gravy in large part because of the efforts of incredibly brave folks. They are more courageous than most of us will ever have to be. For that, we should be eternally grateful.
A Vermont man shot his television set after watching as Bristol Palin, daughter of Former Governor and former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin (R-AK) lived to dance another day on the television program Dancing With the Stars.
[Sixty-seven year old Steve] Cowan “jumped up and swore, saying something to the effect of “the —-ing politics.”The complaint added, ”Steven was upset that a political figure’s daughter was dancing on this particular show when Steven did not think she was a good dancer.”
I keep saying that the unhinged hatred that Leftists have for Bristol and her mother is spiritually-induced, from the bad side-- which is why it's illogical--and here's what it's about: abortion.
The label "pro-choice" is pure BS; most of its proponents should properly be labeled 'pro-abortion.' And for those who have successful convinced all too many women that abortion isn't really murder; for those who have fooled women of the "wrong genetic sort" into believing that they aren't doing the elites' bidding when they cut off their succeeding generations, Sarah and Bristol Palin are two of the most dangerous women in America.
Both Palins chose to let their children live under two of the "adverse" circumstances which are usually used to justify abortion. By doing so, the two set examples for other women and may plant the idea in other women that they need not murder their own children under similar circumstances. This is why the Palins often cause a full-blown, foaming, freak-out in many of those who adhere to Leftist ideology or who have been brain-washed by it, even when something as inconsequential as winning favor on a reality show is the subject at hand. (Then there are the women who are still playing out their high school-engendered neuroses, but that's a separate issue.)
I bet this Cowan has marched in a pro-"choice" rally or two, probably because his wife nagged him into doing it.
A spiritual battle? Yes. The force of evil--Satan--wants us all destroyed and those who justify the murder of the unborn are merely his tools. This is why the pro-abortionists are so rabid about those who defend innocent life. "Noooo, don't take away my right to commit genocide again myself, you brute!!!!"
To Leftists, Sarah and Bristol Palin made the "wrong" choice--life--and for that, the morally bankrupt must demonize them, inverting wrong and right as such people--and their Father--are wont to do. That this genius only hurt his TV is something for which to be thankful.
UPDATE: Thanks to Booker Rising for the link to this post and for the many others. And it's always...erm...interesting when one of Shay's guests drops in for a visit. ;)
UPDATE: In the comments below, a un-medicated visitor freaks out as well:
Negress, what fornicating evidence do you have that Steven Cowan or anyone else who disagreed with the Dancing With the Stars, finals decision is a leftist?
Well, I did say that this murderer of TVs was either a Leftist or indoctrinated by lefist ideology (as almost all of us are). As it turns out, my first conclusion was correct.
Larry Ziemer, a fellow town supervisor, said he has known Cowan for about 20 years.
"I have nothing but good things to say about Steve," Ziemer said. "It was totally out of character for this to occur. He just does an excellent job on the town board and in his private working life."
Ziemer said Cowan is a talented carpenter and is well-respected in the area. Ziemer said he had never heard Cowan speak ill of Sarah Palin or her family before.
“He and I agree pretty much on politics,” Ziemer said. “We would probably lean both to the liberal side.”
The unhingement was a big clue--both with Cowan and my charming guest.
I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but FYI--a great blogger has become a great author. I just finished "Tale of The Tigers". It's a tremendous piece of writing.
Juliette Akinyi Ochieng, who writes great commentary under the nom de blog Baldilocks, recently took the plunge and published her debut novel. And what an interesting first swing of the bat Ms. Ochieng takes.
"Tale of The Tigers" is a story of two college kids who fall in love. It's about race and racism. It's a time capsule of the early 90's. It looks at the dynamics of family relationships. It examines sex and sexuality. It reassesses sacred cows of the cult of the politically correct. It makes important statements about friendship, loyalty and trust.
Like her blog writing, Ms. Ochieng's novel is chock full of subtleties. Her characters could've turned into cardboard cut-outs. Instead, the folks that inhabit "Tale" are flesh and blood people, full of admirable traits and painful weaknesses. The outline of the plot never devolves into a cliché romance. Thankfully, Baldilocks takes the story in unexpected directions. "Tale" studiously avoids telegraphing it's punches, which makes for an exciting read.
Beyond these great things, for me the best part of the book is the fact that the story stays with you long after you've finished it. You'll find yourself replaying sequences from the book in your mind. Moreover, you'll catch yourself pondering the book's themes long after you've put it down.
In short, "Tale of The Tigers" is a damn fine piece of work from a writer with a powerful voice. Get in on the ground floor, folks. Buy the book. You won't regret it.
The television show "Glee" gets the gas-face from the moral prudes over at GLAAD.
Gay rights campaigners have lashed out at the producers and writers of TV musical Glee for including a controversial line about transvestites in the show's pre-Halloween tribute to The Rocky Horror Show.
The cast took on characters from the spooky and camp 1970s musical in a themed episode, which scored huge ratings last week (ends29Oct10).
But Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) officials have taken issue with the use of the word 'tranny' to describe Rocky Horror's chief character Frank-n-Furter, who dresses in stockings, lingerie and high heels.
In the Glee tribute, actor Harry Shum Jr.'s character Mike is forced to pull out of his role as Frank-n-Furter because his conservative parents don't want him to look like a "tranny".
If you're at all familiar with the show, than you already know that this particular program is very gay-friendly. Homosexual themes run throughout several episodes. The show's creators have actively sought out the support of gay advocacy groups. Yet even with all that goodwill, the show still finds itself in hot water with a wing of the liefstyle Left.
Check out GLAAD's statement.
A statement from GLAAD reads, "The casual manner in which the word was used is jarring, even if he (Shum, Jr's character) may have been repeating what his parents said.
"This inclusion of this slur is particularly alarming given last season's powerful episode in which Kurt's father chastised Finn for using the word 'f*g'. That episode sent a powerful message to the show's young fanbase that words have power and they can hurt.
"Unfortunately the larger problem here is that the word 'tranny' has become an easy punchline in popular culture, and many still don't realise that using the term is hurtful, dehumanising and associated with violence, hatred and derision against transgender people - a community that is nearly invisible in media today."
Lesson: You can never win with these idiots.
Hell, you can't even break even with the gatekeepers of liberal morality. At some point, even if you've got a sterling record of leftist happy-talk and progressive do-goodery, you will run afoul of some obscure politically correct edict. When that occurs, expect a snippy finger-wagging retort, often from the very same groups you're trying to ingratiate yourself with.
There will come a time very soon when everybody to the right of the Noam Chomsky/Eric Holder/Andrew Sullivan Axis of Fail will be considered either a racist, a sexist or a homophobe. That seems to be the endgame for groups like GLAAD or the NAACP. Even better, look where GLAAD stands in the ideological universe. They've turned into the very same type of judgemental sour-faced Puritans they say they hate.
The left loves to pat itself on the back for being tolerant and open-minded. They even have studies proving just how great they are and how much conservatives supposedly suck. There's just one problem: the actions of the progressives negate their glorious self-image.
Look at the environmental movement. Global warming proponents urge people to forgo a plethora of pleasures, from gas-guzzling SUV's to beef to energy derived from coal-fired power plants. Why? Because these things are allegedly dirty and will cause anthropogenic climate change.
The science that backs up the Warmists has been forever soiled by ClimateGate, but it really doesn't matter. What is important is that the believers follow the 'correct' doctrines. More importantly than that, the faithful must stamp out heretics and sinners. Conversion to the religion is nice, but what the Climate Changers really enjoy is being morally indignant.
It's the same thing for the GLAAD crowd. They must strike out against what they perceive as sin. So the use of the word 'tranny' on a TV show; well, that simply cannot be tolerated. That sort of immorality must be punished. Loudly, publicly and with as much sneering haughty contempt as possible. Far from being open-minded, many facets of the American left are virulently dogmatic.
There are definitely closed-minded conservatives. There are certainly right-wingers that have a puritanical nature. What conservatives should always remember is that the other side is at least as judgmental as they are, and perhaps even more so.
On Saturday I went out to Tom's River NJ to do some get-out-the-vote work for the Jon Runyan. Runyan is running against Jon Adler, a typical douchey Democrat who wants to save the freakin' world with your money. In covering the race from afar, it seemed like I should get a glove and get in the game.
Ace of Spades organized the event. Tagging along were Mr. Bingley (who blogs at the terrifically titled Coalition of the Swilling), ThisHeavenlyHell (a frequent commenter at Ace's place)and several other members of the Moron-Sphere (who forgot to e-mail or text me back with their handles). We all met at Runyan's campaign headquarters. At first I thought I'd be doing phone work, but instead the campaign coordinator dude asked us to do some voter canvassing of the district. It was beautiful Indian summer day for walking around the neighborhood, so I was stoked to get out of the HQ and see what the area was all about.
Toms River is actually much bigger than I had previously thought. Socio-economically speaking, it seemed fairly diverse as well. In getting to the neighborhood I was going to canvass, I drove past million dollar McMansions and worse-for-wear 1950's ranch homes, often within a few blocks of each other. The area we were canvassing was a middle/working class neighborhood. Nice homes, but nothing particularly massive or gaudy.
Better still, the people we talked to were overwhelmingly friendly. Beyond the very occasional rude jerk, squirrelly weirdo or overscheduled dude on their way out the door, it was all good in the hood. Granted, the way our canvassing lists were compiled, we were dealing with 'soft' Republicans for the most part. Even with that ideological semi-advantage, I still thought almost everybody was fairly rad to chat with for a few minutes. Many of these supposedly weak GOPers were not at all weak about expressing their intense dislike for President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Often times, all we'd have to say to a person was "Jon Runyan is against Obama" and that would be good enough for them.
Afterwards we all gathered back at a local watering hole, scarfed down some tasty grub and quaffed a few hearty adult beverages. Discussions were made, predictions of Republican congressional gains were bandied about, jokes at Michelle Obama's expense were tossed around and a good time was had by all. Ace and the Morons are a great bunch of conversationalists and it was nice to geek out to some in-depth political inside baseball type stuff with all-around cool folks.
As far as the actual GOTV work, I gotta say it was really easy to do. I'm a grade-A doofus and if I can do it, anybody can. I didn't get on the phones, but it seemed like it would be fairly simple to grasp. I'd say walking the neighborhood was probably easier than making calls. You get to talk to people, throw a quick candidate biography/political position list at them and then remind them to vote on Election Day. QED.
So now you really have no excuse not to do this. If you're any sort of interested in conservative politics, you're 9/10's of the way to mastering canvassing/phone calls. The other 1/10 involves you just showing up. The GOTV link is here again, but if you don't want to do that just find a candidate you like, call up his or her campaign HQ (it'll be on the candidate's webpage) and ask what they need you to do. They'll be stoked that you volunteered for the cause and you'll be amped up from playing a small but vital role in kicking back the statist menace that threatens to kill the closest thing to paradise the Earth has ever seen.
Hey, there are way worse things you could be doing with your spare time.
For all the liberals who were crying in the comments of the last post, here's some more delicious nugat-rich irony.
President Obama plans to appear on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" shortly before the midterm elections, a senior White House official tells CBS News, in what will be his first appearance on the show since becoming president.
The appearance will be on Wednesday October 27th. It comes shortly before both the November 2nd midterm elections as well as host Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" on the National Mall on October 30th.
The president has been trying to rally the sort of young voters who watch Stewart's show to come out to vote in the midterm elections amid signs that they are less enthusiastic than they were two years ago. Democrats are trying to hold the House and Senate amid predictions of a potential wave election for Republicans, and among his campaign stops in the midterm cycle have been appearances at college campuses.
Jeeeeeebus, Stewart's not even sorta hiding his pathetic shill-job at this point.
Question for the audience: Does anybody think Barry's appearance on The Obama Super Ass-Kiss Love-In The Daily Show is going to be the hard-hitting tough-minded interview that Jon Stewart demands from the 'real' media? The guy bangs his rattle on his high chair whenever some clown in the MSM doesn't ask the correct progressive-minded questions. I'm guessing Stewart tosses Obama a few softballs during the President's campaign stop appearance.
For liberals, it's high time to just admit that their media hero is just another statist operative. I mean, really now, if leftists were honest they should be stoked. Their media man-crush is getting to hang out with their political dream-boat. Best of all, there's absolutely no chance Stewie will trouble St. Bamster with any icky right-of-center criticism or ideas.
If establishment comedian Jon Stewart didn’t have the professional dignity to express embarrassment after the President of the United States personally endorsed his upcoming October 30th, Mock-The-People left-wing political rally, no one should be surprised over Stewart’s willingness to unashamedly accept all the Big Media astro-turf that’s already been thrown his way. Obviously the King’s favorite Court Jester has a raging case of Beck-Envy and now all the King’s Media Toadies and all the King’s Corporate Toadies are going to try and put Jon Stewart’s ego back together again: “Doesn’t America know I mock Glenn Beck!”
What John Nolte is referring to is the Restoring Sanity rally that Jon Stewart is holding in Washington DC.
Who is Jon Stewart, you ask? Just the biggest television rebel out ever. Just ask him. He'll be happy to tell you just how tough, independent and punk-rock he really is.
How rebellious is Jon Stewart? He had the writers of his show write jokes for President Obama White House Correspondents Dinner speech. How hip is Jon Stewart? He devoted half his show throwing a temper-tantrum attacking Bernie Goldberg. You want cool? Cool is getting a tongue bath from the media equivalent of the poor nerdy high-school freshman that gets stuffed into his locker every day.
Maybe all that hasn't convinced you just how anti-establishment Jon Stewart is. Check this out and know the level of commitment Jon Stewart has to going against the corporate Man.
Whether you lean left or right, hail from a blue state or red, prefer keeping sanity, fear, or a healthy dose of both alive and well, the one thing we all have in common is that we’ve pledged allegiance to the MTV Networks flag. And when an opportunity arises to support one (or two) of our own. we’ll take it pretty much every time.
You may have heard that Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are hosting a little get together on the National Mall in Washington, DC on Saturday, October 30th. … This will be a day when — no matter what transpires from Jon, Stephen, and their special guests — our brothers and sisters at Comedy Central will own the cultural conversation, without question. Who would want to miss that one?
On the morning of October 30th, we’re loading up a fleet of buses here at 1515 Broadway and sending as many of you as we can down to DC for a free one-day, round-trip journey to join in the Rally to Restore Sanity and March to Keep Fear Alive. It’s about a 5 ½ hour trip down 95 to our nation’s capital[.]
Because nothing says 'edgy' like a man having to beg his multinational business bosses to strong-arm employees into sitting on a bus and showing up for a company-mandated meeting. /sarc
If Jon Stewart hadn't hoodwinked a generation of mediocre college-age hipster douchenozzles into believing the tired statist bullsh*t he spews on the Daily Show, the backstory behind the Restoring Sanity rally might be pitiful. Stewart has received numerous accolades from the lamestream media. By his own standards--being adored by the left-wingers in Hollywood and the coasts--he's succeeded beyond his wildest dreams or his talents. The tastemakers of the progressive movement have been kissing his butt for a decade.
But his ego just won't be satisfied with all of the honors and huzzahs he's received. Amazing. "Restoring Sanity" should be renamed "Stewart's Vanity."
One wonders if the scary-smart people in Stewart's audience realize they're being used like a Kleenex. Given the monumental self-regard displayed by the average Daily Show fan, the answer is probably 'no'. Many liberals believe they're part of an intellectual vanguard; they think they're the only ones who can see the wheels-within-wheels machinations of AmeriKKKa's Reich-wing fascist society. For the folks not coerced into attending "Restoring Sanity" by their corporate superiors, the rally is going to be a wonderful celebration of the Left movement in 2010. It'll be the secular-statist equivalent of meeting the Pope.
Sadly, it turns out the Pontiff of Progressivism is a sad insecure geek that has to create a pathetic imitative media event in order to buck up his ever-sagging ego.
Hey liberals: Enjoy being the tools of a lame self-loathing television clown.
Let us say that I am an employer and you are a potential employee. I offer you a job with a generous salary and good benefits. The work I'm asking you to do is not terribly hard, but there are a few responsibilities that you will be expected to perform.
We agree that you will be hired. I offer you a contract. You read through it carefully, asking a question or two about a few details. After that, you sign your name to the contract and start working for my firm.
For a while, both you and I are quite happy with the contract you've signed. Naturally, it's not all smooth sailing--patches of financial instability, some serious growing pains as the company expanded, even an inter cubicle turf war at one point--but for the most part the unpleasantness is kept to a minimum.
As time goes on an interesting thing starts to happen in our employer/employee relationship vis-a-vis the original contract. Almost from the beginning, I do things that fall outside of the letter and spirit of the accord. I'd neglect to replenish the office supplies closet every so often or ask you to work through lunch for a few days. As the weeks and months pass, I take more liberties with the terms of our agreement. Not enough to make you quit, but enough for you to take notice and be annoyed by them.
What I'm doing isn't really malicious. We both look at it as part of doing business. The contract had some wiggle room here and there. Certainly, looking back from the present day it seems like some of the contract's language is pretty ambiguous. At least, that's what we both say to justify my...extracurricular...activities. By and large, my little contractual breaches are not so deleterious that they threaten to shatter our agreement. You think back to the days when you worked for another employer and see that for the most part, you're in pretty good shape. I still pay you a substantial sum, you still perform your duties and we keep moving forward.
The years roll by. After a time, we reach a particularly nasty patch. The company has to fight off stiff competition from some cutthroat outside firms. At the same time, economic instability within the business is threatening to bankrupt the enterprise. It's touch and go for quite a while.
Now, there are several courses of action I could take, but what I decide to do is cut your salary and benefits while asking you to do much more work for me. Of course, these are blatant violations of the terms enumerated in the original contract. I justify this by arguing that, after all this time, the contract's language is so outmoded to today's incredibly difficult business environment that it would be absurd to hold to every jot and tittle of the agreement we made.
Instead of being bound up with the arcane wording of the contract, I assert that the accord is a living breathing document. Modern times dictate that we can use a less stringent, more liberal interpretation of the contract to better deal with the desperate circumstances the company faces. I also tell you that this new look at the agreement will not only save the firm, it will also create new benefits and payment packages that will make the old compensation pale in comparison. I submit that this cutting edge reading of our contract will make you a happier, healthier and more creative worker while allowing you to work less and have more free time in the process. We just have to get through this really awful time and then you'll see how the longer hours and less salary will all pay off.
The scenario is over.
Consider: If your boss really acted the way the employer in the scenario did, you'd probably quit right on the spot. Certainly you'd at least consider hiring a labor attorney or calling a union representative to deal with this matter. In any case, your time working for that company would very likely come to an end in short order.
Why? Because the nature of your relationship with the employer was based around the original terms of the contract. When the boss decided to unilaterally cut your compensation and increasing your work hours without amending the agreement, he severed a promise he made to you, thus destroying the relationship you once had with the company. Regardless, you wouldn't stand it if the firm you worked for broke your contract in such an egregious manner. You'd probably laugh in your boss' face if he played the 'living breathing document' line of nonsense.
Now, if you wouldn't stand for it if your employer did this to you, why do you stand for it when our government does the same thing? Think about it: The Constitution is in many ways a contract that the American people signed with our government. Far from just being a mere "charter of negative liberties" as described by the hapless intellectual midget Barack Obama, the Constitution creates the various branches of government and delegates large but divided authorities to each. It also defines the roles that state governments play in a federal framework. On top of that, it enumerates what the government cannot do to individual citizens.
It's easy to see that the Constitution doesn't 'pay' us in the same way that an employer does. The US Government doesn't just hand us money (except when it does, but that's a different tale for a different time). However, the contract the Founders granted to us compensates us in a far more enduring manner. The Constitution pays the citizen by creating the conditions for individual achievement and personal freedom within a framework based around the rule of law, property rights and a divided federated government. All the Framers' Constitution asks of us in return is loyalty to those principles so that it can be upheld for future Americans.
Looking at the current government in that light, is it not obvious just how much our leaders--those entrusted with preserving and protecting the Constitution--have broken the contract our ancestors made with us?
A few years back, some on the Right would refer to Candidate Barack's legion of fan-bois and sycophants as 'Obamatons' for their seemingly robotic mind-numbed attitude. Nowadays, I think that isn't particularly accurate. Members of Team Bambi are spreading out all over the place. The Obamatons have morphed into The Blob.
It turns out everybody's favorite chubby condescending press secretary, Robert Gibbs, is heading to--the DNC chairmanship?
Democratic insiders are taking the temperature of some top party donors about the possibility of naming White House press secretary Robert Gibbs as chairman of the Democratic National Committee heading into President Barack Obama's reelection campaign in 2012, senior officials tell POLITICO.
Under the scenario being tested, Tim Kaine, the current DNC chairman and former governor of Virginia, would be named to a top administration post, perhaps in the Cabinet, the officials said.
For the record, Gibbs’ experience consists almost entirely of serving on communication teams for politicians. After graduating from college in 1993, he worked on the staffs of a series of House and Senate members before joining John Kerry’s team in 2003 for his 2004 presidential bid as press secretary, and then resigning when Kerry fired Jim Jordan. He then took a position as a mouthpiece for an independent group that opposed Howard Dean’s bid, and later in 2004 began working for Barack Obama’s Senate campaign, moving to the presidential campaign after two years on Capitol Hill.
So he's a lippy hack who doesn't play nice in the sandbox with John Kerry and Howard Dean. Okay, he's got that going for him. But what about, you know, experience?
Note what his CVdoesn’t include. Gibbs has never run an organization, or worked as an executive at all. The most he’s ever done was manage a small communications staff at the White House. He has no experiencein fundraising, as his campaign experiences have all been on the communications side. He has never stood for election himself, which isn’t a complete disqualification for the job, but it certainly doesn’t help, either. In short, there is nothing at all in his background to recommend Gibbsfor a position which requires coordination, fundraising prowess, organization, and a political talent with experience and connections supporting it.
Doesn't this seem sorta...familiar? I mean, Barack Obama was a dweeb junior Senator with a little over a hundred days spent in the upper chamber. Before that, he was a state senator, then a BFF with Bill Ayers and before that a community organizer. His lack of actual qualifications, real world experience or executive acumen didn't hold back St. Barry of the Sacred Pants-Crease from being President of the world's only superpower. Why should it matter for Gibbsy if wants to be the boss at the comparatively bush-leagues of the DNC?
You gotta wonder what Bob Gibbs has done that makes anybody think he's ready to shake down Democrat-leaning donors for big money donations. I had no idea making unfunny patronizing digs at members of the White House press corps could snag you an executive job at one of the two major US political parties. Unless looking and acting like your least favorite high school algebra teacher is somehow a prerequisite for the job, homeboy really doesn't have much going for him.
Besides all that, there is something more going on here. If Gibbs gets to be DNC chair, nobody could be terribly surprised. The Donkey-Puncher Party always fall in love with the latest shiny new object that falls into their view.
Think about it. There were probably more qualified candidates running for the Democrat Party presidential nomination of 1960. Somehow the Democrats managed to nominate a noob Senator named John Kennedy. Nearly any Democrat could've been CEO of America in the 1976 election. Who did the Dems pick? A relative unknown southern dude named Jimmy Carter. Before being the mack daddy of the Oval Office Intern Bang Competition, Bill Clinton was 'The Man From Hope', a charismatic Baby Boomer governor who hadn't made a name for himself outside of the parochial world of Arkansas politics.
Why are the Democrats so fixated on the coveted "New Guy"? Maybe because their actual policies are so damn old.
Ponder the nature of FDR's signature achievement, Social Security. It's a top-down, one-sized-fits-all program that you have to be a part of under the penalty of federal punishment. Now think about Barack Obama's most sweeping government reform, nationalized health care. It's a top-down, one-sized-fits-all program that you have to be a part of under the penalty of federal punishment.
Same Shitty Socialism, Different Damn Millennium.
In order to disguise the fact that their ideas haven't progressed much past 1938, Democrats almost always have to get the latest and greatest model of progressive politician to advance their agenda. Is it any wonder this obsession with the fresh-out-of-the-box liberal savior has now permeated nearly every facet of their party?
Maybe Gibbs gets passed over for the job of DNC chair. Who knows? By itself, it has very little bearing on anything. But the fact that he is even being considered for the post tells you a lot about the mind-set of the modern Democrat Party--none of it particularly healthy.
I haven't reached my sales goals from a few weeks back, but Tale of the Tigers is selling steadily, if slowly, and gaining great reports and a following.
Here's a great report from caveman:
I read it in one sitting.....stayed up late, only stopped once to take a leak and have a smoke. I must confess it ran the entire gauntlet with me...... a rare thought indeed when I have read a book I know will change my life. I just did. Somehow I am glad I know you somewhat. It messed with my head at work the day after..... You masterfully led one into a pleasant relation, abruptly shattered by the realities of unreasoned racism, jealousy and hatred. Then the belated epiphany of the ramifications of such behaviors. My gut was steel, my eyes wet..........for I know and have seen in my life what you related, both the greatest and worst in humanity. Fortunately I have never felt it, either given or received. I really think you should see about getting some reviews, say the NY Times?
Well done, my friend...very well done!!!!!!!
Thank you, friend.
As for the situation with my great-aunt, there have been ups and downs (today is an 'up' day), but I want to be a little bit more detailed when I come back from visiting her today.
FYI: my online friends--like Chris and like Ric Locke--are some of the best people in the world.
Notice something missing from Russ Feingold's campaign ad?
In case you didn't spot it, here it is.
Even so, this is a vivid illustration of just how epically the alleged Great Liberal Realignment of 2008 has failed. Obama destroyed McCain in Wisconsin, winning by almost 14 points, and yet this is what a three-term Democratic incumbent is reduced to less than two years later — chipping away at an eight-point deficit by reminding people that he fights for veterans and lives in the same house he’s always lived in and, well, that he’s a pretty darned pleasant guy.
Bango.
You don't run this kind of ad (innocuous, folksy to a fault, no mention of partisan affiliation) if the voters are super-stoked about the political positions you've represented for nearly 20 years in the US Senate. As AP notes, Russ Feingold has long been the golden boy of the hyper-left caucus in a traditionally Democratic state. And yet, here's Feingold running as fast as he can away from his party.
One gets the feeling that unless they're handed a bogey-man to rail against, it's very hard for a liberal to justify his or her existence. Why did the Donks do so well in 2006 and 2008? Because Dumbya BusHitler was always available, to be conjured up--like Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984--for a Two Minutes Hate rally. Now that G-Dub is gone and statist god-king Obama is in the White House, there's no way to generate sufficient rage to propel progrturd candidates to run progturd campaigns.
Besides, it really wasn't supposed to go down this way. Obama's election meant that liberals could finally be themselves. They could enact the whole raft of lefty fever-dreams and get away with it because the American public had finally come to love the Euro-dork nanny state. In the liberal mind, Barack Obama and a large Democrat legislative majority was a signal to shed the last scraps of moderation they'd been hiding behind.
The dream was that a Russ Feingold could make a 2010 campaign where he vociferously bragged about passing ObamaCare, repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and socializing vast swaths of the automotive industry. That...um...didn't exactly work out. Instead, Feingold and the rest of the Donkey-Punchers have once again had to don the imagery and tone of a mushy soft spoken moderate in the thin hope of retaining their congressional seats.
This has got to be a total left-wing buzzkill.
Contrast all that with the tone of Allen West in this clip. Yeah, this is a stump speech, not a campaign ad. But it still bears examination.
I'm not really noticing any hushed mincing cowardly talk out of West. He's hella stoked for a fight against Alcee Hastings, John Lewis and Barack Obama. This is a man who doesn't have to take cover behind moderation. He's a loud-n-proud conservative. Bear this in mind: West is running in a traditionally Democrat district that has voted the Donkey-Puncher candidate in the last three presidential elections, exactly the kind of district that was supposed to go full-on lip-lock with Obama-style liberalism. Instead, Allen West is running a surprisingly competitive race and could pull out a strong win.
...But they're not the rubes you might think they are.
In general, I shared many of the reservations about O’Donnell that were expressed around here, but I also understand that Mike Castle just wasn’t conservative enough for tea partiers in Delaware. It’s worth noting amidst all this craziness over O’Donnell that there seems to be a hard-to-define yet very real line separating the Republicans that tea partiers will back with reservations from those they won’t support at all. Castle and Scozzafava clearly fell on the wrong side of that line. Doheny, on the other hand, is not the most conservative candidate in the race for NY-23, but he is conservative enough, so his electability will most likely earn him the tea party’s endorsement. The point is that the tea party isn’t suicidal in every race, but it considers some Republicans simply beyond the pale, and it’s understandable why they do. The Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill was a monstrosity — it would be very hard to vote for a Republican who voted for that.
I don't think it's that hard to figure out what the Tea Party wants. They despise crazy spending, ridiculous taxes and idiotic government bureaucracy. All you have to do is look at Mike Castle's support on Cap and Trade to see where he went horribly wrong in the eyes of TPers. C & T would deliver everything the Tea Party hates in one handy-dandy enviro-statist package. Go figure they'd be against Castle.
Crap-n-Tax also has a chance of coming up for a vote in a lame-duck session of the US Senate. Castle would've made for a delightfully useful idiot that would further Harry Reid's lefty machinations:
As things stand now, Reid has demonstrated he has been able to break filibuster by peeling off a few votes for cloture, in particular Massachusetts's Scott Brown and Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. But with the departure of Sen. Ted Kaufmann, the current Delaware junior senator, the Democratic leadership will either have to find one more vote to get legislation through in this lame-duck session, or they have to find one less vote, particularly on cap-and-trade, if Castle wins the race.
The Tea Party folks in Delaware had to be aware of this depressing reality, which is why they made the perfectly understandable decision to dump him in favor of Christine O'Donnell.
I understand the arguments that Mike Castle would've been a more 'electable' candidate than O'Donnell in Delaware's general election. The question I have is: Why the hell should a conservative voter feel obliged to vote for Castle?
If you're on the right, you get no benefit from having this guy in the Senate. He's pro-choice. He supported McCain-Feingold. He's real good at dissing the Second Amendment. He doesn't like school vouchers. He doesn't want to drill in ANWR.
One of these positions would be grating, but not necessarily a deal-breaker for Delaware conservatives. Taken as a whole, Mike Castle's views appear like the resume of a cliche left-of-center douchenozzle. He's way past being just an aggravating RINO. He's a liberal who happens to caucus with Republicans. A cursory glance at his record reveals this.
But conservatives were supposed to ignore the mountains of statism in Castle's curriculum vitae and support him? Get a grip.
If Christine O'Donnell wins in November, it's a great success for the Tea Party and the Right. If she loses to Chris Coons, so be it. But to suggest that Castle would've done conservatives any good if we put him in the Senate is laughable. He would've been a constant irritant, the ever present grain of sand in the bikini bottom of Republican politics. For all intents and purposes, Castle = Coons. It's that simple. Looking at it that way, voting for O'Donnell was a no-brainer.
The Tea Party has shown itself to be adept at making nuanced political decisions. But there are some candidates in some races where they've had to put their foot down. Instead of blindly hammering the TPer's for making the calculations they've made, perhaps we should instead examine why they've chosen to support the issues and candidates that animate their movement.
After I posted Discover the Networks’ “The
Muslim Brotherhood’s Strategic Goal for North America” on my Facebook page,
one of my friends--a friend in real life--pointed out that Christianity has
history of conquest and forced conversion as well.
I don’t mean to pick on my friend, but I felt it necessary to reiterate my response here (edited):
[In order for an individual to examine the tenets of his/her faith], one must look at the
foundational work establishing that faith.
Before the Bible was made available to the everyday Christian, the Church leadership--meaning the Catholic Church--dispensed doctrine
interpreted in whatever manner it saw fit.After Johannes
Gutenberg, the Bible was made available to all who could read it. It is no accident that Christianity was
radically transformed and Reformed after that.
The same is happening to Islam with respect its
adherents and its doctrines.
One of the Founders of these two religions commanded
his followers to love God with all one's heart, soul, strength and mind and to
love one's neighbor as self; the other commanded his followers to convert
non-believers at the point of the sword or make them pay the unbelievers' tax.
As each set of followers have become more and more
familiar with the foundational doctrines of the two sets of religious belief,
they have begun to behave more and more in accordance to those doctrines: one
set has become less totalitarian almost to the point of zero and the other more
aggressive and violent.
The Bible and the Koran are objective documents
with historical contexts readily available in this information age. It is up to the individual to make
himself/herself familiar enough with both--if desired--in order to come to a
cogent conclusion.
My friend mentions the genocides
committed in the name of Jesus.Of
course, the crimes of the prior millennium’s Christian missionaries are well-known
and acknowledged:
Christian missionaries of Europe
fell into error and sin back when they were bent on converting the natives of
all lands--not by the act and desire of leading others to Christ, but by making
Christianity about something other than Him, His Sacrifice, Resurrection and
the purpose thereof. The missionaries
bound up Christ in themselves and their own ethnicity.
[Edited also.I can’t
help myself.]
Those crimes do not take
anything away from the quality of the Gospel; they only speak to the quality of
the human beings preaching it.Again,
were such missionaries following the Bible or ignoring the inconvenient parts when they trampled non-Christian cultures?
This subject reminds me of my
assertion that it’s necessary to be able to analyze information rather than simply
to gather it.The will and ability to do this has become essential—not just to "win" an argument, but for personal and national survival.
It bears repeating on today of all days--building sound structures requires work, planning, wisdom and inspiration. Most importantly, a climate must exist in which all of these attributes may flourish:
After years of negotiations, debate, and drawing up and redrawing up of plans,
it was decided that the World Trade Center would consist of 15 million square
feet of floor space distributed among seven buildings. These would include two
towers that would soar over a quarter mile into the sky. The towers would top
the Empire State Building by 100 feet. Some people, architects among them,
wondered: Could such lofty skyscrapers be built?
'Yes' was the answer of at least one man; one who blossomed in the climate called America:
Minoru Yamasaki was born to Japanese immigrant parents in Seattle in
1912 and studied architecture at the University of Washington in 1932.
He then moved to New York to complete his professional education, and
established a practice in suburban Detroit, Michigan, in 1945. Yamasaki
designed several major Seattle buildings including the Federal Science
Pavilion (now Pacific Science Center, 1962), IBM Building (1964), and
Rainier Square and tower (1977). He is best known as the chief architect
of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. Upon completion in
1976, the WTC’s twin 110-story towers were the world’s tallest
buildings. Yamasaki died of cancer in 1986, and was thus spared seeing
his greatest work destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001.
During WWII, Yamasaki and his parents were protected from FDR's internment by his second employer, Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls.
Allegories and ironies abound.
While his Japanese kinsmen were acting against Americans, Chinese, Filipinos, etc. based on the assumption that the former were ethnically superior, Yamasaki, the American, was living his life according to the American ideal of individual excellence--even as FDR's America was falling monstrously short of that ideal. And it is pertinent that it took individuals to protect the Yamasakis from their government; for self-interested reasons to be sure, but how much does that matter in view of the results?
The Japanese and persons of Japanese descent (and other East Asians) have a well-deserved reputation for excellence in most any endeavor and it is no secret that this excellence seems to stem from elements of the Japanese culture. Like very many other ethnic groups, Japanese immigrants to the United States came to America with their cultural baggage--both good and bad--and did what successful new Americans do: they adapted. They retained the elements of their culture which are compatible with the American Ideal (individual excellence), discarded those elements which were not (ethnic tribalism/supremacy) and, for the most part, passed on the positives to their wholly American progeny.
Yamasaki's Twin Towers were a testament to that success and to the soundness of the American Ideal.
It is indeed a blessing that he did not live to see his masterpieces destroyed by those who hold ethnic and religious tribalism more sacred than individuality, but though Yamasaki and his Towers reside only in our memories now, nothing can destroy what that fine American achieved in a climate created just for men and women like him.
If you haven't been following the story, Terry Jones, the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida, has been on the fence about his plans to burn Korans on September 11th. It's been an on-again/off-again deal for the last several days. Jones has said that he will call off the book burning if the Ground Zero Mosque is moved to a different location, but so far there has been no real assurance that this will happen. Jones has not been terribly definitive here, so the Koran Kebab may or may not be on like Voltron.
I'll be honest. At first I thought Jones was just some kook with an axe to grind. He's probably not the most media-savvy dude. But what he has done is open up a conversation that many members of our Big Media-Big Government complex would rather us not talk about--ever.
From President Obama to Fareed Zakaria to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, most of the swells in America want to brush aside the question of Islam in our society. For a host of reasons, they just need this topic to go away. What Terry Jones has done is force our 'betters' to address something they really would rather avoid.
Here's the funny thing about America in the Age of Jihadi Terrorism: Since 9/11/01, we've gone from righteous anger and forceful military retribution against violent Islamic extremists to bowing before Muslim kings and scraping in deference to elements of the faith in order to keep them from committing violent acts against us or our allies.
How did we get to this utterly incoherent mindset? Ace points out something interesting here:
On that point -- this very good (as usual) essay by Christopher Hitchens. There he notes we have demanded that every other religion be "domesticated," which, dogged metaphor aside, means that we have demanded that other religions fall into compliance with civil law -- even where (as with Christian Science) the illegal aspect of the religion is a truly important part of the religion.
And yet we don't similarly insist on this with Islam. Islam is apparently a special religion in that it trumps civil law.
Again, another badge of Islam's supremacy over other religions -- and all governments -- which is precisely what they're killing for.
Bingo.
Why does Islam always get the kid glove treatment? What makes them so special that they can never-EVER-be offended? How is it that when the immature spoiled brat that is Islam gets a skinned knee, Western governments race to kiss the Muslim boo-boo in order to quell any possible terrorist temper-tantrums?
There are no other religions in American (or Western) society that receive this type of deference. None. Except the one that kills, rapes and tortures in order to meet its goals. No other faith gets this laissez-faire treatment--except the one that is determined to use our Constitution as a wedge against us and put sharia law into it's place. Truly amazing.
When Ace says that other religions in America have been domesticated, he's exactly right. Christianity doesn't demand much from the US government. It certainly doesn't scream for scriptural laws to be put into the federal code. Oh sure, there might be some churches that are down with some theocratic leanings, but these are few and far between. The same can be said for Jews, Hindus and Buddhists. The theocrats in all these faiths are pretty much isolated.
Moreover, we should be quite happy to have the non-Islamic creeds domesticated. The 'live and let live' attitude within American religious life has contributed to a basically quiet civil society. This relatively peaceful domestic order is threatened now, and it isn't because the followers of Jesus are barking for the Old Testament to be the sole source of our laws.
Islam stands alone in the religious fabric of the United States. Islam refuses to bend, even one iota, before the agreed-upon civil system of American life. It will not defer at all to the domestication that all other faiths in the US have gone through.
And...really...why should Islam have to come to heel? They've seen our weakness. At any moment of religious discomfort, there are useful idiot infidels ready to defend Islam from the sort of slights that other faiths go through on a daily basis. More importantly, the useful idiot infidels are always willing to go on offense for Islam, using slurs like 'unpatriotic', 'anti-American' or 'bigot' for those who are merely concerned that Islam is slowly but surely becoming the de facto state religion of America. If a group is against the spread of sharia, the useful idiot infidels will call that person a racist, thereby providing a layer of insulation for Islam against outside criticism.
Muslims intent on using the faith as a political tool can see the exact genus and species of spineless pathetic wimps we have for leaders. That means that until they are confronted and made to join the rest of the religions in America, they will continue to act like the pushy, snarling, overindulged, petulant teenage jerks that they are. It's that simple.
So Terry Jones and the Dove Outreach Center might have picked at a scab other folks would rather stay closed. Jones' flock might not be the nicest most caring people that ever walked the Earth, but they have forced the rest of us--even the hand-wringing worry-wart Left--to at least get a glimpse at reality. Pray that the rest of America chooses to stay focused on the real world.
President Obama’s usage of the decidedly un-presidential phrase
“talk about me like a dog,” in a speech the other day seemed to baffle a goodly
number of my non-Southern white friends, some of whom concluded that the
president was cribbing Jimi Hendrix.Aside from my guess that the president probably doesn’t know who Jimi
Hendrix was, Hendrix himself was cribbing an old phrase of unknown origin common
among southerners well before either man
was born. (For the record, to “talk
about someone like a dog,” means to bad-mouth a person severely.The phrase has also morphed into “to dog
someone out.” The latter has an
additional—and interesting—meaning: to
betray someone.)
Victor Davis Hanson and Dinesh D’Souza, however, are intent
on reviewing the attitude crystallized in the phrasing, along with the thinking fueling that attitude.
We know Obama got into Columbia; we have no idea
what he accomplished there — or whether his undergraduate transcript merited
admission to Harvard Law School. Obama may have charmed his way into Harvard
Law Review, but in brilliant fashion he seems to have guessed rightly that
once there he would be singularly exempt from the usual requirements of
quantifiable achievement.
A part-time visiting law professorship at the
University of Chicago Law school rarely leads to a permanent tenure-track
position, much less a tenured billet– and never without a body of published
articles and books. In Obama’s case those protocols simply did not apply. He
was not only offered whatever he wanted, but as Justice Kagan reminded us,
Obama was courted by Harvard Law School as well.
(…)
Obama seems aware that a particular
cadre of influential white liberals has traditionally accorded him deference
not warranted by actual achievement, but rather by his projection of a
progressive persona, as crudely outlined by a Biden or Reid [when both
articulated how different President Obama is from the everyday “Negro,” whom these
Democrat politicians implied are usually
dirty and inarticulate] — and that this
by now is a normal course of events rather than an aberrant experience. Hence
his anger that all that has at last begun to end.
D’Souza’s
main theme is one that is well-known to anyone who has been paying
attention since Barack Obama arrived on the national scene: that he has adopted
the life’s work of his father:
What then is Obama's dream? We
don't have to speculate because the President tells us himself in his
autobiography, Dreams from My Father. According to Obama, his dream is
his father's dream. Notice that his title is not Dreams of My Father but
rather Dreams from My Father. Obama isn't writing about his father's
dreams; he is writing about the dreams[of anticolonialism) he received from his
father.
(…)
Anticolonialists hold that even
when countries secure political independence they remain economically dependent
on their former captors. This dependence is called neocolonialism, a term
defined by the African statesman Kwame Nkrumah (1909--72) in his book Neocolonialism:
The Last Stage of Imperialism. Nkrumah, Ghana's first president, writes
that poor countries may be nominally free, but they continue to be manipulated
from abroad by powerful corporate and plutocratic elites. These forces of
neocolonialism oppress not only Third World people but also citizens in their
own countries. Obviously the solution is to resist and overthrow the
oppressors.
(…)
Obama Sr. was an economist, and in
1965 he published an important article in the East Africa Journal called
"Problems Facing Our Socialism." Obama Sr. wasn't a doctrinaire
socialist; rather, he saw state appropriation of wealth as a necessary means to
achieve the anticolonial objective of taking resources away from the foreign
looters and restoring them to the people of Africa.
(…)
As [Obama Sr.] put it, "We
need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive
accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude
of resources as is the case now." The senior Obama proposed that the state
confiscate private land and raise taxes with no upper limit. In fact, he
insisted that "theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government
from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the
government commensurate with their income which is taxed."
There is a good reason that many Africans of that generation--educated in Europe and America--are socialists, aside from the desire to repudiate the capitalism to which most of the hated European
colonial masters subscribed.They were actively
indoctrinated.
Most readers know that my origin and life circumstances are
a mirror image of the president’s—some things are frighteningly similar; others radically
dissimilar in obvious areas.However, for continuity's sake, here it is again: courtesy of the Mboya Airlift, our Kenyan
Luo fathers arrived in America in 1959 to receive an American education, married and produced children with American women, divorced them, and, upon graduation, returned
to their homeland.
Both of us were partially raised by the generation prior to that of our parents--in his
case, his maternal grandparents; in my case, my maternal grandmother’s sister
and her husband.
When Philip Ochieng and Barack Obama, Sr. arrived in America, their mentors were people like radical Progressives Cora
and Peter Weiss, who—via the innocuously coined African
American Student Foundation-- funded much of the tuition, travel,care and feeding of the Kenyan students
selected for the Airlift.(My mother says
that when she and my father were in college, their non-African--read: white--social circle included nothing but
communists and socialists.)
And herein lies a crucial difference as to the reason that
my life turned out differently than Obama’s: both of our biological fathers are
socialists and atheists.However, in
Obama’s case, his mother’s immediate family consisted of socialists and
atheists as well.Mine does not.
Here’s another difference: neither my
great-aunt, great-uncle, mother nor American father ever implicated that I was
so innately different—so alien-- from them, that it was necessary to turn me
over to a monster like Frank Marshall Davis for “parenting.”By that very act, the Dunhams indicated to
their grandson that they believed him to be inferior because of his black African
heritage. It is unbearable even to imagine the things instilled into young Obama's spirit under such tutelage.
Coupling this with his mother’s
abandonment, one may see how his attitude toward white people developed.
So, surrounded by callousness, lack of empathy and no grace,
who was left to latch onto?The one who
wasn’t there, of course.(That his
father abandoned him also is beside the point.It was easier for Obama to see Obama Sr. as the victim of a white-dominated world, justify the abandonment and, even take up the elder Obama’s cause where he
left off.)
So it may be that Barack Obama believes that all of the gifts
which white liberals have conferred upon him are his just due with criticism being, conversely, manifestly unjust. All he's trying to do is administer "justice!" And in dispensing that justice, in “taking back” that which was "stolen,"
Obama can finally obtain love from his Third World “family,” something he
never received from his biological family.
Of course, a humongous monkey wrench will be thrown into all
of this armchair shrinking should our president’s real birth certificate ever
surface.Relax.I think he was born in Hawaii; I just don’t
think that the birth certificate has Barack Obama, Sr. listed as the father.
A fine mess the Left has gotten us into, wouldn’t you say?
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