Thought For The Day
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The longer an elected official remains in the swamp of Washington, D.C., the farther he drifts from mainstream Americans. Recycle Congress in 2010 - No exceptions
If you think it's offensive for a Muslim group to exploit the 9/11 atrocity, you're an anti-Muslim bigot and un-American to boot. It is a claim so bizarre, so twisted, so utterly at odds with common sense that it's hard to believe anyone would assert it except as some sort of dark joke. Yet for the past few weeks, it has been put forward, apparently in all seriousness, by those who fancy themselves America's best and brightest, from the mayor of New York all the way down to Peter Beinart.
-- Promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.
-- Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party movement? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.
-- Disgust and alarm with the federal government's unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? Nativism.
-- Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.
-- Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero? Islamophobia.
Now we know why the country has become "ungovernable," last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?
Krauthammer portrays this as a cynical game: "Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. . . . What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument."
But this has its limits as a political strategy. Krauthammer writes that "the Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November," and no one will credit him for boldness in that prediction. Some may disagree with his reckoning as to the reason for that likely loss: that "a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them."
But can anyone argue that a show of contempt is a winning political strategy? The question answers itself and implies that the contempt is genuine.
What is the nature of this contempt? In part it is the snobbery of the cognitive elite, exemplified by a recent New York Times Web column by Timothy Egan called "Building a Nation of Know-Nothings"--or by the viciousness directed at Sarah Palin, whose folksy demeanor and state-college background seem terribly déclassé not just to liberals but to a good number of conservatives in places like New York City.
In more cerebral moments, the elitists of the left invoke a kind of Marxism Lite to explain away opinions and values that run counter to their own. Thus Barack Obama's notorious remark to the effect that economic deprivation embitters the proles, so that they cling to guns and religion. (Ironically, Obama recently said through a spokesman that he is Christian.) Here's Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's labor secretary, explaining "The Anatomy of Intolerance" to readers of TalkingPointsMemo.com:
Many Americans (and politicians who [sic] the polls) don't want a mosque at Manhattan's Ground Zero. . . .
Where is all this coming from?
It's called fear. When people are deeply anxious about holding on to their homes, their jobs, and their savings, they look for someone to blame. And all too often they find it in "the other"--in people who look or act differently, who come from foreign lands, who have what seem to be strange religions, who cross our borders illegally. . . .
Economic fear is the handmaiden of intolerance. It's used by demagogues who redirect the fear and anger toward people and groups who aren't really to blame but are easy scapegoats.
So if some Americans are afraid of people "who have what seem to be strange religions," it must be a totally irrational reaction to "economic insecurity." It couldn't possibly have anything to do with an act of mass murder committed in the name of the religion in question.
And Reich doesn't just fail to see the obvious. He dehumanizes his fellow Americans by treating their values, feelings and opinions as no more than reflexive reactions to material conditions. Americans in fact are a very tolerant people. Even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, there was no serious backlash against Muslims. What makes them angry--what makes us angry--is the bigotry of the elites.
The Ground Zero mosque is an affront to the sensibilities of ordinary Americans. "The center's association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence," as the Associated Press has reported. That Americans would find this offensive is a matter of simple common sense. The liberal elites cannot comprehend common sense, and, incredibly, they think that's a virtue. After all, common sense is so common.
The British philosopher Roger Scruton has coined a term to describe this attitude: oikophobia. Xenophobia is fear of the alien; oikophobia is fear of the familiar: "the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours.' " What a perfect description of the pro-mosque left.
Scruton was writing in 2004, and his focus was on Britain and Europe, not America. But his warning about the danger of oikophobes--whom he amusingly dubs "oiks"--is very pertinent on this side of the Atlantic today, and it illuminates how what are sometimes dismissed as mere matters of "culture" tie in with economic and social policy:
The oik repudiates national loyalties and defines his goals and ideals against the nation, promoting transnational institutions over national governments, accepting and endorsing laws that are imposed on us from on high by the EU or the UN, though without troubling to consider Terence's question, and defining his political vision in terms of universal values that have been purified of all reference to the particular attachments of a real historical community.
The oik is, in his own eyes, a defender of enlightened universalism against local chauvinism. And it is the rise of the oik that has led to the growing crisis of legitimacy in the nation states of Europe. For we are seeing a massive expansion of the legislative burden on the people of Europe, and a relentless assault on the only loyalties that would enable them voluntarily to bear it. The explosive effect of this has already been felt in Holland and France. It will be felt soon everywhere, and the result may not be what the oiks expect.
There is one important difference between the American oik and his European counterpart. American patriotism is not a blood-and-soil nationalism but an allegiance to a country based in an idea of enlightened universalism. Thus our oiks masquerade as--and may even believe themselves to be--superpatriots, more loyal to American principles than the vast majority of Americans, whom they denounce as "un-American" for feeling an attachment to their actual country as opposed to a collection of abstractions.
Yet the oiks' vision of themselves as an intellectual aristocracy violates the first American principle ever articulated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . ."
This cannot be reconciled with the elitist notion that most men are economically insecure bitter clinging intolerant bigots who need to be governed by an educated elite. Marxism Lite is not only false; it is, according to the American creed, self-evidently false. That is why the liberal elite finds Americans revolting.
"It's not reason that is at the heart of modern-day liberalism but rather the claim to superior virtue and, even more important, to a special knowledge unavailable to the unwashed or unenlightened."
Politics: Democrats say Rush Limbaugh is running the Republican Party. Better Rush than George Soros, who is running the Democrats. At least Rush believes in freedom, capitalism and letting you keep what you earn.
The cover of the March 7 issue of Newsweek shows a picture of conservative icon Limbaugh with a piece of tape covering his mouth and the word "Enough!" So much for disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it. Voltaire could never be a contributor to Newsweek.
But David Frum is, and his inside cover story, "Why Rush Is Wrong," savages Limbaugh and praises President Obama in a way that makes one wonder if tingles are running up his leg like they did for MSNBC's Chris Matthews.
Frum describes a debate with, on one side, "the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims."
Never mind that Obama helped create the recession when the second-largest recipient of campaign funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac behind Chris Dodd helped pressure banks through his association with ACORN. The banks then made the very kind of risky loans that caused the mortgage meltdown.
On the other side, Frum places Limbaugh, with "his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history."
The perfect and athletic Mr. Frum forgot to blame Rush for inciting the Oklahoma City bombing, as many others on the left did.
This is what passes for public discourse these days as the mainstream media see their readers and viewers flee.
Over at MSNBC, where viewership is at microscopic Air America levels, the tingly Matthews over the weekend described Limbaugh as "a human vat of vitriol." He then ran a clip from "You Only Live Twice," where a James Bond villain pushes a victim into a piranha tank. Subtle.
"Do you know what he does?" Matthews says to the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page. "He defends capitalism." Horrors! Hide the children. To which Page responds that "ever since Reagan we've been on a trend of taxing lower-income people and giving breaks to the upper income."
Page et al. rewrite history into a lie agreed upon. The Reagan and Bush tax cuts went to those who pay taxes, to those who pull the wagon rather than those riding it.
They were not given anything. They were allowed to keep their own money. No wealth was redistributed or spread around unlike Obama's plan. The fact is that "ever since Reagan" the rich have borne an ever-increasing share of the tax burden while the poor have been removed entirely from the tax rolls.
A study for the National Center for Policy Analysis shows that from 1986 to 2004, the total share of the income tax burden paid by the top 1% of income earners grew by nearly half, from 25.8% to 36.9%. Over that same time, wrote study author Michael Stroup, an economist and associate dean of the Nelson Rusche College of Business at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, the burden of the bottom 50% of earners was almost halved from 6.5% to 3.3%.
The Tax Foundation has noted that in 2000, a year before the first tax cuts under Bush, roughly 30 million tax returns had no income tax liability. Every dollar those earners made they kept.
By 2004, a year after the second round of cuts was passed, 43 million returns had no tax. It estimates that, in all, more than 25 million Americans have been wiped off the federal tax rolls just by President Bush.
Yes, Rush wants Obama's socialism to fail just as liberals and Democrats wanted Bush's defense of capitalism and freedom to fail.
A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of 900 registered voters taken Aug. 8-9, 2006, asked this question: Regardless of how you voted in the presidential election, would you say you want President Bush to succeed or not?" Fifty-one percent of Democrats said no, they did not want Bush to succeed.
Another Fox poll taken Jan. 16-17, 2007, asked respondents about the surge in Iraq: "Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?" An astounding 34% said they did not want the surge to succeed. Among Democratic Party leaders the percentage was probably close to 100%.
If, as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says, Rush Limbaugh "is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party," it is only fair to ask: Who is his Democratic counterpart?
Our nominee is George Soros, the Hungarian billionaire and former Nazi sympathizer who helped fund MoveOn.org, the radical group that smeared Gen. David Petraeus with its "General Betray Us" ad last fall.
Through his Open Society Initiative and personal contributions Soros has funded many liberal causes and many Democratic candidates with the intent of undermining democracy and capitalism. His ultimate goal is to create a global socialist collective where we hand over our money and/or freedom and sing "Kumbaya."
For our part, we'll take Rush over Soros.
Rush believes in the Constitution and the First Amendment. He believes in freedom of religion and the freedom of speech. He believes in the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms to protect all our freedoms.
He believes in securing our borders and taking the war on terror to the enemy and winning. He believes that traditional marriage between a man and a woman is the bedrock of any stable society.
He believes that taxes should be low and are to fund the constitutional functions of government. He believes that government should work for us and not the other way around.
Rush does not believe, as Soros and the Democrats do, in open borders, confiscatory taxation, redistribution of wealth, a gutted military, appeasing despots or being forced under penalty of imprisonment to pay through our taxes other people's mortgages.
And, unlike George Soros and the Democrats, we will defend to the death his right to say it.
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Obama is either insane or out to destroy the country
During the early years of his presidency and the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt erratically jumped from one utopian idea to the next, like a grasshopper on speed, often contradicting a previous idea with a new idea, thus keeping his administration, Congress, business, the stock market, and foreign governments in a state of uncertainty of what was coming next. Then, when he became concerned about his reelection, FDR reverted to what he knew best, politics, and began feathering the nests of Democrat Party interest groups.
Although that was self-serving, at least it was rational.
Since Barack Obama can’t be concerned about reelection this early in his presidency, especially given how he is adored for his miraculous powers, it’s difficult to find a rational political explanation for his wildly contradictory statements and policies. Stupidity can’t explain them, because BO is smart, unlike George W. Bush, who is living proof that an Ivy League education isn’t necessarily an education.
That leaves two possible explanations for BO’s statements and policies: He is either insane or out to destroy the country.
On Feb. 21, BO stated that he was going to close the federal budget deficit by half by the end of his first term, implying that he would close it totally by the end of his second term. That statement came on the heels of a trillion dollars or more of planned stimulus spending, additional bailouts, and permanent increases in entitlements and mandates to the states.
Then, three days later, in an address to the mindless Jack-in-the-boxes in Congress, who popped out of their seats to applaud whenever BO pushed a button at the dais, BO completely contradicted his earlier statement about closing the deficit. He promised a $3.6 trillion budget, and, longer term, much higher costs for energy, education, and healthcare, to be funded by raising taxes on those earning more than $250,000 and by cutting the pay of physicians and other medical providers.
Insanity? Or is it willful destruction?
Whatever it is, it won’t have a happy ending. For one thing, even if the government confiscated all of the earnings from those making more than $250,000, the nation’s true debt would continue to be in the range of $53 trillion to $90 trillion, depending on whose estimates you believe. The true debt includes the net present value of the unfunded liabilities of the federal government, not just the smaller debt reported by the government through its fraudulent bookkeeping.
U.S. national income is about $12.5 trillion. If this amount is divided into the debt of $53 trillion to $90 trillion, we can get a rough estimate of how many years of income it would take to pay off the debt: 4.2 to 7.2 years. In other words, that’s about how many years it would take if the combined income of every American were spent on nothing but paying off the debt, assuming that the debt remained static and did not grow with new unfunded liabilities and deficit spending. If “only” a third of their income were taken to pay off the debt, it would take 13.5 to 22.5 years.
As I’ve reported in detail elsewhere, the 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government, published by the Treasury Department, says that the government’s spending is not sustainable. And this dire warning was made before BO took the oath of office and proposed gargantuan increases in spending.
On second thought, maybe BO isn’t insane or out to destroy the country. Maybe he is stupid, after all. As evidence, he said in his address that government investment is needed to create new industries. That would have been news to Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Rowland Macy, John D. Rockefeller, David Sarnoff, William Paley, Thomas Watson, George Eastman, Walt Disney, Forrest Mars, Bill Gates, Sam Walton, and thousands of other entrepreneurs.
Heck, even George W. Bush understands this.
By Craig J. Cantoni
Feb. 26, 2009
An author and columnist, Mr. Cantoni can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.
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-------- Response by Marty Dillian:
"Obama is either insane or out to destroy the country." Or both.
Would you agree that a conclusion of "stupidity" would require a massive nationwide "conspiracy" of stupid people? A conspiracy of that many stupid people seems improbable. If not insane, then evil describes those who would willfully destroy the country, their birthright. A combination of insane and evil people are more likely at the heart of the conspiracy now playing itself out before our eyes in Congress and many gubernatorial offices. My point is, the title of your article is 'spot on'.
Good article. I withdraw wondering to myself, is there a correlation between "stupid" or "evil," and "socialist?" I have to conclude in the affirmative. That in turn makes me remember that there is a documented nexus between socialism and religion. In Marx's own words, socialism is a religion. In point of fact, socialism could be described as an unshakable egalitarian belief system which is unsubstantiated by facts or history which arguably is used to dupe the masses into giving social and economic power to a madman who rules ruthlessly rather than governs, consciously choosing to ignore any semblence of democratic 'will of the people'. One is left to suppose that Barack Obama just may be the most dangerous of all men .... a religous zealot with a zombie-like cult following of lawless people seeking self-interest at the expense of all other Americans.
If "cult member" is an accurate description of those being duped, what is it going to take to "de-program" the media and many of the cult members in the electorate - short of their own self-inflicted demise? I wonder - can an entire nation be forcefully administered an economic and social poison by Congress, at the direction of Barack Obama, in quantities sufficient to kill the United States of America?
Response by Suzanne:
What can we do? Why don't people go to Washington and stand by the Capitol? Everybody does it when they are not happy. Why don't Conservatives stand up once? I would go if there was a march there. What do you think? Would that make a dent to this insanity?
On this day, 76 years ago, Calvin Coolidge died at the age of 60. Shortly before his life ended and the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt began, Coolidge reportedly told a friend, "I feel I no longer fit in with these times."
If Coolidge felt out of step in the Era of Roosevelt, he would have been a truly lost soul in the coming Age of Obama.
We are entering a time when the American president is simultaneously the sole arbiter of good and bad in the universe, a fashion plate, a paparazzi-attracting celebrity and a pop art icon. His face graces public transit tickets. Schoolchildren numbly chant his campaign slogans. The notion that a simple and shy New Englander such as Coolidge could ever occupy today's White House is absurd.
Though he was simple by our modern presidential standards, there was nothing simplistic about his life or career. For all his reserve and minimalism, Coolidge was an extremely skilled and ambitious politician. From city solicitor to the state house of representatives, to mayor to the state senate to lieutenant governor and then governor and then vice president and president, he ran for office 19 times and lost only one election in his life.
He was a shrewd manipulator of broadcast radio and the photo-op. Versed in Latin and a student of Cicero, Coolidge wrote his own speeches without the assistance or aid of bright young staffers. Those who have read his autobiography (which he penned after his presidency) are aware of his graceful writing and penchant for moving introspection.
His rearing in rural Vermont imparted in the future president the values of thrift (he never owned a car or even a house until after his presidency), a disdain for his era's version of political celebrity. ("We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight," he once said.) And strikingly to us in today's era of the superstar chief executive and the revived hyperactive federal government, Coolidge understood that there are some things the government and its chief executive are not capable of doing. He considered the Constitution a limiting document to be adhered to, not adjusted.
Today, the faithful prepare to flock to the nation's capital to participate in what increasingly seems like a coronation. Simultaneously, train trips are being planned and an ancient bible is being brought out, rather immodestly, to remind us of the supposedly uncanny similarities between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln. Before the president-elect takes the oath of office in front a crowd of millions, it is worth remembering Coolidge's own assumption of the presidency. When news of President Warren G. Harding's death reached Plymouth Notch, Vermont, Vice President Coolidge, out of necessity, was administered the oath of office by his father, at the family homestead, using a family bible by the flickering light of an oil lamp.
Coolidge took that oath and assumed the presidency without promises to heal the soul of the country, change the world, or make loaves and fish magically appear. Instead, when asked for his thoughts on assuming the presidency, Coolidge simply replied, "I think I can swing it."
And despite the opinions of New Deal historians, swing it he did. A year after Harding's death Coolidge was elected president in his own right by a landslide. He spent the next four years fulfilling his duty as he believed the founders had envisioned -- cutting taxes, resisting and vetoing new spending, and generally minding his own business while presiding over a time of great prosperity.
He had no interest in saving or rescuing the American people -- he possessed, what is today, an uncommon faith they could take care of that themselves.
Coolidge could have easily won a second full term in 1928 -- a feat that, at the time, would have eventually made him the longest serving president in U.S. history. Instead, he willingly let go of the reins of power. Far from a messiah or a savior, he returned from whence he had come: "We draw our Presidents from the people. It is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people. I came from them. I wish to be one of them again," he reasoned.
Today Coolidge lies buried in a tiny Vermont village just a short distance from the house where he was born and raised. A humble headstone marks his final resting place; the word "president" is nowhere to be found on the simple marker. On the occasion of Coolidge's death, H.L. Mencken said, "Should the day ever dawn, when Jefferson's warnings are heeded at last, and we reduce government to its simplest terms, it may very well happen that Calvin's bones now resting inconspicuously in the Vermont granite will come to be revered as those of a man who really did the nation some service." Given the results of our recent election, the arrival of that day seems unlikely.
Indeed, Coolidge's qualities -- thrift, recognition of the limits of government's responsibilities and capabilities, and presidential modesty seem positively antiquated today. This type of man could never be president in the 21st century. Yet, that does not mean that he cannot continue to inspire those who greet the coming epoch with more than a bit of skepticism.
No matter the passage of time or the changes to our government and political system, 76 years after his death, Coolidge's ideals and beliefs still ring true.
By Ryan L. Cole
January 5, 2009
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/01/05/keeping-cool-with-coolidge
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The Media and elites are very excited about the upcoming presidency of Barak Hussein Obama, but I suspect that they will come to rue the day they supported him. Such is the nature of Revolutions.
All revolutions subsequent to the American Revolution follow a certain pattern. The pattern was first expressed in the French Revolution. An unpopular regime, seen as predatory on its citizenry and out of touch with their needs or desires, is overthrown in a popular uprising. Many different dissatisfied groups find common cause in their distaste for the old regime, so they band together, gaining the numbers, power, and influence to overthrow the existing order. Very shortly, after the euphoria of victory (within days if not hours), the victorious revolutionaries begin to recognize their vastly different views as to what type of regime should replace the one that was just removed.
Upon seizing the instruments of government, the different factions begin a bloody struggle to become the dominant force in the new order. Quickly, the most organized, most ruthless group starts to become dominant. They then set about using violence to consolidate power and liquidate (kill, banish, or imprison) their enemies from amongst their revolutionary brothers. This phase of a revolution is called "the terror". It is frequently bloody to such a great degree that this period is forever remembered by the world for its barbarity. The guillotine days of the French Revolution, The Killing Fields, the Purges of the Soviet Union, the Genocide in Rwanda, the Cultural Revolution in China, to name but a few.
All revolutions have echoes of these patterns. Another common pattern in revolutions or power shifts, noted in countries around the world, is that the incoming regime tends to adopt what they believe to be the patterns and methods of the regime they replace. When Mugabe took power in Zimbabwe, he reconstituted the Rhodesian instruments of state power, and began pursuing his political opponents in the same ways as he had felt pursued when he was the rebel. After the Russian revolution, the Bolsheviks modeled their domestic intelligence methods and offices on the Czarist counter-revolutionary intelligence apparatus. This scenario has played itself out countless times around the globe thru ought history. From Asia, to Europe, to Africa, to Latin America, we see these patterns emerge time and again.
How is this relevant to the Presidency of Barak Hussein Obama? It is relevant because it is probably instructional as to what we can expect to see in the next four years. Barak sees himself, and has always seen himself as a "revolutionary". His clarion call for "change" is nothing more than a sanitized version of the causes he has always championed since his youth, his mothers condemnation of the status quo, "the way things are". Since he has surrounded himself with radical thinkers, ranging from Reverend Wright, to Bill Ayers, and even his wife Michelle, we know his world view is sympathetic to the idea that blacks and minorities, the "underprivileged" have been repressed in America. He likely believes that such organizations as the FBI, the NSA, the Justice Department, the IRS, the BATFE, and other instruments of state power have been used to attack and undermine left leaning political groups, movements, and individuals. What we do not know is how far he believes those and other government organs have gone in their efforts at "repression". Some of his fellow travelers go so far as to believe in Oliver Stone-like fantasies of assassinations, disappearances, secret imprisonment, arson, bombings, etc. Others in his circles merely perceive the government as working in secret cabal with the existing elites to advance their own financial enrichment. Since he has been disciplined in his public pronouncements, keeping his positions limited to generalities, much of Barak's personal beliefs are opaque. However, the degree to which he and his retinue believe in these conspiracies, will be the degree to which we can expect them to use the instruments of state power to practice these techniques, directed back on their real or perceived enemies. Due to the extreme degree of belief, by people he has associated himself with like Reverend Wright, those actions could be extreme indeed. We may see his administration work primarily towards legislation and rulings targeted for enriching themselves, or we may see the emergence of a truly sinister power apparatus, that will physically endanger his perceived enemies. (emphasis added)
We can expect an Obama administration to turn the Bush anti-terrorism powers, back on US citizens whose political views oppose Barak's "revolution". Anyone who opposes him or any of his programs will be considered as a counter-revolutionary, and a danger to the state. He will define himself, and his objectives, as "the State, and "the states interests". To the degree his people felt that their views were unexpressed in national media, they will seek to muzzle any national media which attempts to undermine him, or his objectives. They will use the powers of the FCC, and the Justice Department to do so. To the extent he believes the NRA or conservative gun owners may be hostile to him or his objectives, he will treat them as "domestic terrorists" or "suspected domestic terrorists" and will imagine plots against himself, his administration, and employees. Under this theory there will be close monitoring of any perceived "right wing" groups, and probably attempts at infiltration, trumped up charges, and prosecution. To the degree he felt the entertainment industry elements that were friendly to him were maligned, intimidated, or undermined, he and his people will use state power to pursue his enemies in the that industry. The degree of this will not depend on the degree to which his side was actually harried, but rather to the degree they believe they were. If historical world context holds true, the degree of his abuses will far exceed any actual behavior prior to his "revolution".
We can expect to see attempted nationalization of industries he deems important to his "change" agenda. We can expect Justice Department lawsuits, and attacks by regulatory agencies across the board to force compliance by private persons and business to comply with his agenda. We can expect his administration to push a "crush Rush" "fairness doctrine" type bill through his Democratic congress, mandating all FCC licensed stations or networks give free air time to anyone defending him, if some news or entertainment outlet dare criticize him. Those who blog, or post information critical of him or his policies, can expect to be attacked with litigation, as he wields full state power to destroy the "counter revolutionaries". The legal theories to support such action will be creative, possibly based on "hate" legislation, or libel, slander, or "national security". The IRS will become a regular instrument of state terror, used like the KGB or GRU and their counterparts in all countries that have been ruled by a "socialist revolution". Regardless of the legal validity, the result will be ruinous litigation costs, designed to silence opponents though their inability to withstand costly, interminable, litigation.
A close analogy exists in recent American history, the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The public was very unhappy with the presidency of Richard Nixon, and associated President Ford with the Nixon era. They were unhappy with foreign policy, the domestic economy, and the national media were committed to defeating the administration. President Carter, a largely unknown figure, was elected with a vague mandate to "clean up Washington". When his agenda became known, it did so by his actions, as he began trying to force American compliance with such policies as a national conversion to the Metric system, deep cuts in defense spending, and an international agenda based not on American interests, but rather on "human rights" (resulting in numerous regimes being taken over by forces hostile to the US, most notably Iran), his popularity plummeted. The backlash against Carter not only brought Ronald Reagan to the presidency, but also created a couple of generations of die-hard conservatives. The backlash against Carter and the Democratic Party was deep and long lasting. However, Carter at least had the benefits of seeming familiar to most Americans, being Caucasian, and having been to the Naval Academy, as well as his background as a farmer. Obama enjoys none of these sympathetic personal factors.
The backlash against Barak Obama will be phenomenal, as many of his erstwhile supporters will be horrified at how his vision contrasts with theirs, combined with those who opposed him to begin with, and those who never really understood what his policies would be. Like in any revolution, he will turn his power on his former revolutionary "brothers". Civil libertarians, opposed to Bush's security "Patriot Act" agenda, will among the first to realize Obama is not their savior, but merely a replacement of the frying pan, with the fire. Jewish groups, suspicious of Bush's association between Christianity and the government functions, will be next, as they find none of their personal interests served or protected by Barak's new regime. Many of the "educated elites" will rapidly become disillusioned as they discover the wealth that Barak intends to take for redistribution, will be theirs. Doctors, lawyers, and college professors never fare well when a socialist revolution takes place, and Obama's intentions are at least a quasi-socialist revolution, if not an outright one. The media may become justifiably frightened as they see comrades who are only slightly to the right of themselves, suddenly facing legal action, or persecution. The dilemma of Don Imus must have made some media members sleep less well at night, and what will come, will be more than merely un-nerving to them. Just as the communists found themselves hunted in Iran by the Khomeini Islamist faction after they had together overthrown the Shah, so too will many of Barak's supporters find themselves targets when they begin to question his methods. The more he does, the greater will be the resistance. In turn, the greater the resistance to his methods and agenda, the harsher and more heavy handed his methods will become. Typically, the socialist revolutionary becomes a dictator "to protect the revolution", as in Zimbabwe, Cuba, Russia, China, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Uganda, Romania, Yugoslavia, Indonesia, etc.
An unknown element of this will be the race factor. Some black American may feel compelled to defend him and his actions, regardless of what those actions entail, simply because they realize that his poor performance and unpopularity will reflect badly on them, undermining their case in the American psyche. Also, we do not know the degree to which Barak will publicly or privately attribute racism as the motivation of his perceived enemies. Theoretically, this could make Barak's revolution partially racial in nature, setting a stage similar to some truly horrific precedents. In those political struggles in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, where there was a racial or ethnic component to the struggle, competing tribes turned the contest into one of violent conflicts, where the political power struggle became one of life and death, sometimes resulting in attempted genocide. Neighbor turned on neighbor, denouncing one another to the most violent elements of the other side, sometimes placing husbands and wives, and children on opposite sides of an insurmountable divide. Depending upon how embattled the Obama administration becomes, he may begin to surround himself with security and "law enforcement" functionaries, only of his own race, or perceived sympathetic groups. One recalls how the Michael Jackson clan turned to the "Black Muslims" for security at the height of his persecution by law enforcement, though his family had long only been associated with a deeply Christian background. If so, the perceived conflict will grow deeper and more intractable. Since black Americans only comprise about 12% of the population as a whole, this could be very dangerous for them, and even if the four years pass with only relatively mild conflict, it will do irreparable harm to race relations in the country, as they are cumulatively lumped in with Barak's defenders (whether they defended his actions or not).
Internationally, Barak Hussein Obama is perceived as a Muslim, or at least of Islamic heritage. While his supporters may hope that this will allow him to achieve favorable negotiations with our Islamic enemies, this will not be the case. Any student of the Middle East knows that the Islamic nations there, are bitter enemies of each other, and are quite aggressive with one another. The only point they can agree on is their hatred of the "Great Satan" (the United States), and the "Little Satan" (Israel). Their animosity against the Europeans is split, depending on which state was the colonial "sponsor" between WWI and WWII. Since they serve only the self interests of the individual families that control the states, we can expect them to remain hostile to US interests, regardless of whether or not they believe Barak Hussein Obama to be a Muslim. Their poor relations with the US are wholly independent of our connection to Israel, as they see themselves as our competitors both economically and for the domination of world culture. They want to increase our dependence on their product (oil), they want to extract the highest price from us that they possibly can, and they want to weaken us militarily, so that we are in no position to resist their efforts to extract ever higher payments from us, or interfere in their machinations in their region or around the world. If the election of Hussein Obama has any impact at all on their behavior, it will merely be to embolden them in their actions against Israel, since they may perceive him to be a less than enthusiastic supporter of Israel's right to exist.
If the United State sees fit to elect this young, radical, uninspected, freshman senator to the highest office in the nation, placing him at the helm of our military, economic, social, and diplomatic agendas, the great likelihood is that he will fail on nearly all counts. The repercussions of his failure will inflict a grievous wound on our body politic, economically, internationally, and on our internal cohesion. The price for our fit of pique, due to our dissatisfactions with the existing governments polices, will be high indeed. Those who seek to dispose of that, which is merely good, thinking they will acquire that which is perfect, usually end up with neither.
David Roth
10/09/08
----------- Response by Marty D:
"You have to pinch yourself – a Marxist radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And it's considered impolite to say so." Melanie Philips, The Spectator (UK) 10/14/08
The entire world will be watching Democrats on November 4th
Hillary Backers Decry Massive Obama Vote Fraud
With accusations of voter registration fraud swirling as early voting begins in many states, some Hillary Clinton supporters are saying: “I told you so.”
Already in Iowa, the Obama campaign was breaking the rules, busing in supporters from neighboring states to vote illegally in the first contest in the primaries and physically intimidating Hillary supporters, they say.
Obama’s surprisingly strong win in Iowa, which defied all the polls, propelled his upstart candidacy to front-runner status. But Lynette Long, a Hillary supporter from Bethesda, Md., who has a long and respected academic career, believes Obama’s victory in Iowa and in 12 other caucus states was no miracle. “It was fraud,” she told Newsmax. (emphasis added)
Long has spent several months studying the caucus and primary results.
“After studying the procedures and results from all 14 caucus states, interviewing dozens of witnesses, and reviewing hundreds of personal stories, my conclusion is that the Obama campaign willfully and intentionally defrauded the American public by systematically undermining the caucus process,” she said.
In Hawaii, for example, the caucus organizers ran out of ballots, so Obama operatives created more from Post-its and scraps of paper and dumped them into ice cream buckets. “The caucuses ended up with more ballots than participants, a sure sign of voter fraud,” Long said.
In Nevada, Obama supporters upturned a wheelchair-bound woman who wanted to caucus for Hillary, flushed Clinton ballots down the toilets, and told union members they could vote only if their names were on the list of Obama supporters.
In Texas, more than 2,000 Clinton and Edwards supporters filed complaints with the state Democratic Party because of the massive fraud. The party acknowledged that the Obama campaign’s actions “amount to criminal violations” and ordered them to be reported to state and federal law enforcement, but nothing happened.
In caucus after caucus, Obama bused in supporters from out of state, intimidated elderly voters and women, and stole election packets so Hillary supporters couldn’t vote.
Thanks to these and other strong-arm tactics, Obama won victories in all but one of the caucuses, even in states such as Maine where Hillary had been leading by double digits in the polls.
Obama’s win in the caucuses, which were smaller events than the primaries and were run by the party, not the states, gave him the margin of victory he needed to win a razor-thin majority in the delegate count going into the Democratic National Convention.
Without these caucus wins, which Long and others claim were based on fraud, Clinton would be the Democrats’ nominee running against John McCain.
Citing a detailed report on the voting results and delegate accounts by accountant Piniel Cronin, “there were only four pledged delegates between Hillary and Obama once you discount caucus fraud,” Long said.
Long has compiled many of these eyewitness reports from the 14 caucus states in a 98-page, single-spaced report and in an interactive Web site: www.caucusanalysis.org.
ACORN involvement
The Obama campaign recently admitted that it paid an affiliate of ACORN, the controversial community organizer that Obama represented in Chicago, more than $832,000 for “voter turnout” work during the primaries. The campaign initially claimed the money had been spent on “staging, sound and light” and “advance work.”
State and federal law enforcement in 11 states are investigating allegations of voter registration fraud against the Obama campaign. ACORN workers repeatedly registered voters in the name of “Mickey Mouse,” and registered the entire starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys twice: once in Nevada, and again in Minnesota.
A group that has worked with ACORN in the past registered a dead goldfish under the name “Princess Nudelman” in Illinois. When reporters informed Beth Nudelman, a Democrat, that her former pet was a registered voter, she said, “This person is a dead fish."
ACORN was known for its “intimidation tactics,” said independent scholar Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., who has researched Obama’s long-standing ties to the group.
Fully 30 percent of 1.3 million new voters ACORN claims to have registered this year are believed to be illegitimate.
Long shared with Newsmax some of the emails and sworn affidavits she received from Hillary supporters who witnessed first-hand the thuggish tactics employed by Obama campaign operatives in Iowa and elsewhere.
Jeff, a precinct captain for Clinton from Davenport, Iowa, thought his caucus was in the bag for his candidate, until just minutes before the voting actually began.
“From 6-6:30 p.m., it appeared as I had expected. Young, old males, females, Hispanics, whites, gay and lesbian friends arriving. Very heavily for Ms. Clinton, a fair amount for Edwards and some stragglers for Obama,” he said.
That makeup corresponded to what he had witnessed from many precinct walks he had made through local neighborhoods.
“My mind began to feel victory for my lady,’ he said. “THEN: at 6:50 p.m., over 75 people of African-American descent came walking in, passed the tables and sat in the Obama section. I knew one of them from my canvassing. I knew another one who did not live in this precinct. And aside from four or five families that live on Hillandale Road, there are no other black people in this unusually white precinct. And one of those black couples were in my Hillary section,” he said.
Thanks to the last-minute influx of unknown Obama supporters, Obama won twice the number of delegates from the precinct as Hillary Clinton.
After it was over, “a very large bus was seen in the parking lot afterwards carrying these folks back” to Illinois, Jeff said.
Obama’s flagrant busing of out-of-state caucus participants from Illinois was so obvious that even Joe Biden — today his running mate, then his rival — pointed it out at the time.
At a campaign stop before the Jan. 3 caucus at the JJ Diner in Des Moines, Biden “said what we were all thinking when he got on stage and said, ‘Hello Iowa!’ and then turned to Barack’s crowd and shouted, ‘and Hello Chicago!’” another precinct captain for Hillary told Long.
Thanks to Illinois campaign workers bused across the border into Iowa, all the precincts in eastern Iowa went for Obama, guaranteeing his win in the caucuses, Long said.
Obama supporters were also bused into northeast Iowa from Omaha, Nebraska, where Obama campaign workers were seen handing out “i-pods and free stuff: T-shirts, clothes, shoes, and free meals” to students and people in homeless shelters,” according to eyewitness reports Long collected.
In Iowa City, red and white chartered buses with Illinois license plates arrived from Illinois packed with boisterous African-American high school students, who came to caucus for Obama in Iowa after being recruited by Obama campaign workers.
2,000 complaints in Texas
In a change in the Democratic National Committee rules for this year’s election season, four states had caucuses and primaries: Washington, Nebraska, Idaho, and Texas. “But Texas is the only one that counted both the caucus result and the primary result,” Long told Newsmax. “The others didn’t count the primary at all, calling it a ‘beauty contest.’”
Because caucuses are more informal, and can last hours, they tend to favor candidates with a strong ground operation or whose supporters use strong-arm tactics to intimidate their rivals.
“There is inherent voter disenfranchisement in the caucuses,” Long said. “Women are less likely to go to caucuses than men, because they don’t like the public nature of the caucus. The elderly are less likely to go to a caucus. People who work shifts can’t go if they work the night shift. And parents with young children can’t go out for four hours on a week night. All these people are traditionally Clinton supporters,” she said.
But Obama’s victories in the caucuses weren’t the result of better organization, Long insists. “It was fraud.”
In state after state, Hillary was leading Obama in the polls right up until the last minute, when Obama won a landslide victory in the caucuses.
The discrepancies between the polls and the caucus results were stunning, Long told Newsmax. The most flagrant example was Minnesota. A Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute poll just one week before the Feb. 5 caucus gave Hillary a 7-point lead over Obama, 40-33.
But when the Minnesota caucus results were counted, Obama won by a landslide, with 66.39 percent to just 32.23 percent for Hillary, giving him 48 delegates, compared with 24 for Clinton.
“No poll is that far off,” Long told Newsmax.
Similar disparities occurred in 13 of 14 caucus states.
In Colorado and Idaho, Obama had a 2-point edge over Hillary Clinton in the polls, but won by more than 2-1 in the caucuses, sweeping most delegates.
In Kansas, Hillary had a slight edge over Obama in the polls, but Obama won 74 percent of the votes in the caucus and most of the delegates. In nearly every state, he bested the pre-caucus polls by anywhere from 12 percent to more than 30 percent.
This year’s primary rules for the Democrats favored the caucus states over the primary states.
“Caucus states made up only 1.1 million (3 percent) of all Democratic votes, but selected 626 (15 percent) of the delegates,” says Gigi Gaston, a filmmaker who has made a documentary on the caucus fraud.
In Texas alone, she says, there were more than 2,000 complaints from Hillary Clinton and John Edwards supporters of Obama’s strong-arm tactics.
One Hillary supporter, who appears in Gaston’s new film, “We Will Not Be Silenced,” says she received death threats from Obama supporters after they saw her address in an online video she made to document fraud during the Texas caucus. “People called me a whore and a skank,” she said.
John Siegel, El Paso Area Captain for Hillary, said, “Some people saw outright cheating. Other people just saw strong-arm tactics. I saw fraud.”
Another woman, who was not identified in the film, described the sign-in process.
“You’re supposed to sign your names on these sheets. The sheets are supposed to be controlled, and passed out — this is kind of how you maintain order. None of that was done. The sheets were just flying all over the place. You could put in your own names. You could add your own sheets or anything. It was just filled with fraud.”
Other witnesses described how Obama supporters went through the crowds at the caucus telling Hillary supporters they could go home because their votes had been counted, when in fact no vote count had yet taken place.
“I couldn’t believe this was happening,” one woman said in the film. “I thought this only happened in Third World countries.”
On election day in Texas, Clinton campaign lawyer Lyn Utrecht issued a news release that the national media widely ignored.
“The campaign legal hot line has been flooded with calls containing specific accusations of irregularities and voter intimidation against the Obama campaign,” she wrote. “This activity is undemocratic, probably illegal, and reflects a wanton disregard for the caucus process.”
She identified 18 separate precincts where Obama operatives had removed voting packets before the Clinton voters could arrive, despite a written warning from the state party not to remove them.
The hot line also received numerous calls during the day that “the Obama campaign has taken over caucus sites and locked the doors, excluding Clinton campaign supporters from participating in the caucus,” she wrote.
“There are numerous instances of Obama supporters filing out precinct convention sign-in sheets during the day and submitting them as completed vote totals at caucus. This is expressly against the rules,” she added.
But no one seemed to care.
Despite Clinton’s three-and-a-half point win in the Texas primary — 50.87 percent to 47.39 percent —Obama beat her in the caucus the same day by 56 to 43.7 percent, giving him a 38-to-29 advantage in delegates.
Linda Hayes investigated the results at the precinct level in three state Senate districts. Under the rules of the Texas Democratic Party, participants in the caucuses had to reside in the precinct where they were caucusing, and had to have voted in the Democratic primary that same day.
When she began to see the results coming in from the precincts that were wildly at variance with the primary results, “I could see that something was wrong,” Hayes said.
Hayes says she found numerous anomalies as she went through the precinct sign-in sheets.
“Many, many, many Obama people either came to the wrong precinct, they did not sign in properly, they did not show ID, or they did not vote that day.” And yet, their votes were counted.
In a letter to Rep. Lois Capps, a Clinton supporter calling himself “Pacific John,” described the fraud he had witnessed during the caucuses.
“On election night in El Paso, it became obvious that the Obama field campaign was designed to steal caucuses. Prior to that, it was impossible for me to imagine the level of attempted fraud and disruption we would see,” he wrote.
“We saw stolen precincts where Obama organizers fabricated counts, made false entries on sign-in sheets, suppressed delegate counts, and suppressed caucus voters. We saw patterns such as missing electronic access code sheets and precinct packets taken before the legal time, like elsewhere in the state. Obama volunteers illegally took convention materials state-wide, with attempts as early as 6:30 am.”
The story of how Obama stole the Democratic Party caucuses — and consequently, the Democratic Party nomination — is important not just because it prefigures potential voter fraud in the Nov. 4 presidential election, which is under way.
It’s important because it fits a pattern that Chicago journalists and a few national and international commentators have noticed in all of the elections Obama has won in his career.
NBC correspondent Martin Fletcher described Obama’s first election victory, for the Illinois state Senate, in a recent commentary that appeared in the London Telegraph.
“Mr. Obama won a seat in the state Senate in 1996 by the unorthodox means of having surrogates successfully challenge the hundreds of nomination signatures that candidates submit. His Democratic rivals, including Alice Palmer, the incumbent, were all disqualified,” Fletcher wrote.
Obama’s election to the U.S. Senate “was even more curious,” conservative columnist Tony Blankley wrote in The Washington Times.
Citing an account that appeared in The Times of London, Blankley described how Obama managed to squeeze out his main Democratic rival, Blair Hull, after divorce papers revealed allegations that Hull had allegedly made a death threat to his former wife.
Then in the general election, “lightning struck again,” Blankley wrote, when his Republican opponent, wealthy businessman Jack Ryan, was forced to withdraw in extremis after his divorce papers revealed details of his sexual life with his former wife.
Just weeks before the election, the Illinois Republican party called on Alan Keyes of Maryland to challenge Obama in the general election. Obama won a landslide victory.
“Mr. Obama’s elections are pregnant with the implications that he has so far gamed every office he has sought by underhanded and sordid means,” Blankley wrote, while “the American media has let these extraordinary events simply pass without significant comment.”
------------------------------ Response by Red State Patriot:
It now appears certain (from numerous sources) that Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination to Barack Obama as a direct result of massive voter fraud in state caucuses – which begs the question seven days before the election: Are Democrats too stupid to be angry? Are there no limits to lawless and unethical behavior? Do liberals, who in the past have cast a blind eye on fraudulent voter registration and fraud at the ballot box, have any angst over the outcome of what was supposed to be a democratic process?
Sadly, most Americans of African heritage do not appear to care about anything but race, given their public statements and voting patterns – with a ready willingness to sanction any means that will justify the end, i.e., electing a Caucasian Arab who falsely professes to be a “black man.” The unifying theme in voters of African heritage would appear to be race, combined with a consuming hatred of all things American and the Caucasian race. I personally find that beyond distressing. The conclusion is statistically irrefutable with voters supporting Obama by demographic margins as extreme as 95 to 5 in some districts.
But what about the rest of America? Will they vote using race as their primary determinant? And if so, what will they prove? Will they vote for Barack Obama, and in the process, sanction massive voter fraud of historical proportions, fraud so massive that it resulted in the theft of the Democratic Party’s nomination from Hillary Clinton, and in all likelihood, the theft of the general election from Hillary Clinton?
Is that the kind of country that Democrats (of every ethnic heritage) want? Well, standby Democrats - you’re going to get what you vote for, and unless you put an immediate end to the theft of the democratic process, it will get worse and worse with each and every subsequent election, that is, if there are any more elections – since this one was meaningless, especially for Democrats.
Somebody please tell me why Democrats are not angry. Instead, they are cavorting in the streets, celebrating prematurely an Obama victory from Los Angeles to Iran, from Kenya to Cuba to North Korea! If I was a Democrat, and for the record I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat, I’d be looking at civil unrest and the whole thing. I would not go quietly into the night. I would want to tar, feather and skin alive the people who denied me a valid democratic caucus selection process and a general election.
If I were a Democrat, I sure as hell wouldn’t be voting for the architect and beneficiary of the voter fraud. In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “… stupid is as stupid does.”
The entire world will be watching Democrats on November 4th, 2008 and will take the measure of us accordingly.
Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.
An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:
I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know. This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere.
This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.
It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.
What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.
The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.
They end up worse off than before.
This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.
Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)
Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?
I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."
Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.
As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?"
(http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ):
"Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."
These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.
Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!
What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?
Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.
And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.
If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.
But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.
You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.
If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.
If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.
There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)
If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.
Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.
But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.
If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.
Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.
Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.
Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.
So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?
Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?
You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.
That's where you are right now.
It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.
If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.
Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.
You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.
This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.
If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.
If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.
You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.
This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina.
http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html
It looks like Jeremiah Wright was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did Barack Obama savor Wright’s sermons, Obama gave legitimacy — and a whole lot of money — to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Reverend Wright. And guess what? Bill Ayers is still palling around with the same
bitterly anti-American Afrocentric ideologues that he and Obama were promoting a decade ago. All this is revealed by a bit of digging, combined with a careful study of documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the education foundation Obama and Ayers jointly led in the late 1990s.
Obama’s tie to Wright is no longer a purely personal question (if it ever was one) about one man’s choice of his pastor. The fact that Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Wright’s anti-Americanism means that this is now a matter of public policy, and therefore an entirely legitimate issue in this campaign.
African Village
In the winter of 1996, the Coalition for Improved Education in [Chicago’s] South Shore (CIESS) announced that it had received a $200,000 grant from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. That made CIESS an “external partner,” i.e. a community organization linked to a network of schools within the Chicago public system. This network, named the “South Shore African Village Collaborative” was thoroughly “Afrocentric” in orientation. CIESS’s job was to use a combination of teacher-training, curriculum advice, and community involvement to improve academic performance in the schools it worked with. CIESS would continue to receive large Annenberg grants throughout the 1990s.
The South Shore African Village Collaborative (SSAVC) was very much a part of the Afrocentric “rites of passage movement,” a fringe education crusade of the 1990s. SSAVC schools featured “African-Centered” curricula built around “rites of passage” ceremonies inspired by the puberty rites found in many African societies. In and of themselves, these ceremonies were harmless. Yet the philosophy that accompanied them was not. On the contrary, it was a carbon-copy of Jeremiah Wright’s worldview.
Rites of Passage
To learn what the rites of passage movement was all about, we can turn to a sympathetic 1992 study published in the Journal of Negro Education by Nsenga Warfield-Coppock. In that article, Warfield-Coppock bemoans the fact that public education in the United States is shaped by “capitalism, competitiveness, racism, sexism and oppression.” According to Warfield-Coppock, these American values “have confused African American people and oriented them toward American definitions of achievement and success and away from traditional African values.” American socialization has “proven to be dysfuntional and genocidal to the African American community,” Warfield-Coppock tells us. The answer is the adolescent rites of passage movement, designed “to provide African American youth with the cultural information and values they would need to counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.”
The adolescent rites of passage movement that flowered in the 1990s grew out of the “cultural nationalist” or “Pan-African” thinking popular in radical black circles of the 1960s and 1970s. The attempt to create a virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world began to take hold in the mid-1980s in small private schools, which carefully guarded the contents of their controversial curricula. Gradually, through external partners like CIESS, the movement spread to a few public schools. Supporters view these programs as “a social and cultural ‘inoculation’ process that facilitates healthy, African-centered development among African American youth and protects them against the ravages of a racist, sexist, capitalist, and oppressive society.”
We know that SSAVC was part of this movement, not only because their Annenberg proposals were filled with Afrocentric themes and references to “rites of passage,” but also because SSAVC’s faculty set up its African-centered curriculum in consultation with some of the most prominent leaders of the “rites of passage movement.” For example, a CIESS teacher conference sponsored a presentation on African-centered curricula by Jacob Carruthers, a particularly controversial Afrocentrist.
Jacob Carruthers
Like other leaders of the rites of passage movement, Carruthers teaches that the true birthplace of world civilization was ancient “Kemet” (Egypt), from which Kemetic philosophy supposedly spread to Africa as a whole. Carruthers and his colleagues believe that the values of Kemetic civilization are far superior to the isolating and oppressive, ancient Greek-based values of European and American civilization. Although academic Egyptologists and anthropologists strongly reject these historical claims, Carruthers dismisses critics as part of a white supremacist conspiracy to hide the truth of African superiority.
Carruthers’s key writings are collected in his book, Intellectual Warfare. Reading it is a wild, anti-American ride. In his book, we learn that Carruthers and his like-minded colleagues have formed an organization called the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC), which takes as its mission the need to “dismantle the European intellectual campaign to commit historicide against African peoples.” Carruthers includes “African-Americans” within a group he would define as simply “African.” When forced to describe a black person as “American,” Carruthers uses quotation marks, thus indicating that no black person can be American in any authentic sense. According to Carruthers, “The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy.”
Carruthers’s goal is to use African-centered education to recreate a separatist universe within America, a kind of state-within-a-state. The rites of passage movement is central to the plan. Carruthers sees enemies on every part of the political spectrum, from conservatives, to liberals, to academic leftists, all of whom reject advocates of Kemetic civilization, like himself, as dangerous and academically irresponsible extremists. Carruthers sees all these groups as deluded captives of white supremacist Eurocentric culture. Therefore the only safe place for Africans living in the United States (i.e. American blacks) is outside the mental boundaries of our ineradicably racist Eurocentric civilization. As Carruthers puts it: “...some of us have chosen to reject the culture of our oppressors and recover our disrupted ancestral culture.” The rites of passage movement is a way to teach young Africans in the United States how to reject America and recover their authentic African heritage.
America as Rape
Carruthers admits that Africans living in America have already been shaped by Western culture, yet compares this Americanization process to rape: “We may not be able to get our virginity back after the rape, but we do not have to marry the rapist....” In other words, American blacks (i.e. Africans) may have been forcibly exposed to American culture, but that doesn’t mean they need to accept it. The better option, says Carruthers, is to separate out and relearn the wisdom of Africa’s original Kemetic culture, embodied in the teachings of the ancient wise man, Ptahhotep (an historical figure traditionally identified as the author of a Fifth Dynasty wisdom book). Anything less than re-Africanization threatens the mental, and even physical, genocide of Africans living in an ineradicably white supremacist United States.
Carruthers is a defender of Leonard Jeffries, professor in the department of black studies at City College in Harlem, infamous for his black supremacist and anti-Semitic views. Jeffries sees whites as oppressive and violent “ice people,” in contrast to peaceful and mutually supportive black “sun people.” The divergence says Jeffries, is attributable to differing levels of melanin in the skin. Jeffries also blames Jews for financing the slave trade. Carruthers defends Jeffries and excoriates the prestigious black academics Carruthers views as traitorous for denouncing their African brother, Jeffries. Carruthers’s vision of the superior and peaceful Kemetic philosophy of Ptahhotep triumphing over Greco-Euro-American-white culture obviously parallels Jeffries’ opposition between ice people and sun people.
More of Carruthers’s education philosophy can be found in his newsletter, The Kemetic Voice. In 1997, for example, at the same time Carruthers was advising SSAVC on how to set up an African-centered curriculum, he praised the decision of New Orleans’ School Board to remove the name of George Washington from an elementary school. Apparently, some officials in New Orleans had decided that nobody who held slaves should have a school named after him. Carruthers touted the name-change as proof that his African-centered perspective was finally having an effect on public policy. At the demise of George Washington School, Carruthers crowed: “These events remind us of how vast the gulf is that separates the Defenders of Western Civilization from the Champions of African Civilization.”
According to Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, Carruthers’s training session on African-centered curricula for SSAVC teachers was a huge hit: “As a consciousness raising session, it received rave reviews, and has prepared the way for the curriculum readiness survey....” These teacher-training workshops were directly funded by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Another sure sign of the ideological cast of SSAVC’s curriculum can be found in Annenberg documents noting that SSAVC students are taught the wisdom of Ptahhotep. Carruthers’s concerns about “menticide” and “genocide” at the hand of America’s white supremacist system seem to be echoed in an SSAVC document that says: “Our children need to understand the historical context of our struggles for liberation from those forces that seek to destroy us.”
When Jeremiah Wright turned toward African-centered thinking in the late 1980s and early 1990s (the period when, attracted by Wright’s African themes, Barack Obama first became a church member), many prominent thinkers from Carruthers’s Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations were invited to speak at Trinity United Church of Christ, Carruthers himself included. We hear echoes of Carruthers’s work in Wright’s distinction between “right brained” Africans and “left brained” Europeans, in Wright’s fears of U.S. government-sponsored genocide against American blacks, and in Wright’s embittered attacks on America’s indelibly white-supremacist history. In Wright’s Trumpet Newsmagazine, as in Carruthers’s own writings, blacks are often referred to as “Africans living in the diaspora” rather than as Americans.
Asa Hilliard
Chicago Annenberg Challenge records also indicate that SSAVC educators invited Asa Hilliard, a pioneer of African-centered curricula and a close colleague of Carruthers, to offer a keynote address at yet another Annenberg-funded teacher training session. Hilliard’s ties to Wright run still deeper than Carruthers’s. A close Wright mentor and friend, Hilliard died in 2007 while on a trip to Kemet (Egypt) with Wright and members of Wright’s congregation. Hillard was scheduled to deliver several lectures to the congregants, and to speak at a meeting of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization, which he co-founded with Carruthers and other “African-centered” scholars. On that last trip, Hilliard accepted an appointment to the board of Wright’s new elementary school, Kwame Nkrumah Academy. Speaking of the need for such a school, Wright had earlier said, “We need to educate our children to the reality of white supremacy.” (For more on Wright’s Afrocentric school, see “Jeremiah Wright’s ‘Trumpet.’”)
Wright delivered the eulogy at Hilliard’s memorial service, with prominent members of ASCAC in the audience. To commemorate Hilliard, a special, two-cover double issue of Wright’s Trumpet Newsmagazine was published, with a picture of Hilliard on one side, and a picture of Louis Farrakhan on the other (in celebration of a 2007 award Farrakhan received from Wright). In short, the ties between Wright and Hilliard could hardly have been closer. Clearly, then, Wright’s own educational philosophy was mirrored at the Annenberg-funded SSAVC, which sought out Hilliard’s and Carruthers’s counsel to construct its curriculum.
Perhaps inadvertently, Wright’s eulogy for Hilliard actually established the fringe nature of his favorite African-centered scholars. In his tribute, Wright stressed how intensely “white Egyptologists recoiled at the very notion of everything Asa taught.” As Wright himself made plain, it seems virtually impossible to find respectable scholars of any political stripe who approve of the extremist anti-American version of Afrocentrism promoted by Hilliard and Carruthers.
Ayers’s Pals
An important exception to the rule is Bill Ayers himself, who not only worked with Obama to fund groups like this at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, but who is still “palling around” with the same folks. Discretely waiting until after the election, Bill Ayers and his wife, and fellow former terrorist, Bernardine Dohrn plan to release a book in 2009 entitled Race Course Against White Supremacy. The book will be published by Third World Press, a press set up by Carruthers and other members of the ASCAC. Representatives of that press were prominently present for Wright’s eulogy at Asa Hilliard’s memorial service. Less than a decade ago, therefore, when it came to education issues, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright were pretty much on the same page.
Obama’s Knowledge
Given the precedent of his earlier responses on Ayers and Wright, Obama might be inclined to deny personal knowledge of the educational philosophy he was so generously funding. Such a denial would not be convincing. For one thing, we have evidence that in 1995, the same year Obama assumed control of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he publicly rejected “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation,” a stance that clearly resonates with both Wright and Carruthers. (See “No Liberation.”)
And as noted, Wright had invited Carruthers, Hilliard, and like-minded thinkers to address his Trinity congregants. Wright likes to tick off his connections to these prominent Afrocentrists in sermons, and Obama would surely have heard of them. Reading over SSAVC’s Annenberg proposals, Obama could hardly be ignorant of what they were about. And if by some chance Obama overlooked Hilliard’s or Carruthers’s names, SSAVC’s proposals are filled with references to “rites of passage” and “Ptahhotep,” dead giveaways for the anti-American and separatist ideological concoction favored by SSAVC.
We know that Obama did read the proposals. Annenberg documents show him commenting on proposal quality. And especially after 1995, when concerns over self-dealing and conflicts of interest forced the Ayers-headed “Collaborative” to distance itself from monetary issues, all funding decisions fell to Obama and the board. Significantly, there was dissent within the board. One business leader and experienced grant-smith characterized the quality of most Annenberg proposals as “awful.” (See “The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: The First Three Years,” p. 19.) Yet Obama and his very small and divided board kept the money flowing to ideologically extremist groups like the South Shore African Village Collaborative, instead of organizations focused on traditional educational achievement.
As if the content of SSAVC documents wasn’t warning enough, their proposals consistently misspelled “rites of passage” as “rights of passage,” hardly an encouraging sign from a group meant to improve children’s reading skills. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge’s own evaluators acknowledged that Annenberg-aided schools showed no improvement in achievement scores. Evaluators attributed that failure, in part, to the fact that many of Annenberg’s “external partners” had little educational expertise. A group that puts its efforts into Kwanzaa celebrations and half-baked history certainly fits that bill, and goes a long way toward explaining how Ayers and Obama managed to waste upwards of $150 million without improving student achievement.
However he may seek to deny it, all evidence points to the fact that, from his position as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama knowingly and persistently funded an educational project that shared the extremist and anti-American philosophy of Jeremiah Wright. The Wright affair was no fluke. It’s time for McCain to say so.
By Stanley Kurtz
Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
------------------------- Response by Red State Patriot:
Redistribution of any right what-so-ever, or income from any family to any ethnic group, because they are an identifiable ethnic group, by any other name is dhminitude, i.e., cultural and institutional subservience of the victim to the recipient. Arguably, this is the core ideology of black liberation theology. Think not? Read the foundation principles of Obama’s church of 20 years, and Reverend Wright:
About Us
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community. Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts:
1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness"
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.
Is this what Obama’s voters of European, Latin American and Asian heritage are naively voting to advance? If so, the magnitude of their historical, economic and religious ignorance is greater than the sum-total knowledge of the known universe.
Message to Senator Obama's probable voters: Get off my back. Call a cab.
Pollsters Debate 'Bradley Effect'
Election Seen as Test of Theory That Black Candidates' Leads in Polls Aren't Real
Not long ago, it was considered political gospel: Be wary of polls when an election involves an African American candidate, because many whites will voice support but then vote for the white opponent.
Now, poll-watchers are asking whether that could be skewing the numbers as Democrat Barack Obama, the first African American presidential nominee, moves ahead of Republican John McCain.
Most experts say they do not believe that the phenomenon, known as the "Bradley effect," is at work in this election. But some disagree. And if the effect has disappeared, it is not clear whether that is because polling techniques have improved or because the country has become more tolerant about race.
"The Bradley effect may have been an artifact of the country 20 years ago, but I don't think it's a factor now," said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. "Polling has gotten better, but I think, more importantly, the country has changed."
The phenomenon got its name a generation ago, after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley (D), an African American, lost the 1982 gubernatorial race in California despite leading his white opponent in the polls on the eve of the election. Some experts suspected at the time that a portion of white voters, reluctant to appear biased, had essentially lied to pollsters about which candidate they were supporting. But whether Bradley lost because of hidden racism has never been clear.
A post-election analysis by Mervin Field, whose California Field Poll showed Bradley up seven points in the campaign's final stage, attributed the late shift to an unusually large number of GOP absentee voters, relatively low turnout among nonwhite voters and the coincidence of a handgun initiative on the state ballot.
He also highlighted the role of race, which may have been enough to tip the balance to Bradley's opponent, George Deukmejian (R), but emphasized that that alone would not have been enough to turnaround the Democrat's lead.
Even so, the racial theory gained credibility with a string of elections in the 1980s and '90s in which black candidates eked out victories or were defeated despite seemingly solid leads in pre-election polls. They included David Dinkins's close 1989 win in New York's mayoral contest, L. Douglas Wilder's tight victory that same year to become Virginia's governor and Harold Washington's squeaker when he won the Chicago mayoral race in 1983.
Finding hard evidence for or against a Bradley effect today is difficult, given the relative rarity of black candidates facing a white opponent before a majority-white electorate. Obama's performance in the Democratic primaries does not clarify the issue since he did worse than the polls predicted in some states, including New Hampshire and California, and better than projected in others, such as Virginia and Wisconsin.
Still, some academics -- mainly African Americans -- say the country should not be so quick to dismiss the theory.
"I'm one of those who believe the Bradley effect is alive and well," said Michael Dawson, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. It may have diminished with time, he contends, but has not disappeared.
There is little doubt that the willingness of white people to vote for a black candidate has grown measurably. A December 2007 Gallup poll found that 5 percent of white respondents said they would not vote for a black candidate for president. In 1958, Gallup determined that 58 percent of whites would not cast a ballot for a black presidential candidate, and as late as 1989, 19 percent said the same.
Black candidates have increasingly won elections outside majority black districts, including the races for lieutenant governor of Colorado, a state with relatively few black people, and for attorney general of Georgia, a state with a troubled racial past.
Improved polling also may have helped produce more accurate predictions in contests such as Harold E. Ford Jr.'s losing race in 2006 for a Tennessee Senate seat and Deval L. Patrick's successful run for Massachusetts governor that year.
Dawson, however, remains skeptical about the willingness of whites to vote for a black candidate -- and the ability of polling to capture that reluctance -- in a high-profile, racially charged presidential election.
"We're talking about different levels," he said. "President is different than mayor of Chicago."
Experts agree that it is often difficult to fully tease out the extent to which race plays a factor in voting decisions. People can be reluctant to talk about their racial attitudes, and plenty of reasons -- party, age, experience, political philosophy -- can explain why voters may support or oppose a black candidate.
Still, there is little reason today, some experts contend, for people answering public opinion polls to hide their true intentions.
"For people to lie, there generally has to be a stigma attached to telling the truth," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. "There is none affiliated with saying, 'I'm voting for Hillary' or 'I'm voting for McCain.' "
Kohut theorizes that polling discrepancies do not come from respondents who lie, but from people who decline to participate in polls. That is a growing problem, with studies showing that as many as half the people contacted for polls refuse to participate. Kohut recently conducted a study in which interviewers spent months repeatedly calling people back until they agreed to talk. He said that helped him see who is often missed in polling.
"Poorer, less-educated whites don't like to do these polls as much as better-educated people do," he said. "The refusals come from the same class of people who tend to be the most racially intolerant."
Anthony Greenwald, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, said he also does not buy that people are lying to pollsters. "What I do buy," he said, "is that there were lots of undecided people who didn't have an answer before the phone rang and were generating one on the spot."
Greenwald, who has studied the primary contest between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said that when people in polls are prodded to answer a question, they know that, unlike in the voting booth, their response will have no consequences. So they may say they are supporting a candidate they have not actually decided on.
Pollsters say they build in controls to account for possible hidden racial feelings that can skew results. Kohut said he tries to elicit more-honest answers by matching the race of the interviewer and the respondent. Others try to push people to test the intensity of their backing of a particular candidate and often toss out whites who express tepid support for black candidates.
But Jon Krosnick, a professor of political science, communication and psychology at Stanford University, noted that black callers tend to get more pro-Obama answers in surveys than white callers do, no matter the race of the respondent.
"We don't have solid evidence that matching increases accuracy," said Krosnick, who does not believe the Bradley effect is real.
Harvard political scientist Daniel J. Hopkins analyzed elections involving African American candidates for governor and the Senate and found there was a Bradley effect when racially charged issues dominated the political discourse in the 1980s and early 1990s. As issues such as crime and welfare faded from the national scene in the mid-1990s, Hopkins wrote, so did the Bradley effect.
That raises the possibility that a return to racial issues could once again cause the phenomenon to reemerge, either nationally or in a key state.
"The most likely circumstance that could bring back the Bradley effect would be a racialized campaign," said Hopkins, a lecturer in Harvard's department of government. "If we spend the next month debating Jeremiah Wright or other racial issues, that would be the thing that would be on people's minds."
A spokesman for Obama said the campaign does not believe race will be much of a factor in voting. "People are more concerned about the state of the economy and our place in the world, and not so much concerned about ethnic or identity politics," said Corey Ealons.
Both those who believe the Bradley effect is a factor and those who dismiss it agree that, given the aura of history surrounding the current campaign, interest in it is high. "At literally every speech I make, I get questions on it," Newhouse said.
They also agree that this presidential election will be a highly visible test of just how real it is.
"If we don't see it now, then it's gone," Dawson said.
By Steven A. Holmes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 12, 2008; A06
The Banking Crisis – Heads They Win, Tails You Lose
Remember when you thought you could pay for your kids’ college tuition? That you could retire and move to Florida for your golden years? Guest what? You’ve just lost your nest egg faster than you would have in Vegas. What have you gotten for it? Nothing! At least in Vegas they would have thrown in free hotel and floor show!
The American taxpayer just got mugged – and we can’t figure out what happened, who did it and why no one protected us. And worst of all, we have no idea how much it will end up costing us later. At least when you get mugged they only take the cash in your wallet.
The biggest culprit is Fannie Mae – a quasi-government mortgage enterprise – regulated and guaranteed by Congress but privately owned. In other words, government sets the rules, taxpayers cover any losses, and private stockholders keep the profits. It’s Washington’s version of heads they win, tails you lose.
For decades, Americans bought their homes by getting a mortgage, which was usually sold to Fannie Mae. But you couldn’t get a mortgage unless you had enough savings for a 5-20% down-payment, proved you could afford the monthly payments, and had a good credit rating.
But all that changed in the 1990s. With pressure from the Clinton Administration and Democrats in Congress, Fannie Mae eased credit requirements for home loans. They wanted to curry favor with low-income voters by helping them buy houses, and with banks, because more loans meant more profits. They didn’t have to foot the bill if the mortgages went sour – the taxpayers would do that. Again, heads they win, tails you lose.
American banks went on a lending spree, and Americans went on a spending spree. They were called ninja loans–“no income, no job, no assets.” It was easy money. As long as housing prices went up, you could sell the house a year or two later and make a profit, without risking a dime of your own money.
The risky lending continued, despite efforts by President Bush to create a new oversight committee to clean up Fannie Mae, and John McCain’s calls for stricter regulations. Democrats in Congress, as well as many Republicans, their campaign coffers stuffed with Fannie Mae donations, refused to put on the brakes. For the six years from 1999 to 2005, Fannie Mae paid millions to 354 congressmen and senators.
By 2004 there were signs of trouble. An office of Management and Budget investigation found massive fraud in Fannie Mae’s bookkeeping practices. But those same Senators and Congressmen refused to hold hearings or hold any of the Fannie Mae leaders responsible. In fact, Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines gave himself a $100 million bonus.
But McCain continued to be one of the lone voices calling for reform. He introduced the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform in 2005, claiming Fannie Mae posed an enormous risk to the “housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”
But Congressional Democrats blocked it, led by those who received the highest campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. Barack Obama called subprime lending a “good idea.”
But the problems couldn’t be ignored. Franklin Raines and other top executives were forced to resign. But none were charged with fraud, no one went to jail, and after paying some fines, Franklin Raines got to keep his $100 million bonus.
Fannie Mae, reeling under a mountain of bad debt, is now bankrupt. So are most of the banks that issued those risky mortgages. So is AIG, the company that insured them. But rather than go belly up, the government stepped in to bail everybody out. Once again, head they win, tails you lose. But this time you lose big.
The rescue plan will cost at least $700 billion; some say it could end up costing $2 trillion. Every American will have to fork over thousands of dollars we could have used for our kids’ college tuition or our retirement.
Wonder which politicians got the fattest campaign contributions? The top recipient was Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd. And number two was Barack Obama.
Guess what happened to Franklin Raines, Mr. One Hundred Million? He’s one of Obama’s top campaign advisers.
And John McCain, the whistleblower who tried to reform Fannie Mae? Who pushed through legislation to limit campaign contributions? Who rails against earmarks and government corruption every time he opens his mouth? Somehow or other, as loony as it seems, McCain is getting the blame.
Comments are welcome at redstatepatriot@hughes.net. Please include the title of the article as your subject line. Selected responses, in whole or part, may be published (appended to the article).
SYSTEMIC corruption of our election process continues. Barack Obama and his old friends at ACORN and Project Vote are leading the way. This radical revolution is taking place in your backyard. And as I've reported before, this voter-fraud racket is on your dime. On Monday, the two groups announced the wrap-up of a 21-state voter-registration drive targeting low-income people and minorities in such battleground states as Ohio, Pennyslvania, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Wisconsin.
What's wrong with that? For starters, these two groups are militantly partisan outfits purporting to engage in nonpartisan activity. And their campaign comes amid an avalanche of fresh voter-fraud allegations involving ACORN in many of those same states. ACORN has helped register over 1.27 million people nationwide. It gets 40 percent of its revenues from the taxpayers, with the rest coming from left-wing heavyweights like billionaire George Soros and the Democracy Alliance.
Lefty lawyer Sandy Newman founded Project Vote, a 501(c)(3) organization, to register voters in welfare offices and unemployment lines with the explicit goal of turning back the Reagan revolution. The two groups are inextricably linked - and at their nexus is Barack Obama. Despite his denials of any association with the group, Obama's political DNA is encoded with the ACORN agenda.
As I've noted previously,Obama trained ACORN members in Chicago. In turn, ACORN volunteers worked on his Illinois campaigns and ACORN's PAC endorsed him in this year's Democratic primaries back in February.
And Newman hired Obama in 1992 to lead Project Vote efforts in Illinois. The effort's motto: "It's a Power Thing." Today, the Obama campaign's "Vote for Change" registration drive is running in parallel with ACORN/Project Vote, targeting the same sorts of people.
It's an all-out scramble to scrape up every last unregistered voter sympathetic to Obama's big-government vision. "Our volume," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe bragged of the voter-registration program, "is going to be enormous."
Quantity over quality. That's the ACORN way - and the fraud allegations keep piling up:
* Yesterday, Nevada officials raided ACORN's Las Vegas office after election authorities accused the group of submitting multiple voter registrations with fake and duplicate names. Among the bogus monikers: names of former Dallas Cowboys players.
* Lake County, Ind., election officials this month rejected thousands of registration forms ACORN had turned in from its drives this summer. On a conference call yesterday, GOP officials noted that up to 11,000 of the applications were no good - tying up election officials and jeopardizing the voting rights of untold victims whose identities may have been stolen.
In what seems to be ACORN's standard operating procedure, vote canvassers had pulled names and addresses from phone books and forged signatures. According to a local paper (the Northwest Indiana and Illinois Times), "Large numbers of voter registration forms bore signatures all in the same apparent handwriting style" and "apparently the organization's canvassers broke rules to meet ACORN-set voter registration quotas to get paid." The fake registrants include dead people and underage kids.
* Milwaukee, Wisc., officials last month discovered at least seven felons employed as voter-registration workers for ACORN and another affiliated group. (State law bans felons from such work.) They also uncovered a raft of problematic voter-registration cards. The state GOP accuses the group of trying to get dead, imprisoned or imaginary people on the voter rolls. Fraud has plagued ACORN's Milwaukee chapter since the last election cycle.
* In Florida, in Orange County alone, ACORN workers turned in multiple, copycat forms for six separate voters over the summer. The Miami Herald reports: "One individual had 21 duplicate applications."
Election officials had flagged ACORN's negligent practices months ago. But it may be too late: In Orange, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, ACORN has signed up 135,000 new voters, nearly 60 percent of them registered as Democrats - a fifth of all new voters in that region.
* In Ohio, large numbers of homeless people got free van and bus rides to register. Shelby Holliday, a reporter for Palestra.net, filmed ACORN shuttling in some prospects. She told me she spoke with one homeless woman who said ACORN "told her who to vote for if she wanted a 'better life,' and told her not to worry about jury duty (one of the reasons this homeless woman didn't want to register) because the government probably wouldn't be able to track her down. She was registering with a temporary address."
Holliday interviewed another homeless man targeted by the registration drive who exulted that he was voting for Obama because "I want him to do his thang. You know, do his thug thizzle."
"Thug thizzle" is street slang for performing your trademark move. Obama and ACORN have practiced their thug thizzle together for years: Organizing an ever-expanding community of ineligible and marginal voters to expand the Democrat power base. Rules be damned.
By Michelle Malkin
October 8, 2008
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Change is an effective mantra in elections following two consecutive terms by one party in office. That is especially the case when the current officeholder is unpopular and the economy is weak. Barack Obama has that as a tremendous advantage in this race and recent polls breaking his way show it, but there are some significant factors that could still lead to his undoing.
When you look at the unpopularity of the current administration, the financial crisis that has overshadowed all other issues, the fawning media and the promise of a charismatic young figure offering change, it would appear this race is over. In fact, it would not be surprising if that candidate were leading by twenty points by now. Prospects are certainly looking good for an Obama win at this time, but there are a few factors that can still work in John McCain's favor. Obama's liberal voting record, his far left associations and the fact that Democrats control the Congress could all still cause trouble for Obama.
Obama is spending significantly more in my state of North Carolina than McCain, so I see a lot of Obama ads. One I saw several times this week was incredibly reminiscent of some Bill Clinton ads from 1992. I remember the Clinton ads because even though I opposed him, I was impressed by how good and how persuasive they were. Bill Clinton sat in what looked like could be a living room, or perhaps a large homey office, with natural lighting, and talked directly to the camera. He told voters that he was for a middle class tax cut and for "ending welfare as we know it." I couldn't argue with either of those ideas. I knew enough about the Democratic party at the time to know it was pretty unlikely that would happen, but I had to admit it sounded good.
When Clinton promised those things, the economy had already begun, and was maintaining, a steady recovery. That didn't stop him from referring to it as the worst economy in 50 years, though, and the nation bought it. Now we have an economic situation that both candidates agree is one of the most dire our country has faced. In spite of the fact that Democratic policies are largely to blame, the unpopular sitting Republican President and his party are going to be saddled with the majority of the blame. Those in the media will ensure they are, regardless of whether or not they are deserving of it.
In the Obama ad I have seen many times this week, he is sitting in a setting very similar to the one Bill Clinton used in 1996. Also like Clinton, he talks directly into the camera and promises tax cuts for the middle class. Will this approach be as effective for Obama as it was for Clinton?
A big difference between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama is that Clinton could credibly claim to be a moderate. He was a governor from a southern state. Southern Democrats are sometimes just as conservative as their Republican counterparts. Barack Obama is from Chicago and he has an unbelievably liberal voting record both as a state legislator and in the United States Senate. Barack Obama has voted against tax cuts or for tax increases 94 times. Obama has a liberal track record that should set off voters' alarm bells. Why should anyone believe he would now cut taxes when he has consistently opposed them for so many years?
Bill Clinton promised tax cuts, but even in an economy that was recovering nicely, he came back to voters barely a month in office and said that in spite of working as hard as he had ever worked, he was not going to be able to deliver them. There are certainly many excuses Obama could find to back out of his tax cut promise, but even if he did come through on it, there is another problem with it. Obama's tax plan is hard on small businesses. Even though many lower and middle income individuals would see less taxes personally, small businesses would face a bigger tax burden. Those small businesses employ lower and middle income people. If voters understand that the same tax policy that might allow them a bit more money in their refund checks could also put them in the unemployment line, they might not be so eager to vote for it. The only way they will know that though is if John McCain can successfully make that point.
The only reason Bill Clinton delivered on his "ending welfare as we know it" pledge was because after vetoing it twice, he was told that he had to pass it or he would lose his re-election. He therefore signed a welfare reform bill that a Republican majority had passed. That brings up another factor that could work in McCain's favor. Voters favor divided power.
The Democrats currently control both the House and Senate and barring some extreme unforeseen circumstances will not only continue to hold, but most likely increase their margins of control. Barack Obama has the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate. Most far left liberal policies are not terribly popular with American voters, but if the Democrats control the White House and all of Congress, voters will have essentially given them a blank check to do just about anything they want. One only has to look at the extreme liberal voting record of Barack Obama, as well as the liberal agendas and records of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to see what they can expect in an Obama presidency.
It should be obvious to voters that an Obama presidency along with a Democrat-controlled Congress would result in the most liberal (read: Marxist) policies many of us have seen in our lifetimes or imagined in our wildest nightmares. Add to that the very real possibility that a President Obama would appoint two or three Supreme Court judges. There would be virtually no check on the power held by liberal Democrats and they would feel emboldened by the election to claim a mandate for anything they proposed.
This is a scenario that should frighten all but those in the most extreme left wing of the Democrat Party, but I don't think it is a scenario that most voters have really considered. Those in the media are not going to write or talk about Obama's extreme liberal voting record, just as they have not, and will not, investigate his associations with the likes of domestic terrorists, slumlords, and fat cats that fleeced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is up to the McCain campaign to draw that picture for the voters.
Those on the left will say it is fear mongering, even though for years they have warned of the extreme right wing and the fascist dictator state that America would become under Republican governance. They can't do that with John McCain, who has so often been in opposition to conservatives. Since he would almost certainly have a Congress controlled by Democrats, any attempt to scare Americans with a rightwing fascist state is absurd.
Those on the left can neither credibly argue that a far left agenda would not prevail in an Obama administration. Barack Obama's voting record is Exhibit One that is exactly what voters should expect. The case against Obama and complete Democrat control of government is bolstered by crooked associates of Obama such as William Ayers, Tony Rezko, and Rev. JeremiahWright. Additional clues to the leftist paradise that might exist under Obama can be seen in the thuggish attempts to silence his critics, whether it be his goons trying to shut down talk radio interviews or his operatives in state offices who are threatening to sue anyone who makes claims about Obama they deem false.
It would be no mystery to voters that an Obama presidency would be dominated by a far left liberal agenda if they were looking at the track records and associates of the candidates. Instead they are largely being shown an illusion of a modern day Messiah who is ready to unite the country and solve all its problems. They are being shown images of adorable children singing songs of worship and praise to Obama who is going to "rearrange" things to make them right. They are being given fluffy, puffy stories about the candidate by those who profess to be news reporters. The veil is so thin, really, if you know what stands behind it. Whether or not the McCain campaign can lift that veil in the final month of this campaign will determine the course of the country in ways we can only now imagine.
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The past two presidential elections taught the losing Democrats a couple of political lessons. They learned that attacks on guns and defense of abortion are no longer winning issues for them, and this new awakening is reflected in their 2008 Party Platform adopted in Denver.
The Platform grudgingly states: "we will preserve Americans' Second Amendment right to own and use firearms." The powers-that-be in the Democratic Party have learned to tolerate a few pro-gun candidates.
Feminist pressure won't let the Democrats recede from their "proudly"-stated 2004 Platform position that "Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare." This year's Platform is just as pro-abortion, but uses slightly softer words, stating that the Democrats support "a woman's ability to make her own life choices and obtain reproductive health care, including birth control" (throughout nine months and with taxpayers' money, of course).
Proclaiming that "we will end the Bush Administration's war on science," the Democratic Platform promises to "lift the current Administration's ban on using federal funding for embryonic stem cells." The genuinely pro-life Republican Platform calls for "a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes."
The 2008 Democratic Platform stridently toadies to the feminists on all their issues. The Platform reaffirms support for the Equal Rights Amendment (which was declared dead by the Supreme Court 26 years ago), enforcement of Title IX (which has canceled hundreds of men's college athletic teams, thereby costing us dearly in the recent Olympics), passage of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (which would use a UN treaty to keep abortion legal), and the Violence Against Women Act (which puts a billion taxpayer dollars a year into the coffers of the radical feminists).
The Platform reiterates the phony feminist slogan that "women still earn 76 cents for every dollar that a man earns." That figure includes women who have spent many years out of the workforce and, of those who do have jobs, about a third work only part-time.
The Platform promises to "expand" the Family and Medical Leave Act. "Expanding" means forcing employers to pay wages to employees who are on extended leave at times of their own choosing.
The Democratic Platform goes all-out in recognizing the support of their gay rights constituency. "We support the full inclusion of all families, including same-sex couples, in the life of our nation, and support equal responsibility, benefits, and protections."
The Platform adds, "We oppose the Defense of Marriage Act." Overwhelmingly passed in 1996 to prevent judges from forcing other states to validate Massachusetts' same-sex marriages, DOMA was one of the most popular laws ever passed and it was even signed by Bill Clinton.
Most of the Democratic Platform consists of promising benefits that will cost already burdened taxpayers aplenty. There's no mention of how these extravagant handouts will be paid for.
For example, the Democratic Platform enthusiastically endorses the incredibly extravagant worldwide handouts in the bill sponsored by Barack Obama called "the U.S. Millennium Development Goals, which aim to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015." The Platform promises to "double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012."
The Democrats' mindset is that "we need stronger international institutions." So, the Platform promises to "create a $2 billion Global Education Fund ... with the goal of supporting a free, quality, basic education for every child in the world."
The Democrats want the government to take care of American kids from birth through college. "We will make quality, affordable early childhood care and education available to every American child from the day he or she is born," and "we will provide all our children a world-class education, from early childhood through college."
The Democratic Platform is full of proposals to raid the pockets of John Q. Taxpayer and reduce the American standard of living. This includes "an economy-wide cap and trade program," a plan to "reduce oil consumption by at least 35 percent, or ten million barrels per day, by 2030," and designing legislation based on the belief that "global climate change is the planet's greatest threat."
These expensive plans will require a giant expansion of government money and government jobs. The Democrats must have had this result in mind when they promised they "will make government a more attractive place to work."
There is much more expensive foolishness in the Democratic Platform, but the plank that takes the cake is: "we oppose laws that require identification in order to vote or register to vote." That sounds like the Democrats are planning on winning the 2008 election by stuffing the ballot box.
I've been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our nation. I insisted that we'd never see his like again because he was one of a kind. I was wrong!
Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he's a she. And what a she! In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad's indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media's assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven't heard since my Dad left the scene.
This was Ronald Reagan at his best -- the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as 'The Speech,' which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.
Last night was an extraordinary event. Widely seen beforehand as a make-or-break effort -- either an opportunity for Sarah Palin to show that she was the happy warrior that John McCain assured us she was, or a disaster that would dash McCain's presidential hopes and send her back to Alaska, sadder but wiser.
Obviously un-intimidated by either the savage onslaught to which the left-leaning media had subjected her, or the incredible challenge she faced -- and oozing with confidence -- she strode defiantly to the podium and proved she was everything and even more than John McCain told us.
Much has been made of the fact that she is a woman. What we saw last night, however, was something much more than a just a woman accomplishing something no Republican woman has ever achieved. What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them -- and all her fellow Americans -- on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation's real destination.
In a few words she managed to rip the mask from the faces of her Democratic rivals and reveal them for what they are -- a pair of old-fashioned liberals making promises that cannot be kept without bankrupting the nation and reducing most Americans to the status of mendicants begging for their daily bread at the feet of an all-powerful government.
Most important, by comparing her own stunning record of achievement with his, she showed Barack Obama for the sham that he is, a man without any solid accomplishments beyond conspicuous self-aggrandizement.
Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that's the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors.
Her astonishing rise up from the grass-roots, her total lack of self-importance, and her ordinary American values and modest lifestyle reveal her to be the kind of hard-working, optimistic, ordinary American who made this country the greatest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth.
As hard as you might try, you won't find that kind of plain-spoken, down-to-earth, self-reliant American in the upper ranks of the liberal-infested, elitist Democratic Party, or in the Obama campaign.
Sarah Palin didn't go to Harvard, or fiddle around in urban neighborhood leftist activism while engaging in opportunism within the ranks of one of the nation's most corrupt political machines, never challenging it and going along to get along, like Barack Obama.
Instead she took on the corrupt establishment in Alaska and beat it, rising to the governorship while bringing reforms to every level of government she served in on her way up the ladder.
Welcome back, Dad, even if you're wearing a dress and bearing children this time around.
Everyone I talk to seems to think the president of the United States right now is stupid.
The Bush presidency is stupid speeches, stupid high gas prices, stupid bad economy, stupid war on terrorism, stupid war on drugs, stupid hurricane fixing, stupid global warming, stupid war -- stupid, stupid, stupid.
They all seem to think we need to get a smarter guy in the White House fast, and Bush is so stupid, that task shouldn't be too hard.
I'd like to say that I believe every president in United States history, including the stupid one we have now, is smarter than me. My alma mater is Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth Clown College, so I'm damning with faint praise, but I'm stupider than this here stupid president.
Maybe I'm less stupider than Bush than I'm stupider than Jefferson. But I'm stupider than all the stupid in both of them put together.
The idea, especially from the Democrats that I know, is, we just get a smarter guy in the White House, and all the problems will go away. We'll have smart speeches, smart high gas prices, smart bad economy, smart war on terrorism, smart war on drugs, smart hurricanes, smart global warming, smart war in Georgia -- smart, smart, smart.
Barack Obama is way smarter than Bush -- so way, way smarter than me. Obama is way more charismatic than me. He did his big speech for about 80,000 people; I'll do my show tonight in Vegas for about 1,000 people. He's more ambitious than I; he's going to be the next president of the United States, and I couldn't even get to week three of "Dancing with the Stars."
Obama is a great leader. He can fire people up and get them to do what he wants. He does smart speeches that promise everyone everything they need and make us feel good about our country and how much greater our government could be.
But I don't think our next president being a great leader is a good thing.
I'm worried about someone smarter than Bush taking over that tremendous power. Charisma and ambition increase my fear exponentially, and a great leader scares me to death.
We need someone stupid enough to understand that the president of the United States can't solve many problems without taking away freedom and therefore shouldn't try. The only reason John McCain scares me a little less is because I think he's a little less likely to win. They both promise a government that will watch over us, and I don't like that.
I don't want anyone as president who promises to take care of me. I may be stupid, but I want a chance to try to be a grown-up and take care of my family. Freedom means the freedom to be stupid, and that's what I want. I don't want anyone to feel my pain or tell me to ask what we can do for our country, or give us all money and take care of us.
Gene Healy at the Cato Institute explains that the Founding Fathers wanted the president "to faithfully execute the laws, defend the country from attack and check Congress with the veto power whenever it exceeded its constitutional bounds."
That sounds like plenty to me. You gotta be smarter than me to do all that, but you don't have to be as smart as Obama, and you sure don't have to be a great leader.
Our first seven presidents averaged a bit more than three public speeches a year, and they didn't promise jobs for everyone, day care, dental exams and free stuff.
It's really hard to find someone who trusts Americans to take care of themselves and each other without government force. It's hard to find someone running for president who would be content to be what George Washington humbly called the "chief magistrate."
I think Ron Paul and Bob Barr mean it when they say they want much smaller government. But the government is already big enough, powerful enough and bipartisan enough (and "bi" means exactly two and no more) that Ron and/or Bob won't even be in the debates. People won't even hear someone suggesting that our president should do less and individual citizens should do more for themselves.
The choice shouldn't be which lesser of two evils should have the enormous power of our modern presidents. The question should be, who would do less as president? Who would leave us alone?
If we could find a lazier, less charismatic, stupider person than me to be president, I'd be all for it. But, it's not going to be easy; stupider than me is rare breed.
So remember, the only way to waste your vote is to vote!
By Penn Jillette --
the larger, louder half of Penn & Teller -- is a magician, comedian, actor, author and producer.
Those that care may want to take note of the Israeli flag near the window.
Stand Behind Sarah Palin
Some claim he made a mistake in choosing the Alaska governor. My bet is the reverse — that she’ll turn out to be a big win. Even if I’m wrong, dropping her now would doom him in November. If McCain lets baseless, sexist smears set his course, he’d turn all the good Palin has already done for him, and should do in the weeks ahead, into a negative, demoralizing the GOP base and losing independents.
Understand: Palin is under attack because she was such a good choice.
Remember the Democrats’ central charge on McCain: “He’s a Bush clone.” By choosing Palin, something George Bush would never have done, McCain showed how really different he is.
The old ground rule for picking a running mate was to help the ticket carry a particular state. But Bill Clinton changed the rules when he tapped Al Gore in 1992. Clinton likely would’ve carried Tennessee anyway, but the choice of Gore emphasized the most important feature of Clinton’s candidacy: He was from a new generation and represented a new outlook.
And so Sarah Palin reinforces the most important aspect of the McCain candidacy: Despite 30 years in Washington, he’s an outsider and a dedicated foe of corruption and conflict of interest in government. He’s the one who stands up against pork, earmarks, and lobbyists and backs campaign-finance reform.
Palin brings the same kind of credentials to the ticket. When she speaks tonight and emphasizes her record of reform and her commitment to bring ethical standards to Washington, she’ll strike a deeply resonant chord throughout the nation.
None of the “scandal” reflects ill on Sarah herself. They’re the kind of family issues that bedevil many American women. That the media accords such prominence to them shows how fundamentally differently we treat women and men in politics.
Should she not serve as vice president because her daughter is pregnant? Or her husband had a DWI 20 years ago? Or her sister married a state trooper, who shocked his 11-year-old son with a Taser, leading relatives and friends to think he should be fired? Or because she exercised her legal right to fire the head of the state police when he saw no reason to fire the trooper?
Palin has an extensive public record — with more executive experience than Barack Obama or Joe Biden (or McCain, for that matter). She should be judged on her record, same as a man. If she is, she’ll survive these charges in great style.
And then the backlash will set in. Tens of millions of women have had to confront life experiences akin to Palin’s.
After years of electing plasticized creations of political consultants, we have the chance to vote for a real person with real peoples’ problems. In standing by her, McCain speaks volumes about his attitude toward women and his empathy for those who face family troubles. His loyalty illustrates not just his decency, but his sensitivity and good sense.
All of which illustrates the most fundamental point of this convention: That John McCain is no George W. Bush.
Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: That's Not Funny!
If you think that Muslims burning the Danish Mohammed Cartoons don't have a sense of humor, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Just wait til the Political Correct Commissars catch you laughing at Barack Obama. It's like the old rabid feminists: That's Not Funny!
Mr. Obama is very easily offended, like Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha, who is constantly looking for the smallest slights to his egg-shell fragile ego.
Obama told Maureen Dowd early in the primaries that he is hypersensitive to any remarks about his ears. Obama is offended if you criticize his tough-as-nails lawyer wife -- although Michelle O' is eager to criticize everybody else, including the United States of America. The Obama campaign felt offended when people laughed at the phony US Presidential Seal they tried for one day and then quickly dropped. Flip-flopping? Suh, I resent that remark!
The Obama campaign just loves those Nuremberg-style rock rallies. They're in control. They love thousands of worshipful Obama groupies. They're in control. But they just hate one-on-one Townhall debates because they're not in control. That's why Obama is now going to Europe, where his rockstar brand still has the suckers screaming for joy. There are no tough questions for Obama in Europe. He'll just soak up all that adulation, like Elvis. He loves that worship, he needs it, he thrives on it. Which makes me wonder about Barack Obama, to tell the truth.
Prophets and messiahs are not to be laughed at. They are deadly serious. Laughter brings a sense of sanity and perspective to their pompous pretensions. That is why radical Muslims murder people who laugh at the Prophet Mohammed. Start laughing at this 7th century desert bandit and the whole thing starts to look like a joke. We can't have that. Kill them.
Today in Canada, if you poke fun at Muslim terrorists, like Mark Steyn constantly does, they will bring you up on Kangaroo Court charges. That'll take that smirk off your face. That novel custom is coming to a theater near you soon, as radical Muslims gain more and more influence in the United States. In Europe it's spreading like some plague of knee-jerk seriousness. You can trash Jesus all right, but you diss da Prophet, baby, and your neck ain't safe.
Don't you impugn my patriotism! Suh, you have offended mah wife! Them's fightin' words! Those are classic political lines satirized by the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn and his Barnyard Dawg, a Southern rooster meant to get people laughing at all those stuffy Kentucky Colonels and their Dixiecrat lookalikes. It's all part of a long and great tradition of political laughter in America.
Black people used that tradition to laugh at their tormentors, long before Political Correctness took over. Today, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will get you fired from your job if you giggle at the wrong thing.
The American cartoon film is one of our great contributions to the cause of human laughter.
All the great cartoons laugh at the powerful on behalf of the weak: Tweety Bird laughs at Sylvester the Cat. Bugs Bunny laughs at Elmer Fudd. Alfred E. Newman laughs at ...
Ooops! I apologize. Didn't mean it. I'm sorry. I'll never do it again. I'll go to my sensitivity training now, shall I?
Snicker.
By James Lewis
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Democrats and Muslims, Not Much Difference - which may explain the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama
History reveals an important but unfortunate truth. During every war waged by a democratic society, members of the media and political opponents of the existing government have been quick to portray on-going military actions to deconstruct the nation’s sworn enemies as either (1), tactical mistakes causing unnecessary collateral damage, or (2), another example of brutal atrocities against peace-loving peoples and the rest of humanity – or both. Judging from the current Congressional and Main Stream Media antics, the 21st Century is off to an inauspicious start.
Let us also not forget those politicians in the United States, Great Britain and Canada, past and present, who, with the United Nations, have never missed an opportunity to appease a potent enemy, whether the now defunct Soviet Union, or the latest incarnation of Islam (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah, Syria, and Hamas), or North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and soon Mexico.
It is remarkable how quickly politicians and media wannabes publicly criticize their own government, more often than not shifting blame to the current administration for Congress’ flawed decision making. Because of the media’s ignorance or ideology (redundant), Congress gets a “free pass.” Those who criticize the loudest are often the very people who are most unwilling to abide by the decision of the majority in a democracy, or live by existing laws. You can undoubtedly name several politicians who refuse to support the duly elected leadership, or at least acquiesce for a short period of time until the next election. Instead of carping and obstructing, they should be working industriously on various issues for the benefit of United States citizens. Instead these same politicians become obsessed with accumulating personal wealth while displaying self-righteous indignation about corruption in front of a camera at every opportunity – case in point, Senator John McCain.
What would it take for Congress to rededicate their productive efforts toward working for the best interests of the nation rather than self interest? Many have suggested that only a citizen insurrection (figuratively or literally) will restore excellence, initiative and integrity to Congress. The first reform step needed would be to deny elected public servants the opportunity to profit and accumulate personal wealth from campaign contributions at the expense of taxpayers while in office. Only then will we restore the representative republic that was once the United States of America. Only then will people undertake public service not solely motivated by becoming obscenely wealthy.
Until that day in another lifetime, unprincipled political opportunists unwilling to wait for the next opportunity to vote, will continue to undermine the will of the people and subvert their own fragile democracy in the pursuit of self interest. Without any semblance of shame, many Congressmen openly engage in undermining the domestic and foreign policies of those who occupy the highest political offices. This is no less a warfare tactic than that used by proponents of Islam. A close study of both would reveal how similar they are.
Unfortunately, lumpen are most frequently the victims of propaganda and slick political deceit. Lumpen uniformly fail to recognize that the majority of politicians really don’t care about winning any war – a mindset so callous that it winds up costing the lives of young men and women. Nor do liberals care about right or wrong or what is at stake. Theirs is an ideology. The word “team” should be an antonym of the word “liberal.” There is no “I” in the word “team.” Liberals, by their intellectual wiring, want desperately to be in charge, whether in a corporation, a small company, the homeowners association, the city government, the state government or Congress. Ballots are full of liberal candidates seeking control over the lives of others – the name of the political party is irrelevant. As an aside, conservatives typically don’t seek public office.
Liberals are uniformly confident in their belief that we would all be better off if we lived our lives and raised our children according to their standards. They are only too glad to impose rules on the rest of us – standards of egalitarian equality achieved by redistributing all income, education, medicine, transportation, and housing among the bottom 50% of wage earners who pay no taxes, plus lavish corporate benefactors with earmarks in return for campaign contributions. As for liberals, it is their pathological desire to be among the elite in a class-structured society. It is all about power, stupid – their power and our servitude! In fact, if I were to ask what best describes a conservative who works like a liberal; you would have to respond, “A lazy bastard.”
Democracy is so inconvenient to liberals who are sure, in spite of history and lack of fact-based education, that they are correct on all social issues. Just look at the courts and make a note who among our citizens advocates judicial activism. Try to appreciate how many decisions have been taken away from the American people – democracy denied – regarding religion, abortion, school choice, enforcement of immigration, voting rights, marriage, welfare, freedom of speech, private property, gun ownership, pledge of allegiance, competition for jobs or a college education, equal standards of performance by everyone in the same job regardless of race or gender, etc. None of these issues are within the jurisdiction of the courts and most of these issues are not the prerogative of the federal government. Even organizations such as the Education Department and FEMA are outside the scope of federal authority under the U.S. Constitution – as is Foreign Aid and corporate welfare. Now it has come to pass that the media, politicians and federal courts are dictating military strategy, tactics and morality to the Executive Branch – again interfering in matters outside their constitutional scope of authority.
We have watched numb in horror as the media glories in the deaths of American soldiers, displaying the numbers and changing the totals the way a gas station displays changes in prices. The media does it because they know it horrifies every real American. Congressmen engage in the same behavior, trumpeting the numbers from behind a microphone, ignoring the fact that it was Congress (not the President) who sent (authorized and funded) the U.S. Armed Forces intervention first in Viet Nam and now in the Middle East. This duplicity is an intentional liberal tactic of disunion and reveals how little value politicians place on the lives of American servicemen and women – which it turns out, is about the same as the value Hezbollah (Islam) places on the lives of civilians.
All of this carnage is intentionally “in your face.” It is cynically intended to create an alternate reality, to portray to you who should have been in charge of this over-sized homeowner’s association from the outset. It is also meant to show us that we were wrong to elect who we did. While supremely confident that everything would have been much different and much better if it wasn’t for your and my ignorant mistakes voting for the wrong people, liberals in general and the Democratic Party in particular, work diligently to undermine the current administration and democracy itself. If only there was a more eloquent word than “despicable” to convey the disdain all American’s should feel toward such people – the same people who refuse to secure our nation’s borders or protect American jobs.
Add to this inauspicious group of subversives a large number of uneducated and unelected members of the main-stream-media who live in a rabbit hole of reality, each born with various and sundry body parts but few with a brain or a spine. I am speaking specifically of the visual and print news media, and the sports and entertainment industries, whose representatives speak and behave as if they would like nothing more that to engineer an outcome in which America loses this conflict with Islam. Hollywood seems incapable of understanding that if our nation loses, we all lose, and those that have the most will lose the most. And Israel will lose it all – first. Never mind their disproportionate intellectual contributions to humanity. Unless we play to lose this event in history called “The Islamic Wars” by the rules of engagement of the Democratic Party, these wing nuts will defiantly disrupt yours and my fight for liberty, and deny our very survival. If you won’t agree to do it their way, to lose, they will see to it that you cannot win – not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in our economy, schools, and courts.
Do memories of Senators Kennedy, Kerry, Durbin, Pelosi, Rangel, Reid and Murtha come to mind – and on any given day, even John McCain? What about the Dixie Chicks, Rosie O’Donnell, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, Barbara Streisand, Danny Glover and George Soros?
In all fairness, there are a number of legitimate questions regarding policies and actions of the CIA, Defense and State Department leading up to the Islamic Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is also current disturbing evidence of their appalling political unwillingness to decisively win at any cost, and in doing so preserve the lives of young American soldiers.
Whether emanating from Congress or the Administration, hardly a day goes by that we don’t think something was a lame-brain decision. However, to disagree with the Islamic Wars or some aspect of United States foreign policy is one thing, but such disagreement should not make any American want to become a New York Times subversive or leak classified information out of the State Department or CIA. Most citizens (those that care) recognize that intentionally revealing vital intelligence, or limiting intelligence collection, will result in the deaths of even more American soldiers and civilians.
Those unfortunate human beings who proudly undermine the elected administration mistakenly claim to be Americans. They see themselves as defenders of democracy, when in fact their actions repudiate their own American birthright and disavow democracy. One thing is certain; these people represent the finest socialist traditions and constitute the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Some have the distinction of being a growing cancer in the Republican Party. Let history record that Congressmen don’t care a hoot about our sons or daughters. In fact, their unwillingness to abide by any democratic process and the will of the people for four short years arguably demonstrates they should not be entitled to call themselves Americans.
We seriously doubt that the concept of being an “American” is understood by the majority of the Democratic Party. We doubt that there is anything in life greater than “self” to a liberal – and we repeatedly hear that nothing associated with American culture or nationalism is worth defending. To their eternal shame, Democrats fail to see any difference between Islam and Christianity. Therein is the divide. We fail to see much difference today between Democrats and radical Muslims, either in ideology or tactics. Maybe there is none and the rest of us should respond accordingly.
Red State Patriot
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Unstamped certificate suggests Obama may not be "natural born" US citizen
The "birth certificate" claimed by the Barack Obama campaign is not certified as authentic and appears to be a photoshopped fake.
The image, purporting to come from the Hawaii Department of Health, has been the subject of intense skepticism in the blogosphere in the past two weeks. But now the senior spokesman of that Department has confirmed to Israel Insider what are the required features of a certified birth document -- features that Obama's purported "birth certificate" clearly lack.
The image became increasingly suspect with Israel Insider's revelation that variations of the certificate image were posted on the Photobucket image aggregation website -- including one listing the location of Obama's birth as Antarctica, one with the certificate supposedly issued by the government of North Korea, and another including a purported photo of baby Barack -- one of which has a "photo taken" time-stamp just two minutes before the article and accompanying image was posted on the left-wing Daily Kos blog.
That strongly suggests that Daily Kos obtained the image from Photobucket, not the State of Hawaii, the Obama family, or the Obama campaign. Photobucket is not generally known as a credible supplier of official vital records for any of the fifty states, and the liberties that other Photoshoppers took with the certificates confirms this.
Some of these oddities surfaced in Israel Insider's previous article on the subject, but new comparative documentary evidence presented below, and official verification obtained by Israel Insider from a senior Hawaiian official, provides the strongest confirmation yet.
An authentic Hawaiian birth certificate for another Hawaiian individual has since surfaced which, using the same official form as the presumptive Obama certificate, includes an embossed official seal and an authoritative signature, coming through from the back. Obama's alleged certificate lacks those features, and the certificate number referencing the birth year has been blacked out, making it untraceable.
Janice Okubo, Director of Communications of the State of Hawaii Department of Health, told Israel Insider: "At this time there are no circumstances in which the State of Hawaii Department of Health would issue a birth certification or certification of live birth only electronically." And, she added, "In the State of Hawaii all certified copies of certificates of live birth have the embossed seal and registrar signature on the back of the document."
Compare the top image presented by his campaign as evidence of Obama's 1961 birth and the other certifying the birth of one Patricia Decosta.
So if he were registered as being born in Hawaii, Barack Obama -- because only he or another member of his immediate family could by law request a "Certification of Live Birth" -- must have a certified paper copy, with embossed stamp and seal, or he could request one. But what his campaign has put forward as genuine, according to the senior spokesman in the relevant department of the State of Hawaii, is not in fact a certified copy. It is not valid.
Whereas the uncertified Obama document provides the date "filed by registrar", the certified DeCosta document provides the date "accepted by the registrar." The difference between filing an application for a Certification of Live Birth and having it accepted may be key here.
The Obama campaign, however, continues to flaunt the unstamped, unsealed, uncertified document -- notably in very low resolution -- on its "Fight the Smears" website, with campaign officials vowing that it's authentic, sending the image around as "proof" to reporters, and inviting supporters to refer to it as they battle against supposed distortions and calumnies against their candidate. However, the campaign refuses to produce an authentic original birth certificate from the year of Obama's birth, or even a paper version with seal and signature of the "Certification of Live Birth." Nor has it even published an electronic copy with the requisite embossed seal and signature.
The failure of the Obama campaign to do so, and its willingness instead to put up an invalid, uncertified image -- what now appears to be a crude forgery -- raises the dramatic question of why the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate might have to hide.
Until now, it has been thought that there might be some embarrassing information on the real certificate: was the candidate's name something other than Barack Hussein Obama II, as it is claimed? Was no father listed because of the uncertainty over Obama's paternity? Was his father's race listed as Arab, or Muslim, rather than African? These revelations might be embarrassing, and further undermine his credibility, but he could disavow and downplay their significance. Would revealing such embarrassment outweigh the far greater risks involved in perpetuating a palpable forgery, or passing off an uncertified official document as being certified?
There is one possibility, however, which alone might justify the risk that Obama and his campaign seems to be taking in putting forward the uncertified document image: Obama was not in fact born in Hawaii and may not be an American citizen at all, or at least not a "natural born citizen" as the Constitution defines the requirement for the nation's chief executive. Real original birth certificates, circa 1961, have all kinds of verifiable information that would confirm Obama's origins, or throw them into doubt should they be lacking.
Research has since uncovered the law, in force at the time of Obama's birth, that were he to have been born in another country, his young American mother's youth extended time abroad would not suffice to make him a "natural born citizen." Even if he were naturalized later -- and there is no evidence that he was -- he would not be eligible to run for the office of president and -- if forgery or misrepresentation were involved -- he and his staffers might find themselves facing stiff federal and state charges.
But if, at this late date, Obama has no proof of being a US citizen by law, natural born or otherwise, then he or his advisers may be tempted to try to "tough out" the allegations about his "birth certificate" or the lack thereof. He and his campaign have gotten through other embarrassments: maybe this one will go away, too.
Because the consequences were he to admit, or should it come out, that he was not born in Hawaii would be so grave as to make it tempting to take the gamble and hope that no one dares call his most audacious bluff by demanding proof. Talk about the audacity of hope.
But now the State of Hawaii has dashed those hopes by clarifying that a certified birth certificate must have an embossed seal and signature, features his claimed birth certificate image lack.
The longer Obama waits, the graver grow the consequences of waiting.
There is one simple way for the candidate to clear up the issue once and for all: produce for public inspection and objective analysis the paper copy of his original Hawaiian birth certificate -- if one exists. If he's lost the original, he can request a certified copy. Ordinary citizens are required to produce one to get a passport or a driver's license. Surely it's not too much to ask from a man who aspires to hold the highest office in the land.
The issue is not whether Obama is black or white, Christian or Muslim. It is whether he was born in the USA and thus a citizen eligible according to the Constitution to run for President.
If proof of citizenship does not exist, then surely it would be wiser to admit it now.
Because if Barack Hussein Obama II does not produce definitive proof of his "natural born" American citizenship with original, verifiable documents, he will be setting the stage for a very public battle over his personal credibility, the basic legitimacy of his candidacy, and its possible criminality.
UPDATE 6/26:
Janice Okubo, in response to an Israeli Insider question on Tuesday, would not confirm nor deny whether she had told a St. Petersburg Times reporter whether she had said the birth certificate was "real", citing the statutory stipulation that "Hawaii state law (HRS §338-18) prevents disclosure of information contained in vital statistics records except to those people who have a direct and tangible interest in the record as defined by statute." This would, however, seem to negate the propriety of any disclosure by her of confidential information.
Jim Geraghty of The National Review Online, following up on this Israel Insider report, said he had contacted Okubo:
"I spoke to Ms. Okubo late Wednesday afternoon, and she said she had seen the version of Obama's certificate of live birth posted on the sites. While her office cannot verify the information on a form without the permission of the certificate holder (Obama), she said "the form is exactly the same" and it has 'all the components of a birth certificate' record issued by the state. In other words, she sees no reason to think the version posted on Obama's web site and Daily Kos is not genuine."
"The 'embossed seal' in question is, she said, probably on the back of the document provided to Daily Kos, but not visible (as in another certificate posted on Israel Insider for contrast). She thinks the difference in visibility can be attributed to the pressure used when applying the seal."
Geraghty's interpretation of Okubo's comments is inexact and tendentious. First, her observation that "the form is the same" is not contested, here or elsewhere. No one is doubting that the form that appears on the various websites (including this one) is a replica of that used for valid certificates. Therefore Geraght's interpretation that follows "In other words" is clearly his own conclusion, not hers.
Indeed, Okubo confirms to Geraghty that the image is lacking the "embossed seal" (and the official signature) that are required for the certificate to be valid. While "she thinks" that the difference in visibility might be attributed to varying "pressure," she admits that she does not know and has not seen the original.
Contrasting the purported Obama image with the DeCosta sample, it is hard to imagine the embossed seal and signature being of such light pressure that they would become completely invisible. An inked date of June 6, 2007, in reverse, does come through. But in any event, Okubo's confirmation that the premsumptive birth certificate is lacking the required stamps makes it all the more imperative for Obama to release the original paper certification, the only valid kind, and not an easy-to-photoshop electronic facsimile thereof. It should not be hard to produce, since Hawaii provides for family members to request them.
Even though Geraghy notes that Obama "initially refused to provide his birth certificate," he has suggested that it is "rather unlikely" that Obama was born in Kenya, since it would require that the candidate and his family do a lot of lying. In fact, there were reports of Kenyati relatives claiming he was born there, and there is the mysterious disappearance of his grandmother, who may indeed know something about this subject.
After all, being born in Hawaii is part of the "family legend" and it would be unreasonable to expect this to vary from interview to interview, especially when a non-Hawaiian birth would invalidate Obama's run for the presidency.
It is indeed hard to believe that Obama could have gone through his life without having to prove that he was an American citizen. But the credulity with which the mainstream media has automatically accepted as valid the image that appears on the radical left Daily Kos blog and on the Obama campaign's polemical "Fight the Smears" website makes it clear that many have been unwilling, now and in the past, to demand proof of an authentic document. They prefer to accept on faith that the candidate or his campaign would not lie about such a thing, assuming he has nothing to hide and no motive to lie.
But until the certified paper birth document is produced -- either by media pressure or a legal challenge in any state -- the fact remains that Obama has not proven that he is a "natural born citizen" eligible to be President according to the Constitution.
By Reuven Koret June 24, 2008
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12939.htm
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A new video on YouTube (above) is taking the Internet by storm. Entitled "I'm Voting Republican," the satirical clip depicts actors playing conservative Americans of all shapes and sizes explaining why they would vote for the GOP.
"Arnold Jones" says he's voting Republican because "all other countries are inferior to us" -- and his wife, "Trudy Jones," adds, "and we should start as many wars as we need to keep it that way." A soldier in Iraq states that he's voting Republican "so I can stay in Iraq" -- and a young boy, labeled "future draftee," points a fake gun at the camera and smiles while saying "so I can go to Iran!"
A black couple says they're voting Republican because they "like a conservative majority on the Supreme Court," with the wife noting, "we really like knowing that even if we're separate, we'll still be called equal."
This insulting nonsense is precisely what liberals think of conservatives: We're all warmongers, racists, environmental rapists and secret emissaries of big corporations. We're going to reinstitute the draft, start a war with Canada and then relocate African-Americans to Quebec.
This sort of tripe should be dismissed out of hand. In the spirit of evenhandedness and fair play, however, I feel it my duty to explain why I'm going to vote Democrat.
I'm voting Democrat because I believe that the best strategy in war is defeat. It broadens the mind to learn Japanese, German and Arabic. Talk about multiculturalism!
I'm voting Democrat because I'm mad that George W. Bush hasn't caught Bin Laden. That's because Bin Laden is the only Islamic terrorist in the world.
I'm voting Democrat because I believe that if I don't have enough money, the solution is for the government to take more of my money. Who needs money when gas is $5 per gallon?
I'm voting Democrat because I believe that the ideal family is two homosexual bonobos, a goat and a parrot raising a human baby. Love and compassion is all it takes to make a successful family!
I'm voting Democrat because it's my body, and if I want to kill my baby, I'll do it, even if its head is in the birth canal. If I want to cut out my intestines and feed them to the crocodiles, I'll do that too. That's the freedom our forefathers enshrined in the Constitution.
I'm voting Democrat because our enemies on the battlefield deserve comfy hotel rooms, Pay-Per-View, prostitutes and all the benefits of American citizenship.
I'm voting Democrat because I believe we need other countries' permission for me to turn down my thermostat.
I'm voting Democrat because I care about the real victims of crime -- criminals.
I'm voting Democrat because the real cure for racism includes preferential policies based on race -- particularly in presidential voting. If you believe that a black candidate ought to be qualified, as well as black, you're worse than Bull Conner.
I'm voting Democrat because everyone deserves crappy healthcare. Sure, you'll have to wait years for that life-saving cancer surgery. But it's first come, first served at the cemetery!
I'm voting Democrat because I believe in minority rights (except in Muslim countries), free speech (with regard to pornography but not conservative talk radio), environmentalism (unless we're talking about Al Gore's house) and diplomacy (but never backed by the threat of military force).
I'm voting Democrat because I like the words "hope" and "change." Also "kazoo." That's a funny word.
I'm voting Democrat because I believe that America's founders were rich, white, greedy xenophobes, and that America's founding principles are hogwash requiring periodic editing from an unelected group of liberal judges.
Most of all, I'm voting Democrat because I like the ideas they have over in France, but I don't feel like moving there. I'll threaten to move, but I really won't. After all, I have a good job, healthcare, lower taxes, free speech and a social framework that promotes family structure. And all of it is defended by the most effective fighting force on the planet.
If only the institution of far-left values resulted in a great country. Oh, well. That won't stop me from voting Democrat, though. After all, I'm voting Democrat because thought isn't one of my strong suits.
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Is it just me or when John McCain spoke at his "townhall" event last night, did most audience members look like they were silently trying to pass kidney stones? McCain gave a substantive analysis of the situation in Iraq but then he veered dreadfully off course once he turned to other matters.
On the rise in energy costs:
"I believe there needs to be a thorough and complete investigation of speculators to find out whether speculation has been going on and, if so, how much it has affected the price of a barrel of oil," McCain said. Hello! It's called commodities trading, it exists, and it's a vital part of the market economy.
"I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they've made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil ... They're making huge profits and that happens, but not to say, 'We're in this so we can over time eliminate America's dependence on foreign oil,' I think is an abrogation of their responsibilities as citizens."
For the record, Big Oil's profit margin has averaged 8.1% over the last five years. Meanwhile, beverage makers -- the industry to which he and his wife owe their fortune -- average 19% margins.
McCain spent what could have been hours -- I blacked out after the first fifteen minutes -- reeling off the names of Democrats he's had high-profile love affairs with over the years. Lieberman, Kennedy, Feingold, it just kept going and going and going. He talked about the good old days when Ronald Reagan held Tip O'Neill's hand and together they they raised Social Security taxes. He hopes to do something similar with Nancy Pelosi.
If I were advising Obama, after seeing last night I would agree to as many townhalls as McCain wants.
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------------------------
Response from David R.:
Waves of nausea overwhelm me. Is there anything I can take to alleviate the feeling of impending doom? I feel like our choice is between Lydon Johnson, and Lyndon LaRouche.
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Response from Ken D.
This man is senescent, ill advised or both.
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Response from Fritz B.
I have been of the opinion that he is taking some of these positions regarding big oil, global warming and hugging democrats as a campaign strategy. If both candidates look a lot alike on voters key issues, then only the war and taxes separate them. For me I would want him in office to veto tax increases or we will become the leading socialist country overnight with Obama and Pelosi. The next 10 years are going to be very tough. I would prefer that we plow into the energy problem rather than sit around Washington and blame big oil.
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Response from Denny S:
FYI: Conservatives are a rare breed in the San Francisco Bay Area. My friend that sent this photo is from Napa, where (at last count) there were 80 possible and 41 confirmed conservatives out of 150,000 people.
Also, this election is not about McCain, it is about Obama mama, as the country still does not know what Obama Hussein is all about. I think that some Democrats will get uncomfortable with Obama after more is known about the guy. But, liberals will vote for Obama no matter what.
Seems like the last election. We are either voting against someone, or voting for the lessor of two evils.
Where are the "energy policy" politicians, when we need them? We have not had "energy policy" for 30 years. The last nuclear plant was built in 1978, and goodness knows when the last refinery was built in the US?
Speaking of that, McCain needs to go to economic and oil school. This country desperately needs to start drilling on both coasts, in Alaska, and start building some nuclear plants while we learn how to switch over to other alternative energies. The Sun (solar) and Hydrogen are the obvious bets, but those energies won't be feasible for decades.
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-------------------- Response from Bob H.:
We have always had an energy policy. Simple—CHEAP ENERGY. As for drilling and building nukes and refineries, the lead time runs from 7 to 20 years. Good luck thinking we could be energy independent any time in our children’s’ lifetimes.
-------------------- Response from Marty D.:
Aside from McCain's obvious inclinations, John McCain is now irrevocably on record favoring ever-increasing government control of the nation's economy. Maybe the most significant revelation in John McCain's townhall rhetoric was confirmation of his profound economic ignorance and dangerous socialist propensities - probably explaining much of the last 20 years of McCain's ill-advised legislation in Congress (which effectively reduced the U.S. Constitution to the status of toilet tissue). Clearly we're witnessing a descending ladder of presidential competency .... Reagan (40), Bush (41), Clinton (42), Bush (43), and in the vernacular, WTF (44).
--------------------- Response from Pam T.:
I am packing up and moving to Pakistan.... or some island somewhere.
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WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU DON'T LIKE ANY OF THESE CANDIDATES
Hillary Clinton. John McCain. Barack Obama. Those are our choices for the next president of the United States. Are you happy with that selection? If not, what is your alternative? As the saying goes, “The lesser of two evils is still evil.”
Beyond the presidential race we have congressional candidates, governors, state legislators, county commissioners, mayors, and city council candidates. Are you happy with whom the parties have chosen to offer for election? If not, what’s your alternative?
The real issues of the day are not even being addressed in the campaigns. The falling dollar that will render our money worthless; the rising gas prices that grab the last of our worthless money; the invasion of illegal aliens that are changing our society; the globalization of our economy; assaults on our private property; the loss of American jobs to foreign countries; and now the threat of food shortages.
These are real problems facing every American, yet it is apparently politically incorrect to discuss them. There are no questions concerning these issues during debates, on Sunday morning political talk shows, or anywhere in the news media in relationship to the candidates. It’s not there. Not to be discussed. The powers in charge are picking the issues – no matter how frustrated the electorate is.
Is it any wonder that there are millions of Americans who don’t vote or participate in our nation’s debate because they think it doesn’t matter anyway. The “average voter” increasingly feels that the decisions have been made for them.
College students, just starting out in the world, wide eyed and ready to make a difference, end up just shrugging their shoulders at the selection of candidates and stay home.
Those who hold conservative points of view that our nation should live within the Constitution now believe socialism is inevitable, so why bother going to the polls.
And the poor think they are simply pawns in a vice grip between big money and special interests which control the elections. Why bother? Helplessness now rules the world’s greatest representative democracy. As people stay home or trudge to the polls to unenthusiastically vote to the next lesser of two evils, 93% of incumbents are routinely returned to office – year after year after year.
The instant a candidate is elected and joins the ranks of the incumbents he/she begins the dance. Get the money for the next campaign. How? Special interests groups, corporations and foreign interests flood into their offices to make deals, promote their personal agendas and show the way to fame, fortune and perpetual office – if only the incumbents go along. They have the whole process well in hand. Campaigns become little more than big PR projects, promoted in positive platitudes, specifically designed to assure nothing negative sticks. Just get through it and keep the gravy train running.
Above all, do not talk about controversial subjects like dollar values, global trade or immigration; just stick to issues like health care and the environment – coincidentally, two issues bought and paid for by the special interests. See how it works?
So year after year we officially hold elections and politicians pontificate about how our going to the polls is a revered right; a valued tradition; the underpinning of a free society. And they wonder why there is such division in the nation. How did we end up in such a mess? We voted for these guys. But did we enjoy it? Are we satisfied with the results? Would we like to demand a do over?
Don’t despair. Don’t give up. There is a logical, effective way out of this. But it won’t happen by depending on political parties to lead the way. We have to take things into our own hands. We need an effective, binding form of protest to say NO to bad candidates. There is such a way.
Imagine going into the voting booth and looking down the list of candidates offered. None really appeal. None seem to offer satisfaction as an answer to the issues that concern you. If only there was something else you could do. A write in won’t help. It would take such a difficult, expensive effort. It rarely works.
Then you look further down the ballot. Something new. It says “NONE OF THE ABOVE.” It’s a final choice after the candidates – after the candidates in every category, from president, to congress to city council. What does it mean?
It means you have the power to decide who will hold office – not the power brokers. When the votes are tallied, if “NONE OF THE ABOVE” gets a majority of votes over any of the candidates listed, then “NONE OF THE ABOVE” wins. And that means none of those candidates will win the office. The election will have to be held again and new candidates will have to try to win the public’s support.
Fixing the election process could be that simple. You, the voter, would be completely in the driver’s seat with the power to reject candidates, forcing a new election with new choices. The political parties would be forced to provide candidates the people want -- or face being rejected. They would have to talk about real issues – or face being rejected. Incumbents would have to answer for their actions in office – or face being rejected.
“NONE OF THE ABOVE.” Period. The power of labor unions and international corporations would be broken.
Think of the consequences. No longer would voters have to settle for the lesser of two evils. If all the candidates are bad – none would be able to force their way into office. It would mean that powerful special interests could no longer rely on their money to buy elections. They could buy all the ads they wanted, spend millions on “volunteers” going door to door, and sling their dirt, but if the voters aren’t buying, none of it will save their candidate from being rejected by “NONE OF THE ABOVE.”
Moreover, the power of entrenched incumbents who have been unbeatable because of their massive war chests and party ties would be broken. Picture Ted Kennedy unable to run for office because he was rejected by “NONE OF THE ABOVE.”
However, in order to work, “NONE OF THE ABOVE” would have to be binding. It would have to have the power of law behind it. It cannot be just a “protest” vote that has no other meaning.
“NONE OF THE ABOVE” is completely non-partisan. There is no way to control its outcome. There is no need for a massive campaign chest to support “NONE OF THE ABOVE,” although it could certainly be done. But the option, once permanently placed on the ballot, would always be there. America’s representative system would be restored.
To get the job done, activists in every state would have to begin a campaign to demand that “NONE OF THE ABOVE” be given a permanent spot on the ballot. It would have to be done state by state. Some states have ballot referendums and initiatives using petition drives to get an issue on the ballot so the people can decide. It’s difficult and expensive to do, but popular ideas have a chance.
In other states, “NONE OF THE ABOVE” advocates would have to find a friendly state representative or senator to introduce the idea before the state legislature and then get enough votes to pass it in both houses and then signed by the governor. And if the effort is successful then every one of those legislators is an incumbent who will have to face “NONE OF THE ABOVE” or the ballot for their re-election. They probably won’t be too excited about the idea.
Of course, one of their main objections to the “NONE OF THE ABOVE” idea would be the requirement for holding a new election should it win. Too expensive, our responsible public servants would say as they dismissed the idea. The fact is, such a need would probably not arise often once political power brokers began to understand that they must offer candidates acceptable to the people rather than to the special interests. That’s all they really have to do. It’s all we want.
The fact is, the idea of “NONE OF THE ABOVE” has been around for a long time. Over the years, most states have had some kind of legislation introduced supporting the concept. Nevada actually has it on the ballot – but it is not binding. It doesn’t force a new election. It is just a measure of protest. That’s not good enough to make it effective.
One of the reasons it has not been successful is because there has never been a serious national drive to promote the idea. However, with the growing dissatisfaction voters are feeling with the quality of candidates running for public office, particularly in the presidential campaign, perhaps there has never been a better time to start a national discussion on the issue.
The best part is that “NONE OF THE ABOVE” isn’t a conservative or liberal idea. It’s not a Republican of Democrat proposal. In fact, Republican leadership might see it as a good way to break the back of big labor’s influence over elections. Equally, Democrats could see it as a way to stop the power and influence of the Republican’s big business money. However they want to look at it, the bottom line is that the voters win.
So as we sigh and moan over the choices of Obama, Hillary and McCain, let’s start the debate and as Larry the Cable Guy says, “let’s get ‘er done.” Perhaps by the next election cycle we won’t have to take it anymore!
Tom DeWeese
May 30, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
http://www.newswithviews.com/DeWeese/tom111.htm
Tom DeWeese is president of the American Policy Center
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From Audacity of Hope:
'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.' --- Barak (blessed in Arabic) Hussein (son-in-law of Mohammed, founder of the Shiite's) Obama.
Hat tip: David R.
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John McCain stated in the Republican debates at the Reagan Library that people can judge him by the company he keeps. Well let's take a little look at the people John McCain considers his "company".
Read on for the facts - instead of promises and disrespect for your intelligence. In fact, let's apply John McCain's admonition and judge every candidate by the company that they keep.
There's Senator Ted Kennedy from the McCain-Kennedy immigration amnesty bill.
Senator Lindsey Graham who once called those opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens "bigots" at a La Raza conference.
Senator Mel Martinez an open borders proponent who favors amnesty and was a coauthor of the Hagel-Martinez amnesty bill prior to the McCain-Kennedy bill. Martinez once called enforcement without amnesty a "harshness only" approach.
Juan Hernandez, a former Mexican government official, a dual citizen and major proponent of rights and amnesty for Hispanic illegal aliens and the end of the sovereignty of America. He currently is working on the McCain campaign as his Hispanic Outreach Director.
Congressman Luis Gutierrez, a good friend of La Raza, who has put forth his own legislation for illegal aliens called the STRIVE act and was involved in formulating the amnesty bills. In addition he personally put forth a bill to give Elvira Arellano permanent residency - this was before she hid out in a church. He also called the police on a group of citizen lobbyists who came to question him on his stance on illegal immigration.
Senator Russ Feingold who was half of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform fiasco.
Joe Lieberman, who together with McCain brought forth the McCain-Lieberman Stewardship bill to fight global warming.
Former Senator John Edwards who along with McCain and Kennedy wrote the McCain-Edwards "Patient's Bill of Rights".
Are you starting to see a pattern here? Lots of Democrats and Republicans (who are really Liberals) working together with McCain. This is the company he keeps and asks us to judge him by.
McCain will state that he is a "Reagan Republican", but nothing could be further from the truth. There's working together and then there is outright "being a member of the other party". Things to watch out for with McCain include the passing and implementation of the "fairness doctrine". Something that would censor and shut down talk radio stations, websites like this one and limit free speech in the United States. You don't think he'd sign it? Just watch him!
Watch the above video and tell me this is someone who really is looking out for the American people and not just some illegal foreigners, big business and future Democrat voters.
Comments are welcome at redstatepatriot@hughes.net. Please include the title of the article as your subject line. Selected responses, in whole or part, may be published (appended to the article).
Comments are welcome at redstatepatriot@hughes.net. Please include the title of the article as your subject line. Selected responses, in whole or part, may be published (appended to the article).
The Presidential election of 2008 is the most important event facing our nation this year. Quite naturally, our attention is focused not only on the candidates, but the many challenges and issues, both domestic and international, that the next President will have to deal with. Concerning these issues, we all have our ideas and potential solutions and on this site as well as others, we have the opportunity to discuss them.
While there are many different opinions expressed, a common point missing in these discussions is how we can make these solutions happen. The truth of the matter is that the elites who control the two major parties are not listening to "we the people". Sure, they say that they are, and at every opportunity, they are quick to mention the Constitution or the rule of law or the will of the people. These phrases however, have become sound bites brought out at the appropriate TV moment to enhance their election prospects. Once in power however, they quickly ignore what they promised.
The two major parties have engineered the election process to assure themselves continued power. Using the propaganda machines of the DEM/GOP/MSM, they have cleverly duped the American people to ensure their hold on power by using two tactics.
The first involves the old technique of telling a lie over and over until it becomes accepted as true. The lie is that only "they" have the necessary wisdom, knowledge, and experience to govern. The American people have been convinced that there are no other choices, nowhere else to go. If you think about it, you will easily recognize the old lesser of two evils idea, that we must hold our nose and vote for one of them, the Democrat or the Republican. We are constantly told that any other action is a wasted vote.
The second tactic used to keep power among the elites is to divide the nation into opposing camps of liberal and conservative. The divide and conquer technique is probably older than the big lie one. In this case, they have set up the Democrats as being liberal, and the Republicans as being conservative. When writing legislation, the two sides fight each other to enact their version.
What this immense concentration of power in our politics has given us is extreme partisanship rather than leadership that develops creative and innovative thinking. In many cases, a real solution to any problem is not always so one-sided. The partisanship however, has become so severe that neither side is willing to consider the ideas of the other, and the end result is usually ineffective legislation that produces no long term solution and winds up wasting time, money, and resources.
The fact is that government of the people, by the people, for the people, has been usurped by the elites who run the show. Both parties have been infected by the internationalist mindset that sees an eventual new world order, a one world government dedicated to creating the elite version of a socialist utopia. This attitude has become so prevalent that the Democrat Party has moved further left than ever before and now embraces the EU Democratic Socialist model of governing. The GOP has also moved left, now occupying the space formerly held by the "regular" liberal Democrats. One need only look at the positions of the current Presidential candidates being offered to us by the Democrat and Republican parties.
The policies being presented by both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton reflect hard core socialist views, with more taxation and regulation. Their positions on health care and education are only the tip of the iceberg. The Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, is the author of a variety of leftist ideas such as McCain/Feingold, the No Child Left Behind Act, the comprehenisive immigration reform act, along with his other congressional votes. The overt lack of any Constitutional authority to implement these policies is not even a passing thought to any of the elites in both parties.
Our precious birthright, given to us by the founding fathers, envisioned a nation of free men and women. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to give us an inheritance of freedom to make our own choices and to pursue our own personal vision of happiness. They did not guarantee an outcome, only an opportunity. That inheritance has been stolen from us by the elites who now control our government and the two major parties.
There cannot be any real solution to the challenges ahead without a basic, even extreme restructuring of the power base in our politics. The hold that the two major parties have on power must be broken before any substantial improvements and changes can be made. Electing another elite, from either party, will not accomplish what needs to be done.
Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. How can we hope to have a different result if we once again fall for the lies of the elites and elect one of them? Their goal is power, and every election is to them a chance to increase that power. It is never about real, effective governing, and bi-partisanship is not their intent. In any case, it doesn't really matter which of these parties win the White House.
The elites who run not only our government, but all others around the globe, the elites in the media, academia, education, and NGO's like the United Nations have a very deliberate idea of the future. At every turn, they are squandering our resources, weakening our military, mortgaging our future, and selling out our sovereignty. Their eventual goal is to bring America into line with their vision of a socialist one world government, and the biggest obstacle is the Constitution of the United States.
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor once stated that OUR Constitution should be interpreted in light of the laws of other nations. Although now retired, she lectures around the nation at prestigious law schools promoting this very concept. Current legislation in our senate authored by Senator Obama, called the Global Poverty Initiative, seeks to tax the U.S. to provide funds to the U.N., and includes a provision to eliminate small arms from all people. The destruction of the Second Amendment which gives the America people the right to bear arms in their own defense is a highlight of the U.N. agenda. Other legislation, including the Law of the Sea Treaty, will greatly restrict rights to the world's oceans and cede authority and revenues once again to the U.N.
The birthright of the American people is the right to be be free from oppressive government. The founders, in a unique display of real wisdom, understood that a limited national government with most of the decision making residing at the local level where the people have the most influence could be the only guarantor of that freedom. This birthright is being slowly stolen from us, and it is imperative that we do what is necessary to stop that theft.
The only way in which the American people can effectively reclaim their inheritance is to break the hold on power by the two parties. Unless and until we exert the authority given to us to govern ourselves as a free people, we will only see more big government and less personal freedom, and a sad end to this great experiment in freedom and self-governance, the United States of America!
In order to reclaim our inheritance we must, in this election of 2008, deny the elites that which they desire above all else, the Presidency! There is no other effective way to do it. It is impossible to expect the elites to give up their power and forfeit their agenda. They will not do so. Only an independent President, one not tied to any party machines, any PACs, any corporations or unions, not linked to any money grubbing lobbyists, can actually stand up to the elites and represent the American people first. No Democrat or Republican President can or will go against his or her own party. Every decision and every piece of legislation is viewed with the potential political fallout in the next election in mind. Every election is viewed in the context of what effect the result will be regarding their share of the power. Ultimately, the concern is to further the internationalist utopian vision that is in the heart of all the elites.
This quote from Thomas Jefferson perhaps best explains the task ahead.
"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite."
We all have ideas about what needs to be done in our great country, but in order to bring about any solution, we must first understand the things that are preventing such solutions. What is hampering our beloved nation is not the lack of good ideas. It is not the American people's unwillingness to work hard and make sacrifices. It is not the lack of will or resources.
The lack of real, practical solutions to the challenges we face and the intense partisanship that refuses to give way to leadership is being caused by an elite that seeks power first and foremost with the intention of furthering their own internationalist agenda. If we once again, in this election, give more power to these elites, we will do such great harm that our country may never recover.
We must think and act differently if we intend a different result. It will take courage and faith to do that which we have been taught not to do, elect an independent President. We must take that action. If we fail in that task, how then can we ever reclaim our inheirtance?
Joe Oliva
Marty 15, 2007
http://www.firesociety.com/article/23216/?src=111
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Bush, Pelosi, Reid and most the Federal Representatives are willing to pay the people so they can walk away while saying they’ve done something to help...
Tonight my wife and I took a break from the politics dominating the nation to watch 3:10 From Yuma, the western starring Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. At one point there was an exchange between the Pinkerton man, Butterfield, that had hired Bale's character, Dan Evans, to help take Crowe's character, Ben Wade, to meet the train to Yuma. Near the end it wasn't looking good for the law and he offered to pay Bale the $200.00 in wages so he could take his son and go home.
Wade told Butterfield it reminded him of the time the government paid him for the loss of his leg after the Civil War. He'd realized then it was not so he could walk away but it was so the government could walk away and feel like they had done something for him. He told Butterfield the offer wasn't so he could take his son and leave; it was so Butterfield could feel justified in leaving. I was immediately reminded of the stimulus package the Congress and President Bush just passed.
Now, I must give credit here to 50 who cast Nay votes. In all 6 Democratic Representatives and 44 Republican Representatives and Senators cast a Nay vote against paying us off with what amounts to nothing more than a band-aid on an infected wound. 461 voted in favor of covering the economic wounds of our nation while the wound is badly infected. (Clinton and Obama were two of three Senators who did not bother to vote Aye or Nay but instead cast no vote at all!)
This vote may be a gauge ... to at least look into the 50 members of Congress who said no. At least, for whatever reasons, they understood the stimulus package is a bad idea for the long-term health of the economy while offering very little short-term relief for most citizens. The cost of the stimulus package is estimated at $168 billion. This amount will be added to the deficit over the next two years! It's like using a high interest credit card to pay a minimum payment on another high interest credit card. It keeps the bill collector from calling today but does nothing to actually help pay off any debt and actually increases the overall amount owed.
There are a few ... that want real legislation passed that can actually have both an immediate and long-term positive effect on the economy. People seem to forget whenever they ask the government to do more the money is created and added to the deficit, the balance on the credit card just gets higher! But can Congress and the President actually reduce spending in a timely manner? Look how fast they arranged to pay us off and you have your answer.
Oh, and the two most prominent Senators casting no vote at all, want to also be the champions of change. Change in the way YOU live and change in the way OUR future generations live. They hear those demanding their government do more. They are quite willing to take out the people's credit card and charge the gifts of change. They are more than willing to pay us off so they can walk away and boast about how they listened and helped all the little people who needed their government to care for them!
Their train won't be going to Yuma; instead it goes to the poor house, ALL ABOARD!
2008 by Gary Wood
- Permission to copy with attribution granted.
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The presidential race is now down to three superb candidates. Why are they superb? Because, each, in his or her own way, is willing to give Americans what they want. And down deep, most Americans want the same thing.
You might think that Americans want different things, because they differ on Iraq, abortion, and public expression of religion, illegal immigration, gun ownership, taxes, and global warming. You’re right, of course. That’s why there are some differences between the three finalists on these issues.
But on the most important issue, Americans want the same thing.
What do they want?
Regardless of party, they want the president (and the rest of government) to use government power for far more than the protection of life, liberty and property.
They want government power used to remake the world into their narcissistic image, to tell others how to live their lives, and to infringe on the rights of others, especially on the right to keep the fruits of their labor. In other words, they want to use coercion against others, not realizing that others will retaliate by using coercion against them.
In this very important sense, the nation is no longer a constitutional republic based on individual rights and liberty. The Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, and the neoconservative movement have transformed the U.S. to a nation where political might makes right. The individual is now at the mercy of the will of the plurality, or the collective, or marauding special-interest groups--all of whom are backed by the rule of law, which in turn is backed by armed government agents.
Barack Obama wonders why we all can’t get along. Well, it’s because politicians like him want to do things for some people by doing things to other people. And generally, the people he wants to do things to are the good people in society--the people who defer gratification, invest in their future, lead virtuous lives, sacrifice for their children, and help their neighbors without being coerced to do so by the government.
Coercion has become so accepted that the word “coercion” is not mentioned at all in Congress, in the establishment media, in K-12 schools, in universities, or in any other centers of influence. Instead, people speak euphemistically about the common good, volunteerism, social justice, equal opportunity, fairness, income equality, and other platitudes du jour. Of course, history shows that the greater the rhetoric about the collective, the greater the coercion against the individual.
President Bush says he believes in “compassionate conservatism,” but he really believes in coerced compassion. Sen. Clinton says “It takes a village,” but she really believes in coercively taking the village’s output for her political uses. Sen. Obama says that he wants to put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work in government job corps, but he doesn’t say that millions of other Americans will be coerced to pick up the tab for something that is economic and social folly. McCain says that he wants to stop money in politics, but he has used coercion to limit political speech.
Politicians embrace coercion because the American people embrace coercion. Farmers embrace it to obtain subsidies that raise the price of groceries for everyone else. The elderly embrace it to get free medicine at the expense of future generations. Spendthrifts embrace it to take the savings of the frugal through the tax code. Cities embrace it to take private property for the benefit of developers. Preservationists embrace it to tell homeowners what color they can paint their homes. Anti-smoking zealots embrace it to tell owners of bars and restaurants what they can do on their private property. Arts aficionados embrace it to have their cultural interests subsidized. Sports fans embrace it to have non-fans build their sports palaces. College students embrace it to get cheaper tuition at the expense of those who don’t go to college. The stupid and greedy embrace it to be bailed out of their bad mortgages by those who are smart and financially conservative.
Examples of the use of coercion in our supposed free country could run for hundreds of pages.
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain indeed have what it takes to be the president of the United States. For that matter, so does Vladimir Putin.
By Craig J. Cantoni
Feb. 18, 2008
_________________
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An author and columnist, Mr. Cantoni can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.
KRIV-TV image of Texas Obama volunteers with Che Guevara flag. (KRIV-TV Photo)
What would JFK do?
By Jeff Jacoby
February 17, 2008
IN 1963, John F. Kennedy was murdered in Texas by a fervent admirer of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. In 2008, a large Cuban flag emblazoned with the image of Che Guevara, Castro's brutal henchman, is prominently displayed in a Barack Obama campaign volunteer office in Houston.
Obama has been widely compared to JFK, most notably by the late president's brother and daughter. President Kennedy, a stalwart anticommunist, despised Castro and his gang of totalitarian thugs. But when word broke last week that Obama's supporters in Houston work under a banner glorifying Che, the campaign's reaction was to brush it off as an issue involving volunteers, not the official campaign. After two days of controversy, the campaign issued a statement calling the flag "inappropriate" and saying its display "does not reflect Senator Obama's views." Would JFK have reacted so mildly?
In December 1962, Kennedy offered ablunt summary of the Castro/Che record. "The Cuban people were promised by the revolution political liberty, social justice, intellectual freedom, land for the campesinos, and an end to economic exploitation," he said. "They have received a police state, the elimination of the dignity of land ownership, the destruction of free speech and a free press, and the complete subjugation of individual human welfare." Eleven months later, in aspeech intended for delivery on the day he was assassinated, Kennedy regretted that Castro's "Communist foothold" in Latin America had "not yet been eliminated."
Were he alive today, it's hard to imagine JFK feeling anything but contempt for those who extol a dictatorship that has been crushing freedom and human beings for nearly 50 years. And it would surely pain him that so many of the cheerleaders are members of his own party.
The lionizing of Che, a sociopath who relished killing and acclaimed "the pedagogy of the firing squad," is not just "inappropriate." It is vile. No American in his right mind would be caught dead wearing a David Duke T-shirt or displaying a poster of Pol Pot. A celebrity who was spotted with a swastika-festooned cap or an actress who revealed that she had gotten a tattoo depicting Timothy McVeigh would inspire only repugnance. No presidential campaign would need more than 30 seconds to sever its ties to anyone, paid staffer or volunteer, whose office was adorned with a Ku Klux Klan banner. Yet Che's likeness, which ought to be as loathed as any of those, is instead a trendy bestseller and a cult favorite.
A few years ago the New York Public Library gift shop sold Che wristwatches. These it described as "featuring the classic romantic image of Che Guevara, around which the word 'revolution' revolves." But Che's idea of revolution was anything but romantic. What he cherished was hatred and murder: "Hatred as an element of struggle," he wrote in 1967, "unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine." It was a sentiment he expressed repeatedly - and lived up to.
With Che at his side, Castro toppled Fulgencio Batista in January 1959. "As soon as they had seized power," notes "The Black Book of Communism," a magisterial survey of communist crime in the 20th century, "they began to conduct mass executions inside the two main prisons, La Cabana and Santa Clara." As chief prosecutor of the new regime, Che oversaw the bloodbath, ordering hundreds of executions in the first months of 1959. Those he killed, "The Black Book" records, included "former comrades-in-arms who refused to abandon their democratic beliefs."
Like totalitarians of every stripe, Che didn't scruple at the death of innocents. "Quit the dallying!" he ordered Jose Vilasuso, a conscientious government lawyer who was seeking evidence against several prisoners. "Your job is a very simple one. Judicial evidence is an archaic and secondary bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! We execute from revolutionary conviction."
Time magazine once called Che the "brain” of the Cuban Revolution, and saluted his "icy calculation, vast competence, high intelligence, and . . . perceptive sense of humor." A better description comes from journalist Humberto Fontova, who observes in "Exposing The Real Che Guevara" that Che was for Castro what Heinrich Himmer was for Hitler and Lavrenty Beria for Stalin - "the snarling enforcer." Fittingly, a massive drawing of Che adorns the headquarters of Cuba's secret police in Havana.
That this sadistic thug's face also adorns the office of a US presidential candidate's supporters is appalling and disgraceful. That the candidate couldn't bring himself to say so is even worse.
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I am over fifty years old. I am a product of American values, observed and experienced in the 1950s and 1960s, and sorely tried in the Vietnam, Watergate, and Carter years of the 1970s, and again in the Clinton years of the 1990s.
This is the timeframe and events that formed my political worldview. I grew up when we still said a prayer and read Psalm 23 at the beginning of the school day. I remember doing the duck and cover in elementary school, to be safe in the event of a Cold War nuclear attack, even though being only 12 miles from NYC, the odds of surviving such an attack or its aftermath was just about a negative number. I remember the pride in America and its flag; the meaning of independence, especially on the Fourth of July. My father's parents were immigrants and my mother was an immigrant, and the old country was just that--the "old" country. Most of my uncles served in the US Army and Navy during WW2, while my father was a foreman in a defense plant. The prosperity,music, and the social fabric of America in the 1950s and 1960s are still a source of inspiration to me. Because of my parents' background, we always helped anyone in need that came our way. My parents would brook no discrimination, even when at the time it was common to discriminate on the basis of skin color. No, the promise of America was for everyone. Sometimes, only an immigrant can appreciate America's true value, as did my parents.
I remember well the Carter years, with its mind numbing cowardice in the face of dangers from the USSR and Iran, and how it caused us to doubt our greatness. And I remember a man named Ronald Reagan, and how he inspired an entire nation to rendevous with its destiny once again, and in an inconceivable turn of events, won the Cold War and knocked down the Berlin War without firing a single shot. His courage and belief in America inspired policies that freed all of Eastern Europe and kept budding Islamofascism at bay, all the while he was opposed and reviled by the Democrats, the America-haters and the Communists worldwide.
I remember the horror of the Clinton years, when a rapist and abuser of women was the Commander in Chief, aided and abetted by a power hungry woman who hated the military. I remember fighting for his impeachment, only to be betrayed by a Republican Senate that had no courage, or that was compromised by stolen FBI files and failed to discharge its lawful duty to remove a lawbreaking President who brought shame to the Oval Office. I remember recoiling in horror and shame when a six year old boy whose mother drowned in an attempt to bring him to freedom from Cuba was removed from a private home under the force of arms and returned to Fidel Castro.
I remember crying tears of gladness when our current President said the words of his Oath of Office on January 20, 2001, ending my personal nightmare, an eight year long nightmare, of having Bill and Hillary Clinton in the White House.
The events of these last seven years are nothing what I expected that cold, clear January morning. The events of September 11, 2001, the invasion of Iraq, the War on Terror, all of them returned me to the patriotic days of my youth. I saw a nation united in purpose for the first time in my adult life, as the nation had been torn since the Vietnam War.
But I saw a Republican President I believed in, and a Republican Party that was my home politically, shift in a slow, determined, unstoppable drift away from its principles, adopting the policies and views of the Democrats, to the point where we now face having as our Presidential candidate, John McCain, an enemy of conservatism, of Republican principles, and of American sovereignty.
As I pondered these things today, February 2, 2008, I have come to a very troubling observation.
We conservatives always had a home in the Republican Party. President Reagan even came here when the Democrat Party became too radical for him in the 1950s. We were the foundation of 12 years of the Reagan Bush era and we fought for the current President to give him eight years, even in the face of a national election being stolen from him.
But when our country was threatened by the prospect of a mass amnesty last May and June, allowing 20 million or more illegal immigrants to become defacto citizens by fiat, we erupted in a display of power that had Washington DC recoiling in terror. We derailed their plan to ensure the Balkanization of America by giving it 20 million more citizens who would not assimilate into the culture, and to ensure a cheap workforce, and to permanently undercut American worker's wages. Together with Global Warming and carbon credits, America could be brought to heel and managed.
We stopped McCain-Kennedy and its cousin, alright. But there was a price to pay for our insolence.
We, the America loving conservatives of the Republican Party, are no longer needed by this party. We are too narrow minded and old school. Flag waving and the supremacy of the American Way are passe. We are not inclusive. We are standing in the way of the elites in Washington DC from making their wet dreams a reality--making America an also-ran, not a super-power. America as a third world country, not as better than anyone else. An America that is afraid to face its Islamic enemies,that worries about what the world thinks about it, strangled in political correctness, surrendering its freedoms on a daily basis in the vain hope for security.
We keepers of the flame of American liberty are now the enemy. When Hillary labelled us the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, we took that has a label of pride. But now the Republican establishment has decreed that we are a conspiracy to be defeated within our own party, as we face the prospect of John McCain being rammed down our throats. John McCain, the Manchurian Candidate, the man who has betrayed every tenet of Republicanism in his quest for power,who has railed against conservatives at every turn, who is bound and determined to grant amnesty to 10% of Mexico's population now within our borders, he is the one being annointed by the elites as our candidate.
His job is not only to become the candidate of choice, but to be the means of the destruction of the power of the conservative base of the Republican Party.
Between McCain, Obama and Hillary, there isn't a dime's worth of difference in their political views. The Republican and Democrat established elites have melded into one entity, and they will win no matter who gets nominated or who wins the general election, especially if McCain is the nominee. All three believe in unlimited amnesty, an open border, cap and trade globaloney, giving rights to Gitmo detainees, and the restriction of free speech and gun rights.
The MSM is their collective cheerleader, actively working to marginalize us as a viable force for the America we visualize.
Many of us will vote Republican in November, only because we cannot, in good conscience, vote for Obama or Clinton. The Republican establishment knows this, and knows because we are principled, we can not do otherwise. Rather than enlist us to help, they are engaged in a policy of containment and neutering, because we stand in the way of their vision of America.
McCain as a candidate will be a disaster. The Republican establishment knows this. But they don't care, because the goal is not to win this election. It is to remove us from the political table, and for them to join with their Democrat brothers in the march toward an America subsevient to global interests. Sovereignty is treated as a quaint, outmoded concept, even by many Republican governors who are pushing the globaloney nonsense that will cripple this nation.
The perfect storm of American politics is converging in a bid to elect one of three horrible candidates, McCain,Obama, or Clinton, to be our next President. The odds are that the Republicans will not only lose with McCain, but they will lose even more of the House and Senate, enough to relegate Republicans to a minority status for decades to come.
Where are the national Republican leaders speaking out against where our party is heading? As one looks over the events of the last 15 years, since the ascension and improbable election of a no good, draft dodging, lying huckster like Bill Clinton to President, we have witnessed a snowballing reversal of American values and fortunes. With Clinton II on the horizon, we face a complete collapse of American values and soveriegnty and freedom with the "CHANGE" that is being promised for the electorate.
That "change" is starting right now for us. By Tuesday midnight, we will know if the fate the elites have decreed for us will become reality, if McCain is our candidate.
In the past few days, the lenses through which I view politics have changed in prescription. I see now that we are the enemy to our own party's leaders, whose leaders have decreed that our nominee will be the anti-conservative, anti-Republican candidate. The other candidates still open to us, Huckster, Romney and Paul each have their own problems with our values.
There are only a few short days to stop the McCain Screwball express. As we fought the impossible fight against McCain and amnesty last year, we have but a few days to influence our fellow conservatives and Republicans not to allow the predetermined outcome to occur.
I offer this screed in an attempt to understand what is going on today, to explain the inexplicable in what is occurring to our party and our chances for success in November against the second ascension of the corrupt Clinton Machine. I wish not to tell my fellow conservative who they should vote for, but I ask them not to vote for McCain.
Others, including the Republican establishment, have decreed for us who are candidate should be. American loving Republicans should reserve the right to make that choice.
by Exit 82
posted blog commentary at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1963918/posts#comment
With John McCain’s all-too-easy road to the nomination paved through Florida and now nearly complete one thing is clear: The Republican Party has been hijacked. Over the past month a new Axis of Evil has emerged -- not one based in Damascus, Tehran or Pyongyang -- but instead in Cedar Rapids, Charleston, South Carolina, Derry, New Hampshire and Boca Raton, Florida. It is the liberal and “independent” voters in these 4 states that have nearly completed a deed that makes Kim Jong Il envious -- the near crippling of the American Electoral System. These four states have combined their native liberal populism with an imported liberal electorate and have forced the GOP to accept a nominee so distasteful that in more than one poll -- the numbers of voters choosing not to vote and those choosing to vote third party actually exceed those who will hold their nose and vote for Maverick, War Hero, Amnesty Supporter, John McCain.
I can hear you saying, “surely you aren’t saying that South Carolina has gone liberal -- are you?” Are you kidding me? Drive through the Carolinas and count the number of license plates from NJ, NY and Pennsylvania. There is not much Dixie in the Carolinas; it’s more like Trenton and Long Island with fireworks. “But”, you protest, “New Hampshire, is Live Free or Die, it’s been a backbone of conservatism since the 1950’s.” No longer my friends -- NH has become an exurb of Boston, with Boston’s sensibilities and, ugh, their voting tastes. NH hasn’t been reliably conservative since Reagan’s first term. These voters would rather be loved by the Boston Globe, than respected by the Union Leader.
But the evidence continues, you say, “Iowa, that’s America, with small town values and homespun sensibilities.” Wrong again -- Iowa is just a state brimming with farmers on the federal dole, college students and ex hippie professors looking to con, libs in training at Grinnell.
And Florida? As my bubbies would say in Bay Ridge -- puhleeeez. It’s the 6th borough and has been since the mid 1960’s. Liberals have been sliding down the I-95 corridor since Kennedy was elected.
Sadly these 4 states have done more than set the tone for the other 46 -- they’ve dictated terms. Frankly I could extend the analogy to include Nevada, which is down to about 13% native -- but why beat a dead horse.
What we have is the sick and twisted dreams of Pinch Sulzberger, Don Imus, Maureen Dowd, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews come true: the GOP has been forced to choose a nominee designed to cause the base to retch, and thereby not vote. Guaranteeing 4 years of Clinton score settling or Obama socializing entire corporate sectors.
Its time to simultaneously bring back democracy to the GOP and defang the left and her Rockefeller accomplices in the new Axis of Evil. It’s time for the nuclear option -- its time for the GOP to front-load the whole freaking process into one date. Make every state vote on exactly the same day. Make every candidate compete in EVERY state at the exact same time and hold every single GOP primary and caucus on Super Tuesday. When NH and IOWA complain, take a page from the Democrats and refuse to seat their delegates, or better yet, declare renegade states as straw polls.
This would balance our nomination process out. There will be no more “Big Mo”, no more singular precincts in obscure Iowa towns setting the tone for the rest of the country. If liberals from Englewood Cliffs NJ want to vote liberal, it’s going to get cancelled out by conservatives in Chattanooga -- who might actually get to vote for Fred. Its time to let Nebraska count as much as New Hampshire. Let Texas matter as much as South Carolina, let Florida be canceled out by California -- as it should be. The only two groups who have benefit from the current process are the media flacks selling the drama and John McCain establishment hacks. Does anyone think Fred Thompson got a fair hearing? Or Duncan Hunter? John McCain does not speak for me…or frankly for any one else, I know.
Folks, we have let the liberals and RINOS set the agenda. Open Borders, Higher Taxes, and surrender to Kyoto-worshipping technocrats. This is the Republican Party? But hey, the McCainiacs counter, “John McCain is a war hero -- right?” Let me be the first to say it’s not about what you did in the 60’s sir -- it’s about what you will do to America in 2009 and beyond.
This is our party, not John McCain’s or Mel Martinez's, or Lindsay Graham’s. The Republican Party is THE conservative party dammit. Let’s admit it and take it back. RINOS and Liberals have taken the GOP plane hostage, and its time for us passengers to revolt…and do what has to be done -- Let’s Roll.
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I don't usually like heartwarming stories, but this one is truly interesting... and it contains an important message for political incumbents and future candidates seeking political office.
In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.
The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenage son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked to where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, and then put it down. The elephant did that several times and then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.
Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly. It is probably safe to conclude it wasn't the same elephant....
The lesson we can take away from this interesting and heartwarming story is one of statistical probability, bordering on certainty. A similar sequence of events will likely occur as the current crop of political candidates seek to befriend a nation of injured conservative elephants, many of whose youth have been sacrificed to open borders, drugs and Islamic terrorists. The election outcome experienced by incumbent Republicans and Democrats in the 2008 election at the hands of voters is likely to be painfully similar to Mbembe. At least I hope it is.
Red State Patriot
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Arizona Presidential Straw Poll Vote Results Maricopa County Republicans repudiate Senator John McCain - with a vengenance
Maricopa County Republicans conducted a Presidential Straw Poll during the January 19th Maricopa County Republican Committee meeting in Tempe, Arizona. In the first category, the delegates were able to vote for only their first choice for president.
Those results were as follows. Presidential Straw Poll with 721 ballots cast:
188 Mitt Romney 26%
121 Fred Thompson 17% (withdrawn)
115 Ron Paul 16%
93 Duncan Hunter 13% (withdrawn)
80 John McCain 11%
33 Rudy Giuliani 9% (withdrawn)
32 Mike Huckabee 9%
In the second voting category, the delegates were able to vote for more than one candidate as unacceptable. In the Unacceptable Category, 427 out of 721 (59%) of the delegates declared McCain as one of their unacceptable candidates. The tallies were:
427 McCain
396 Paul
357 Giuliani (withdrawn)
340 Huckabee
156 Hunter (withdrawn)
152 Thompson (withdrawn)
121 Romney
In the third category, the delegates were able to vote for more than one candidate as acceptable. Those results were as follows:
370 Thompson (withdrawn)
358 Hunter (withdrawn)
356 Romney
235 Giuliani (withdrawn)
207 Huckabee
135 McCain
120 Paul
These issues were rated by the delegates as the most important for the presidential candidates to address:
643 STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
552 WIN WAR AGAINST TERROR
518 REDUCE GOV'T SPENDING
406 LOWER TAXES
390 SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENTS
271 PRO-LIFE
226 CITIZEN'S GUN RIGHTS
196 DOMESTIC OIL PRODUCTION
106 CHOICE OF PRIVATE SS ACCOUNTS
Senator John McCain, you can run from your constituency, but you cannot hide.
Red State Patriot
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Will any President fix our problems?
By Craig Cantoni
Pundits, political elites and common folk are now claiming the problems facing the country are obvious and easy to fix, if only we had the sense to elect someone who wants to fix them. Broadcasting star Glenn Beck said that very thing the other day on his show.
A growing feeling of economic insecurity, widespread disgust with Congress, and disillusionment with George Bush have led many Americans to embrace the platitudes of Barack Obama, the sophistry of Hillary, the religiosity of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, the populism of John Edwards, the bully-bully of John "Teddy Roosevelt" McCain, the vacuity of Fred Thompson, the...
Yes, indeed. If only we would elect an alpha male or beta female who cares about each and every one of us, partisan bickering would end, pork barrel spending would end, global competition would end, foreign interventionism would end, global warming would end, increases in the price of gas and healthcare would end, the invasion of brown people would end, radical Islam would end, and in-grown toenails would end.
But what about farm subsidies? Are they going to end? Well, no, not if someone wants to be elected president.
Then if a president is powerless to stop something as uncomplicated as farm subsidies, why would someone think that a candidate would be able to stop, well, anything putting Americans in a funk and feeling the nation is in decline?
Beats me. But I do know that the nation has been transformed into a kleptocracy under majority rule, or mob rule, if you will. Over half of Americans are now either mooching off the minority through the tax code, or working for the government, or working in private-sector jobs that owe their existence and good pay to government regulations.
They might complain about the other guy's rice bowl, but they will do anything to protect their own rice bowl. The result, of course, is the status quo, and the farm bill. The status quo is a kleptocracy and ever-growing government.
These people all depend on force for their jobs, subsidies, entitlements and handouts. For example, if it weren't for farmers banding together to compel the government to give them taxpayers' money, non-farmers would never hand their money to them.
Unfortunately, government force doesn't work well in the other direction. As political science and economic principles explain, it is nearly impossible for citizens to band together, legally speaking, and get government to stop farmers (or any other organized special-interest group) from using force against them. If they can't stop 2.1 million farmers, they certainly can't stop 3 million unionized teachers, 35 million AARP members, or 48 million Social Security recipients.
Well, that's not completely true. They can stop them, but it would require something that I don't advocate: the use of extra-legal force. It would take only about 100,000 men and women marching on the Capitol with torches, pitchforks, feathers and hot tar to convince members of Congress that it is in their best interest to stop taking people's silverware and giving it farmers, teacher unions, wealthy geezers, and other special interests. If it came to a choice between losing an election and being tarred and feathered, they'd pick losing.
Enough fantasy. Back to reality.
The reality is that the nation isn't going to be brought together by Barack, Hillary, Mitt, Rudy, Mike, John, Fred, or anyone else. When government degenerates into a political spoils system as our Congress has, it is impossible for citizens to trust each other or their government.
An author and published columnist, Mr. Cantoni can be reached at ccan2@aol.com. Mr. Cantoni is also a frequent contributor to Alan Korwin's highly informative Page Nine.
Mr. Korwin is the author of "Gun Laws in America" and many other fine 2nd Amendment and firearms-related publications. Please visit www.gunlaws.com where you can subscribe to an Internet version of Page Nine and order your own copy of his highly educational publications.
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Rush, you chose to share in a limited fashion your experiences as a guest at the White House on your Friday, August 3rd radio broadcast. While en route a dentist appointment, I felt compelled to pull over and take notes. Some of what I was hearing did not ring with the pure tone of your lead crystal I’m accustomed to hearing. It sounded and felt more like a cavity being drilled prior to an unavoidable filling. Now, freely using many of your own words, with the disclaimer that I am a simple man who feels unconstrained by who said what to whom, what follows is the average man’s reply. Please accept my comments as a personal viewpoint counter to those you expressed.
For those of you who did not have the opportunity to listen to several hours of broadcast excellence on August 3rd, Rush proudly stated that he had been a visitor to the White House on three separate occasions, and said with obvious affection, “Bush loves the country. He is the most confident man. He is a barrel of laughs. He is at ease. He is unfazed by any of the criticism that he gets. He doesn’t care about it.”
Well Rush, I am here to tell you and most Americans will tell you, President Bush should care more about it and most importantly, you should know the difference. Thinking poorly of fellow Americans, thinking them ignorant, serves no constructive purpose other than to highlight the arrogance of elitism. Maybe – just maybe – Americans recognize the risks to this nation and our economy better than their pompous critics. It is not surprising that a majority of Americans understand President Bush perfectly. Why otherwise would his support polls be so low? And of course you will hear him say that he does not care about the polls. Most Americans correctly take this to mean that he also does not care about our opinions, what we think, what we want, or what we say.
Rush, does that include you? Your comments gave me cause to worry for the first time in a decade. The ice under both you and the President is getting incredibly thin and cracks are evident everywhere. Please be very, very careful. Do you realize where you are standing?
The problem of illegal aliens, and their associated crime wave, will continue only as long as the Federal Government and state governors want it to – and they want it to continue. We have more than enough tools in the shed to secure the border, instantly if necessary. The United States can send astronauts to the moon, build structures that reach far into the sky, and array an incredible assortment of modern weapons on the battlefield. But the President refuses to allow the building of a simple fence, the total cost of which would be not much more than a single year’s budget of the Border Patrol. President Bush has flatly refused to secure United States’ borders, arguably in violation of his Oath of Office. The President has personally obstructed the efforts of others to preserve national sovereignty, entered into international agreements that would someday result in dissolution of the United States into some form of a North American Union, and has publicly denigrated anyone trying to enforce existing immigration laws. That much is an uncontested fact.
There is one short and simple reason: greed. The border is making too much money for too many people just the way that it is.
What is the character of a man, in Congress or the Presidency, who permits personal greed to trump national sovereignty? What is the character of a man who would abandon the U.S. Constitution and hundreds of thousands of men and women who have given their mortal existence to create and preserve the United States of America? What is the character of a man who would sell out his fellow citizens for short sighted business and political reasons? The reality is simple. The President is acting in self interest, one way or another. The President is either profiting from the transgressions taking place on the border, or supporting those who are – or both. It is as simple as that. There are no other options; there is no other justification for not closing the border when it is obviously needed to protect fellow American citizens from victimization and to defend our nation’s society and culture from being ravaged. Arguably, every death of an American citizen at the hands of an illegal alien will forever be blood on the hands of George W. Bush, the man you so admire. If you were talking hypothetically, off the record, what phrase would you use to describe any President of the United States, at any time in history, who would willingly sell out his United States birthright and his own nation’s sovereignty?
Most Americans prefer to believe the president is supposed to govern, not to rule. When the Administration and Congress both blatantly and defiantly ignore the Rule of Law, they've unilaterally chosen to rule America, not govern the United States. Is this really what you support?
One way of looking at our nation’s domestic reality, whether you agree with the president’s policies or not, is that President Bush has lost every single political race of substance in which he has been entered, on every single track, for almost seven years. Who but an ideologue would bet on such a nag, an almost certain loser by the end of the race? That doesn’t sound like you, regardless of how much you may like the horse. The horse has proven itself woefully lacking, and wishful thinking about what could have been doesn’t change that.
Maybe the classic story of the Wizard of Oz has some applicability. If President Bush had any courage what-so-ever, anything resembling a brain, or the faintest trace of a Christian heart, he would have long since closed the borders and ended the carnage to United States citizens who are experiencing more than 3,000 annual deaths at the hands of illegal aliens. When one adds the violent crime, property damage, drugs and fraud being inflicted on American society, who is it that you believe truly matters to President Bush? The facts are irrefutable. Apparently not United States citizens! If not United States citizens, then what about United States soldiers? It is totally illogical to claim to care about the soldiers and not your fellow citizens.
Rush, you often claim with some apparent semblance of accuracy to be running this country. May I conclude that “open borders” and refusing to enforce existing immigration laws has become your choice of domestic immigration policy? If not immigration laws, which federal and state laws would you personally choose to enforce? Which laws do you suggest Americans simply ignore? Or is it strictly a matter of personal choice?
If open borders and national lawlessness is not a central feature of the Limbaugh Institute of Conservative Studies, do you have the personal and broadcast integrity to take an unambiguous position, and by doing so, send a strong message to the President of the United States? Or, will you continue to equivocate while hiding behind the skirts of being an entertainer?
Rush, please stand up and be counted. United States citizens by the millions, many of them dittoheads, are standing up across this great country, in communities large and small, many risking their mortal existence to protect our way of life and their fellow citizens. Why not liberals? Because to them, the "one" is more important than the "whole;" but why not you?
If you are implicitly refusing to be a United States citizen first and foremost, maybe we shouldn’t be listening to you. While it would be easy to say, “lead, follow or get out of the way (off the air), I choose to believe you are eminently qualified and destined to lead. So, for all that is precious in America, lead - but not blindly following the White Rabbit into a rabbit hole leading to Wonderland.
Until dittoheads have evidence to the contrary, we must consider the possibility that you view yourself as the White Rabbit and think of the White House as Wonderland.
Red State Patriot
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1. I will keep America on offense in the Terrorists' War on Us.
2. I will end illegal immigration, secure our borders, and identify every non-citizen in our nation.
3. I will restore fiscal discipline and cut wasteful Washington spending.
4. I will cut taxes and reform the tax code.
5. I will impose accountability on Washington.
6. I will lead America towards energy independence.
7. I will give Americans more control over, and access to, healthcare with affordable and portable free-market solutions.
8. I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children.
9. I will reform the legal system and appoint strict constructionist judges.
10. I will ensure that every community in America is prepared for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
11. I will provide access to a quality education to every child in America by giving real school choice to parents.
12. I will expand America's involvement in the global economy and strengthen our reputation around the world.”
Regardless of philosophy or ideology, why is it not time for every candidate for President of the United States to provide their unique list of personal commitments to the American people – not only what they will endeavor to do, but what they pledge they will not do? I would also like to see added to Rudy Giulani's list a few statements that begin with “I will not ….”
Every politician, who has any desire of being elected to public office, at any level of government, should be willing to provide specific written commitments to those citizens from whom they are seeking votes. With a similar yardstick of measurement from each candidate, not so much a platform as a pledge, voting citizens will have some basis to know if a candidate is a con-artist serving self-interest, pursuing an ideological agenda of special interests, a fugitive from a psychiatric ward, or truly serving the interests of the nation and fellow United States’ citizens.
Many politicians currently refuse to reveal their agenda, or attempt to conceal it in ambiguous terms. For example, will Hilrya Rodhamovich Clintonov will once again seek to nationalize healthcare? Will John McCain seek to legalize the presence of 20 million illegal aliens in the United States and fund their social needs at taxpayer expense? Will Barrack O’bama attempt to end racial discrimination in any form at every institution in America, or will he expand preferences for selective “minorities,” given that he embraces the "black only" racist precepts of his church and pastor. Will John Edwards initiate national tort reform and put an end to destructive frivilous litigation? Will Al Gore pursue a global warming agenda? Will Mitt Romney support homosexual marriage or attempt to implement a form of socialized medicine as he did in the State of Massachusetts?
One thing is for sure, the competition between Senator John McCain and Governor Mitt Romney will probably become increasingly caustic in the months ahead, to the disadvantage of Mitt Romney. Either McCain believes in the fantasy that he still has a chance for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, or he is maliciously determined to take Mitt Romney and maybe the United States down with him.
Which of the candidates recognizes the growing peril to the United States the longer the Islamic Wars are allowed to fester without decisive victory? Few seem to recognize the mortal danger from Islam. Which of the candidates will provide Israel with any and all measure of needed support? None have said as much. Which candidate would withdraw from the Middle East and in doing so, waste the ultimate sacrifice of the thousands of soldiers wounded and killed, not to mention the genocide that would almost certainly follow a withdrawal? Which candidate will propose that we “win” in this millenium's Islamic Wars and let the military do whatever it takes to get the job done without interference from the media, politicians, and lawyers? Only Rudi Giuliani has declared that we must win.
Which candidate will indemnify American soldiers from persecution (short of their having committed an abhorent atrocity) for doing their job to the best of their ability within realistic rules of engagement provided by their superiors? No candidate has been willing to provide anything close to that kind of leadership support. Which presidential candidate will not try to "manage" the war from the White House, a political feat that has doomed every military engagement since WWII (except Grenada and Panama)? The record of lost or abandoned armed conflicts since WWII, after expending thousands of American lives (e.g., Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Somalia) speaks for itself.
Which candidate will build the border fence, which just happens to be the least expensive and most efficient of every conceivable alternative to control illegal migration? Which candidate for President of the United States will seek out and prosecute the fraudulent use of Social Security identification numbers and stolen identities? Which candidate would enforce all existing federal laws, including immigration laws?
How can a candidate profess that they will defend America from terrorism, foreign invasion, and criminal victimization by illegal aliens - when they support an open-borders agenda? Which candidate will support enforcement and defense of United States borders rather than allow zealot prosecutors to persecute the Border Patrol?
Which candidate will shrink the size and scope of government, reducing taxes and costly regulation in the process? Which candidate will commit to restoring constitutional government? Which candidate cares more about the United States of America than himself?
Which candidate will pledge to hold the New York Times, individual Congressmen, and staff members, accountable for revealing classified information or engaging in sedition and treason? Who among the candidates will support equal justice under the law for all Americans instead of a two-tiered system favoring the elites? Who among the candidates will listen to the will of the people? It is one thing to hold Washington, D.C. accountable and quite another to shrink Washington, D.C., a voracious and arrogant ogre which is attempting to control and regulate every waking moment of every American citizen.
The Bill of Rights and private property are all but gone. Which candidate will restore liberty to its fullest extent?
Which candidate will support the 2nd Amendment without attempting to further limit the constitutional right to bear arms? Which candidate will take the profound steps necessary to stem the flow of corporations fleeing this nation’s government, taking with them American technology and jobs? Which candidate will reduce government regulation and taxation being used by Congressmen principally to enrich themselves? Which candidate will make the committment to put an instant end to the insanity of a North American Union?
Give Rudy Giuliani credit. He gets it, and he just may be the only one who does.
Most of the candidates for President of the United States probably could not articulate, in the correct order, the Bill of Rights - even if it was their last conscious act. I would confidently wager Rudy Giuliani can. I wouldn't bet against Mitt Romney. Mr. Giuliani, if you will add to your list a few of the things you promise not to do, and you will have not only my vote, but more votes than you can count.
Peter S.
Red State Patriot: If you share the values expressed by Rudy Giuliani, you are encouraged to validate your support for these principles by signing the petition posted at: http://www.joinrudy2008.com/commit.php
Would you be surprised to learn that more than 500,000 babies will be born in the United States this year to illegal aliens? In the big picture, that is approximately 15 percent of all births in the United States. What would you estimate the cost will be to the American taxpayer? Using 'opportunity cost' as a measurement concept, what could all of that taxpayer money have otherwise purchased, billions and billions of dollars, if it were not lavishly spent on illegal aliens (not United States citizens and in most cases people who are clearly un-American) and their social benefits? Then there is the question, "Why was the money spent that way?"
Media accounts are rife with stories of human traffickers operating a thriving business bringing pregnant women from all over the world into the United States just in time to give birth and claim American citizenship and social benefits. All those babies, called “anchor babies,” can immediately claim American birthright citizenship, the result of which is that their mothers and other relatives immediately sign up for a vast stream of taxpayer benefits and send for even more relatives in other countries (chain migration).
An estimated 20-30 million persons now live in the United States illegally, most receiving multiple forms of social benefits funded by taxpayers. Some estimates reach a staggering 40 million. Our federal and state governments don't know for sure how many illegal aliens are receiving economic subsidies, or what numbers of illegal aliens are receiving multiple subsidies using multiple forms of fraudulent identification.
It is worse than a racket and the whole mess is the direct responsibility of our Congressmen. And it continues! Why Americans allow this to continue is beyond comprehension. If Senator John McCain were confronted, he would quickly try to tell you that a number of bills are before Congress to solve some of the problems. He would blame partisan politics for the fact that nothing is being done. Senator McCain's answer should beg the question, “What has Congress, and John McCain in particular, been doing for the last 20 years?” Yes, he has been in Congress that long and is one of the primary architects of the crisis our nation now faces.
Clearly, our Congress led by John McCain and Ted Kennedy has failed intentionally to do its duty to protect American citizenship, national sovereignty, and taxpayers, and worse, failed miserably in upholding their own citizenship, regardless of their hollow protestations.
Just how bad is it (to the extent that we are willing to believe government figures)? In 2001, the United States reportedly admitted 1,064,318 immigrants - enough people to create a major city the size of Chicago. One can only guess at the numbers for last year, including both immigrants and illegal alien migrants.
Why are immigration numbers so high? One of the principal reasons is "chain migration," created by Congress in 1965, where once a migrant becomes a legal immigrant, he can then sponsor several other immigrants for admission, each of whom themselves sponsor several others, and so on. Naturally, chain migration drives immigration numbers up - way up. Chain migration has been allowed to happen because current U.S. immigration policy is based on the principle of a broadly defined concept of “family reunification,” i.e., immigrants are able to sponsor their relatives back home to be admitted as legal immigrants here in the United States. In other words, most illegal alien migrants are admitted and reclassified as legal immigrants simply because they have a relative here who sponsors them, not because of what they might be able to contribute in skills, education, culture or work ethic to our society.
Under the chain policy described above, immigration numbers will never stop rising - never. That fact is a mathematical certainty. Under the "immediate relatives" category, the parents, spouse, and children of a U.S. citizen are admitted without limit. In 2001, 36 years after chain migration began, the number of immediate relatives admitted (not immigrants) was approximately 676,000. Last year it was over one million.
Since most immigration categories have a statutory limit in the law to the number of people who can be admitted each year, immigrants' relatives back home in theory must wait for years to be admitted. Over three million aliens have been told they are "eligible to immigrate" but have to wait. Many of them do not, figuring that, since they are eligible anyway, they should not have to wait for the U.S. government to get around to doing the paperwork. In this way, chain migration and the expectations it produces, increases illegal migration.
Unfortunately, the problem will continue to get worse. Conveniently ignored by the media, and intentionally ignored by the authors and sponsors of immigration reform bills in Congress (Senator John McCain for example), is that the illegal aliens given amnesty by Congress in 1986, 21 years ago, are now fueling naturalization in record numbers. As these former illegal aliens become naturalized citizens, ALL of their immediate relatives in the known universe, and relatives they never knew they had, suddenly qualify to come immediately to the United States, and each starts a new migration chain of their own.
One wonders - are Congressmen, Governors and State Legislators really willling to sell American citizenship, and their own birthright, and give away the wealth of American citizens? Are they willing to abandon United States sovereignty to illegal aliens in exchange for campaign contributions and fraudulent votes? The bitter truth is that any politician who advocates illegal alien amnesty is willing to do just that. What about an entire pollitical party that advocates open borders and minimal national security?
It comes down to this - any political party, and any member of a political party, Republican and Democrat alike, who endorses illegal alien amnesty and open borders is defiantly telling all American citizens, right in our face, that they are willing to sell American citizens into the service of illegal aliens via income redistribution. Such seritude amounts to nothing less than modern slavery, slavery to illegal aliens and other minorities who seek to be served by taxpayers rather than assimilate and participate as fellow Americans. Not only are income taxes taken to provide an enviable lifestyle and medical care by world standards to those who have not earned it, huge staffs have been employed in administrative agencies to wait solely on the needs of these people. In other words, the world has been turned upside down. The top 50% of wage earners pay the income taxes, and in doing so, serve their masters. Who are the masters? First and foremost, members of Congress. Secondly, their designated minority communities and special interest groups that form the coalition to keep them in positions of power so that they can continue to access taxpayer funding. The producers - the taxpayers - have become the slaves. And that is what amnesty for illegal aliens is all about - extending the slavery of the producers to ever greater depths and the power of Congress to ever greater heights.
Red State Patriot
Commentary by David R.: One ill conceived government program begets another. Remove the United States Supreme Court case "Goldberg v. Kelly", which made social welfare programs "entitlements" rather than "charity", and you collapse the illegal immigrant problem. With that gone, state governments can completely deny any benefits to the undocumented, and if they aren't subsidized with schooling, health care, housing, or other programs, the earned income will not be sufficient to draw them here. If there is no draw, they won't come, and nobody will have to surrender any liberties, Mexican or American.
Commentary by Tom D.: The site contains some good information. I too am thoroughly disgusted about illegal immigration in this country. Note that I said "illegal immigration". My wife, who is English, is a card carrying "green card" holder and we went through the process to bring her legally into the country. This included a thorough background investigation, mental exam, physical exam, and personal interview at the US Embassy Councilate's Office. Additionally, I had to guarantee fiscally responsibility by showing I had the income and assets available so she would not become a "burden" on the country. It infuraties me to no end that anyone that can walk, swim, or jump can enter the US illegally, take root here, and then receive the free benefits such as health care, education, social services programs, food stamps/programs, etc., that we end up supporting them with. It has gotten so bad here in Chandler that we are seriously thinking of leaving AZ for a non-border state.
In the race to the bottom for votes to win office, or to preserve themselves in office, it would be difficult to out-run Republicans as they pander to the Hispanic vote by refusing to control our southern border against an invasion by millions of illegal aliens. Democrats are trying and they may soon pass Republicans in their cynical pursuit of political power.
At the Democrats' "winter meeting" (they used to call it a "retreat," before that word conjured up negative implications about the war), a clergyman was asked to deliver the invocation. He was Husham Al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center, a Shi'ite mosque in Dearborn, Mich.
According to a transcript published on the Website HotAir.com, Al-Husainy offered a prayer with anti-American and anti-Israel undertones: "We thank you God, to send us your messages through our father Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Mohammed. Through you, God, we unite. So guide us to the right path. The path of the people you bless, not the path of the people you doom. Help us God to liberate and fill this earth with justice and peace and love and equality. And help us to stop the war and violence, and oppression and occupation…"
To the untrained ear and uninformed mind, the first part sounds kind of ecumenical, a type of universalism and religious correctness, in which everybody's biblical or Koranic figures get equal billing, so as not to offend. But Muslims see all of these religious leaders as Muslim prophets. Their view is that Abraham, Moses and Jesus taught Islam and that the Jews and Christians perverted the Islamic faith and, according to some, deserve death for doing so.
Al-Husainy was engaging in something more dangerous than prayer. He proclaimed religious superiority and triumphalism. Surely Democrats do not subscribe to his not-so-subtle religious doublespeak, which places the United States and Israel among the people God "dooms." Neither do most Democrats believe that all of Israel is occupied and that "oppression and occupation" applies to the Jews who live there and must be evicted. So why invite a clergyman who leads them in such a prayer? It isn't that his background is unknown.
As blogger Debbie Schlussel has written, Al-Husainy led "almost daily protests" last summer "of thousands of Hezbollah supporters on the streets of Dearborn and Detroit, swarming with swastikas and anti-Semitic, anti-American signs. Later, I watched him … at an anti-Semitic rally of 3,000 Hezbollah supporters at Dearborn's Bint Jebail Cultural Center. He was among several who delivered hate-filled, anti-American rhetoric. I watched him cheer others on when they called for the hastened destruction of the Jews and when they said Americans are 'diseased.'"
On the Website "Jihad Watch" (a good place to keep up with what the Islamofascists are planning for us), Robert Spencer writes, "…the West is facing a concerted effort by Islamic jihadists, the motives and goals of whom are largely ignored by the Western media, to destroy the West and bring it forcibly into the Islamic world - and to commit violence to that end even while their overall goal remains out of reach."
A clergyman who advocated white supremacy and the inferiority of all other faiths would never have been invited to offer the invocation at a DNC gathering. Yet Democrats got the equivalent of such a person in Al-Husainy.
Democrats have been trying to get back in the religion game since Republicans cornered most of the Evangelical Christian vote in the last several election cycles, but choosing Husham Al-Husainy as their instrument to put them in closer touch - if not with God, than with Muslim voters - is more outrageous and shameful than Sen. Joseph Biden's remarks about Barack Obama, and far more dangerous.
The Muslim vote went largely to Democrats in last year's election. In Virginia, Democrat James Webb received 92 percent of the Muslim vote, compared to Republican George Allen's 8 percent, according to the Muslim American Society and the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee. Was inviting Al-Husainy to pray for the destruction of America and Israel payback to the Muslim community? If so, the price is too high and the potential consequences are too great.
Has politics come to this, that some politicians would sell out their own and other free countries for a voting bloc that contains elements committed to our destruction (Democrats), or pander to illegal immigrants who break our laws and then get Social Security checks (Republicans)? Have politicians no shame?
By Cal Thomas
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=19281
Commentary by Red State Patriot:
To answer Cal Thomas’ question, keep foremost in your thoughts the views of President Abraham Lincoln, who observed that, "Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."
President Ulysses S. Grant also gave an appropriate tribute to many in the main stream media, Hollywood and Congress when he recounted in his Personal Memoirs, "Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war, in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong, occupies no enviable place in life or history. Better for him, individually, to advocate 'war, pestilence, and famine' than to act as obstructionist to a war already begun.... The most favorable posthumous history the stay-at-home traitor can hope for is -- oblivion." (… and deservedly so …)
We have come to a point in our culture that politicians have no shame, ethical principles, loyalty to the United States of America and deserve neither citizenship nor your adulation. Instead they should be treated as the cancerous scourge they have become, because if for no other reason, they are willing to feed off the life-blood of their fellow Americans in their own self interest.
Stay as close to home as you can Dorothy, and try to keep Toto safe. The rest of the world is becoming the Land of Oz and a very dangerous place.
Americans Want New Presidential Blood, not 'Retreads!'
Despite consistent polls showing that 70-80% of Americans want immigration laws enforced and the border secured, most 2008 Presidential hopefuls pay no attention to Americans at all. Candidates like Guiliani, Romney and McCain are nothing but "Retreads" parroting the tired Bush Party Line telling ad nauseum the hardships faced by illegal aliens living in the US, and insist on forcing amnesty for illegals on resisting Americans.
Of course, Retread candidates don't call them illegal aliens--they use "undocumented immigrants" or "unauthorized workers" or some other sympathy-generating politically-correct and politically-expedient term. Even George Bush in Tuesday's SOTU speech still clings to oxymoron terms like "illegal immigrants." (And how can an immigrant--who by definition in federal immigration law 8 USC 1101 has a valid visa--be "illegal?")
Retreads carefully evade mentioning the damage done to middle and low-income Americans by the illegal alien invasion. (Yes Virginia, that's what it really is--an invasion. The 5,000 illegal aliens daily breaking into the US equal a regiment, and each month it's the equivalent of a field army. That's more troops than we have in Iraq or that landed in Normandy on D-Day in 1944!).
George Bush only spoke of "hope and opportunity" and didn't mention the collapsing emergency rooms illegal aliens use for their FREE primary medical care, the public schools buckling to accommodate their children, or the increasing tax burden for illegal aliens forced on middle-income Americans who gain nothing from this illegal alien invasion.
Nor did Bush refer to the increasing social unrest that he promotes by ignoring the wishes of Americans in forcing us to accept his plan of amnesty for these illegal alien invaders. He wants a debate that's "serious, civil, and conclusive." But Americans aren't fooled by this whining and sniveling either. They know that the Retreads' calls for "civility" are aimed only at Americans who disagree with their illegal alien amnesty plan, and their real meaning is "Shut up, because we don't want to hear it. We've made the decision and you have nothing to say about it." Retreads weren't calling for "civility" when 100,000 illegal aliens shut down the Chicago Loop at Friday rush hour waving their Mexican flags demanding "rights" and telling Americans "This is our land--go back to Europe."
It's an outrage that Retreads intentionally malign and defame American men and women whose only "offense" is publicly identifying and discussing the problem of illegal immigration as a historic national crisis. Retreads may fool themselves but they don't deceive Americans. That's why the average American voter is ecstatic that Congressmen Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo have entered the 2008 Presidential race. They know these three statesmen will insist that the immigration issue (both legal and illegal) be recognized and addressed as a top issue in the Republican Party's platform. Three cheers to Hunter, Paul and Tancredo!
Americans demand an acknowledgment and resolution of the illegal immigration issue, and have lost patience with Retreads' repeatedly and arrogantly putting aside their best interests in favor of big business and ethnic lobbies. Politicians like George Bush, Ted Kennedy, John McCain and their cronies will be responsible for civil unrest likely to produce violence and even bloodshed, both from Americans graduating from "frustration" to "anger" as well as from illegal aliens with an inherent disregard for the rule of law. Responsibility will fall on those who continually told Americans (in effect) to "Shut up because we're going to do what we want and not what serves citizens' interests."
While on the surface it may appear that each side of the aisle has a different "master," (Republicans serving global business' demands for cheap labor vs. Democrats seeking the "cheap votes" from ethnic lobbies), the reality is that they're both in bed together. Examination of donor lists of LULAC, MALDEF and other ethnic lobbies reveals the multi-national corporations who traditionally demand that Republicans deliver cheap labor.
In 2008, we must give "the boot" to these "Retreads" who refuse to represent "We the People." These worthless hacks are easy to recognize; unknowns don't achieve Presidential candidacy. These "retreads" who ignore citizens' opinions and interests have a clear track record of easily identified red flags:
Retreads refuse to call the invaders what they are: illegal aliens. Instead, they choose diluted, politically-correct and pandering terms like "undocumented migrants" and "unauthorized workers." Examples include Senator John McCain who "prefers the term illegal immigrant" (1) in precise lock-step with George Bush's 2007 SOTU speech. Similar panderers abound on the opposite side of the aisle: Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry are Democratic Retreads who parrot the snake oil pitch that illegal aliens are valuable "citizens" of the US instead of the lawbreakers they are.
Retreads call for "civil" discussion. Again, John McCain is strict obedience to the George Bush dictates reflected in the 2007 State of the Union address. (1) (Interestingly, McCain's whining to "tone down the debate" followed a Town Hall the previous evening in Sun Lakes, AZ where all who attended rejected the McCain-Kennedy "not an amnesty" bill. If any of the 1500 people in attendance supported the "Godfather of Amensty's" proposal, they remained silent that night.(3) Next morning came McCain's sniveling call for "toning down the debate.")
Retread John McCain has legitimately earned his reputation for arrogance. While organizing and leading "congressional visiting teams" during the May 2006 Senatorial Amnesty passage, I personally saw the self-built shrine in his Phoenix district office lobby. Politicians often display photos of themselves with other important people to impress visitors, but not John McCain. One entire wall of the office lobby is covered floor-to-ceiling with framed magazine covers upon which McCain's picture commands sole place on the cover!
Even I was amazed when office manager Babette Donaldson told of the 100,000-letter backlog of letters on the immigration issue that McCain's Washington office faced. There's no doubt that the prevailing message in those letters ISN'T "Senator, you're doing a wonderful job with your bill giving amnesty to illegal aliens and another guest worker plan that gives workers and their families Medicare coverage" (and why does McCain need to bring non-working spouses and children to get work done "that Americans won't do?")
Voters don't behave like that; they write primarily when they oppose a politician's bills. Yet knowing that he'll want the votes of each of the 100,000 Americans who wrote those letters and e-mails, "Godfather of Amnesty" McCain arrogantly continues to force illegal alien amnesty on Americans.
Newspapers who copy and praise Retreads' behavior should also be rejected as credible sources of accurate reporting. The brave few like Lou Dobbs who are marginalized by the ethnic and open borders lobbies are actually the only sources of what really happens and why. Nearly 8 months after the disgraceful conviction of two honest and brave Border Patrol agents for doing their job of intercepting an illegal alien drug smuggler, no national news network and few newspapers have reported the story the Bush Administration wants hushed up.
Retreads pander to racism with membership in congressional caucuses geared to ethnic bias rather than ideology should be rejected as demagogues and worse. Examples are the Congressional Black Caucus, (Democratic) Hispanic Caucus and (Republican) Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. That such organizations claim "being black is an unwritten rule" or admit non-Hispanics as "associate members" (translated second-class members) would provoke a firestorm of condemnation if practiced by "white" counterparts.<
Can you imagine a "Congressional Anglo-European Caucus" where Black, Hispanic or Asian member of Congress were "associate" instead of "full" status? The clear message sent by members of such caucus groups is "racism is OK so long as 'whites' are excluded" That It's NOT OK must be shouted loud and clear by Americans--black, brown, red, white and yellow.<
Retreads' calls for "civility" are no more than the "Can't we all just get along?" cries of the liberal side of the open-borders lobby. Considering that such liberals established and perpetuate such ethnic caucus groups, the liberals have answered their own question--they don't want to "get along" with anyone and their cries are both hypocriticals as well as whining and sniveling. Their "Can't we all just get along?" brands them as crybabies.<
Reject "white" politicians who accommodate such racists by being "keynote speakers" at racist organizations, extolling racist agendas of groups like National Council of LaRaza, League of United Latin-American Citizens and the like. Again, such disgraceful behavior spans both sides of the aisle: George Bush, John McCain, Ted Kennedy, HIllary Clinton, John Kerry and many others whose lack of integrity or ethnics allow them to obsequiously seek votes at any pandering price.
Americans have had enough of illegal aliens being given our economic and natural resources while "Retread" politicians send the bill to law-abiding citizens. The President and Congress who have refused to enforce our immigration laws are responsible for the overpopulation and urban sprawl that bankrupts every law-abiding American citizen and legal immigrant. These politicians give "cheap labor" to big business and send the subsidy bill to taxpayers.
Let every cheap and pandering Retread politician beware that Americans increasingly and unashamedly reflect the spirit of Howard Jarvis who led California's 1978 taxpayer revolt in shouting "we're mad as hell and we won't take it anymore!"
Spineless politicians ignore citizen outrage at their own political peril, much as did Congressman Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who voluntarily retired rather than face the humiliation of a "voters' pink slip."
In 2004, I watched Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas swear in his good friend, Senator John Danforth, as our new Ambassador to the United Nations. It was a solemn and moving moment, and one phrase struck me forcefully: “I promise to defend the Constitution from enemies without and within.”
I’ve been pondering that phrase ever since. Of course, we know that we have had numerous enemies from without, and we have faced and defeated them all. Currently, we are enmeshed in a war to the death with maniacal terrorists—not some nation or other, but blood-crazed zealots, men and women and even some children, who wish us dead just because we live. But we are facing that challenge, and though we’ve been attacked on our own soil, we have taken the fight to them. I’m particularly grateful for that.
Would John Danforth or his successors—and for that matter, any and all of our elected representatives—have to defend our Constitution against enemies within our own country? Yes, they will—or they had better—because the enemy is upon us already.
In 2006, our country is again gripped and increasingly bound by tyrants—not regents and despots from afar, but by cancerous growths from within. Long ago it was prophesied by objective observers that America was too strong to be defeated by outside forces, but it could someday rot and crumble from within and go the way of all the other great nation-states, succumbing in the slime of selfishness, greed, immorality, and abuse of its own freedoms.
It’s happening all around us. Our valiant ship of state is listing, springing dangerous leaks in vital places, threatening after only 230 years to sink into the abyss of history. Fellow citizens, we won our first revolution under God; now, because of the inroads that have been made already against many of the values we hold dear, I call for a new revolution!
What are the powerful forces steadily binding us all around, like a sleeping Gulliver in Lilliput Land, robbing us of the very liberty to perpetuate the vision of our Founding Fathers? There are several, and they are pernicious, relentless, and eventually fatal. I’ll list the most obvious:
Ignorance, which is appalling, pervasive, and increasing daily. Basic literary and math skills diminish. Newspapers choose 4th grade vocabulary and short, shallow stories to cater to the lowest possible denominator. They’ve discovered that the median reading comprehension level in America today is at the 4th grade level. American history is abbreviated and given short shift, taught very selectively according to prevailing “political correctness” and intellectual bias. Left-leaning media and even liberal church groups abandon “first principles” and historic guidelines, constantly brainwashing the masses, cutting them adrift from ancient moorings into a sea of aimless relativism.
Apathy. America grew huge and strong on the near-unanimous involvement of its citizens. In war or peace, every vote counted and every voice could be heard. From each ward to each city hall to each county board to each state house and to each legislature to the very halls of Congress, the citizens took part, debated, came to majority agreements, and moved forward. Today, too often half or more of our citizens who are eligible don’t even vote! They feel left out, unnecessary, distracted, cynical, and alienated—and, of course, ignorant of the issues—so they stay home and grouse. This has to stop! Citizens, this new revolution must overthrow the bonds and blindness of ignorance and disinvolvement. Our country must be stirred and called to action!
Materialism/Need. I’m combining these two because I believe they are related. Greed, corporate and personal, combined with inevitable dishonesty (the Bible says “the love of money is the root of all evil”) widen the gap between multimillionaires and the multi-millions of hard-working families and retired seniors—not to mention the physically and emotionally handicapped and ill—who can’t pay all their bills or even afford their medicines, even if they work two or three jobs. Well-intentioned politicians keep calling on Big Brother government (the groaning taxpayers, namely, us) to solve the problems with bureaucracy.
Citizens, socialism is not the answer! Social responsibility is—individual, local, and active response to our brother’s needs. And the new revolution must have the sensitivity and heart and will to voluntarily use our vast resources to meet our human needs. The early colonists who gave us this nation knew how to do that; we’ve got to learn how all over again.
Humanism, Immorality, and Godlessness—an unholy trinity. Most Christians believe in a triune God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Many Old Testament scriptures foreshadow each of these three distinct persons in the same Godhead. But today in America, we are confronted and threatened by an unholy trinity that has sunk its roots deep down into our society: godlessness, immorality, and humanism.
Remove God from public life (as a number of perverse, determined, and well-funded activist groups are doing very effectively), and a cancerous spirit of immorality seeps relentlessly across the land like a poison gas, corrupting all forms of entertainment, encouraging drugs and violence and rampant promiscuity in the streets, in schools, homes, businesses, politics, and even some churches, with the inevitable surrender to humanism. Man rules his own destiny, God is dead, and “if it feels good, do it!” Radio personalities wince when they’re fined for obscenity and sacrilege by the Federal Communications Commission and rail at the President demanding their “First Amendment rights.” But they’re not seeking “free speech”; they’ve had that their whole lives and careers. No, they want “freedom of filth.” Our Founding Fathers would have had them tarred and feathered and whipped in the public square.
In 1952, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Douglas declared, “The First Amendment does not say that in every respect there shall be a separation of church and state. That is the common sense of the matter. Otherwise, the state and religion would be aliens to each other-hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. We cannot read into the Bill of Rights such a philosophy of hostility to religion.”
Wise old Ben Franklin, certainly no religious fanatic, said “only a moral and virtuous people are capable of freedom; the more corrupt and vicious a society becomes, the more it has need of masters.”
George Washington clearly and bluntly stated, “religion and morality are the twin pillars of freedom!” And our fourth president, James Madison, to whom many refer as the “father of the Constitution,” said this, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of the government, far from it. We have staked the future of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us…to govern ourselves according to the commandments of God. The future of America is not in the Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this constitution is founded.”
Citizens, the enemy within has already subverted the Constitution and bound us with ever strengthened cords of immorality and indecency and godlessness. We must mount a new revolution and throw them into the sea! Judicial Activism—lawmaking judges, Wyatt Earps who shoot not from the hip but from the bench.
Thomas Jefferson warned us: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” Jefferson didn’t fear the executive or legislative branches of government; he knew they would obey the citizens who elected them. But we would have to be very watchful lest unelected jurists bind upon us their views, not the expressed will of the people. And look: In just two or three decades, renegades in black robes, ignoring or perverting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, have been responsible for taking prayer from school children, taking every mention of God from the public square, authorizing 40 million abortions, dictating severe reversals of states’ rights and individual freedoms, and even now they are redefining the institution of “marriage,” flying in the face of all recorded history and the very foundations of society.
Citizens, we need a new Boston Tea Party. Only this time, let’s not waste perfectly good tea. Let’s heave a bunch of black robes into the harbor with some of those vigilante judges in them. It won’t hurt the robes, and the defrocked jurists can swim out and reenroll in Constitution 101!
Fellow citizens, fellow Americans: Our forefathers, the early colonists, were decent, hardworking, ordinary people who rose to the challenge that confronted them, threw off the yoke of British bondage and unfair taxation, and established a new republic. Like trichinosis in pork, our muscles and our will have been sapped and weakened by insidious forces from within. Do we still have the will, the vision, the zeal—and the plain old gumption— to stand up to these invaders, root them out, overturn their unconstitutional rulings, and reestablish our republic that represents not just all its citizens, but our traditional morals and guidelines? If we do, let the revolution begin! And God bless America one more time!
Delivered at the Heritage Foundation, November 29, 2006 by Pat Boone.
Pat Boone is a recording artist, entertainer, bestselling author, and a national spokesman for the 60 Plus Association (www.60plus.org).
The “Letter to Ben in Iraq” was spot on. I gravely fear what is happening to the Bush administration post election. The people who appear to be taking charge of the foreign policy (James Baker, Gates, etc.) favor appeasement with the Muslims, and see Israel as a mere impediment to peace in the region, rather than our only ally. This is like seeing Britain as an impediment to peace with Hitler. Their suggestion that we "begin talks with Iran and Syria to help influence the problem in Iraq," is like suggesting that we address the "problem of the revolution in Spain by talking to Germany and Italy so they will use their influence there," after Guernica. I'm more concerned about the shifts in the Administration, than I am about the Democrats taking congress.
You're concerns seem well placed. If we were to project your sentiments into the future, we’re forced to deal with some unpleasant scenarios. For example:
Six Arab nations, Islamic regimes with terrorist intent and teeming with fanatics, not unlike fire ants and Africanized bees, have apparently told the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency that they also plan to pursue, acquire and master nuclear technology. The threat of nuclear weapons held by Iran is quickly becoming only the first outwardly visible canker sore on the backside of humanity.
The cause of this ugly condition is intransigent ideology (religious and cultural). The current instability in parts of the world, and the Middle East in particular, seems the proximate result of decades of ill-advised and toxic appeasement diplomacy by the United States and Europe. We find ourselves in one of those situations in history where failed diplomacy can't be reversed, the genie can't be put back in a bottle, the cancer has metastasized, and the human condition may now be inoperable. Yes, some human beings will survive, but there ample reason to question how much of civilization as we know it will survive?
When Islamic terrorist-sponsor nations like Saudi Arabia can even think of making such a declaration of intent to acquire nuclear weapons, it could not become a reality except as a consequence of America's appeasement-ridden foreign policy. For decades (excepting maybe the Reagan Administration), U.S. foreign policy has been founded on liberalism and impotent policies that only encouraged new threats and aggression – both within our own domestic society and throughout the world.
The United States’ foreign policy toward Iran and North Korea has made those two ugly sister-regimes stronger and far worse of a threat to all earth-bound humanity. For decades the United States and its allies submitted to the juvenile extortion by North Korea, appeasing that hostile regime. During the 1990’s, the United States showered North Korea with technology and subsistence in return for Chinese money in the form of campaign contributions. North Korea has succeeded in going nuclear not despite, but thanks to Western liberalism and failed appeasement diplomacy.
America's foreign policy toward Iran, and our nation’s profoundly fading support of Israel, has only emboldened the Arab states. How could it not? The United States’ groveling diplomatic overtures toward Iran and North Korea has demonstrated to every nation on Earth that the United States is willing to provide economic 'incentives,' essentially, to pay “protection money,” along with Europe, to hostile regimes bent on arming themselves.
What malignant regime would not be encouraged to seek nuclear weapons and ideological dominance after witnessing the spectacle of the United States, the lone superpower, repeatedly prostrating itself at the feet of its enemies, taxing its citizens and paying for protection in the form of Foreign Aid?
Those who are unfamiliar with the term “dihimnitude” would do well to learn its meaning, various forms and implications. Rest assured, when Islamic nations acquire nuclear weapons, whether by engineering competence or commerce, deploying them against infidels and non-believers through terrorist proxies is a foregone conclusion. France, Germany and the Soviets will likely facilitate Islamic terrorist efforts.
Evil is the necessary result of rewarding evil and liberals throughout history have defiantly refused to learn that lesson, claiming relativism in ideological defense. If you take nothing else from this article, remember that greater evil is the necessary result of rewarding evil, a universal truth in human history from its origins.
Maybe the big picture would be easier to grasp if we shrink the stage from international in scope to something the size of an American city. Does any American think that their community’s safety and security is improved by negotiating with, and paying protection money to a violent street gang which espouses an extremist ideology (willing to kill you if you are not a member of their gang and refuse to join) – and encouraging the members of the street gang to arm themselves with all manner of weapons – and not hold them accountable for their unrelenting criminal acts and atrocities in the community – and make no effort to stop their expanding territory of dominance - and be unwilling to stop the flow of drugs and human smuggling across international borders – and being afraid to disarm them for fear of what others will think? If so, you are a prime candidate for the next foreign policy post in charge of Middle Eastern affairs at the U.S. State Department.
Arguably what is going on in American cities is only a microcosmic perspective of what is going on in the Middle East. Turning the coin over and looking at the obverse, the Middle East is only a reflection of the disintegration of American culture within our own cities. The cockroaches of humanity are on the move, no longer fearful of extermination. If we can’t stop fire ants and Africanized bees – mere insects, what makes anyone think an appeasement-oriented secular society can stop either illegal alien migration or a militant religious jihad?
The United States needs a radically different foreign policy, a policy that puts American self-interest first, solely on moral principles. The United States today could easily be a tragic Shakespearian incarnation of the cowardly lion, the tin man and the scarecrow. The United States needs to find a heart, a brain, and courage. Being loyal, staying loyal and living loyal requires one crucially innate human trait not found in liberals – courage.
“Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.” - Winston Churchill
In the words of another famous intellectual: “Courage!
What makes a king out of a slave? Courage!
What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage!
What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? Courage!
What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!
What makes the Sphinx the Seventh Wonder? Courage!
What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage!
What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the ape in ape-ricot?
Courage! “
Can you guess who the famous intellectual was?
Cowardly Lion
Being loyal, staying loyal, and living loyally, requires one indispensable human trait. Courage! Loyalty takes courage doesn't it? And who among liberals is loyal to anyone or anything? "Self" is the only focus.
If a man cannot be loyal to his faith, he cannot be loyal to anybody or anything, even himself. A man without a faith would neither understand nor know what it means to live loyally. Even a Muslim understands faith and loyalty. American secular liberals do not have a clue, and that includes all those who claim a personal faith but live outside its ethical and moral commandments.
However, the likelihood that we will punish hostile regimes, such as Iran and North Korea, instead of rewarding them through liberal appeasement and income redistribution on an international scale, is but the dimmest of lights in the White House and the Bush Administration. If only the lights in Washington, D.C. weren't so dim, consumed with self-interest instead of the nation’s welfare? The solution is so simple if only someone would turn on the lights.
The Difference between Disappointing and Dangerous
Thomas Sowell recently commented, “The Republicans are disappointing and the Democrats are dangerous.” The first assertion, an accurate commentary on all forms of liberalism, has been addressed in a previous posting entitled, “How Would a Patriot Act?” Today, let’s direct our thoughts to his second insight, “Democrats are dangerous.”
The election results produced the unexpected defeat of several prominent neo- and paleo-conservative Republicans in Congress (men who were not really conservatives, just marginally less liberal than Democrats), most notably J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, George Allen of Virginia and Conrad Burns of Montana. Now is as good a time as any to turn our attention to the Democratic Party’s leadership. Given as many facts as possible, and historical propensities, are Democrats really as dangerous as they were portrayed in the weeks prior to the election? If not, the logical conclusion would be that the caterwauling of the losers is only self-serving and a moot issue as they try to reinvent themselves.
Had Republicans been conservatives, there would be no need today for them to get back to their roots, to reinvent themselves, to adhere more closely to their core beliefs. You can’t lose something you never had. Had Congressional Republicans been conservatives, they would never have lost sight of their constituency – which is first and foremost, the United States of America and not the Republican Party.
Yes, Republicans were intensely targeted by MoveOn.Org and the Democratic Party. Yes, 3.6 billion dollars was spent nationwide in 2006, much of it orchestrating the defeat of Republicans in general and the few remaining Congressional quasi-conservatives in particular. Yes there was widespread voter fraud. Some things we cannot change and some things politicians clearly don’t want to change. Those Democrats whose vote was motivated by a desire for more socialism, assuming they understood the difference, will deserve what they’re going to get, but in hindsight their children won’t.
How many times have you heard honest, trustworthy, patriotic Democrats (a rare multiple oxymoron) in Congress assert that they “support our troops?” After first voting to go to war ONLY as a political expediency immediately after the carnage of September 11, the Democratic Party’s policies, strategies and tactics have been, from the beginning of the War on Terror, a conscious effort to undermine the Administration’s ability to wage the war and to defend America. Democrats are not so obtuse that they don’t understand exactly what they are doing. They know full well that their behavior ONLY benefits the Islamic terrorists. Incredible as it is, that’s reality. There is nothing naive about a cunning liberal politician.
You would be surprised to learn how many Americans see clearly that the main stream media led by the New York Times (the propaganda arm of the socialist movement) either adopted or originated the anti-war strategy of the Democratic Party. In close concert with Democrats, the print, visual and entertainment media has willfully and recklessly spent (denigrated, demeaned, openly discarded as worthless, wasted) the lives of many young servicemen and women in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention countless non-combatant civilians, with their intentionally biased and inaccurate reporting, incessant public criticisms of the President, revelations of classified information and open celebration of America’s war dead.
Why, (1) Americans have not risen up in moral outrage, and why (2), Democrats who live only in service to themselves in an intellectual and moral vacuum, have not been tarred and feathered as human defects, is beyond rational comprehension - unless one takes into consideration that liberal (neocon and paleocon) Republicans have behave no differently. Even the Japanese during World War II, renowned for their brutality and inhumanity, didn’t orgasm over the death of every American soldier as do members of the Democratic Party leadership and the United States main stream media. History will someday show, if written by a conservative, that the United States 2006 mid-term Congressional elections were not a competition between moral, ethical and philosophical agendas, but a crass amoral competition for power at the expense of the lives of U.S. servicemen and women.
The inescapable conclusion is that the combination of the American main stream media, the Democratic Party and the Islamic terrorists really did materially influence the outcome of the United States 2006 mid-term elections, just as they did in Spain. Instead of a national outpouring of patriotism and a mandate to President Bush to take it to the bad guys, and in doing so, to orchestrate a quick, decisive and severe end to the madness in the Middle East, the United States electorate instead voted into political office the nation’s most accomplished appeasers, moral and ethical degenerates, and experts on defeat. The United States sent to the world an undeniable and searing message of cowardice with our votes. Thank-you notes from Islamic regimes to the New York and LA Times have likely been mailed, received, framed and displayed in a trophy room with the names of the war dead.
Do Democrats or the main-stream-media really support our troops? In a few words, Democrats and liberal Republicans don’t even support this nation! A conservative’s philosophy is “God, country, and family.” A liberal’s philosophy begins at “self” and it abruptly ends there. Is the Democratic Party dangerous - only in the view of those who were not born brain dead at birth.
Why and how did the Republican Party leadership fail in the 2006 Mid-term elections? That question will be debated in political science classrooms for decades. Conservatives know intuitively, but most liberal Republicans have not a clue. The Frist reason is simple, there are not five conservatives in all of Congress. Unfortunately, there will be even fewer conservatives in Congress tomorrow, which means Americans will have to fend off the Democratic Party's extreme socialist (collectivist) agenda in the near term.
For the strangest of reasons, conservative Republicans have felt obligated for years to vote for at least one of the two candidates on a ballot, even if both were liberal and neither reflected their views, instead of choosing "none of the above" when appropriate. Badgered incessantly by the Republican National Committee, threatening their worst fears of tax increases, political correctness, and runaway income redistribution, conservatives were fed and many bellieved that Democrats were somehow the epitome of evil and so much worse than liberal Republicans. Well, they were, until Republicans became ideologically indistinguishable from Democrats. Conservatives, citizens with value systems, were told that If Republicans were not elected, it would be their fault and the guilt would be theirs. The RNC knows guilt and loyalty are profound motivators to a conservative, and the last six years has taught conservatives a bitter lesson - conservatives were an easy "mark."
So, how do you convey in the most simple terms what happened in the elections - a metaphor or a parable maybe?
Imagine that the Republican Party’s liberal leadership has been looking at the above picture since 1994, trying to figure out in which direction the bus is traveling. They honestly couldn't tell. You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult. It is not a trick question. It's not hard to understand, unless you are a liberal, and the Republican Party had become very liberal. Not having core values, liberal Republicans administered the nation from Congress, redistributed more and more tax revenues, made themselves fabuously wealthy from campaign contributions, and made no effort to lead the nation. How can you lead without core values?
The only possible answers are left or right. Look carefully at the picture. Do you know the answer? The Republican leadership (the oxymoron of the decade) should have figured it out – except that they were not conservatives.
Pre-school children were asked the same question and they all answered "left."
They were then asked, "Why do you think the bus is traveling in the left direction?"
They answered, "Because you can't see the door."
Liberal Republicans couldn’t figure it out and never turned the bus around. "Left" was a suitable direction to liberal Republicans. For six years, the nation and courts have been going further and further "Left." Democrats loved every minute of it. They unexpectedly found they had willing accomplices in their socialist agenda. All that was left for them to do was re-take control of the bus, which they accomplished on November 7, 2006.
It’s philosophically safe to say that if you don’t know what your destination is, any direction you travel will get you there. If you don’t know what direction you are going, then you have no compass. If you don’t have a compass, then you don’t have God, country and family, the source of every man and woman’s compass. Without God, country and family, you don’t have morality, ethics or a sense of purpose; all you have is self. If all you have is self, you may be able to rule or administer, but not to lead or govern, because the latter requires a profound degree of selflessness.
Republicans floundered for years and foundered in 2006. Now Democrats have a choice, but their only choice will be to rule since they too have no core values or destination. It is a universal truth that liberals, because of their ideology, are unable to lead or govern. To lead and govern requires striving for individual liberty in a selfless fashion instead of adherence to a national religion of government-imposed socialism and focused self-interest. Until the national electorate understands that national and individual excellence is the antithesis of the Democratic Party's egalitarianism, nothing will change in American politics and culture, and any direction will get us there.
It's hard not to feel sorry for everyone who got on the wrong bus.
Remember, if you don’t have a destination in your own life or business, how can you set goals? How can you govern or lead others? When you go on a vacation, you know well in advance exactly where you are going, how long you will be gone, what mode of travel you will use, who will be with you, what you will see and do, what day you will leave and what day you will return, how much money you will spend, what presents you will bring home, how you will pay your bills while you are gone and after your return home, what clothes you will pack and which luggage you will use for the trip, etc. If we can plan a simple vacation to that level of detail, surely Congess can do more for the nation in six years than simply enrich themselves at taxpayer expense. What about planning the nation's future? Can you articulate one single, specific national goal - except to spend more money on problems that can't be solved with more money?
Now you understand how and why Republicans failed in 2006 - liberalism.
In our November, 2006 trip to the polls, we elected a group of Senators and Representatives whose leadership wants the bus to continue farther and farther to the "Left," i.e., more liberalism (collectivism) for us and more power for themselves. At every opportunnity, let's be sure to ask (demand) from Democrats, who have finally achieved their unhealthy liberal goal to rule the lives of others, to tell us their intended destination and how they propose to get us there. If they have no specific destination (goals to improve the United States within the first 100 days) except to denigrate Republicans, as it currently appears, that speaks for itself. However, if their specific goals (e.g., raise taxes or lower taxes, or amnesty for illegal aliens or enforcement only) turn out to be worthy goals, they will continue to have our votes. If their goals are unworthy, or if the Democrats have no specific goals beyond accummulating power and personal wealth, we need to get off this bus at the very first opportunity.
Perhaps the best definition of 'success' was penned by Earl Nightingale: "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal," which is as good an explanation as any for the perpetual failure of the Democratic Party's grand entitlement society. Let's hear the Democratic Party's (1), worthy goals with some specificity, and see (2), their realization in a democratic process without resorting to activist courts. Americans are fully capable of judging if the goals are worthy and in their best interests. Nothing else matters.
Many Americans are going to be wishing for a bus stop very soon.
I was disappointed with the election results on Tuesday night, but not surprised. The critical issues affecting the outcome of this election were partially ideological, and partially systemic. Significantly, the ideological aspect was not as friendly to the democrats as they will interpret it to be. Victories by most of the democratic candidates in contested districts were by a razor thin margin, and the democrat candidates were espousing positions indistinguishable from GOP positions on issues. Moveon.Org candidates did not capture any contested seats. None. So, what kind of victory is it for Democrats, if they have to abandon their core ideology in order to get elected? The national Democratic Party will now be faced with a critical decision. If they hold to the GOP style positions they took for their campaign face, they will solidify their gains, but alienate their base. If they appease the base, as Clinton did immediately upon election in '92, they will burn the voters badly enough that it will be a generation before anyone believes them again.
So, the Democrats did not win this election, the Republicans lost it. Why? A combination of ideological and systemic reasons. I will deal with the systemic reasons first. If you look at the numbers of the seats that actually moved sides, they are fairly typical of the shifts that take place in a second term, off year, election. The only reason it stood out here were that the Republicans had been doing astonishingly well in all elections since '92, far better than any historical model would have projected. The historical pattern should have had the House shift back to the Democrats in '02. Further, the margins by which the Republicans held both houses were relatively slim, so a normal off year seat loss was enough to shift it. A lot of the "ideological" element claimed in the press, such as dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, unhappiness with the "direction the country is going," is all part of what I call "administration fatigue". Even Reagan experienced a similar slide, as did Clinton. His second term showed him with a significant loss in popularity even among Democrats, the "blue dress" thing was less causative than symptomatic. Presidents are guests in our homes, and their welcome wears out over the years.
That said, the Republicans made serious, and growing, mistakes since Bush came to office. While they controlled both houses of Congress and the Executive, they failed to deliver on the Contract with America that had brought them their Renaissance. They had jettisoned Newt over minor issues involving allegations of "if he should be allowed profits from book sales while he was speaker". This was mind boggling in its stupidity, and obvious capriciousness. Newt is a PhD. historian, a good writer, who was going to write and sell books regardless of any office he might hold. The idiocy is highlighted by the fact that the former democratic speaker had published and sold hundred's of thousands of copies of his book, while in office, though he had no qualifications and most of the pages were blank! Crates of the book were found stacked up in lobbyist offices where they had purchased them in bulk. The point of this discussion was that the Republican Party, after winning the 2000 presidential election, failed to deliver on core values when they finally had the opportunity. We do not have a flat tax, or sales tax, and still have the IRS. We still have Affirmative Action Programs, in fact they have been strengthened. We have a raft of new Federal Agencies and Regulations, as well as a giant socialized pharmaceutical program. Social Security has not been reformed in terms of either benefits or the eligibility age. The list is endless.
It is not that the Republicans made zero efforts here, it is that those efforts were desultory, lackluster, and leaderless. The real ideological leaders and speakers were driven from the party's leadership, and the remainder spends their time on the defensive about the ideas, not really understanding them well enough to articulately push them through. Having abandoned the field in the battle of ideas, the debate has devolved to the mainstream news and the Democrats versus the talk radio hosts. One can't remain in power if you refuse to fight for what you believe in. I suspect that many in the Republican leadership are simply cowed by being members of the Baby Boomer generation. For people of that age group, from Cindy Sheehan to George W. Bush, their formative years were dominated by the hippies, who sucked all the oxygen out of the room with the Marijuana smoke. Most conservatives of that age group are still apologetic about their values. They act as though the left truly does have the moral high ground, despite the clear verdict of history. Meanwhile, leftists of that generation continue to believe (erroneously) that the vast majority of Americans agree with their whacked out, Age of Aquarius, ideology. John Kerry's recent statements indicated he still believed that people who get bad grades in college get drafted! Both of their minds are stuck in 1969, and the world is viewed though the purple lens of little "John Lennon" glasses. Therefore, the boomer Democrats act with a wild, unwarranted overconfidence, and the boomer Republicans cower from a non-existent animosity towards their values.
How does all this relate to the Elections?
The Republicans need to get back to their basics, and clearly enunciate their values, goals, and objectives. They need to stop trying to be "Democrats Lite". The American people know leadership when they see it, and they like it. This even applies to Iraq. We can't go into a war with the idea that we are using the military to do some kind of social engineering and urban renewal. That's what the spooks and the Peace Corp are for. We went into Iraq to topple Saddam's regime, kill him, kill his top people, and any potential heirs. Why? Because he was a dangerous guy, in a dangerous region, and after 9/11 we can't take any chances. We did not go there to teach Iraqi women the finer points of political organizing, that's their business if they want it. As soon as Saddam is dead, we can go, we should admit it. If the Kurds want us to keep some air cover and advisors for them, they can request it, and we probably should. Their success would shame the rest of the region, by showing what people can truly do if they have the stones for it. As to the War on Terror, the same principles apply. While no US citizens are being held at Gitmo, no one in the Bush administration has bothered to point that out. Neither have we done any wiretapping of US citizen to citizen phone calls without a warrant. Our surveillance is the same surveillance of international calls the NSA has always done, but when Bush explains this, he doesn't do it in the loud, confrontational manner he need to use, when he knows the press won't give it honest coverage. We should be up-front with our policies and utterly disregard political correctness. Let the public know that we intend to keep a real close eye on Muslims, Mosques, and foreigners from places that are heavily Muslim, since that is where the Jihad is coming from. We don't need to be strip searching Irish grandmothers in airports, and we don't need to take away EVERYBODY's civil rights "just to be fair". If the Germans and Japanese declare war on us, we have every justification to surveill and investigate the Bund and the Hibachi houses, but we don't have a need to search the Irish Pubs or Mexican Grill's just to treat everybody equally. We wouldn't be at war with them. That would be absurd, as are our current, sweeping laws, which encompass everybody regardless of ideology, background, or even citizenship status. A lot of the Democrat's propaganda would be defused if we did this right. Let them call us "racist", and "unfair" all they want, they will lose the elections. Be straight, be honest, tell folks what we are doing, and don't feel the need to "Democrat-ize" everything.
The Democrats will be unable to keep the overconfident granola-heads who occupy all their leadership, and the leadership of all their co-traveling NGO's from misinterpreting this as a sweeping mandate for the Age of Aquarius, and will very soon begin to try to push through stuff that will be about as popular as HillaryCare. It will remind America what they really stand for, and clear the field for some solid Republican candidates in '08. Had this loss not occurred now, there would have been an overcorrection then, and the country would have been much worse off. In addition, I expect this power shift will embolden the Jihadists (including Iran), who will believe America is reacting like Spain. The loss of Rumsfeld and the placement of Gates (an FBI pinhead) will mean that the entire security apparatus will be headed by overcautious, risk-averse, bureaucrats, and the Jihadi's will get a rest and recoup period to regroup. From that, they too will successfully carry out some action against us that will be even less popular than HillaryCare. This will remind the American public that we really are at war with the same fanatics we have been fighting since we noticed it during the Carter administration.
A plain spoken, direct, unapologetic conservative, will have fertile soil in which to renew the movement in '08.
It was difficult to listen to prominent Republicans in advance of the election, probably fully aware of what was coming, attempt to shift the blame to an uninformed electorate for their developing defeat at the polls - trying desperately to shame conservatives into voting. Personages such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and John O’Neill expressed their views publicly that conservatives clearly didn’t understand what was at stake.
What was at stake? Was it a Republican congressman’s personal loss of privilege and power? Was it the narrow interests of the Republican Party? Having done so little to meet the expectations of most citizens, the Republican Party’s focus was hardly the welfare of the United States. How could any Republican claim otherwise having frittered away six years and delivered only runaway debt, rampant socialism and laughable national security on open borders? Arguably, liberal Republicans (as opposed to conservative Republicans and Libertarians) have done more harm to liberty and the social fabric of our nation than 50 years of Democratic Party control.
Within minutes of the election returns, and still somewhat in total denial, their tune began to change and became more introspective. The realization began to set in that control of the House and the Senate was irrevocably gone and Republicans had squandered their one chance in a generation. The 2006 mid-term elections will probably become a dramatic example in future political science studies of what can happen when politicians (who have been seeking their own agenda) are thoroughly chastened by the voters.
Defiantly, Republicans refused through the night of the election to acknowledge that their own miserable performance for six years during their majority role in Congress was in any way responsible for the predictable outcome – an outcome for which John McCain personally bears a heavy responsibility. Finally, Rush Limbaugh brought some talk-radio clarity the next day when he said he felt “relieved” that he would no longer be expected to carry the Republican’s water – which is what the conservatives have said for a long time before the election and voters en masse said at the polls.
Try to imagine the pilot of an aircraft that crashes (hopefully injuring no one) that attempts to blame bystanders on the ground for his inept piloting skills. Imagine the student who blames his failure on his teacher. Imagine the wing-nut who blames the 9/11 attack that destroyed the World Trade Center on Americans instead of Islam. Imagine the media who blames a brutal homicide on the past molestation of the suspect when she was a child. Imagine the ignorance and racial hatred embedded in the claim that New Orleans was destroyed because the President blew up the levees. Imagine the Republican Party who blames their defeat at the polls on the ignorance of the electorate. You have to wonder who Republicans would blame for the ignorance of the electorate – the Democrats?
One could reasonably argue that Republicans deserved their inglorious defeat. However, a similar argument can be made that conservative Americans really don’t deserve the Democratic Party’s upcoming socialist agenda, an agenda that will entail cultural and economic havoc rendered by Nancy Pelosi with shock and awe, maybe not immediately if she is smart, but certainly after the 2008 national elections when a Democrat will likely to prevail in the ultimate political quest for the Office of the Presidency.
It is hard to envision, stretching the imagination to the limits, that Republicans will be able to reconstitute a creditable image of competency and ethics, and particularly conservatism, by November 2008. Political observers might begrudgingly concede that there are less than five conservatives remaining in all of Congress. What is most impressive is that there will be more conservatives in the freshman class of the Democratic Party than the entire Republican Party. The Democratic Party strategy will be to continue their assault on Republicans alleging political malfeasance, without relenting for a minute, right on through the 2008 elections. While there are viable Republican candidates in 2008, e.g., John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani and Tom Tancredo, only Tancredo is both socially and fiscally conservative. While a genuine long-shot, don’t rule out the Libertarian Ron Paul from Texas.
Democrats have been waiting a long time for such an opportunity, and if history is a valid predictor, you have never seen a train wreck like this one is going to be. President Bush had better begin sleeping with his “veto pen.” Make no mistake - President Bush's use of the “veto pen” for the next two years will be used by the Democrats to bludgeon Republican candidates in the 2008 elections.
I am proudly one of six consecutive generations of United States servicemen and women dating from the Spanish-American War. The youngest of our family is currently serving in Iraq. Why do I tell you this? For all that is precious in America, I ask to be permitted a brief moment to be clearly heard by you in the current national wilderness of cultural insanity.
Mr. Limbaugh, you've asked openly, “Why aren’t conservatives listening to me?” Plain speaking and straight shooting, typical of conservatives, we believe you are wrong. Think of fifteen pejorative adjectives; string them together and then append the word “wrong” to gauge the depth of conservative disaffection with last week's radio performance.
Mr. Limbaugh, in moments of candor, I suspect you would admit that you no longer live on the same streets that we do, nor walk in the same shoes we do. Nor do Congressmen. Nor do Governors. You have rightfully earned and profoundly deserve the elevated social status you enjoy. Your success and lifestyle does many positive and a few negative things for you. Two that are negative, but important are: (1) Your success relieves you of many mundane concerns most citizens must contend with, and (2), It also deprives you of contemporaneous knowledge of life in grass-roots America, other than fond memories from younger days.
I admire you … Ok, I revere your talent … and for once in your esteemed life, I believe you are grotesquely on the wrong side of history. This all involves your rant last week regarding voting choices of conservatives in the 2006 mid-term November elections. Friday, October 20th was a tipping point.
Mr. Limbaugh, you seem to want to divide the known universe between Republicans and Democrats, when in fact the political debate should be about Liberals in the Republican Party and Extreme Liberals in the Democratic Party. There are not five conservatives in all of Congress and only one libertarian. Left wing America is the Republican Party. Conservatives do not share their liberal ideology.
Mr. Limbaugh, I believe we jointly hold the view that the predominant orientation of politicians and the main stream media is wildly liberal. The left-wing bent that conservatives complain about not only encompasses federal and state governments, city councils, and primary and secondary school systems, but attorneys, court systems, doctors, police departments, even the leadership of the U.S. Armed Forces. Left-wing ideology pervades the CIA, FBI, and State Department through all grades of the Federal Civil Service.
Legislation at all levels of government reflects the multi-decade cultural shift in America - which conservatives view as a downhill slide from greatness on a trajectory resembling a gliding anvil. There are a number of symptoms. Just to mention a few, (1) political correctness, which by definition means that people cannot be honest and freedom of speech has been extinguished, (2) refusal by governmental entities to enforce existing laws, (3) a judicial system that seeks to punish the ‘person’ rather than the ‘crime’, assuming a crime occurred and prosecution isn’t simply to achieve an intended social or political outcome, (4) a judicial system that has become an insidious oligarchy, (5) institutionalized discrimination of one citizen over another, and (6), a secular rejection of all faith and an intense attempt to prohibit any visible or audible vestiges of the Christian or Jewish faith in public discourse. There are thousands more. These few make the point that conservatism is but a faint memory in America and that our disintegrating “culture” is what the November mid-term elections are all about.
The critical issue in American politics is a lack of conservatives in broad segments of society, particularly in coastal areas where income redistribution dominates. I have watched with a heavy heart as liberalism, a debilitating disease borne of ignorance and self-interest, has assimilated entire minority cultures in my lifetime.
You impress me as being too astute not to have figured it out. Assailed from every direction, you’re telling your daily radio audience how much worse it will be if we conservatives vote for an extreme liberal in the Democratic Party or intentionally fail to vote. History supports your thesis. We all know you’re right. There is not one conservative who disagrees with you – not one.
Where we profoundly differ is that you want conservatives, lifetime members of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, to ‘settle for’ what we are being told is all we can expect, all we can achieve, lower our standards, expect less and to vote for corrupt liberal Congressmen who have dealt us this national travesty of a losing hand. We’re simply not going to do it. As a nation, we are better; we deserve better; and we will not quit until we receive better. No conservative is going to buy bologna sliced that thin. No real conservative is going to accept governmental redistribution knowing other Americans were skinned alive to provide it. Somebody in America has to be a patriot. The question is: Who will rise to the challenge and who will be but a lemming? Conservatives will not be lemmings; nor will conservatives agree with you that the king (Congress or the President) is wearing clothes. No conservative will vote for someone willfully doing harm to the United States of America.
Furthermore, the mere fact that our choices on the November ballet are between open-borders liberals in the Republican Party (Jon Kyl, * apprentice to John McCain) and god-forsaken extreme liberals in the Democratic Party is partially your fault.
That’s right; follow this closely please. If you had concentrated on conservatism, individualism and liberty instead of simply Republican vs. Democrat, and had focused the debate more on excellence, initiative and integrity, pointing out the inherent fallacy of choosing between a liberal and an extreme liberal, some of what is happening might not have gained traction. If you had been advocating self reliance instead of income redistribution, truth instead of political correctness, ethics and morality instead of corruption and sexual perversion, the outcome might have been somewhat different. Now, with your voting recommendations to conservatives, you give every indication of directly or indirectly endorsing liberal fascism espoused by President Bush and liberal Republicans in Congress.
“No,” you adamantly say, “It’s not my fault.” While absolutely true that it is not your fault, you are undeniably among the ruling media elite, even a Pied Piper. You know this to be a fact. You are ever so quick to take credit for reason, infallible logic and highly accurate judgment. Whether you care to admit it or not, you are partially responsible for having led us to where America is today - where “we” are today. Otherwise, if this location was not your intended destination, then you, as “The True Majarashii,” would have, could have, and should have led us in a different direction.
But fear not for us. Ultimately you will be proud of your conservative graduates. We are proud conservative Americans. We are not among the mindless, liberal, uneducated, media-indoctrinated, government-sustained, and consumed with self-interest politicians or rank and file. We are not content to accept liberal admonitions, from either Hillary Clinton or Karl Rove that we can never be expected to know or understand the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of that great sidereal movement called self-government. Most conservatives are the original boy scouts (trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent). It would be hard for anyone but liberals and the ACLU to demean that value system and even harder to find a better value system outside a church.
Yes, Rush, I genuinely hold you personally responsible. It is my opinion that somewhere along the way you may have lost sight of what is precious in America (clue: liberty). Your own experiences in Florida should have opened your eyes to see what is being done to all Americans in countless different ways and in innumerable jurisdictions. But your concern was your own ox because it was the one being gored. Do you think you are somehow unique except in God-given talent? Like a 2x4 across your skull, your experiences with the NFL should have given you a clue, a hint to help you realize that everyday people are being hammered for politically correct motives if for no other reason than to extend liberal control.
Yet you refuse stubbornly to look out of one eye or see out of the other. Is it unfair to speculate or to ask if you've been tactically outmaneuvered in your efforts to prevent Congress from metastasizing even further to the left?
Last week you began chiding American conservatives to vote for liberal Republicans as we approach the November 2006 mid-term elections. In doing so, you have now asked conservatives to accept mediocrity, abject dependency and socialism - because you obviously think we deserve no better. You must be the only one who doesn't understand that conservatives are not going to vote to continue the policies of liberal, socially and fiscally irresponsible Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and conservatives will not support the one-world-order, borderless America of the Democratic Party and President George W. Bush.
You cannot even begin to imagine the contempt conservatives hold for national leaders in the current Administration and this liberal Congress who would start a war, any war, without the will to win. Why would Congress start a war without the will to win!? Liberals may not like the battle methods, girlie men that they are, and that’s too bad, but winning decisively always saves lives, both American and non-combatant lives. Winning decisively happens in months, not years. You may quote me: Win decisively, or lose inevitably and live in infamy. And, if I understand you correctly, you now ask us to vote for liberal Republicans who are more consumed with self-interest than winning a war in which Americans are dying? May God have mercy on us all, because Islam, the Democratic Party and their brand of socialism will not!
Conservatives seem to me to be America’s political incarnation of the few, the proud and the brave, and we will not surrender, not to liberalism, not to socialism, not to Islam, not to defeatism, not to appeasement, and not to the Democratic Socialist Party of America. Conservatives will never submit to 20-30 million illegal aliens marching in the streets dictating the terms of surrender and politicians who refuse to do anything about it.
Unquestionably, the Democratic Party has given new meaning to the term “evil,” both in Congress and America’s judicial venues. However, many citizens from both sides of the aisle view Republicans in general as a national disgrace. Republicans (faux conservatives) have given new meaning to the characterization of “irresponsible incompetence,” which some see as the predictable end result of “compassionate conservatism.”
Mr. Limbaugh, you simply have no idea how badly you have underestimated conservative America. You seem to think conservative disaffection in the November election is solely the by-product of media distortion of the state of the economy to influence votes, or the certified cut and run cowardice of liberals in both parties, or inflation rates, unemployment, absence of terrorist attacks, the Patriot Act and civil liberties, and other equally important but irrelevant national issues. In one word, the November elections swing on the American "culture," and conservative American’s are angry.
Generally speaking, the sum total of today's judicial activism and Congressional legislation creates tomorrow's national culture, always in less than ten years. Conservatives, when they go to their polling places in November, will do nothing less than repudiate the culture forcibly imposed upon them by Congress (Democrats and liberal Republicans) and by the judicial system.
Yes, the issues include illegal immigration, in-state tuition, illegal voting, identification not required to vote, refusal to enforce both national and state laws, welfare fraud, drugs and violent crime, human smuggling, document fraud, sanctuary cities, chain migration, anchor babies, free medical care, and on and on. Yes, conservatives are fed up with institutionalized discrimination in education and the workplace. Conservatives are angry over ever-growing irresponsible taxation and income redistribution. If all Americans were truly born “equal,” why are so many still on welfare?
Yes, one of the issues is the abysmal state of education in the United States since the federal government unconstitutionally seized the education system. With absolute certainty, the issues include the loss of free speech, loss of domestic corporate manufacturing and millions of associated jobs, political correctness, Pledge of Allegiance, Ten Commandments, Medicare reform legislation, earmarks, reluctance to abolish the estate tax or adopt some form of flat or consumption tax, refusal to abolish the 16th Amendment, and unwillingness to reform Social Security (Americans be damned).
Without a doubt, the issues include eminent domain, TSA absurdities, attempts to seize, regulate and tax the internet, unwillingness to safeguard classified material, willingness to sell national secrets and WMD technology for campaign funding, willingness to sell American harbors, airports, and highways to foreign interests, socialized medicine, trade agreements that sacrifice United States sovereignty and permit United States citizens to be sued by foreign interests, voting to construct the border wall only under the most intense public pressure and then refusing to fund it, and finally abdicating the entire border wall project to the whims of the pro-illegal alien Bush Administration. The end result is that United States national security is orbiting in ever decreasing concentric circles until someday it will fly up its own terrorist attack. What will Congressional and Gubernatorial liberals have traded for the lives of those who will die? How many votes will make it worth it?
Most egregious was not Congress’ voting to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but trying to deceitfully shift the responsibility for their own decisions to the Administration and intelligence agencies; and after voting nearly unanimously to go to war, undermining the Commander-in-Chief at every turn. Most Democrats and liberal Republicans do not want to be seen as weak and unwilling to defend the United States of America. But the fact is, liberals don't believe in war of any kind for any motive, even self-defense, and Congress would unilaterally disarm both the military and all citizens if given the chance. The reality is: liberals voted for something very abhorrent to them and did so only in political self-interest. Predictably, ever since, Congressional liberals have evaded any responsibility for their votes in a manner similar to their unwillingness to accept responsibility for anything else in history.
'Despicable' is the word that best describes Congress’ refusing to give judicial appointments an up or down vote, the McCain/Feingold legislation, tobacco litigation, refusal to permit school choice, refusal to permit importation of prescription drugs, wholesale usurping of state’s rights by the federal government and administrative agencies, unrelenting judicial activism without permitting a democratic vote, domestic and foreign abortion at U.S. taxpayer expense, embryonic stem cell research at taxpayer expense, Social Security benefits for illegal aliens, prohibition of public prayer and displays of faith, ignoring constitutional limitations of power and jurisdiction, and on and on and on for another ten single-spaced pages.
What has Congress done to stop it? NAFT, except to gleefully enable our continued cultural demise, as each Congressman individually accumulates personal wealth by selling votes and influence for campaign contributions.
The aforementioned constitutes nothing less than national socialist insanity to a conservative, a cultural meltdown, and Mr. Limbaugh, you want conservatives to vote for more of the same? Anyone who would ask conservatives to vote for their own cultural demise brings back memories of atrocities from the last century in foreign lands. No conservative will ever accept dhimmis status, whether imposed by American liberals in this Congress, by black liberation theology, or as will be imposed someday by Islam. There appears to be very little difference in reality – if any, between the Democratic Party and Islam when it comes to their tolerance of divergent faiths, their tactics toward political opponents, or the issues of social inequality, oppressive taxation, protection of children, and reverence for life.
I lament. If only you were still one of us and less of an advocate of egalitarian ideals. Hopefully, you’ve only strayed due to distraction or fatigue. It is important that when you look, that you are able to see. Mr. Limbaugh, would you please let me clean your glasses? With this letter, I am respectfully trying to do just that, and no more.
You currently face the biggest questions of your professional life. The first question is: “Are you going to be an entertainer or a leader?” To be a leader would require some personal sacrifice on your part which is the hallmark of all great Americans and every active duty and retired member of the United States Armed Forces and National Guard. My family and I sacrificed for this nation for almost a century, multiple lifetimes spent serving and preserving our American birthright – at the daily risk of our mortal existence. Now, for all that is precious in America, it’s your turn. The second question is: “Is it too late?”
This isn’t an election. November begins a cultural and economic tsunami. The outcome may not be to my liking or to yours, but I voted democratically, and legally, and only once, and I will live by the decisions of my fellow American citizens, even if I don’t deserve it – which every liberal throughout American history has refused to do – i.e., accept the will of the people. But be very, very careful however, because conservatives were not bred to carry water and will not serve others for long, particularly the self-anointed.
Mr. Limbaugh, when you get a chance and if you have the opportunity, please extend to me the personal kindness of forwarding this letter and my strong sentiments to another well-intentioned public figure, Mr. John O’Neill, author of “Unfit For Command.” I sincerely hope he can find where he misplaced his conservative philosophy and American citizenship.
September 13, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Taliban terror leaders who had gathered for a funeral - and were secretly being watched by an eye-in-the-sky American drone - dodged assassination because U.S. rules of engagement bar attacks in cemeteries, according to a shocking report.
U.S. intelligence officers in Afghanistan are still fuming about the recent lost opportunity for an easy kill of Taliban honchos packed in tight formation for the burial, NBC News reported.
The unmanned airplane, circling undetected high overhead, fed a continuous satellite feed of the juicy target to officers on the ground.
"We were so excited. I came rushing in with the picture," one U.S. Army officer told NBC.
But that excitement quickly turned to gut-wrenching frustration because the rules of engagement on the ground in Afghanistan blocked the U.S. from mounting a missile or bomb strike in a cemetery, according to the report.
Pentagon officials declined comment and referred The Post to Central Command officers in Afghanistan, who did not respond to a request for comment or explanation.
Agonizingly, Army officers could do nothing but watch the pictures being fed back from the drone as the Taliban splintered into tiny groups - too small to effectively target with the drone - and headed back to their mountainside hideouts.
Military experts told The Post that rules of engagement are constantly adjusted on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, depending on the severity of the threat posed by the enemy.
In Iraq, gun battles have raged inside cemeteries in Fallujah, and once-off-limits mosques are now subject to U.S. searches.
The lost opportunity in Afghanistan came amid a spike in Taliban activity in Afghanistan - a craggy country roughly the size of Texas that poses problems for U.S. troops hunting fighters in remote mountain areas.
Taliban militants have launched their deadliest attacks since the terrorist regime was toppled by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 for providing a sanctuary for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda camps.
U.S. troops and NATO allies recently reclaimed territory in southern Afghanistan from Taliban fighters following a bloody 11-day operation.
NATO leaders announced yesterday the hard fighting killed at least 510 Taliban insurgents.
And American and Afghan forces stormed a fortified compound in the Wardak province to arrest a dozen Taliban leaders who were planning a new wave of attacks.
"Five years ago, the Afghan national army was zero," Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin, who heads the training of Afghan soldiers and police, told CNN. "We now have sufficient forces - that's why there is some tough fighting down in Kandahar."
Hat tip: Submitted by Pete Perkins who further commented: “Do you suppose we really aren’t in this to win, but would rather be politically correct? The officers in charge of this tactical event who blew this opportunity need to be reassigned to desk jobs in Antarctica. If I remember correctly, recently there was a funeral for an Afghanistan government official going on when a car pulled up with a bomb that detonated killing at least a half-dozen police officers.
It doesn’t look to me like we have the stomach to pull out all the stops and get this war over with. It’s much easier to lose two or three of our G.I.’s at a time and not make any waves because it might upset some Republican or Democrat’s chances to win political office somewhere. Unfrigginbelievable.
This really ought to upset people in this country, but it doesn’t seem to. These were top Taliban leaders, not just fighters. Now that this is all over the internet and television, we will never get another chance like this. They’re not stupid – they learn from their mistakes. I wish I could say the same for our politicians who think they are military geniuses, the ones who are responsible for these rules of engagement.”
