Barack Obama's new era of civility was over before it began. You wouldn't know it from reading The New York Times, watching Katie Couric or listening to the Democratic manners police. But America has been overrun by foul-mouthed, fist-clenching wildebeests.
Yes, the tea party movement is responsible -- for sending these liberal goons into an insane rage, that is. After enduring two years of false smears as sexist, racist, homophobic barbarians, it is grassroots conservatives and taxpayer advocates who have been ceaselessly subjected to rhetorical projectile vomit. It is Obama's rank-and-file "community organizers" on the streets fomenting the hate against their political enemies. Not the other way around.
The trendy new epithet among Big Labor organizers who've been camping out at the Madison, Wis., Capitol building for more than a week to block GOP Gov. Scott Walker's budget reform bill: "Koch whore." Classy, huh? It's a reference to the reviled Koch brothers, David and Charles, who have used their energy-industry wealth to support limited-government activism. A left-wing agitator based in Buffalo who impersonated Koch in a prank phone call this week used the slur to headline his "gonzo journalism" report. (If a right-leaning activist had perpetrated such a stunt, he'd be labeled a radical, stalking fraudster. But that's par for the media's double-standards course.)
The 20-minute phone call undermined the grand Koch conspiracy by exposing that Walker didn't know Koch at all. No matter. "Koch whore" is the new "Halliburton whore." The Captains of Civility are sticking to it. And the sanctimonious "No Labels" crowd is missing in action -- just like Wisconsin's Fleebagger Democrats.
Sexual vulgarity is a common theme in the left's self-styled "solidarity" movement. Among the Madison pro-union signs the national media chose not to show you: "Buttholes for Billionaires" (complete with a photo of Walker's head placed in the middle of a graphic photo of someone's posterior) and "If teabaggers are as hot as their Fox News anchors, then I'm here for the gang bang!!!"
Last month, GOP Lieutenant Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch was subjected to similar misogyny for her outreach efforts to private businesses. Liberal WTDY radio host John "Sly" Sylvester accused her of performing "fellatio on all the talk-show hosts in Milwaukee" and sneered that she had "pulled a train" (a crude phrase for group sex).
At an AFSCME rally in Providence, R.I., on Tuesday, an unhinged pro-union supporter picked an unprovoked fight with a citizen journalist taping the event for public access TV. His eyes bulging, the brawler yelled: "I'll f**k you in the a**, you homosexual!" After several unsuccessful minutes of trying to calm their furious ally down, the solidarity mob finally started chanting, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, union-busting's got to go" to drown out his intimidating vow to follow the cameraman outside the building. Criminal charges are now pending against him. None of the local media who covered the event thought to mention the disruption in their coverage.
In Columbus, Ohio, supporters of GOP Gov. John Kasich's fiscal reforms were confronted with a fulminating union demonstrator who railed: "The tea party is a bunch of d**k-sucking corporate butt-lickers who want to crush the working people of this country."
In Denver, Colo., Leland Robinson, a gay black tea party activist and entrepreneur who criticized teachers unions at a Capitol rally, was told by white labor supporters to "get behind that fence where you belong." They called the 52-year-old limousine driver "son" and subjected him to this ugly, racially charged taunt: "Do you have any children? That you claim?"
Tea party favorite and former Godfather's Pizza President Herman Cain is another outspoken black conservative businessman who has earned the civility mob's lash. Two weeks ago, a cowardly liberal writer derided Cain as a "monkey in the window," a "garbage pail kid" and a "minstrel" who performs for his "masters." Monkey. Parrot. Puppet. Lawn jockey. Uncle Tom. Aunt Thomasina. Oreo. Coconut. Banana. We minority conservatives have heard it all.
In Washington, D.C., a multi-union protest at the offices of conservative activist group FreedomWorks resulted in one young female employee, Tabitha Hale, getting smacked with a sign by a barbarian wearing a Communications Workers of America T-shirt -- and another FreedomWorks employee getting yelled at as a "bad Jew" for opposing public union monopolies and reckless spending.
In the wake of the Tucson massacre, Obama urged the nation "to do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations." He pushed for "a more civil and honest public discourse."
As Big Labor-backing MoveOn.org (the same outfit that smeared Gen. David Petraeus as a traitor) prepares to march on all 50 state Capitols this weekend, where's the Civility Chief now? AWOL.
Perhaps the mainstream media was a bit too busy searching for violence within the Tea Party movement to notice that a Massachusetts Democrat said Tuesday it was time for the Wisconsin protesters to “get a little bloody.”
The Hill reports, “Representative Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) fired up a group of union members in Boston with a speech urging them to work down in the trenches to fend off limits to workers’ rights like those proposed in Wisconsin.”
In his address to Boston union members, Capuano remarked, “This is going to be a struggle at least for the next two years. Let’s be serious about this. They’re not going to back down and we’re not going to back down. This is a struggle for the hearts and minds of America.”
He added, “I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going. Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary.”
In a climate like that seen in Wisconsin, such rhetoric is particularly inflammatory, as anger has flared over proposed labor reforms introduced by Governor Scott Walker. The Wisconsin state legislature was naturally disconcerted by the statements made by Capuano.
“We take security seriously, whether its for me, the lieutenant governor and all 132 members of the state legislature
The very next day, Capuano issued a half-hearted apology: “I strongly believe in standing up for worker rights and my passion for preserving those rights may have gotten the best of me yesterday in an unscripted speech. I wish I had used different language to express my passion and I regret my choice of words.”
As a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus with clear ties to the Democratic Socialists of America — the same group that has adopted a number of violent, blood, revolutionary songs like The Fist and the Rose and John Lennon’s Imagine — Capuano’s passions and violent rhetoric appear to be directly in line with those with whom he surrounds himself.
After all, the Democratic Socialists of America have no qualms about admitting to their efforts to achieve socialism in the United States, or even Communism for that matter. In an introductory pamphlet to the Democratic Socialists of America, the group outlines its various beliefs, revealing a propensity for socialism and communism. For instance, the pamphlet indicates, “We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them.” Likewise, “The fall of Communism should not blind us to injustices at home. We cannot allow all radicalism to be dismissed as ‘Communist.’”
Of course, the irony of Representative Capuano’s violent assertions is that it was the Democratic Party that proposed a ban on “threatening symbols or language” as an overreaction to the Tucson, Arizona, shooting. And yet here is a Democrat who not only made a violent innuendo, but whose statement was ignored by the hypersensitive media and Left.
Then again, this is not the first time that violence or violent rhetoric on the Left has been forgiven or overlooked.
For example, SEIU has adopted a violent new theme song for the Wisconsin protests. The lyrics of the theme song, performed by the rock band Dropkick Murphys, are as follows:
When the boss comes callin’ will you stand and fight? When the boss comes callin’ we must unite, when the boss comes callin’ we can’t let them win, when the boss comes callin’ don’t believe their lies when the boss comes callin’ he’ll take his toll, when the boss comes callin’ don’t you sell your soul, when the boss comes callin’ we gotta organize, let ‘em know, we gotta take the bastards down, let them know we gotta smash them to the ground, let ‘em know we gotta take the bastards down.
Imagine the public outcry if the Tea Party movement adopted such a song for its theme.
Likewise, when SEIU thugs mercilessly beat black conservative Tea Partier Kenneth Gladney and called him the "n-word,” groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) forgave the violence.
Furthermore, when Fox News conservative pundit Glenn Beck called out Frances Fox Piven for attempting to incite violence by calling on middle-class Americans to make their way to the streets in the same vein as the people of Greece, he was touted yet again as a conspiracy theorist and a fearmonger. But in what other context can one take the following statements made by Piven?
In December, Piven wrote a piece for The Nation wherein she encourages the unemployed to embrace their anger:
So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs? After all, the injustice is apparent. Working people are losing their homes and their pensions while robber-baron CEOs report renewed profits and windfall bonuses. Shouldn’t the unemployed be on the march? Why aren’t they demanding enhanced safety net protections and big initiatives to generate jobs?
An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.
Regardless of the numerous examples of violence on the Left, most of the mainstream media and the Left continue to embrace a “move along, nothing to see here” attitude towards it and instead launch websites like TeaPartyTracker.org to scrutinize alleged racism and violence in the Tea Party movement.
Any good psychiatrist would call that a classic case of projection.
President Obama and the left wing of the Democratic Party think they are entitled to win. From our narcissistic President to screaming union organizers, they are puffed up with self-righteous zeal. They must have health care to save the sick, they must shut down Louisiana oil rigs to save the planet, they must defend government unions to save the middle class.
Of course, each side thinks they are right. Being right is no excuse. You have to abide by the law, you have to abide by elections, you have to respect the courts and constitutional separation of power, or else we no longer live in a democratic country. In our democracy, no one is entitled to win. If you won't lose, you cannot have democracy.
What you have are the Wisconsin Democrat senators who are unwilling to abide by the election results that put them in a minority. What you have is Reid and Pelosi, ramming Obamacare through by breaking rules of procedure, in order to flout the 2010 election results. What you have is the Obama White House, blocking Congress's right to confirm appointees, and openly ignoring federal courts. What you have is the Justice Department announcing it will no longer defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in court, as if Obama gets to decide which laws are constitutional. What you have is a Democratic Party run amok, undercutting our democracy in the service of their own power.
The complacency, nay, the vociferous support, from Democrat leaders and the legacy media for this disregard for the rule of law reminds me of the old joke about the psychiatrist. A man is sent by his family to see a shrink because he thinks he's a chicken. After months of treatment, he is still clucking. The family asks the psychiatrist if he's told his patient he is not a chicken. "No," the psychiatrist admits. "Why not!" "Because I like the eggs."
The Democrats like the eggs. They like imposing their will, whether it be ObamaCare, or the off-shore drilling moratorium, or the blockage of Wisconsin's elected government. Are they really this short-sighted? Don't they understand the damage to our democratic system by these anti-democratic precedents? Do they really want to change congressional rules so that the House and the Senate version of bills no longer have to be reconciled, as they did to jam ObamaCare through by the fiction it was a finance bill? Do they really want the Interior Department ignoring federal court orders? Do they really want state senators refusing to accept that when you lose an election, the other side gets to pass their agenda?
Obama appointed extremists for important administrative positions, controversial and even creepy people, like Van Jones, whom he knew would not get past Congressional confirmation. The checks and balances between executive and legislative branch were instituted by our founders for this exact purpose. The executive nominates but Congress must confirm -- bedrock principles of American democracy. Obama's answer: flout the law. Call his appointees 'czars' and bypass confirmation. This is not legal and it is not democracy. Do the liberal legacy media and Obama's fellow Democrats want presidents to have this unlimited power? Do they really want to give up the safeguards of congressional confirmation by calling appointees czars?
Czars indeed.
The White House is not only ignoring elections and subverting the power of Congress, it is also willing to disobey federal courts. When the health care bill was challenged in court and the administration lost, Obama ignored the ruling of Justice Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court in Florida. Judge Vinson declared the entire ObamaCare bill unconstitutional in a ruling that the judge stated was the equivalent of an injunction. The White House has not halted implementation. The White house has not followed normal rules to fast-track the appeal process so the Supreme Court can decide. Our White House seems entirely comfortable to show contempt of court.
In Louisiana, the administration didn't like a court ruling lifting the moratorium on off-shore drilling, so what did the Obama administration do? It ignored the court. In response, on February 2, the U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman held the Department of Interior in contempt. The Administration then adopted a go slow policy and did not issue a single permit. So on February 21, Judge Feldman ordered the Obama administration to act on five deep water drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico within 30 days, calling the delays in issuing new decisions "unreasonable, unacceptable, and unjustified." We have a White House that places its anti-energy policy above the rule of law. This is unacceptable in a democracy.
Democracy is a complex system based on cultural norms and principles as much as institutions. As we see governments topple in the context of resurgent jihadi movements in the Arab world, we are keenly aware that elections alone rarely lead to democracy. George Washington was an almost unique figure in the history of the world, in that he relinquished power. Our founding fathers were political geniuses who gave us a system of checks and balances to curb misuse of power by those who govern. As Americans, we are privileged to witness the recurring, orderly transfer of power from one administration to the next, through which voters get to determine the direction of their government and correct mistakes and imbalances.
We are seeing in both the Obama White House and the Wisconsin Senate that the Democratic Party is unwilling to lose. Over and over in the past two years, we have seen a Democrat administration willing to flout the courts, flout rules and regulations, and flout the voice of the people as expressed in elections.
Disregard for the democratic limits on power is as important as the administration's fiscal irresponsibility that threatens our prosperity, as important as the explosive growth of bureaucracy that threatens our liberties.
Our democracy cannot survive if only the Republican Party cares about it. It is time for centrist Democrats to throw off the power grab by the radical wing of their party and start defending the Constitution, as they have sworn to do.
The Democrat party is an amalgam of special interest groups -- environmentalists, trial lawyers, minorities, college professors, and labor unions, for example. All of these groups, however, are not equally crucial to the survival of the party. Far and away the most important, of course, is organized labor.
The British equivalent to our Democrat party is the Labour party. If there were truth in labeling, that would be the name of the Democrat party. Only the spelling would change.
The Democrat party has numerous reasons to be worried. Possibly the biggest is the degree to which it is dependent on organized labor for its continued success and possibly even its existence. Where would Democrats be without unions, and vice versa? As much as they trumpet the value of diversity, Democrats are dangerously under-diversified.
Only labor unions have the ability to automatically and involuntarily extract campaign funds from their members. Unions have become the equivalent to a guaranteed income for the Democrat party.
Automatic payroll deduction makes unions qualitatively different from any other Democrat support group. Republican governors are currently making great progress in rescinding automatic payroll deduction for public employees in several states.
There is little or no difference between the goals of labor unions and the Democrat party. Their political philosophies are indistinguishable. Both, for example, view people not as individuals but rather as members of groups, all of whom are to have equal incomes, regardless of effort or merit. Although both Democrats and unions would vigorously deny being socialists, both are strongly sympathetic to socialistic ideals.
Much of the most destructive legislation of the past eighty years has been the products of the unholy alliance between the Democrat party and organized labor. Besides being far and away the greatest source of campaign funds, unions have provided a dependable army of disciplined foot soldiers for the Democrat party.
Their alliance has been a major factor in the success of both. The unions rely on the Democrats to bend the rules in their favor -- being exempted from anti-trust and restraint of trade regulations, for example. Everyone else and the economy end up worse off. Unions are rarely prosecuted for widespread corruption, threats of violence, and blatant intimidation. They have been allowed to play by a different set of rules.
Democrats need unions to deliver money and votes, unions need Democrats to deliver legislation that works in their interest. As both organized labor and the Democrat party decline in power, what each can deliver for the other will diminish. Each side of the symbiotic relationship must have power and vitality in order to keep the relationship working.
If the Democrat party finds itself in the minority for an extended period of time, it will be unable to deliver the legislation. The energy necessary to propel the system will peter out. In fact, it's already begun. Democrats were unsuccessful in passing "card check" even when they had majorities in both the House and Senate. Unions are not happy about that.
Organized labor is 100 percent devoted to the Democrat party. Neither should be at all surprised that Republicans are now working to diminish the power of unions. It is only natural for Republicans to be seeking to weaken their opponents' basic support apparatus. Someone should remind Democrats, "Live by the sword, die by the sword."
Less than seven percent of private-sector workers now belong to unions. That is a number that probably scares the hell out of Democrats. Thirty-six percent of government workers are unionized. If public-sector history repeats private-sector trends, the implications are profound. As Washington Post columnist, Robert Samuelson, put it, "Big Labor became Little Labor. If public-sector unions fail, Little Labor could become Mini-Labor." I would only add -- and the once powerful Democrat party will become the Mini-Democrat party. It's way too soon to know for sure, but for Democrats it could be that the party's over.
Pontiac— Two former high-ranking members of the Oakland County Democratic Party are facing various election corruption charges in a bogus tea party scheme, Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper and County Sheriff Michael Bouchard announced Wednesday.
Former Democratic Party Chairman Michael McGuinness and ex-operations director Jason Bauer, both of Waterford Township, were arraigned Wednesday before Oakland Circuit Judge James Alexander.
They face charges related to Independent Tea Party filings, false affidavits and forged documents that occurred between July 23 and July 26 last year.
Both stood mute to the charges and were released on $25,000 personal bond each, pending an April 13 hearing before Alexander.
The charges include felonies that carry up to 14 years in prison. Neither could be reached for comment.
Cooper and Bouchard announced the charges during a joint press conference conducted to discuss the findings of a one-person grand jury seated by Oakland Circuit Judge Edward Sosnick.
"The election process is sacred … this is not a partisan statement," Cooper said, noting her Democratic affiliation and that of Bouchard, a Republican. Bouchard said 23 questionable election filings across Michigan — eight of them in Oakland County — involved an effort to create the illusion of an Independent Tea Party and its candidates on November's ballot.
The goal was to woo away voters in local elections who might otherwise vote for other candidates, presumably Republicans, authorities allege.
While creating such a party in itself is not illegal, Bouchard noted that the alleged forging of documents and putting people up for political office without their involvement — including at least one "candidate" who told investigators he had no knowledge that he was on the ballot until notified — is criminal.
The scheme included bogus candidates for two County Commission seats and a state Senate race, according to a copy of a grand jury warrant released Wednesday. None of the candidates won.
"The presumed intent was to get people drawn to tea party politics and siphon votes off (from other candidates)," Bouchard said.
Bouchard said the investigation of possible election corruption is continuing and included an unnamed "party leader in Lansing." The sheriff did not elaborate.
County Executive L. Brooks Patterson petitioned for a grand jury inquiry into possible election corruption in August following complaints received by then-County Clerk Ruth Johnson and an investigation initiated by Bouchard's office at the request of Cooper.
Both McGuinness and Bauer are charged with three counts of forged records, uttering and publishing, a 14-year felony; three counts of election law, false swearing, a felony punishable by five years in prison; and one count of election law, false swearing-perjury, also a five-year felony.
Bauer is also charged with three counts of notary public violation, a one-year misdemeanor.
Both resigned their party posts following allegations in August that suspicious filings were notarized by Bauer.
Several months ago, Bauer was suspended from the Oakland Democratic Party after it surfaced that he encouraged interns to write bogus "help me" letters from nonexistent residents in support of a medical program backed by a Democratic commissioner.
Talk radio kingpin Rush Limbaugh has repeated for years his belief that as a political party, the Democrats feel entitled to power. When they are denied it by the results of an election, they react as though they are the victims of a grave injustice, thereby at liberty to engage in whatever tactic is necessary to retrieve what is rightfully theirs. Beginning with the Wisconsin walkout and now embodied in the temper tantrum of Indiana Democrats, the self-professed Doctor of Democracy has once again been proven right.
Statehouse walkouts are not without precedent. In fact, they are a reasonably common occurrence. But they are largely symbolic gestures -- an attempt to demonstrate the minority's outraged disapproval of the majority's agenda. Seldom do they go on for days, and until now, never have they been legitimate attempts to undermine the entire democratic process by grinding the operation of government to a halt.
Yet that is exactly what the Wisconsin Democrats attempted, and what their Indiana counterparts are still shamefully perpetrating. What is taking place in the Indiana Statehouse is far from a mere regional or petty statewide issue; it is a direct assault on the democratic process that deserves national attention and collective, bipartisan scorn. For while the Wisconsin constitution allowed the Republicans a procedural recourse to rectify the stalemate (something they employed when it became apparent the Democrats could not be lured back by compromise), Indiana Republicans have no such option.
For those who may be unaware, Indiana Statehouse Democrats staged a walkout a month ago to deny the large Republican majority the ability to enact legislation opposed by public and private union bosses - specifically right-to-work and public education reform laws. The Democrat caucus fled across state lines to Illinois (where else?), and have been holed up in a hotel demanding concession after concession to earn their return. But even after capitulating to their juvenile fit and pulling the right-to-work law off the table, Republican leaders have been unsuccessful in luring the Democrats back to work.
Indiana House Speaker, Republican Brian Bosma, acknowledged as much when he lamented, "We can't do the Madison shuffle that Wisconsin legislators were able to accomplish." The consequence of that reality? Given that Indiana has a part-time legislature, the stalemate will most likely cease only when the session adjourns and Governor Mitch Daniels calls the Assembly back into special session to pass a budget and new redistricting maps - the only items the legislature is required by law to pass. This special session may give Republicans some wiggle room, but the likelihood is that the Democrat temper-tantrum will have killed the passage of virtually every bill introduced this year.
There's a phrase for what is occurring in Indiana; it's called the "tyranny of the minority." In Federalist #10, James Madison warned against the tyranny of the majority by proposing that a republican form of representative democracy would best protect the rights of the minority. What he apparently didn't count on was that in an effort to appease their union masters, the minority would one day use those protections to obliterate the democratic process. And that is precisely what is unfolding.
It's telling that the phrase "tyranny of the minority" has been employed in recent years by Democrat apologists angry at the Republican Party's use of the filibuster to stall Democrat-sponsored legislation. Watching Republicans require a supermajority of 60 Senators to pass some of Barack Obama's most controversial policies (thereby slowing his left-wing revolution of government), Democrat consultant Peter Fenn thundered, "This is the tyranny of the minority...This acceptance of a supermajority to get anything done in America has gotten way out of hand...There is a place for a supermajority: impeachment, eviction of members, veto overrides, votes on treaties and constitutional amendments. But we should not have such requirements for the regular conduct of legislative business, especially at times like these, when action is required to move the country forward."
One must wonder where Mr. Fenn and his counterparts are now. After all, while both parties' overuse of the filibuster to obstruct legislation is a fair topic of conversation, it pales in comparison to the unseemly tactic of a group of lawmakers who hold representative democracy itself hostage by refusing to show up for work. Because while a filibuster is levied to obtain critical changes and adjustments to pending legislation, these walkouts are a brazen attempt to thwart the will of the people expressed in an election.
As Bosma explained, "We've offered a number of concessions on substitutive matters on issues of concern to the Democrats. What we have not agreed to do is to meet their demand to remove issues for the remainder of the legislative session in both chambers, which is their continued demand, that these issues just go away, really nullifying the election results of November 2."
And that's why reasonable and fair minded individuals from around the country and from both sides of the aisle should be outraged at this stunt. The dangerous precedent being set here is that whatever party loses the election should just flee the state to prevent the winners from passing any laws. This un-statesmanlike chicanery annihilates the very republican form of government our Constitution guarantees.
In his article, Fenn complained, "We have seen the rapid evolution of a nation that covets the concept of majority rule to one where the tyranny of the minority threatens to paralyze the country." Indeed it does. Nothing less than the democratic process is at stake. And ironically, it's the group of folks who euphemistically and now wholly inappropriately refer to themselves as the Democratic Party who have the gun to its head.
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 03-24-2011).]
So much for civil discourse. Sen. Charles E. Schumer briefly revealed his true face Tuesday as reporters listened to him instruct fellow Democrats in how to paint Republicans and House Speaker John Boehner as extremist Tea Party zealots in the budget debates.
“I always use the word extreme,” Schumer told his fellow Democrats. “That is what the caucus instructed me to use this week.”
Republicans were quick to blast the remarks.
“It just lends to the fact to what we’ve always known, that this is a political game," said Rep. Allen West on Fox News. "It’s about gamesmanship, it’s about maneuvering, and it really is about politics. It’s not about doing what is best for the American people, it’s not about reducing the size and scope of the federal government so we can get back to have long-term, sustainable economic and job growth. I think Charles Schumer showed his hand. Now it’s up to the American people to realize who are really the ones who are standing as an obstacle for us to move forward.”
West added that Schumer, Harry Reid, and Obama want a shutdown so that they can use it to blame Republicans, and position themselves for 2012.
The brief peek behind the curtain came as Schumer was about to start a conference call with reporters on Tuesday morning, according to The New York Times. The No. 3 Democrat in the Senate was apparently unaware that many of the reporters were already on the line when he began revealing what passes as strategic messaging for Democrats.
After thanking his colleagues — Barbara Boxer of California, Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut — for doing the budget bidding for the Senate Democrats, Schumer told them to portray John A. Boehner of Ohio, the speaker of the House, as painted into a box by the Tea Party, and to decry the spending cuts that he wants as extreme.
A minute or two into the talking-points tutorial, though, someone apparently figured out that reporters were listening, and silence fell, according to the Times.
After finding their bearings, the Democrats launched right into their message.
“We are urging Mr. Boehner to abandon the extreme right wing,” said Boxer, urging the House to compromise on the scale of spending cuts and to drop proposed amendments that would deny federal financing for Planned Parenthood and for government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency.
Carper, too, hit the word “extreme,” referring to some House Republicans’ “right-wing extremist friends.” Cardin decried Boehner’s giving into “extremes of his party.” Blumenthal closed by speaking of the “relatively small extreme group of ideologues” who are “an anchor” dragging down the budget negotiation process.
No doubt Schumer will pay more attention to the mute button on his phone as the debate continues.
My childhood has long passed, but I still have a clear memory of one particular occasion when I found myself squared off against a grammar school bully -- a young misfit who roamed the playground just looking for trouble.
How the altercation began I don't recall, but it soon escalated into rounds of all-out name-calling.
My young adversary probably led off with a profound observation like, "You're a stupid idiot."
"You're not just stupid," I countered. "You're a fool."
"You're worse than a fool," he offered. "You're yellow."
"That's not as bad as being a rat!" I replied.
"Well, you're a liar," he asserted, adding a bit of questionable historical proof, "just like Benedict Arnold."
I was about to point out that Arnold, as we had been informed just that morning, was a traitor, not a liar. But I thought of something better, something that would put the argument to rest and leave my adversary reeling.
"Well, you're Hitler!" I pronounced.
It worked. My opponent was indeed speechless. Nothing could top that accusation. This, after all, was just a few years after the flesh-and-blood Hitler had dispatched hordes of goose-stepping storm troopers all over Europe while rounding up and liquidating millions of Jews, gypsies, and Slavs. So my comparison of this playground ne'er-do-well with the worst figure in human history was pretty stunning. The young villain stood silent for a few seconds, then stumbled away at a total loss for words. I was victorious on the field of battle that day. But was I fair?
For one thing, the analogy was hardly credible. It was not quite accurate to accuse my adversary of sending millions off to the concentration camps and causing a world war. Clearly, the 70-pound villain standing opposite me was not Hitler. No matter how badly he developed, he would never grow up to commit the sorts of crimes of which I was accusing him. In truth, he probably would grow up to be a kind-hearted, generous, decent member of society.
My retort was inaccurate, but it was worse. Even at that age, I realized it was something that should not have been said, and I don't recall ever saying it again.
For the rest of my life, though, I would hear it repeated by others. In fact, it became so familiar that one could expect any hard-pressed leftist to insinuate the Hitler line into his argument. The variations were endless, but they all involved the same basic analogy: anyone who is the least bit cautious or conservative is a fascist -- only leftists and anarchists are not.
I've always found the analogy distasteful, not just because it is unfair but because it diminishes the real evil of the past. Taunting Richard Nixon with cries of "fascist," as his U.S. Senate opponent Helen Douglas did in 1950, trivialized the horrific evil of actual fascism. The suggestion of a liberal blogger that the "road to fascism began with Ronald Reagan" was just as distasteful.
As socialistworker.org admits, the left routinely applies the term "fascist" to any Republican political leader. In Britain The Guardian, BBC, and other liberal media pounced on purported links between the Bush family and corporations that had dealings with Nazi Germany. The fact that Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's grandfather, was a "director and shareholder" with companies that had indirect financial dealings with Germany in the 1930s would hardly seem damning, however. Much the same could be said for many other affluent individuals in America or Britain at the time. Every American today with mutual fund holdings is invested, at least indirectly, in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Does that make them Marxist revolutionaries?
Talk of Hitler became a lot more common during the Bush years, when it was accepted wisdom on the left that George Bush was worse than Hitler. Then there was Nancy Pelosi, who spent weeks back in 2010 complaining of the Tea Party's so-called "swastika signs" -- signs that did not signal an alliance with fascism but opposition to it. Pelosi was hardly alone in accusing the Tea Party of fascism. Marc Rubin, writing for examiner.com, referred to Tea Party members as "text book fascists." He went on to pin the neo-fascist label on Tom Tancredo, presumably because of Tancredo's concerns over illegal immigration. If those concerns make Tancredo a fascist, they would make the majority of Americans who share those concerns fascists as well. But that's pretty much how the left sees America.
The immediate response of liberals such as Chris Matthews to the Ryan "Path to Prosperity" was to characterize it as a killer not just of babies and old people but of "half the people who watch this show." This attempt to portray the GOP plan as genocidal is just another example of the fascist rhetoric. It appears that Matthews is attempting to portray the Ryan plan as some sort of Final Solution.
It's not just loose cannons on MSNBC who resort to fascist innuendo. Obama's speechwriters are good at crafting sinister suggestions even without using the "F" word. Obama's budget speech of April 13 actually set the tone for the current debate. With Rep. Ryan sitting on the front row, Obama lectured his audience that the GOP plan would kick "someone's grandparents" out of nursing homes and cause children with autism and Down's syndrome to "fend for themselves." It is well known that Hitler sent legions of the disabled to concentration camps to be gassed, but the suggestion that a plan to actually save Medicare and Medicaid resembles the Holocaust, if that is what Obama intended, is repellent. It was one more proof, as if we needed any more, of a fatal weakness in the character of this President. He is a man whose entire existence is devoted to gutter politics. For such a man, statesmanship and dignified leadership are inconceivable.
The plan truth is that America can no longer afford this sort of reckless partisanship on the part of the chief executive. The fact that Obama disagrees with Rep. Ryan's budget plan does not justify accusations of killing sick children or tossing old folks out on the street. That kind of rhetoric may pass for wit in the sixth grade, but it is juvenile coming from the President.
When is the left going to grow up, stop tossing around irresponsible charges of fascism, and discuss issues in a mature way? Not, I suppose, until they can win the argument on the facts, and that will be a long, long time.
An interesting article, with some straightforward admissions that Hollywood is strongly leftist, and that they not only inject their philosophies into their TV and movie productions, but actively practice and encourage outright discrimination against anyone who doesn't agree with their leftist ideology...
A rising chorus of repeal-mongers, outraged at the Obama administration’s federal health care power grab, took over Washington this week. Nope, it’s not the tea party. It’s Democrats Against the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). Yes, Democrats.
What’s IPAB? A Beltway acronym for subverting the deliberative process.
The 15-member panel of government-appointed bureaucrats was slipped into Section 3403 of the Obamacare law against the objection of more than 100 House members on both sides of the aisle. IPAB’s experts would wield unprecedented authority over Medicare spending — and in time, over an expanding jurisdiction of private health care payment rates — behind closed doors.
Freed from the normal administrative rules process — public notice, public comment, public review — that governs every other federal commission in existence.
Without the possibility of judicial review.
And liberated from congressional oversight except through an onerous accountability procedure.
Last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius touted IPAB as a “key part” of Obamacare. The president himself crusaded for giving the board even more regulatory “tools” to usurp congressional power over health care allocations. And he has the audacity to blame Republicans for creating a “banana republic”? Hmph.
The conservative Arizona-based Goldwater Institute has filed suit in federal court to stop IPAB. “No possible reading of the Constitution supports the idea of an unelected, standalone federal board that’s untouchable by both Congress and the courts,” says the think tank’s litigation director, Clint Bolick. But it’s the growing opposition from members of the administration’s own party that may yet doom these health care czars on steroids.
But look who’s not biting: According to Politico, “New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, of the Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, has zero interest in defending the board. ‘I’ve never supported it, and I would certainly be in favor of abolishing it.’” If that’s not clear enough, Pallone added that he’s “opposed to independent commissions or outside groups playing a role other than on a recommendatory basis.” Period.
Another House Democrat, Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania, is one of seven Democratic IPAB repeal co-sponsors and is scheduled to testify Wednesday at a second House hearing blasting the board. And former Democratic House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt channeled the tea party in a recent op-ed when he decried IPAB as “an unelected and unaccountable group whose sole charge is to reduce Medicare spending based on an arbitrary target growth rate.”
IPAB defenders demand an alternative, but that’s why the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission already exists. And for those unsatisfied with its woeful results, there’s the demonized GOP/Rep. Paul Ryan reform package that relies on individual choice and competition over bureaucratic diktats to reduce spiraling Medicare costs.
Opponents of GOP structural reforms have now resorted to decrying Ryan’s choice of beverages as a way to discredit the plan. An apparently besotted Rutgers University economist and former Kerry/Edwards economic adviser, Susan Feinberg, accosted Ryan at a D.C. restaurant last week while he was dining with two financial experts over a pricy bottle of wine. “I wasn’t drunk, but I was certainly emboldened to speak my mind,” Feinberg told liberal blog Talking Points Memo. She gleefully described attacking Ryan for espousing government austerity while — gasp — dining out on his own dime.
It’s the same unhinged and irrational sanctimony that has New York Times columnist David Brooks assailing entitlement reformers as moral degenerates; the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen likening them to Jonestown cult killer Jim Jones; and Daily Beast editor Tina Brown decrying them as “suicide bombers.” Ah, the days of whine and bozos.
The good news: Thanks to sober bipartisan criticism (Where are all the cheerleaders for bipartisanship when you need them?), Sebelius and company are now downplaying IPAB as a harmless “backstop mechanism” with limited powers to do anything at all to control costs. At a House hearing Tuesday, Sebelius tried to paint the board as just another run-of-the-mill dog-and-pony panel that would be “irrelevant” if Congress so chooses
It’s not quite an under-the-bus moment, but it’s certainly a nudge toward rolling back the Obamacare Republic.
What is the biggest political lie of 2011? There are so many to choose from. I admit I was skeptical when PolitiFact said it was ready to declare the “Lie of the Year 2011.” After all, its record for bashing conservatives was pretty much unblemished.
Two years ago, the scribes who put together PolitiFact selected Sarah Palin’s comment about “death panels” as the biggest lie of 2009. In 2010, they once again sprang to the defense of Obamacare, pooh-poohing claims that it represented a “government takeover of health care” as the year’s biggest falsehood.
So imagine my surprise when the PolitiFact declared that the “Lie of the Year 2011” was the Democrats’ claim that “Republicans voted to end Medicare.”
"White House officials were so nervous about how a splashy, Hollywoodesque party would look to jobless Americans -- or their representatives in Congress, who would soon vote on health care -- that the event was not discussed publicly, and Burton and Depp's contributions went unacknowledged."
The event, so over the top that "Star Wars" creator George Lucas loaned out the original Chewbacca costume from the legendary film for an unknown participant to wear, was covered by a front event for the press in which the first couple handed out candy to trick or treaters. The president did not don a costume to that event, but first lady Michelle Obama wore a leopard-print sweater, cat ears and sparkly eye makeup.
Inside, at the invitation-only affair for children of military personnel and White House administrators, the State Dining Room served as Wonderland while Depp greeted guests from a table-top and Burton decorated the White House "in his signature creepy-comic style."
I have a question that is burning a hole in my mind, but it did not start out that way. Ever since President Obama, or whoever he really is, has been in office, there has been a question starting to form in my thoughts. As time goes along and I see what Obama is doing while in office, this question has been becoming more focused and clearer each day. Before I ask the burning question, I want to first explain a few things so the question comes out correctly. At the very beginning of Obama’s presidency, there was a small bit of optimism, even though I did not vote for him. The rationale I had at the time was maybe he could pull Americans together to accomplish something wonderful. I realize now this was very naive of me; because of Obama’s actions, I have come to realize there is one question which is now plaguing me. No longer can I just sit back and wait to see what happens to America because the destruction of our Nation has begun under the leadership of President Obama.
The question in my mind is based upon people who are trying to achieve power; that is to say, they are seeking to obtain power-filled positions so they can either get money, gain control over others or both. Everyone wants to control their own destiny in life, but people who are power-crazy, not only want to control their own life, they want to control everyone else’s life as well. They want us to embrace homosexual rituals in public and are forcing public schools to teach their immoral acts which is against God and Natural Law. I say if we all lived our life as gay people, there would not be any human life around because no one would have any children. So here we have this minority group who wants to gain power over our lives. The way they are getting power is to force public educational systems to embrace and promote their immoral ineptitude by teaching our young children that this behavior is OK and acceptable. Who are they to teach my children immoral behaviors?
There are those who just do not believe in the existence of any type of higher intelligence, such as God, because in their mind, no one is smarter than ‘they’ are and if they cannot see God, then God does not exist. Our planet has been around about 3.5 billion years and most of that time, life was hanging on by only small degrees. In comparison, our universe is about 14 billion years old. This is a huge amount of time where it is easy to imagine entire civilizations have come and gone; I wonder more and more how long America will last? Life is really prevalent here on our planet and if we look deeply we see life all over. If we could see far enough out, we would probably see life elsewhere as well. To say all things in the universe have only occurred by happenstance seems really, really lucky. We know that as we experience life for ourselves that luck does not play out very well; how lucky are we really? We are not very lucky because President Obama is destroying our Nation; oh, what luck our generation is having! Just outside of our human intellect, just at the edge of our perception, there is a superior existence which we can label as God. It just does not seem logical that complex life which has occurred in this universe did so without intervention from God. Just because some people cannot believe God exists, does not mean it is not true. So why should a minority of Nay-Sayers be able to dictate to the majority that we cannot openly embrace and pursue our love, respect and loyalty to our God? Just because they do not believe, why do we have to be taken all the way down to their pathetic level? In public schools, teachers are mandated to teach children about homosexual activities, but these same teachers cannot where a cross or crucifix around their neck, much less talk about God; unless they are Muslim.
What really has gotten me thinking is how there are power-crazed people who live their life in the USA but actively embrace the teachings of radicals and anarchists. These power-crazed people were born into a governmental system that allowed them the opportunity to live life and experience it as free people, but they now actively “sell” anarchy to others. Anarchy is something they never lived but they want others to embrace it. How do they know anarchy is better than freedom? They are only trying to gain power and they use anarchy as the mechanism to create power for their self interests. Their fictional anarchy is only to make people mad at something so they can become their leader of these mad people, thus giving them the power they are seeking. Once a person gets mad, they get a feeling of empowerment and being mad is the oldest trick Satan has because it gets people to do irrational actions; thus when a person is acting mad, Satan is actually in control. There is a fundamental problem with being mad because it cannot be maintained all the time without a constant irritant and stimulus. Eventually, a person will cool off without this constant stimulus and common sense will return. Anarchists have to keep things stirred up and will keep the fire lit over and over again. They have to keep the level of anger high so they can stay in power. Just know whatever it is that anarchists are selling does not have to be true, it just has to make people mad.
By now you are probably asking what question is burning a hole in my mind. The reason I mentioned these three types of scenarios is because they have one thing in common. Can you guess what they have in common? Let me say all of these are supported and embraced by the Democratic Party. In fact, there is a lot more the Democratic Party embraces but now is not the time to explain all of them in detail. What is important to know for this article is the people within the Democratic Party have aligned themselves, or have allowed their party to become a political party who stands against everything we have established as “American.” Many years ago the Democratic Party was a ‘Party of honor’ which had as their agenda ‘compassion for helping those who cannot help themselves.’ What the Democratic Party has become today is altogether far different from what they use to be. Today, they are all about changing the United States into a Socialistic Islamic Nation.
What is burning a hole in my mind is this: “How can Democratic Politicians and people who support the Democratic Party, those who embrace their own freedom, live their life as free citizens in the US and whose children and grandchildren will inherit what they leave behind, how can they be selling-out our Nation?” Yes, I mean the Democratic Party is selling us out to radicals, Muslims, homosexuals and anti-religious groups who want to destroy and take America down! I find it very troubling there are actually “Americans” who are trying to destroy our own country from within. How can someone who loves the freedom they have, be voting into law a socialistic healthcare program that gives the Federal Government control of their healthcare and where this same government infringes upon everyone’s freedom and life? How can these people who say they ‘love America’ be stomping upon our Constitutional underpinnings knowing their own blood will be living a life worse off than they ever had to live? How can these Democratic Party idiots succumb to all the minorities in such a fashion where it leads to a massive national debt, maintain poor job growth and takes away our freedom? How can these people, who are supposed to be protecting us, be selling-out America?
Most of them crave power over others and they believe they do not have to comply with these crazy laws they are passing. Then there are other people who hold something over their heads to get them to vote the way they want them to vote. In short, some politicians are told what to do, if they do not comply, something they did will be broadcasted and would cause them harm. In fact, some of the ruthless power-hungry politicians actually setup others for corruption so they can get dirty laundry on them. That way, they have power over them and this will cause them to support laws that are against our foundation as a Nation. People who desire power over others will do any and all they can to get power and there is no logic behind what they will and will not do in order to achieve this goal. This is why newly elected officials to Washington DC will eventually start voting for crazy laws because somewhere, sometime, they have done something wrong, that if exposed, would cause them harm or embarrassment. These things are setup and done on a regular basis by those with lots of money and uber-power. They will find people who will manipulate others to do their bidding. There is a saying “There is no honor amongst thieves.” Washington DC is not corrupt; it is the people who are power hungry that are corrupt. They are the ones who are evil and are leading our Nation into turmoil and ruin.
Since we have a non-American as President, it has become very clear that the Nation which we were born into, the Country we grew up in and the Land we cherish in our hearts will not be what we pass down to our children. It will be far, far different than anything we can imagine. Because of democratic compassion, the Democratic Party has succumbed to those who do not hold the same standards and values as the majority of Americans hold. These corrupt politicians will do any and everything they can to stay in power and this means they will lie, cheat and steal votes during an election. The will do anything they can to take power if it is not given to them. Power is what they are after and the more power they get, the more power they want to have. They will try to get so much power, that it will set our US Constitution and Bill of Rights on fire! They have no concern for our Laws unless it is for their enemies to follow. For them, they are exempt from following their putrid laws and so they are immune. They will cause people to get mad and will make them focus that anger in ways to benefit their own power crazed desire. Their power is insatiable and they really do not care one iota for those whom they hurt. All they want is to get their way and if they do not, they are the loudest of the loud at screaming foul!
So what can we do? If we sit back and act scared to do anything, then we will lose more than our Nation. Right now I can just hear my brother-in-law saying “It is not that bad.” This is because he does not have the time nor does he have the desire to gain the knowledge he needs to make an informed decision. I wonder how he will feel in the future if Obama is re-elected and we lose the American Dollar as the Worlds Money Standard. How will he feel if we get Obamacare forced down our throats and when he is nearing the age of 80 and they tell him “Sorry, you are just too old for us to do anything for you… we are pulling the plug because you cost too much.” I wonder if he would be able to put two and two together and say, well, I should have voted for someone who did not sell-out America.
I am afraid there are very many people in America today just like my bother-in-law who will probably not be able to associate the damage that will happen to America if Obama is re-elected into office another four years!
WE MUST VOTE OUT OF OFFICE ALL DEMOCRATIC PARTY POLITICIANS!
THEY DO NOT HAVE AMERICA’S BEST INTEREST IN THEIR HEARTS OR MINDS!
WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO DO TO KEEP AMERICA AWAY FROM THE DEMOCRATS?
Speaking at Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi addressed recent comments by Newt Ginginch referring to Obama as the "Food Stamp President" because more Americans have fallen into poverty and had to seek government assistance. According to Ms. Pelosi, this was a "Badge of Honor"
One of my closest friends, "Gail," lives in a pristine suburb in northern New Jersey. It's one of those leafy bedroom communities where residents drive their Lexus SUVs to the railroad station each morning to catch the train to Manhattan. After 9/11, Gail told me that eerily, several vehicles were left abandoned in the parking lot for weeks. Their drivers never returned home that day to retrieve them. But, in general, not much goes on in her sleepy, idyllic town. The residents rave about shopping sprees to Loehmanns and sprints to Whole Foods for organic strawberries. There is no crime to speak of; the local paper blares news about a recent traffic accident or the opening of a Trader Joe's. So when Gail told me what happened to her son, I was absolutely dumbfounded. As for Gail, like my former self, she's a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party. This isn't surprising given that she's a born-and-raised East Coast Jew. But, unlike the former me, Gail is a liberal, not a self-proclaimed progressive/leftist. While many conservatives merge liberalism and leftism, there are huge differences between the two camps. Liberals, like Gail, want a kinder and gentler America. They choose safe, suburban suburbs, with schools that (as of yet) do not radicalize their children. While it's the rare liberal who would display a flag on July 4, he still cares about this country, supports Israel, and is wary of radical Islam. The progressive/leftists are an entirely different species entirely; they do not love this country or Israel. In fact, the far left would like nothing better than to knock the US and Israel down from their high horses. Leftists sympathize with the "victims" of the United States, not those Americans who are brutalized by thugs or terrorists. The left practices third-worldism, the belief that the paths of Chavez and Lenin are vastly superior to our own Founding Fathers. Having become smitten by the renegade image of Che Guevara, they fashion themselves as post-modern revolutionaries, who set out, with a missionary zeal, to change the world. Consequently, leftists turn a blind eye to the savagery of the third world, e.g. the burqua or beheadings. Progressives justify the brutality of gang violence and perhaps engage in mob behavior themselves. While they label conservatives as reactionary, leftists are, in truth, the true reactionaries, reacting against Mommy, Daddy, God, and country. Like me, my liberal friend, Gail, voted for Hillary Clinton during the primary. Gale was pleased with the prospect of a female president and nostalgia for the "good old days" of husband, Bill. After Hillary lost, Gail was a Good Democrat, and chose Obama instead. She voted for him, even though I tried and tried in vain to wake her up to the truth. I myself voted for Hillary until the ascent of Obama snapped me out of my lifetime progressive trance. I saw that something was terribly wrong, that people were acting crazy around him. The multitudes were entranced, hypnotized, in a cult-like way. Even more disturbingly, the more emotionally unstable supporters were behaving violently towards any and all opponents. And Obama, taking in the whole scene, said nothing. The smearing of the opposition, the misogyny directed at Hillary and Sarah, the cloud of aggression that followed Obama around, like the grime that trailed after the cartoon character Pigpen, felt frightening to me, menacing, and creepy. It finally dawned on me that should Obama be elected, the dark and uncivilized behavior that I see in Berkeley would spread and multiply and envelope the entire country. I tried my best to explain all of this to Gail; I pleaded with her to reconsider her automatic pilot vote for Obama. I pulled out all of the stops: I explained in painstaking detail what life was like in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco under the radicals. I told her about walking a gauntlet of paranoid, drug-addled derelicts on Telegraph Avenue, about the frequent attacks on tourists in San Francisco. I reminded her of my own mugging, and informed her that everyone out here has a similar story -- or knows someone who does. And, I told her, the worst part of it is that no one seems to care -- that citizens have become so programmed in the dogma of white privilege that they offer themselves and their children up as sacrificial lambs. Like the hostages of Stockholm, Berkeley-ites defend their abusers, protecting them rather than guarding themselves. And finally I explained that Obama was cut from the same radical cloth -- that he surrounds himself with the type of militants who hold Berkeley captive. And, I warned her, should Obama be elected, the antisocial behavior that is tolerated in Berkeley will become the new normal all across the country. Gail listened politely, though ultimately she voted for Obama. While she listened, she didn't really understand. Of course, she didn't -- how would she? This wasn't her world. When you live in a safe, sheltered reality, you have no idea what it's like for people in Berkeley or Oakland or Detroit. You can't grasp what it's like to hear story after story of horrendous crime; of what it's like to attend a meeting at work one day and hear gunfire outside, as I did; or how it feels to walk to a restaurant on a cloudless blue-sky day and find yourself lying prostrate minutes later, with nose broken and two black eyes. I didn't blame Gail; it is human nature to reject what we cannot relate to. It is impossible to fully grasp what another person goes through unless you walk in his shoes. You can't fully understand the horror of that moment when the doctor utters the word "cancer," nor the enormity of being a woman enslaved by a burqua. And you cannot comprehend what it's like to live in a place like Berkeley or, to take an even more extreme example, Zimbabwe, where gang violence is not just tolerated but it is heralded as part of a noble revolution. You can't understand this, that is, until it happens to you. Gail told me this week that her only child, Justin, was playing basketball in the well-manicured park down the street with his college-aged friends and his girlfriend. Suddenly they were surrounded by a group of black guys from somewhere else who began taunting them, invoking racist language. Her son and his friends yelled at them to go away, but one young male lunged at Justin, punching him in the face. Justin fell and was knocked unconscious. The hoodlums then ran away; luckily, one of the kids got their license plate. I hope and pray that small-town USA takes unprovoked street violence more seriously than places like Berkeley. Justin became conscious again after a few minutes, but he sustained a deep gash that required several stitches. Any head injury is potentially serious. But perhaps even more worrisome than his physical wounds are the emotional ones sustained by Justin and his friends. These are good kids, well-raised, polite, and tolerant. They have held no malice towards anyone based on the color of skin. But will racial hate now be planted in their hearts? Will it corrupt their trusting souls? Of course, everything that is happening right now, whether in New Jersey or Wisconsin, is purposeful. The radicals want to promote anarchy. But it's more than this: they want the hate that blackens their souls to warp others as well. My dear friend, Gail, was in tears, shell-shocked, incredulous. She kept repeating over and over again, "How could this happen? How could this happen?" She struggled to find the words for such barbarism; she had not a clue of how it could invade her insular world. I spoke to Gail tenderly, as though I were calming down a frightened child stirring from a deep sleep. "I'm so sorry, sweetie. This is horrible. Justin didn't deserve to be treated this way, and his friends didn't need to see such brutality. "But, Gail, it's not just happening in your small town, but it's happening all over the country, and it's getting worse every day. There have been random mob violence against white people in Iowa, Chicago, Atlanta, in Wisconsin, where dozens of white people were beaten up, even pulled out of their own cars." "But why?" Gail asked me plaintively. "Why is this happening now?" "It's Obama," I explained. "It's what I told you a few years ago. This is what happens when you put someone in power like Obama. Something spreads, like a virus. It's subtle; it's almost invisible. But it poisons one person, and then another and another, until soon the whole country is corrupted. "It's a sickness called hatred, Gail. Most black people are good, law-abiding, moral people. Obama comes from a far-left fringe group of militants who hate America and want to drag us down. Those same people have degraded and exploited poor black kids for years. These radicals use them as their foot soldiers. Obama would never get his own hands dirty. "I know these militants, Gail; I live among them. They hate America; they want to devolve us back into some primitive brute state. This is why things are getting worse and worse in this country: the economy, the Middle East, and hate crimes against whites." After I finished, Gail was quiet for several seconds. Then she said, sounding heartbroken, "But he made so many promises. He seemed so nice." "Yes, that's true, sweetie," I answered. "But people aren't always as they seem." Three years ago, I sounded the clarion call to my friend Gail to wake up and discern the person behind Obama's carefully crafted mask. I tried to make her see what would happen to this country if the radical left seized power. Back then, she didn't understand what I was saying; she simply couldn't. She is starting to understand now.
Now, this student loan stuff. It’s the focal point of Obama’s speeches that he’s making to yutes wherever he goes. He talked about it a lot yesterday. Speaking of Obama’s push to try to buy the youth vote by giving them free college tuition, remember — and we mentioned this yesterday. The interest rate increase is coming up for a vote on July 1st because the Democrat-controlled Congress in 2007 wanted it that way. Obama is running around scaring these students who don’t know the facts or the truth behind this, that if something isn’t done by the Congress, by July 1st, their student loan interest rate will double.
And then, of course, the students in the audience boo and Obama holds up his hands. “B-b-b-buh! I have a solution.” What you need to know is this: The Democrats controlled both houses of Congress in 2007. They had just won the election. The House, they took it back in 2006. Pelosi’s running the House; Democrats are running the Senate. So 2007 they passed legislation that would cut the student loan interest rate in half and then reinstituted it July 1st this year, on purpose. They wanted the college student loan interest rate to double in an election year, in the summer right before the conventions. They were rolling the dice.
Back in 2007, they didn’t know Obama was gonna be elected. They didn’t know that a Democrat would win. They didn’t know Obama would be nominated. But they were rolling the dice. They were pretty confident they were gonna win the White House. They just didn’t know with who. In fact, in 2007 it was pretty much assumed it was Hillary. In fact, that was practically etched in stone: “In 2007, it’s Hillary’s turn. She has paid here dues in so many ways.” That was the conventional wisdom. Then Obama comes along, the press swoons, and the rest is history. But still, it was a strategic maneuver in 2007 to cut the student loan interest rate in half and then put it back to what it was on July 1st.
In a speech the other day in Youngstown, Ohio, Vice President Joe Biden screamed at the audience, “They just don’t get us! They don’t get who we are!”
“They,” of course, means you and me, conservative types who are just too dim to understand all the wonderful things the Obama Administration is doing for the country.
The accusation came after a rant about how jobs are “coming back” and how there were “signs of life” in the Heartland because of the administration’s hard work and economic policies.
It was a typical liberal shoutfest where the louder you yell something, the more true it becomes. I’ve heard it numerous times from some of my educated friends who should know better: “You’re blaming the guy driving the firetruck for starting the fire.” For liberals, it’s we conservatives who look crazy.
So it’s helpful once in a while to do a reality check. A little self-analysis, as with confession, is good for the soul. I mean, if you were to go crazy, wouldn’t you at least want to know that you were?
In the case of political views, side-by-side comparison of liberal vs. conservative views on President Obama is one illuminating technique.
President Obama as a person
Conservative: Obama comes from a highly suspicious background in which he was raised and schooled around numerous anti-American socialists and communists; vital records such as schooling, medical history and selective service remain not only unavailable but deliberately kept under wraps; there is evidence that suggests Obama could have used false identities and been involved in fraud; even his birth certificate appears to have been forged. Liberal: He’s black. He’s cool.
President Obama’s economic performance Conservative: President Obama’s stimulus packages have shown no effect in improving the economy; there is ample evidence to suggest that most of the money was used as payback to supporters; he has turned auto and other companies into essentially state-run businesses; jobs have not come back in any significant way since Obama took office, and any statistical “gains” have mostly been attributable to large numbers of Americans simply giving up any hope of finding a job, thus shrinking the number of people counted as “jobless”; three years into it, Obama is still blaming President Bush for the economy. Liberal: President Obama says the economy is getting better, and I believe him. He’s black. He’s cool.
Obama’s foreign policy Conservative: Obama negotiates from weakness; he began his administration by apologizing to many countries that have been our enemies and bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia; he told the Russians over an open mic that he is essentially willing to cave to their demands that we remove missile defenses in Europe; he has tacitly and overtly encouraged violence in the Middle East, even engaging in military actions against Libya without informing Congress; he has weakened America’s standing in the world and pursued a policy of having America follow the crowd rather than lead. Liberal: Obama says we are stronger than ever, and I believe him. He’s black. You’re a racist. He’s cool. You drool.
Obama’s domestic policies Conservative: Obama has appointed an unprecedented number of “czars” who are not subject to any scrutiny or approval by Congress or voters; his TSA is out of control, violating the privacy of travelers under the pretense of airport security; the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS have been allowed to target conservative groups for harassment; Obama’s cabinet members and czars have shown repeatedly they are willing to go around the law by quietly creating “policies” for their respective agencies that were rejected as laws by Congress; the administration has demonstrated a culture of disdain for constitutional limits on presidential power; the president himself has tried to unconstitutionally decree that religious institutions must buy into a health insurance policy with abortion and contraceptive provisions that violate religious conscience. Liberal: Obama knows best. You’re racist. I’m going to report you. You should be on a watch list. Shut up.
So, in summation, the reason conservatives know we aren’t crazy is that we actually pay attention to what’s coming out of Washington and draw logical conclusions. Could we be wrong on any given issue? Of course. All humans are fallible.
Liberals on the other hand seem to base their beliefs solely on the fact that someone in authority “says it’s so.” So liberalism is in essence just irrational faith.
A memo to our liberal friends: The next time you go to some online site to complain about how stupid and dangerous you think conservatives are, try looking in a mirror first.
In ascertaining the general hierarchy of sins, a good point of reference is the Ten Commandments. While the Decalogue is not all-inclusive, God dictated these specific directives to Moses as the basis upon which His people should live. Among the ten is the command not to covet: "You shall not covet ... anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Ex. 20:17 [NIV]).
Covetousness (or envy), meaning the possession of a strong desire for what another has, does not get the attention that its close relation "greed" gets. Greed, of course, is greatly derided in scripture, and for good reason, but God did not see fit to include it in the commandments He set out on Mt. Sinai. Why? For one thing, greed is not always destructive, while envy is. Greed is the desire to have more and, depending how that desire is acted upon, can be beneficial or detrimental. The profit motive has made the United States the most prosperous nation in history; but, conversely, the abuse of that motive was greatly responsible for the September 2008 financial collapse. When envy, on the other hand, is acted upon, there is no good, only bad. At its worst, it leads to mass theft and murder. But envy does not have to be acted upon to be harmful. Its very nature produces resentment and enmity. Thus, even dormant, the coveting of one's neighbor's belongings is destructive.
Additionally, envy is often disguised as righteous indignation against some perceived iniquity. Lately, that iniquity is most often the putative greed of others. Thus, it is not envy or covetousness that animates the outrage targeted at "the rich"; it is the moral certitude of seeking "fairness." Thinking that at a certain point your neighbor has made enough money and that he must pay his "fair share" just makes things more equal because it "spreads the wealth around." Disguised envy has been the motivation for many a road paved with good intentions.
Covetousness also undergirds the twin pathologies of victimhood and helplessness. Blame of the other is easier than confronting one's own mistakes and bad choices. Blaming the other because his success was supposedly at your expense makes it personal. When it is always someone else's fault, control of one's life is ceded, thereby relegating one to a passive spectator. Things just happen -- good or bad, they just happen. On a personal level, covetousness and envy usurp any chance at a fulfilling and happy life because one can never be grateful. Life is a constant comparison to others who always appear "better off," with little motivation or desire to better oneself. On a corporate level, when covetousness and envy infect a significant percentage of the populace, the results can be catastrophic.
The envious who are so quick to lament the greed of others generally focus only on one type of greed -- the love of money. However, greed is not limited to money; it manifests in many currencies, including the desire for power. While the love of money can affect the lives of others, its main objective is wealth-accumulation. Material gain is the goal, and, of course, that gain can be at the expense of others, but not always. But the desire for power is always at the expense of others because the goal is to have control over others. There is a big difference between wanting to spend one's own money and seeking the authority to tell others how they should spend theirs. Real trouble begins when those who crave power gain it by manipulating resentments. It is where greed meets envy -- the structural foundation of the political left. When stripped of its many pretenses, the political left's objective is control. It goes about trying to gain that control using a very simple formula: creating an enemy, and creating resentment in as many people as possible against that created enemy. It seeks to exploit envy to satiate its greed for power and never lets a crisis (real or imagined) go to waste.
The evolution of this methodology, once implemented, is quite predictable. First, an enemy is created that must be destroyed in order to help "the people." That enemy can be vague or amorphous, such as "imperialists" or "capitalists," or specific, such as Kulaks or "bankers." Once that enemy is dispatched, however, a new enemy must be created. This scenario, if not stopped, continues until the powerful run out of other people's enemies, at which point the people themselves become the enemy. By that time, the people are helpless, having given away their liberty and self-sufficiency in the pursuit of manufactured vengeance. National slavery ensues. While the left has its traditional enemies, no one and nothing is immune. Pillars of the community one day are, the next day, transmuted into the cause of national despair. What dictates is political opportunism. Thus, doctors are money-grubbers instead of hardworking healers; the white middle class are gun- and religion-clingers; grandmothers become typical white people; political opponents are racists and must be punished as enemies; advocates of traditional marriage are labeled "haters"; those seeking more self-government are derided as "tea-baggers"; people whose sincerely held religious beliefs would be violated if forced to pay for someone else's birth control or abortion are now at "war with women"; mothers who stay home to raise their children are sneered at for "never working a day in their lives"; self-made women who do not toe the feminist line are the recipients of the most vile of public insults; etc.; etc. The list of the demonized is endless because the left's greed for power is endless. The left relies on blame and division to accumulate its power. However, without envy, the left could never attain such power in the first place. Those who do not covet the things of their neighbors never form the resentment upon which the left depends. They cannot be manipulated into turning against their neighbors and inevitably against themselves.
God commanded His people not to envy their neighbors. The breaking of this commandment leads to disaster. Envy is self-destructive, and when coupled with the greed for power, it can destroy nations. Yet the left relies upon envy for its power. "They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them. They defraud a man of his home, a fellowman of his inheritance" (Micah 2:2 [NIV]).
David P. McGinley, a U.S. attorney, is an associate professor at Handong International Law School in South Korea.
At a recent Obama rally in Ohio, prospective attendees were told to brandish their photo IDs if they expected admittance to the rally. No word yet on whether Attorney General Eric Holder plans to file suit against the Obama campaign for infringing upon Ohioans' right of peaceful assembly by way of a racist photo ID rule.
Jessica Kershaw, the Obama campaign's Ohio Press Secretary, confirmed in a statement to BuzzFeed that the campaign checked every supporter's identification at the door.
"We checked every ID at the door to make sure it matched with the name on the ticket that supporters filled out," she said. "We did this for every person who came in."
Since President Obama sides with Holder in thinking it's Racist™ for states to require photo identification to vote, he must be apoplectic at himself for discriminating against those who don't get state-issued photo IDs. By asking for rally-goers to provide photo ID before entry, the Obama campaign is silently sanctioning the effectiveness of photo identification.
What makes a rally different from voter integrity? What makes buying cigarettes, alcohol, renting a car, a hotel room, cashing a check, opening a bank account, membership at the Y, buying cold medicine, or entering a club any different? You check photo identification to protect the thing which such an exchange accesses and to confirm that you are the age you claim. Is a person's vote less unworthy of protection than buying Sudafed -- or attending an Obama rally?
Elephants and donkeys are very different animals. They both have four legs. They both have a mouth and a nose. They both eat vegetation. They both can travel very far with heavy loads. They both only see through their eyes and they both stink.
The Left’s Political Network, Exposed in One Chart http://dailysignal.com/2014...ok&utm_medium=social A new chart reveals the expansive network of progressive organizations funded by wealthy liberal donors, calling attention to the same “dark money” practices for which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has publicly criticized conservatives.
The graphic, which was circulated by Senate Republicans, illustrates a vast web of nonprofits, think tanks and grassroots organizations encircling Democracy Alliance, which recommends various liberal organizations to influential political contributors.
She paid for this herself though.
But he's right, Ted Kennedy DID save America by just dying. How Ironic is that?!
