Talking In Circles

Holder's Race-Baiting Views ...


Are About Obama's Re-Election,
Not Voting Rights

Eric Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an all-out war on voter-ID laws and other measures to safeguard to the electoral process.



Although Holder’s actions are purportedly to prevent African-Americans from being disenfranchised, the reality is that they serve the crass political purpose of ensuring that Holder’s boss gets reelected next year.

In the past several years states have increasingly focused on measures to protect the vote. After years of the federal government loosening voting regulations, such as through the Motor Voter Act and HAVA (Help America Vote Act), the pendulum started swinging back at the state level.

The clearest example of this trend is through voter-ID laws. In 2008 the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s landmark law requiring citizens to show that they are the person they claim to be by showing government-issued ID before casting a ballot. But to ensure that those without driver’s licenses or passports are not disenfranchised, Indiana provides free ID’s to everyone who applies for one. The Court upheld this law, with the primary opinion written by no one less than liberal lion Justice John Paul Stevens.

Such laws combat voter fraud that we see on Election Day, especially in certain parts of the nation. In Washington State, King County suddenly “discovered” enough previously “unnoticed” votes for Democrat Christine Gregoire to edge out Republican Dino Rossi for Washington’s governorship in 2004. There are also examples from Wisconsin, Missouri, and other states.

Yet Holder has blocked South Carolina’s voter-ID law. DOJ argues that this law is different from Indiana’s because South Carolina is subject to additional federal oversight under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. (This is especially important because there are several federal cases challenging the constitutionality of Section 5.)

But the reality is that DOJ’s actions are not focused on protecting voting rights. They are instead intended to make sure that Barack Obama wins reelection.

It’s not cynical to say this. The twelve or so battleground states that will decide the 2012 presidential election suggest Obama’s reelection strategy. These states include Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri. All these states have large African-American populations.

The African-American community has a staggeringly-high unemployment rate under President Obama. So Black Americans will not vote for this president because of any prosperity he’s brought to that community. Instead, he has to gin up their votes by painting a picture of racial conflict in which he—and the governmental agency dealsing with such things, DOJ—is their champion.

This is also seen in Holder’s incessant playing of the race card. First he says we’re a nation of cowards about race. Now that he’s on the ropes for DOJ’s scandalous Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scandal into Mexico, he has the audacity to say that he and President Obama are being attacked in part because they’re both African-Americans.

Voting is a fundamental right. It is the means by which “We the People” consent to be governed for a fixed period of time by certain individuals, by electing them as stewards of governmental power. They wield this power to secure our rights as set forth in the U.S. Constitution and (for state officials) the constitutions of the fifty states.

But there is another voting right. It is the right not to have your legal vote diluted by fraudulent votes. As we explain in our Yale Law & Policy Review article “The Other Voting Right,” every invalid vote cancels out one valid vote. Each such cancellation undermines our democratic republic and reduces the legitimacy of election results.

Voting is also unique in that it might be the only right that is also a duty. It’s not too much to ask for citizens to exert a minimal amount of effort to fulfill reasonable regulations to protect the integrity of the electoral process.

Every eligible citizen has a duty to vote. But as we explain in our book Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America, it is a duty to cast an informed vote. Although there are only so many hours in the day, we each need to make an effort to gather enough information to understand the major issues facing our nation, state, and community, and to carefully vote for candidates who offer the best solutions for our long-term safety and prosperity.

Because voting is a duty, and also because every voter has the right to ensure their valid vote is not diluted by fraudulent votes, citizens can be expected to fulfill certain requirements that would not be justified when exercising other rights, such as free speech or the free exercise of religion. Measures such as showing up at the correct place on the correct day to cast a ballot under the watchful eyes of trained precinct personnel are examples of fulfilling our duty, as is showing valid ID to prove that you are the person listed on that precinct’s voter rolls.

These measures are essential to our self-governing republic. As examples the world over show, losing the integrity of the electoral process is a mistake a free people often get to make only once.
Copyright: Townhall.com; Ken Blackwell; Dec 31, 2011

Islamophobia

The Muslims Are Coming ...

The Muslims Are Coming ...

Here I go again ...
Mr. Politically Incorrect.
Why can't I just leave this alone?



Read this post, and I am convinced you will understand.


Now ... Muslim comics and documentary pushing Muslim Brotherhooders are pushing their invented phony concept of "Islamophobia"

No comedy show, no matter how clever or winning, is going to eradicate the suspicion that many Americans have of Muslims. This is because Americans are concerned about Islam not because of the work of greasy Islamophobes, but because of Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; and Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; and Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; and Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; and Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; and Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; and Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber;

and many others like them who have plotted and/or committed mass murder in the name of Islam and motivated by its texts and teachings ...
all this in the U.S. during the past couple of years.

The fact that there are other Muslims not fighting jihad is just great, but it doesn't mean that the jihad isn't happening. This comedy show simply doesn't address the problem of jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism.

As David Horowitz and I show in our pamphlet Islamophobia: Thoughtcrime of the Totalitarian Future, the term "Islamophobia" is a politically manipulative coinage designed to intimidate critics of Islamic supremacism and jihad into silence.

Claire Berlinski explains how Islamic supremacists from the Muslim Brotherhood devised it for precisely that purpose:

Now here's a point you might deeply consider: The neologism "Islamophobia" did not simply emerge ex nihilo. It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, which is based in Northern Virginia. If that name dimly rings a bell, it should: I've mentioned it before, and it's particularly important because it was co-founded by Anwar Ibrahim--the hero of Moderate Islam who is now trotting around the globe comparing his plight to that of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a former member of the IIIT who has renounced the group in disgust, was an eyewitness to the creation of the word. "This loathsome term," he writes,

is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.

And in fact, FBI statistics show that there is no "Islamophobia." In fact, many "anti-Muslim hate crimes" have been faked by Muslims, and Jews are eight times more likely than Muslims to be the victims of hate attacks.

The Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within." One easy way to do that would be to guilt-trip non-Muslims into being ashamed of resisting jihad activity and Islamic supremacism, for fear of being accused of "Islamophobia." I doubt these comics are aware of this program, but they're useful tools for it.

"Muslim American comics’ tour and documentary," by Tara Bahrampour in the Washington Post, December 27 (thanks to James):

Beware, America. The Muslims are coming, and they look and act suspiciously like you.

Sheesh. No one says they aren't. This is just a straw man designed to demonize opponents of jihad.

Negin Farsad, an Iranian American stand-up comic from California, wears eye-catching mini dresses, curses liberally and has awkward sex talks with her mother (though hers sound more like alien encounters. Actual quote: “You had intergender flesh relations without the security of external safety product?”).

Then she has more to worry about from observant Muslims than she does from "Islamophobes."

Such conversations, painfully private in traditional Muslim societies, are public fodder for Farsad and three other Gen X and Gen Y Muslim comics with whom she traveled to the deep South this past summer.
The tour, which later extended to Western states and included other Muslim comics, will form the backbone of “The Muslims Are Coming!,” a documentary film about Islamophobia in America that Farsad is working on with Palestinian Italian American comedian Dean Obeidallah.


This is going to be the usual victimhood-mongering and deflecting of attention from the real causes of suspicion of Muslims in the U.S. Obeidallah contacted me and asked me to be interviewed for the piece, and assured me he would give me a fair hearing. But then he went on Twitter and called Pamela Geller a "Muslim-hater" -- echoing the deceptive Islamic supremacist claim that fighting for free speech and equality of rights for all people is "hate." His true agenda thus revealed, I bowed out of the interview.

The documentary, which includes interviews with comics such as Jon Stewart and Louis Black and commentators including CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, explores freedom of religion and what it means to be a minority in America.

Note the implication: that minorities have it so tough in America. No mention will be made, no doubt, of the far more precarious position of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim societies.

Muslim American stand-up comedy is a relatively new phenomenon, the domain of second-generation immigrants who are American enough to satirize the Muslim American experience, said Obeidallah, who lives in New York City.
“We’re confident enough to do this,” he said. “An immigrant would be less confident to use comedy to try to challenge perceptions of who we are. We’re confident enough in being Americans and knowing what that means, that we can push against those who are exhibiting behavior which is less than consistent with the values of this nation.”


Note that in Obeidallah's world, the people who are "exhibiting behavior which is less than consistent with the values of this nation" are those fighting for freedom and Constitutional rights, not Brotherhood-related groups dedicated to bringing to the U.S. elements of a legal system that denies freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for women and non-Muslims.

A major factor driving Muslim Americans toward comedy was the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “There were no Middle Eastern comics before 9/11 that anyone knew about,” Obeidallah said. “The phenomenon really grew in the last 10 years, because of the [anti-Muslim] backlash.

There was no backlash, of course. Innocent Muslims are not being victimized in the U.S. Muslims live better here than in many Muslim countries. Obeidallah -- clueless or complicit? You be the judge.

I think a lot of people in our community started doing it as a form of political activism.” As they started appearing on national television, he said, “it spurred other Middle Eastern comedians to get involved.” Now, he said, there are about 10 full-time professinals and a growing number of aspiring professionals.
Going to the South, where anti-mosque demonstrations and anti-immigrant sentiment has made some Muslims feel unwelcome, the comedians hoped to break through some of the cultural walls that have arisen since Sept. 11.

The point was to see “how would people in the heartland take to us?” Obeidallah said. “Would we encounter angry people going, ‘Get out of here, you Muslims,’ or would they understand?”

Traveling through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, they gave free performances in cafes, community centers and theaters. They set up tables in public places, with scripture-related guessing games and the opportunity for people to “Ask a Muslim” anything they wanted.

“I could kind of like Muslims, but why do you guys like terrorism so much?” some asked. “What do you think of 9/11?” was another common question.


How horrible! They got asked uncomfortable questions! Oh, the "Islamophobia"!

On the whole, the public response was encouraging. While a few people drove by and yelled, “Go back to your country!” the one-on-one encounters tended to be positive.

Oh, the horror! They encountered some rude jerks! Almost as bad as being Christians in Nigeria, eh?

“Most people are more open-minded and not that concerned about Muslims,” Obeidallah said. “It’s really the fringe that’s driving that narrative.”
Maysoon Zayid, one of the comics on the tour, said people were surprised to see that “I’m such a Jersey girl, I’m so accessible. . . . I think they are really surprised that I wasn’t this oppressed woman trying to convert people.”

The comedians acknowledged that they were unlikely to win the hearts of the most fervent anti-Muslim types.

“A show called ‘The Muslims Are Coming’ — people self-select to come see it,” Farsad said. “We’re never going to be able to touch the extreme haters. . . . We’re trying to affect the people in the middle, people with questions, the ‘persuadables.’ ”


Do Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah really want to eradicate "Islamophobia"? As long as Islamic jihad and supremacism continue, a comedy tour will never do the trick. But here is an easy way. They can call on Muslims in the U.S. to do these things:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively, sincerely, honestly, and in deeds, not just in comforting words, not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people, teaching accordingly in mosques and Islamic schools, and behaving in accord with these new teachings.
3. Teach, again sincerely and honestly, in transparent and verifiable ways in mosques and Islamic schools, the imperative of Muslims coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, and act accordingly.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach sincerely against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively and honestly work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

If Muslims do those five things, voila! "Islamophobia" will evanesce!

Posted by Robert; Jihad Watch; December 28, 2011

Different Strokes For Different Folks

Since our society has become more politically correct and tolerant of the feelings and beliefs of others, we must all remember to be more sensitive so as to not offend our fellow man.




In this spirit, I submit the following:



To my Liberal friends, and those of a more sensitive nature:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes ...
for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012 but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that the United States is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere.

Please also note: this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference ...
of the wisher, or the wishees.

***********************

To my Conservative friends, and everyone else:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

And yes ...
I agree, the USA is still the greatest
country in the history of the world.

Bob West

Wierd Science

Worst Piece of NYT Climate Reporting Ever?
Justin Gillis' "Christmas Day Snow Job" By: Clay Waters, MRC 12/27/2011

New York Times environmental reporter Justin Gillis took the left-wing idea of extreme weather equaling harmful global warming to heart ...

in his front-page Christmas Day “news analysis” lamenting the Republican block of measures that would document “climate change” more closely, in “Harsh Political Reality Slows Climate Studies Despite Extreme Year.” But an environmental scientist attacked Gillis’s article as “perhaps the worst piece of reporting I've ever seen in the Times on climate change.”


Roger Pielke Jr., an environmental scientist at the University of Colorado, harshly challenged Gillis’s article from several angles:

Regular readers will know that I think that the print media overall has done a pretty good job on covering the science of climate change, if not always getting the politics right....But every once in a while I see a story that is so breathtakingly bad that it is worth commenting on. Today's installment comes from Justin Gillis at the New York Times and was published on Christmas Eve. The article is so bad that it might just be the worst piece of reporting I've ever seen in the Times on climate change.


Pielke responds sharply to this Gillis claim, among others:

A typical year in this country features three or four weather disasters whose costs exceed $1 billion each. But this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tallied a dozen such events, including wildfires in the Southwest, floods in multiple regions of the country and a deadly spring tornado season. And the agency has not finished counting. The final costs are certain to exceed $50 billion.


Pielke pointed out:

The article does not explain that $1 billion in 2011 is about the same as $400 million in 1980 (XLS). Nor does it explain that a $50 billion total in losses for 2011 is about exactly the same as the total in 1980, after adjusting for inflation -- however, as a proportion of the overall economy those 1980 losses were 250% larger than those experienced in 2011. That is, the equivalent 1980 losses in 2011 would be $125 billion. The article completely ignores relevant peer-reviewed research on the subject.
****************************************
The NYT environmentalist babble follows below:

Gillis wrote on Sunday’s front page:


At the end of one of the most bizarre weather years in American history, climate research stands at a crossroads.

Scientists say they could, in theory, do a much better job of answering the question “Did global warming have anything to do with it?” after extreme weather events like the drought in Texas and the floods in New England.

But for many reasons, efforts to put out prompt reports on the causes of extreme weather are essentially languishing. Chief among the difficulties that scientists face: the political environment for new climate-science initiatives has turned hostile, and with the federal budget crisis, money is tight.

And so, as the weather becomes more erratic by the year, the public is left to wonder what is going on.

When 2010 ended, it seemed as if people had lived through a startling year of weather extremes. But in the United States, if not elsewhere, 2011 has surpassed that.

A typical year in this country features three or four weather disasters whose costs exceed $1 billion each. But this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tallied a dozen such events, including wildfires in the Southwest, floods in multiple regions of the country and a deadly spring tornado season. And the agency has not finished counting. The final costs are certain to exceed $50 billion.

A major question nowadays is whether the frequency of particular weather extremes is being affected by human-induced climate change.

Climate science already offers some insight. Researchers have proved that the temperature of the earth’s surface is rising, and they are virtually certain that the human release of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, is the major reason. For decades, they have predicted that this would lead to changes in the frequency of extreme weather events, and statistics show that has begun to happen.

Gillis then blamed the GOP:

This year, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tried to push through a reorganization that would have provided better climate forecasts to businesses, citizens and local governments,Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked it. The idea had originated in the Bush administration, was strongly endorsed by an outside review panel and would have cost no extra money. But the House Republicans, many of whom reject the overwhelming scientific consensus about the causes of global warming, labeled the plan an attempt by the Obama administration to start a “propaganda” arm on climate.

Tent Collapsing on Climate Change Circus

During his 2008 campaign, President Obama made his support of climate-change interventions clear, stating that his presidency would slow the rise of the oceans and begin to heal the planet. He promised that a cap-and-trade system would curb global warming.



He was elected, but the electorate hasn’t liked many of his policies.
Cap and trade never passed Congress.

To this day, President Obama has remained comparatively popular, but people believe he is taking the country in the wrong direction—toward a European system. Even his Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, believes our gasoline prices should be higher, like Europe’s.

Two weeks ago, my column addressed China’s act (ring #1) in the climate-change circus. Last week, I looked at Europe’s staunch support for climate-change intervention when the majority of the industrialized countries have rejected or resisted a Kyoto-style deal (ring #2). Using Italy as an example, I suggested that the country’s lack of natural resources made expensive renewable energy a viable option for them—though an economic tightrope destined to failure.

While Italy is in the news for its brutal economic woes, it shares several components with the US.

Italy has a declining private sector with growth in government, disappearing industrial production being filled in with goods from China, and high gas prices/imported oil. Italians are still consuming, but now their euros are going to other countries—most notably China and the OPEC countries, resulting in exploding trade deficits. (Sound familiar?)

Climate-change mitigation adds to the problem as it artificially inflates energy prices through the troubled Ponzi-like cap-and-trade scheme and creates more government jobs, regulation, fees, and hidden taxes. With the increasing production costs, industry declines and unemployment rises. Over time, some of those put out of work in industry may get absorbed by government—which keeps the unemployment numbers from looking as grim as they might without the government jobs. Government jobs do not create wealth, as mining and farming do, but like a funhouse mirror, they distort the true picture.

All of the above sounds eerily similar to the US—except we did not sign on to the Kyoto protocol, nor did we pass cap-and-trade legislation. However, President Obama has not given up on his plans to “curb global warming.” Instead of cap and trade, we have the EPA directed by President Obama’s appointee, Administrator Lisa Jackson—who, by her own admission, aims to level the playing field. The EPA is doing everything it can to raise the cost of energy, which, if left unabated, will continue the demise of American industry and the growth of the government sector—resulting in exploding trade deficits. (Sound familiar?)

While Italy’s situation and the US have several similarities that are worth noting, there are also some crowd-pleasing differences.

As noted, Italy lacks quantities of large natural resources—America has them in abundance. We often lack the access to our own resources.

Italy is a part of Europe’s cap-and-trade scheme intended to curb manmade global warming. We have Lisa Jackson’s EPA—but Congressional action (encouraged by America’s citizens) can thwart her, and the 2012 election can replace her.

Italy’s economy is collapsing, leaving the stronger countries—mainly England and Germany—to bail it out. The US isn’t quite there yet.

With the economic damage that climate-change interventions deliver, why is the administration still using them as an excuse to implement regulations that will make electricity more expensive for industry and consumers? Maybe, it is because they are, as Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper described Kyoto: “a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.” More and more, it seems that it never was about saving the planet.

If, in fact, reaching a binding global emissions-reduction agreement is really about global government—with the Green Climate Fund sucking money from the “wealthy” countries and redistributing it to the poor countries, Europe gives us a prime example of why the US should follow Canada’s lead and shun the “at-any-cost” green agenda that stunts economic growth and job creation.

Back to Italy. In EU terms, Italy is one of the “poor” countries—along with the other Club Med countries: Greece, Spain and Portugal. In the mini-global government known as the EU, the “wealthy” countries no longer want to carry the “poor” ones.

Germany and Italy are both EU members and in good times, Italy’s growing government sector could mask the harsh economic realities. By comparison to Italy, Germany has abundant energy supplies from nuclear and coal-fueled power, a strong industrial sector, and a good work ethic. Germany “has”; Italy “has not.” In EU terms, Germany is expected to carry Italy—but they don’t want to.

The US “has” abundant energy supplies; the EU “has not.” The EU has to depend on schemes like carbon trading, about which Rob Elsworth of the climate-campaign group Sandbag in London said: “is a pretty important revenue stream for most member states.” He asks, “If you take away this green-economy narrative, what's really left of Europe?”

The EU’s economic crisis provides the US with living proof that we do not want to play in the global-government game where the “haves” are expected to carry the “have nots.” We have the resources; we still have industry; and we still have a good work ethic. Will we use them to save America and the free market system that has allowed us to grow to strength, or will we be drawn into the green big top?
Copyright Marita Noon
Executive Director of Energy Makes America Great 12/27/2011

Random Thoughts

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

Dennis Miller said;

"I don't dig polo.
It's like miniature golf meets the Kentucky Derby."



Nothing illustrates the superficiality of our times better than the enthusiasm for electric cars ...

because they are supposed to greatly reduce air pollution. But the electricity that ultimately powers these cars has to be generated somewhere -- and nearly half the electricity generated in this country is generated by burning coal.

The 2012 Republican primaries may be a rerun of the 2008 primaries, where the various conservative candidates split the conservative vote so many ways that the candidate of the mushy middle got the nomination -- and then lost the election.

Because morality does not always prevail, by any means, too many of the intelligentsia act as if it has no effect. But, even in Nazi Germany, thousands of Germans hid Jews during the war, at the risk of their own lives, because it was the right thing to do.

In recent times, Christmas has brought not only holiday cheer but also attacks on the very word "Christmas," chasing it from the vocabulary of institutions and even from most "holiday cards." Like many other social crusades, this one is based on a lie -- namely that the Constitution puts a wall of separation between church and state. It also shows how easily intimidated we are by strident zealots.

If you don't like growing older, don't worry about it. You may not be growing older much longer.

What do you call it when someone steals someone else's money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else's money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else's money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice.

When an organization has more of its decisions made by committees, that gives more influence to those who have more time available to attend committee meetings and to drag out each meeting longer. In other words, it reduces the influence of those who have work to do, and are doing it, while making those who are less productive more influential.

Anyone who studies the history of ideas should notice how much more often people on the political left, more so than others, denigrate and demonize those who disagree with them -- instead of answering their arguments.

The wisest and most knowledgeable human being on the planet is utterly incompetent to make even 10 percent of the consequential decisions that have to be made in a modern nation. Yet all sorts of people want to decide how much money other people can make or keep, and to micro-manage how other people live their lives.

The real egalitarians are not the people who want to redistribute wealth to the poor, but those who want to extend to the poor the ability to create their own wealth, to lift themselves up, instead of trying to tear others down. Earning respect, including self-respect, is better than being a parasite.

Of all the arguments for giving amnesty to illegal immigrants, the most foolish is the argument that we can't find and expel all of them. There is not a law on the books that someone has not violated, including laws against murder, and we certainly have not found and prosecuted all the violators -- whether murderers or traffic law violators. But do we then legalize all the illegalities we haven't been able to detect and prosecute?

In the 1920s, Congressman Thomas S. Adams referred to "the ease with which the income tax may be legally avoided" but also said some Congressmen "so fervently believe that the rich ought to pay 40 or 50 per cent of their incomes" in taxes that they would rather make this a law, even if the government would get more revenue from a lower tax rate that people actually pay. Some also prefer class warfare politics that brings in votes, if not revenue.

Can you imagine a man who had never run any kind of organization, large or small, taking it upon himself to fundamentally change all kinds of organizations in a huge and complex economy? Yet that is what Barack Obama did when he said, "We are going to change the United States of America!" This was not "The Audacity of Hope." It was the audacity of hype.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
By Thomas Sowell 12/27/2011
COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM

Banning Bibles In America

The enemies of God will never cease in their attack
on the religious freedoms of Christian Americans.


Here is the latest assault on the Bible from the atheistic mentality that for the most part is now in control of America. The good news is that in the end, our religious freedoms will be protected.


Some Americans need a swift reminder that our Bill of Rights allows Freedom of Religion- not Freedom FROM Religion.

We live in a country where blood, sweat, tears have been spent for well over 200 years in order to insure that those who live a life of faith shall do without threat of persecution. On the flip side, those who choose not to, shall also be free to live how they choose- as long as it isn’t harmful to someone else.

However, in the last few decades there has been a war on Christianity. The statement of “separation of church and state” has been grossly misinterpreted and we have a public who believes the myth that there was actually anything written in our founding documents that refers to this.


This concept and these particular words were invented by an ACLU attorney named Leo Pfeffer in 1947 in the Supreme Court case of Everson versus Board of Education of Ewing Township. That liberal supreme court imposed it on the nation by a 5 to 4 vote. The ACLU and other anti-Christian organizations and individuals have used it to harass Christians with ever since. It is also used by evolutionists to try to keep a theistic explanation of origins out of the public schools. Many young people today are not aware of the fact that this concept is an ACLU invention, and that it is the extreme opposite of what our founding fathers actually intended. In other words, there is virtually no constitutional support whatsoever for it.

Thomas Jefferson referred to this clause in a letter to the Danbury Baptist and it referred very clearly to the fact that the church was to be protected FROM the government, and NOT the opposite. But, history is easily rewritten and retaught in our public schools in an effort to indoctrinate our youth when there is an agenda from a progressive anti-God, anti-faith government.

Thankfully, we still have a few lawmakers who carry the torch for our religious freedoms and expression and Steve King from Iowa is one of those. Liberty Juice 12/21/2011

Steve King On Banning Bibles At Walter Reed

Voting Rights For Illegals

He’s a Democrat, need I say more? I’m not sure what part of “illegal” that our government, both federal and local, don’t understand.


This is an extreme example of political idiocy.

We are constantly told there is no way to send those who are here illegally back to their home countries, because we don’t know who they are or where they live. However, Mayor John DeStefano (D) seems to have a good idea of the details of those who live in and among his city– going so far as to lobby for their right to vote. What a slap in the face to the legal citizens of his city.


New Haven Mayor John DeStefano plans to ask the state Legislature to allow illegal immigrants who live in the city to be able vote in municipal elections.

DeStefano said on Tuesday that the proposal would build a more engaged community and follows the lead of other cities, the New Haven Register reports.

The Register reports that 10,000 to 12,000 undocumented residents are believed to live in New Haven.

Immigrants who are in the U.S. legally or illegally and cannot vote now would still be unable to vote in state or federal elections.

DeStefano, a Democrat, said illegal immigrants pay taxes indirectly through rent and send their kids to New Haven schools and should be able to vote.

New Haven made national headlines in 2007 when the city approved a program that provides municipal identification cards for all residents — including illegal immigrants — to provide access to services such as banking and the library.

This shows how desperate Democrats are to retain their power. Given the magnet welfare system that they have created that takes away and creates tremendous burden for the citizen taxpayers in order to reward illegal and criminal behavior, no wonder they want to give them rights to vote- as we know exactly HOW they will vote. Nobody would vote themselves out off a gravy train! I guess he’s gotten all the votes he can from the regional cemeteries and morgues, now he has to create a new avenue.

Focus Folks, It's Obama

As we sprint toward the first official vote of the Republican primary season – to decide who will (hopefully) replace President Obama on January 20, 2013 – it is essential that we focus on the real goal.

Rather than go after each other, the candidates must continue to confront the policies of the most inept President in modern times.

The following is a selection of issues the candidates should emphasize as the rationale for replacing our current President:

1. Gibson Guitar – The Obama Administration entered the headquarters of an internationally-renowned, iconic American company and treated it like it was a drug cartel. Based on an obscure law in India, Obama’s Fish and Wildlife Service raided the company. Almost four months and millions of dollars in legal fees later, the company has still not been charged with any crimes nor has its inventory been returned. One does not need much more evidence of Obama’s anti-business attitudes.

2. Boeing in South Carolina – You may not need more evidence, but you can get it right here. Obama used the another arm of government – the National Labor Relations Board stacked with union lackeys – to stifle construction of a new production facility by Boeing because they felt it would be transferring jobs from a union state to a non-union state. The fact that Boeing has a multi-year production backlog – from customers who could easily switch their orders to Airbus, thereby killing thousands of American jobs – did not come into calculation for these anti-business zealots. To them, jobs are only jobs if they are held by union members.

3. The Pipeline – This one is just a doozy. This one in itself is reason to throw this administration out in a landslide. Because Obama and his gang don’t believe in fossil fuel, they will do whatever they can to stifle its development and use. Our Canadian neighbors want to ship a million barrels of oil a day to us, but need a new pipeline. This pipeline, just like umpteen others, would reduce our dependence on oil from such charming countries as Venezuela or unstable Middle East sheikdoms, and would create tens of thousands of well-paid jobs in a sluggish market. But Obama did what he usually does – booted the decision until after his “reelection,” specifically to appease his environmental extremist supporters. Someone needs to tell these buffoons that the Canadians made clear from day one that a pipeline was being built – and that it was either going south to the U.S. or west to feed China. By killing the pipeline, Obama would just shift the location of the environmental risks and cost us billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. This is a definitive example of the fact that every decision made by this administration this year – and that means every one – has been about reelecting Obama, and not what’s in the interests of the American people.

4. Solyndra – You certainly know about the $528 million that Obama and his genius Energy Secretary flushed down the drain. But you should probably also know about the other $4.75 billion in loan guarantees recently pushed out by Secretary “I have a Nobel Prize” Chu, of which $2.7 billion was provided to a Spanish company. All of this waste is to create a market for the far-left’s dream of solar energy. Listen to this – ten years and billions of squandered dollars from now, we will still be paying through the nose for solar energy with little beneficial effect.

5. Jeffrey Immelt – President Obama put Immelt (GE Chairman and CEO) in charge of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Immelt then cut a deal with China to go into competition with Boeing. Obama does not fire the guy or publicly admonish him. Not only was this a deal to create Chinese jobs, but it will also transfer technology and customers to the Chinese. Refer to #2 above – a double slap in the face to the nation’s biggest exporter.

6. Voter intimidation – Illegalities regarding our election process can sometimes be questionable. But the intimidation in Philadelphia during the 2008 election was on video tape. There was no question that these people were guilty. Obama and his Attorney General were too busy selling guns to Mexican cartels to even charge these thugs.

7. Fast and Furious – I have stated before that this makes Iran-Contra look like a brilliant strategy. Selling guns across the Mexican border with the hope of making an argument for gun control may have been as stupid as stupid gets. Now they are doing their best imitation of Richard Nixon by claiming that their redacted documents are enough information for Congress. by Bruce Bialosky Townhall.com 12/12/2011

How The Government Works

Once upon a time ...

the government had
a vast scrap yard
in the middle of the desert.





Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, " How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people, one to do the studies and one to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So they created two positions, and then hired two people a time keeper and a payroll officer.

Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?"
So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, an Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year, and we are $168,000 over budget. We must cut back."

So they laid off the night watchman.
***********************************

Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ..... during the Carter Administration?

We've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency...the reason for which hardly anyone can remember!

It was very simple . . . and, at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8/04/1977 TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

AND, NOW, IT'S 2011 -- 34 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY" DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. IT HAS 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES, AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE! THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?"

A little over 34 years ago, 30% of our oil consumption was foreign imports. Today 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports.

Ah, yes -- the good old Federal bureaucracy!!

NOW, WE HAVE TURNED THE BANKING SYSTEM, HEALTH CARE, AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY OVER TO GOVERNMENT?

Hello!!

Anybody Home?

Muslim Brotherhood - Jihad Is Our Way

One of the nice things about human history ...

is that no matter how much people or their leaders misjudge events and make a hash of things, within a few centuries, the debris is cleared away, and we can have another go at getting things right.




Yes, I am thinking about the Middle East. Whether or not there is a message in that turn of events, I'll leave it to theologians.

At the moment, I have in mind the latest blunder by the experts -- their assessment, just a few months ago, of the nature of the Arab Spring and its democracy movement. Back in spring, the leading experts -- from the Obama administration to the neoconservatives on the right to the major liberal media to most of the academic area specialists -- were all overwhelmingly predicting that all those great secular, liberal, college-educated kids with their iPhones in Tahrir Square represented the new Egypt and would bring all their wonderful values to the revolution. It was primarily us cranky right-wingers who have been writing on radical Islamic politics (and, of course, the Israelis, who can't afford to get it wrong on Muslim political habits) who warned that this was all going to end in the rise in still-ancient Egypt of radical Islamist, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti American and anti-Western governance.

So our government -- as I said, cheered on by neoconservatives as well as liberals -- undercut Hosni Mubarak's regime and told us not to worry about the Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood were old, tired men who were no longer really radical and had been propped up by the regime just to provide it an opposition punching bag. Armed with their social media devices, the kids would run rings around the sorry excuse for Islamists and deliver real democracy.

Jeez, hadn't any of those experts been to Egypt? Not a lot of secular liberals hanging out -- even at the Universities -- let alone in the thousands of villages and urban slums. Who the heck did the pundits think those angry, bearded men were, roaming around glaring at Westerners and Muslim women who dared to walk on the street? I saw them back in the 1960s and '70s, and even then, they were scary.

By the way, as I recall, Tahrir Square was pretty much a circle. But who's counting when you are having deranged liberal fantasies? Even if these experts on Sunday political roundtable chatters had not been to Egypt, perhaps it was a clue that a Pew poll this spring said 65 percent of the public would vote Islamist.

Well, the early returns are in. (There are still two more rounds of voting in 18 of the country's 27 provinces over the next month.) But the Islamists look likely to get 65 percent to 70 percent of the eventual vote. According to the High Election Commission, the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party got about 36 percent, while the Salafist Nour Party got a stunning 25 percent. The Salafists are the hysterical wing of the fundamentally reactionary general Muslim population and the Brotherhood is merely the fanatical wing.

The grand total for all the parties that, by the ancient cultural standards of Pharaonic Egypt, are considered the liberal-secular bloc -- the makers of the glorious Arab Spring democracy was, wait for it -- 13 percent. And I will predict that if any of them try to practice any of that liberal-secular stuff in public, either the military will eventually lock them up or the Salafists will eventually beat them up and/or kill them on the street. Adios liberal secular Egypt, we hardly knew ya. Hello, kill the Coptic Christians and the Jews.

Of course, the various ever-bewildered wire services and newspapers are reporting the "unpredicted," "unexpected" size of the Islamist vote, while now taking to call the Brotherhood, in its 2.0 form, "moderate."

But anyway, not to worry, as our brother in journalism Jackson Diehl wrote in this weekend's Washington Post, he has talked with various former terrorists and Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt, and he assures us that "the ascendancy of parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood should not be as alarming as many in the West suppose. ...The biggest reason for this is that the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the more fundamentalist parties to its right, have renounced violence."

Well, that's a relief. I suppose they also have no more territorial demands. Oh, wait a moment. Diehl notes that the Brotherhood's platform does say that Egypt should "aid and support the Palestinian people and Palestinian resistance against the Zionist usurpers of their homeland." So, I guess, after they kill all the Jews, they will stop practicing violence. Of course, even then there will be the little matter of the Brotherhood's credo: "God is our objective; the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations." But it's OK. They are the moderate wing of the upcoming Egyptian parliament.

Secular, Liberal Egypt: We Hardly Knew Ya; by Tony Blankley 12/7/2011

Kagan Must Recuse Herself

Give Thanks for American Exceptionalism

The Pew Research Center

has provided some timely food for thought as we enter our traditional holiday season.



According to a new report comparing attitudes in Europe and America, only 49 percent of Americans now feel that American culture is superior to others. This is down from 60 percent in 2002.


For those that may find this troubling, there is more reason for concern in that only 37 percent of young Americans, ages 18- 29, say American culture is superior.

What the study does not examine is what we mean by culture.

I happened to hear a discussion on one of the cable shows about this report, and the discussants were bewailing the prevalence of reality shows, Kim Kardashian, and Facebook.

But I think this is a misreading of culture. Culture is about the prevailing core attitudes of a society. And, when we look further into this same study, we find that American attitudes are distinctly different from their European counterparts and that these attitudes very much reflect what is uniquely American.

For instance, 58 percent of Americans feel that individual freedom is more important than government “guarantees that nobody is in need.” Only 36 percent of French and 36 percent of Germans feel this way.

Only 36 percent of Americans agree that success is largely determined by “forces outside our control.” But 72 percent of Germans and 57 percent of French agree with this.

And 50 percent of Americans believe religion is very important in contrast to 21 percent in Germany and 13 percent in France.

Americans are distinct from Europeans in our beliefs in the importance of individual freedom, of personal responsibility, and religious faith.

Can it be an accident that these values that are so prevalent in American culture today are in line with the principles stated in the nation’s founding document 235 years ago? That our Creator endowed us with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and “That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among Men.”

Distinctly American is our credo, but also that being American is defined by free choice and a set of principles rather than blind circumstance of geography or genetics.

But to point to the fact that American culture is distinct does not necessarily prove that it is better.

Is it?

Considering economic performance, there is little comparison between our nation and Europe. Per capita GDP of the US, the economic output per each individual in the country, is $47,200 in the US compared to $32,700 in Europe.

The average per capita GDP in the European Union is less than that of America’s poorest state, Mississippi ($32,764).

One hint that there might be something special going on here is that our problem seems to be limiting the number of people that want to come in, rather than preventing people from escaping.

According to the State Department, more than 5 million people are now waiting to immigrate to the United States in various family and employment categories.

Although American attitudes are distinct, they are changing and trending in the direction of Europe. So, if you think this is a problem, and I do, there is reason for concern.

I consider my own experiences and know that nowhere else in the world could I live the life I have been living.

Where else could a young black mother on welfare conclude she was on the wrong path, walk away from it, get her degree, build a business and a non-profit organization that includes on its board of advisors a former US Senator and Attorney General of the United States and a former Counselor to the President of the United States and US Attorney General?

My work is inspired by my conviction that America is truly exceptional and I pray every day that we do not lose our way.
Star Parker; Townhall.com - 11/28/2011

Dump The EPA

Like a bad lover, the EPA is a nagging, beguiling mooch. The EPA unconstitutionally barged into our lives and we need to break free from this destructive relationship; let’s give the EPA a two-letter title beginning with ‘E’ and ending with ‘X.’

President Nixon formed a group called the President’s Advisory Council on Executive Organization to help him sidestep Congress and mold public policy. On April 29, 1970, the Council wrote a memo advising Nixon to establish: “an Environmental Protection Administration, a new independent agency of the Executive Branch. … [and the] Executive Branch should be so structured that a high order of public interest is served in making policy, rather than a narrower advocacy position.”

Four decades later, the EPA has grown into the President’s pet behemoth—a darling dragon he can fly to over Congress and blow fire onto America’s energy producers and job creators.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson recently told University of Wisconsin-Madison students that she is proud to work for a President who will bypass Congress and create his own rules via executive order: ‘I’m proud to be part of an EPA that has mobilized science and the law to create modern and innovative protections for the health of the American people. I’m also proud to be working for a president who has said that “we can’t wait” on these issues.’

Jackson may think our President is a king. Yet the Constitution prohibits the President from making laws or delegating lawmaking to an extra-Congressional committee. Federalist and framer Alexander Hamilton explains in “The Federalist No. 78” that Congress controls the purse strings and makes laws while the president merely enforces the laws: “The Executive ... holds the sword of the community.”

I’m sure Alexander Hamilton would slap the President’s hand if he caught him in the cookie jar—seizing taxpayer dollars from the federal purse to sustain an extra-Congressional, policy-making agency like the EPA.

We already have Congress to make laws; we don’t need the EPA. “It has long been clear to me that elected representatives should write the rules, not the EPA,” Sen. Lindsey Graham has said.

The EPA’s regulations are so burdensome, sweeping and impractical that it’s nearly impossible for energy companies to comply without going out of business. Hence, businesspeople in the energy industry increasingly find themselves facing enormous fines and even criminal allegations.

In Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” a state scientist quips: “Did you really think we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. … We’re after power and we mean it. … There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.”

Case in point: The April 20, 2010 BP oil rig explosion off the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and caused oil to seep uncontrollably for 87 days. When this fatal environmental accident occurred on the EPA’s watch, the EPA’s regulators and enforcement partners within the Interior Department blamed the oil industry instead of owning up to their incompetence and deceit.

The Federal Government has charged BP as a “responsible party” in the spill and BP has set up a $20 billion fund to compensate victims. The Justice Department is also leading a criminal investigation into the spill.

Certainly BP’s laxity played a role in the accident. However, BP relied on government regulators and engineers who approved the use of a seal that had far too much cement and indeed reports now show that the excessive cement triggered the fatal explosion.

The government approved the faulty seal and granted BP a "categorical exemption" from performing an environmental impact analysis on its Gulf of Mexico lease less than two weeks before the spill. Who are the “criminals” here? BP executives or the environmental regulators who governed BP?

Per a 2007 Supreme Court Decision, the EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases—only if scientific data shows that greenhouse gases endanger public health.

But in September, the Associated Press revealed an internal government watchdog report: “The Obama administration cut corners…” because the EPA issued “controversial and expensive regulations to control greenhouse gases for the first time” despite the fact that the EPA did not conduct sufficient scientific studies to determine whether greenhouse gas emissions do in fact “pose dangers to human health and welfare.”

Today, tens of thousands of oil jobs (and therefore the public health) are in jeopardy because President Obama is citing faulty EPA data on greenhouse emissions to delay building the Keystone XL pipeline.

The EPA claims to be “working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people.” Instead, the EPA places the environment and public health in jeopardy. Let’s dump the EPA. Katie Kieffer; Townhall.com 11/28/2011

Media Bias goes On and On

I swear ... the phony mainstream
media is more frustrating for me

than the phony politicians
on either side of this
never-ending political nightmare.



On The Same Day CNN Puts Bachmann Through The Wringer,
They Puff Up The Liberal Wing's GOP Favorite: Huntsman

Was Brooke Baldwin's kid-glove treatment of candidate Jon Huntsman a harbinger of things to come in CNN's Tuesday night debate? The CNN host tossed the liberal media's favorite GOP candidate softball after softball in a Tuesday afternoon interview – while conservative candidate Michele Bachmann was asked Tuesday morning if she regretted running for president. In an cushy interview during the 3 p.m. hour of Newsroom, Baldwin heaped praise on the Republican who supports same-sex civil unions and who ripped conservatives as "anti-science" for not believing in global warming. The CNN host fawned over Huntsman's "lovely" daughters and slobbered that "you seem pretty unflappable, and if I may, governor, downright nice."

If I had closed my eyes, I could have sworn Obama was the one being interviewed, rather than Huntsman.



CNN to Bachmann:
"Do You Regret Following God's 'Edict' to Run for President?"

CNN's Carol Costello asked Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Tuesday if she "regretted" following God's "edict" to run for President. In an interview around the top of the 8 a.m. hour of American Morning, Costello had mentioned that Bachmann, in her new memoir "Core of Conviction," wrote that she had prayed to discern God's will before choosing to run for President. "So I just wanted to ask you if you regretted following that edict," Costello pressed the candidate.

These people are a pathetic excuse for journalists, news reporters, or editorial reporters ... or whatever else they call themselves these days.
I think I am going to throw up.

Who Won the GOP Debate?

Explaining Super Committee Failure

After weeks of negotiations the great Congressional Super Committee that was supposed to come up with budget cuts at or above $1.2 trillion over a ten year period has resulted in a much
predicted Super Failure!




I suppose you could say:

"since not much was expected ... so not much was delivered."

Given the deep ideological divides between Senate Democrats and Republicans this situation was all to easy to predict. Now, because the Super Commitee couldn't come up with their own budget cut agreements the automatic cuts previously agreed on in the debt deal are set to take effect – in 2013 – which is after the elections! From The Blaze:


Congress’ Super Committee conceded ignominious defeat Monday in its quest to conquer a government debt that stands at a staggering $15 trillion, unable to overcome deep and enduring political divisions over taxes and spending.

President Barack Obama held a press conference at 5:45 p.m. Monday to discuss the committee’s impotence, and threatened that he will veto any effort to get rid of automatic spending cuts that would take effect in 2013 if Congress can’t find other ways of trimming government deficits:

Those spending cuts include significant reductions to the Pentagon that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said would be devastating to the military…

Based on accounts provided by officials familiar with the talks, it appeared that weeks of private negotiations did nothing to alter a fundamental divide between the two political parties. Before and during the talks, Democrats said they would agree to significant savings from benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security only if Republicans would agree to a hefty dose of higher taxes, including cancellation of Bush-era cuts at upper-income brackets. In contrast, The GOP side said spending, not revenue, was the cause of the government’s chronic budget deficits, and insisted that the tax cuts approved in the previous decade all be made permanent…

Negotiations in the Capitol led by Vice President Joseph Biden were followed by an extraordinary round of White House talks in which Obama and House Speaker John Boehner sought a sweeping compromise to cut trillions from future deficits. They outlined a potential accord that would make far-reaching changes in Medicare and other programs, while generating up to $800 billion in higher revenue through an overhaul of the tax code. But in the end, they failed to agree.

By contrast, the Super Committee never came close, instead swapping increasingly small-bore offers that the other side swiftly rejected.

Within the past week, Democrats said they would accept a Republican framework for $400 billion in higher tax revenue and $800 billion or so in spending cuts, while rejecting numerous key proposals.

Late last week, Boehner floated an offer that included $543 billion in spending cuts, fees and other non-tax revenue, as well as $3 billion in tax revenue from closing a special tax break for corporate purchases of private jets. It also assumed $98 billion in reduced interest costs.

It was swiftly rejected.

As an added note the U.S. debt has now surpassed $15 Trillion. That is $15,000,000,000,000. As long as every America pays up $48,000 we can pay it all off! Grab your checkbook! Liberty Juice 11/23/2011

Sad to say it but our government is clearly dissfunctional.

The Great Charade

Why did Paul Ryan decline when asked to serve on the supposed "Super Committee"?

Well, obviously he saw the committee exactly for what it was: more political games with the lives of the American people.

And Congressman Ryan refused to play the game ...


Failure or Success?

Many people are lamenting the failure of the Congressional "Super Committee" to come up with an agreement on ways to reduce the runaway federal deficits. But you cannot judge success or failure without knowing what the goal was.

If you think the goal was to solve the country's fiscal crisis, then obviously the Super Committee was a complete failure. But, if you think the goal was to improve the chances of the Obama administration being re-elected in 2012, it was a complete success.

Imagine that there had been no Super Committee in the first place. Who would be blamed for the country's fiscal crisis? The overwhelmingly Democratic Congress that voted to spend the money which increased the deficits more during the Obama administration than in the eight years of George W. Bush.

When the Obama administration's massive spending spree was going on, Republicans were so hopelessly outnumbered in both houses of Congress that nothing that the Congressional Republicans could say or do would have the slightest effect.

Even the cleverest political spin-master would have a hard time trying to keep blame from falling on the Obama administration, without the later shift of attention to the debt crisis.

Two things got the blame shifted. The first was the national debt ceiling, which had to be raised, if politicians were not going to be forced to either cut existing programs or shut down the government -- neither of which was politically attractive.

By the time a vote on raising the national debt ceiling was required, Republicans had gotten control of the House of Representatives. This meant that the national debt issue was now a bipartisan issue, whereas the spending that drove the national debt up to that national debt ceiling had been a problem strictly for the Democrats.

Splitting the blame with the Republicans for what Democrats alone had done was a political victory, in terms of making the Obama administration less vulnerable at the polls in 2012.

With the help of the media, the big issue was no longer the big spending that drove the national debt up to the legal ceiling, but the failure of the Republicans to help solve the debt ceiling crisis.

Many people lamented the failure of President Obama to become engaged in the process of working out a solution to the fiscal crisis, and regarded that as a failing. But, again, success or failure depends on what goal you are trying to achieve.

If the goal was to reach a bipartisan solution to the country's fiscal crisis, then the president's involvement might have increased the chances of doing that. But, if the goal was to outsource the blame, then the president's fading away into the background was the perfect political ploy.

Appointing a bipartisan Super Committee with dramatic powers, and apparently dramatic consequences if they failed to reach agreement, created another long distraction in the media that took the president further out of the picture. When it came to media coverage of the country's financial crisis, it was almost a question of "Barack Who?"

The draconian spending cuts that were supposed to hang over the heads of the members of the Super Committee, like a sword of Damocles, turned out to be a cardboard sword when the inevitable failure to reach an agreement occurred.

A new Congress meets before these draconian cuts are supposed to happen -- and no Congress can be forced to do anything by a previous Congress. So all this turned out to be a grand charade -- and politicians are great at charades.

This one was a complete political success, because we are now talking about who is to blame for not coming up with a way of solving the fiscal crisis, rather than who did the runaway spending that caused that crisis in the first place.

An even longer-running charade is the budget-cutting charade, where big spenders promise to make spending cuts to match tax increases -- or even to exceed tax increases. Of course the tax increases come first and the spending cuts are spread out into the future -- and usually end up not taking place at all.

This particular charade could be ended by making the spending cuts take place first. But that would spoil the political game.
Failure or Success by Dr. Thomas Sowell 11/23/2011

What Will We Do?

Far left Media turns on Obama

There was a time when Chris Matthews said that ... "Obama sent a thrill up my leg.”

Has the thrill in his leg
morphed into a dull pain?

No ... No ... No


In reality, this is MSM playing the fair and balanced game ...
but only for a quick moment!

Here is more. enjoy it while it lasts.
This will most likely be the last time you will hear any of this.


“What are we trying to do in this administration?
Why does he want a second term? Would he tell us?
What’s he going to do in the second term?
More of this? Is this it?"

"IS THIS AS GOOD AS IT GETS?"

"Where are we going?
Are we going to do something the second term?
He has yet to tell us."

WHAT WILL WE DO AND SAY NOW?

COME ON, MR PRESIDENT HELP US OUT HERE ...
CAN'T YOU SEE ... WE'RE LOST bw

"He has not said one thing about what he would do in the second term.
He never tells us what he is going to do with reforming our healthcare systems, Medicare, Medicaid, how is going to reform Social Security.
Is he going to deal with long-term debt? How?
Is he going to reform the tax system? How?"

"JUST TELL US!"

"Why are we in this fight with him? Just tell us, Commander, give us our orders and tell us where we’re going, give us the mission.
And he hasn’t done it."

WHAT WILL WE DO ... WHAT WILL WE DO?

"And I think it’s the people around him, too many people around, they’re little kids with propellers on their heads. They’re all virtual. Politics, this social networking, I get these e-mails, you probably get them. I’m tired of getting them. Stop giving them to me. I want to meet people. Their idea of running a campaign is a virtual universe of sending e-mails around to people."

"No it’s not. It’s meetings with people, it’s forging alliances. It’s White House meetings and dinner parties that go on till midnight, and he should be sitting late at night now with senators and members of Congress and governors working together on how they‘re going to win this political fight that’s coming."

"I don‘t have a sense that he’s ever had a meeting.

I hear stories that you will not believe.”


Bob's question: "MSM ... Why aren't you telling us these: "stories we will not believe"? Oh, that's right, I almost forgot, you are on Obama's re-election team. Now I get.


This isn’t the first time that Matthews took some swipes at Obama, but does that mean that the liberal commentator on the network that Newt Gingrich accurately labeled “The Obama’s Re-Election Team.” Don’t count on it!

Matthews does raise some good questions in his short rant. Primarily he points out that Obama does not outline specifically what he is going to do. Had Matthews not been drooling so much over Obama during the last presidential campaign season he would have realized that Obama has not changed at all since then. He has never stood for anything more than vague, but flashy campaign rhetoric. Obama didn’t have a plan to solve America’s numerous problems then and he certainly doesn’t have a plan to solve them now.

Just because Matthews is voicing his complaints about Obama’s absent leadership does not mean that you will see honest, well-balanced reporting from him when the general election kicks into full gear. He may be upset, but Matthews is still a liberal. If he values his job at MSNBC, and we know he does, he will tow the Obama/liberal line as happily as can be. After all, Matthews isn’t necessarily upset with Obama’s performance. He said that he is just waiting for Obama to “give us our orders.” Once King Obama knows who his Republican challenger will be Matthews will get his orders and he will be sent off to accomplish the mission – to re-elect Obama! Thankfully his network’s audience is limited to those that shoot the loony-liberal kool-aid as fast as it can be poured so his impact is minimal.
Liberty Juice 11/21/2011

Barry's Kids Occupy

There’s big news breaking simultaneously in the world of entertainment and in the not-so-different world of politics.

Jerry Lewis is coming out of retirement.

And he’s doing it just in time for the first annual Occupy Wall Street Labor Day Telethon. The telethon is being held for disillusioned youths who voted for Barack Obama only to have their hopes and dreams dashed by hopelessness and an undersupply of change – particularly change in the national rate of unemployment.

For Barracks Kids, also known as Barry’s Kids, Jerry Lewis has said he’ll be coming out of retirement only temporarily. “I want to support America’s newest cause, Occupiers, Barrack’s Kids, Barry’s Kids, or whatever you want to call them. They are all helpless and all they suffer from the same horrible symptoms,” said the 85 year old entertainer. “I want to educate the public and raise both awareness and money for this chronically helpless and handicapped generation of college graduates.”

Newly Enlightened Widespread Militant Dissatisfaction, or New MD, is relatively unknown to most of the general public. However, those stricken with it can be identified by several common characteristics:

Chronic joblessness. This is often due to personal hygiene issues. Unfortunately, once it sets in, a vicious cycle tends to break out. Bad hygiene hurts job prospects. Then unemployment impedes the ability of New MD sufferers to purchase products that might tend to improve personal hygiene.

Chronic confusion. Just one example: Many New MD sufferers are able to articulate a shared belief that debt should be banned. Yet they are incapable of explaining how poor people would get loans to purchase homes and automobiles and how this would reduce, and not exacerbate inequality.

Blurred vision. At first, this was thought to be caused by the overwhelming tendency to focus on other people’s possessions. Now, there is some consensus that it stems from excessive texting and preoccupation with playing video games – also known as chronic v-idiocy. Most protestors – despite their claimed distain for corporations – regularly use the Ipad2 and other compatible Apple products. Because they often do this after smoking copious amounts of marijuana, which increases squinting, their vision is eventually impaired.

Memory loss. Put simply, Barry’s Kids have forgotten that they live in the greatest nation on earth. Who else would host the first annual Occupy Wall Street Labor Day Telethon but public TV? It’s all in line with their philosophy: What’s yours is theirs and what’s theirs is theirs. But somehow they’ve forgotten that they would not have public TV without the generosity of the American taxpayer.



The first annual Occupy Wall Street Labor Day Telethon Special will feature an all-star cast – the kind only Jerry Lewis could assemble. Unlike the good old days, there will be no special appearances by Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin. But Operation Christmas Child will be diverting gift shoe boxes from children in poverty-stricken Africa in order to provide for shoeless Barry’s Kids living in public parks all across our great nation.



Fundraising events will include a marathon for Occupy Wall Streeters only. It’s unlikely the Occupiers will actually run. In all likelihood, they’ll be expecting someone else to run for them. A benefit concert is also planned. It will have headliners like Lionel Richie’s step cousin Jerome, Milli Vanilli, and Stryper with background vocals by Nancy Pelosi. Lyrics are already in the works for a Barry’s Kids theme song "Don't stand so close to me (Really, you haven't bathed in 3 weeks!).”

Eventually, there will be a cure for New MD, which is afflicting literally thousands of recent college graduates who voted for Barack Obama. But hope is on the way for Barry’s kids. They can rest assured that a cure is being sought by people who are much more intelligent, productive, and grateful than they are.

In the meantime, it is important for parents to prevent their kids from ever being afflicted with New MD. The best thing they can do is to challenge them intellectually by keeping them out of the public schools. Then, if they go to college, they can ban them from majoring in useless disciplines like sociology or anything ending with the word “studies.”

A mind really is a terrible thing to waste. That’s especially true if you’re a white kid with a worthless degree, a mountain of debt, and a false sense of moral superiority. By Mike Adams

What Is a Progressive?

Woodrow Wilson, our first Ph.D. in the White House, made clear his complete rejection of the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and classical liberalism in his books and other writings.

As Ronald Pestritto notes, liberty in Wilson's view was "not found in freedom from state actions but instead in one’s obedience to the laws of the state."


The primary domestic objective of progressives was to create in peacetime what Wilson had accomplished during war.

They were able to do so a little more than a decade later. Franklin Roosevelt was assistant secretary of the Navy under Wilson, and when he led Democrats back to the White House in 1932 he brought with him an army of intellectuals and bureaucrats who shared the Progressive-Era vision. Indeed, most of the "alphabet soup" of agencies set up during the Great Depression were continuations of various boards and committees set up during WWI.

At that time it was commonplace for intellectuals on the left to be enamored of Lenin’s communist regime in Russia. And almost everyone who was enamored of Lenin was also an admirer of Mussolini’s fascist government in Italy. For example, General Hugh "Iron Pants" Johnson, who ran Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration (NRA) kept a picture of Mussolini hanging on his wall. The admiration was often mutual. Some writers for publications in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy wrote of their fascination with Roosevelt’s New Deal. As Goldberg explains:

The reason so many progressives were intrigued by both Mussolini’s and Lenin’s "experiments" is simple: they saw their reflection in the European looking glass. Philosophically, organizationally, and politically the progressives were as close to authentic, homegrown fascists as any movement America has ever produced. [They were] militaristic, fanatically nationalist, imperialist, racist, deeply involved in the promotion of Darwinian eugenics, [and] enamored of the Bismarckian welfare state.

The progressives saw the state as properly involved in almost every aspect of social life. Herbert Croly envisioned a government that would even regulate who could marry and procreate. In this respect, he reflected the almost universal belief of progressives in eugenics. These days, there is a tendency to think that interest in racial purity began and ended in Hitler’s Germany. In fact, virtually all intellectuals on the left in the early 20th century believed in state involvement in promoting a better gene pool. These included H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb (founders of Fabian Socialism), Harold Laski (the most respected British political scientist of the 20th century) and John Maynard Keynes (the most famous economist of the 20th century). Pro-eugenics articles routinely appearedin the left-wing New Statesman, the Manchester Guardian and in the United States in the New Republic.

One of the ugliest stains on American public policy during the 20th century was the internment of 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II by the Roosevelt Administration. Another stain is the resegregation of the White House under Wilson. Bruce Bartlett argues that these acts were consistent with the personal racial views of the presidents and that the Democratic party has a long history of racial bias it would like to forget.

The worst excesses on the right in the 20th century are usually associated with Senator Joe McCarthy; the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), including pressuring Hollywood actors to reveal their political activities and name the identities of their colleagues; and domestic surveillance of political enemies.

Yet all of these activities have roots in the Progressive Era as well. Joe McCarthy started his political life as a Democrat (and later switched to be a Republican) in Wisconsin — the most pro-progressive state in the union. As Goldberg observes, "Red baiting, witch hunts, censorship and the like were a tradition in good standing among Wisconsin progressives and populists." The HUAC was founded by another progressive Democrat, Samuel Dickstein, to investigate German sympathizers. During the "Brown scare" of the 1940s, radio journalist Walter Winchell read the names of isolationists on the radio, calling them "Americans we can do without."

Civilian surveillance under American presidents in the modern era (for example under Republican Richard Nixon and under Democrats John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson) are extensions of what went on earlier in the century. However, modern surveillance does not begin to compare in magnitude to what went on during the Wilson and Roosevelt presidencies.

Bottom line: the next time you hear someone call himself a "progressive," ask him if he knows the historical meaning of that term.
What is a progressive by John C. Goodman Townhall 11/19/2011