Social Justice and Hatred
Rebecca Hagelin
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
"Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy." - Psalm 82:3
"To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice." - Proverbs 21:3
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What beautiful scripture verses. The Bible is filled with verses that call on us to do all in our power as individuals to fight what is unjust and to show His mercy on the oppressed, down-trodden and broken-hearted.
But it is in such powerful callings that appeal to what is highest and best in us that the forces of evil often insidiously weave in their lies and hatred, perverting the meaning of the lovely words. Satan doesn't usually come to us through red cloak and dagger with flaming horns and hatred spewing from his mouth. He most often takes on the form, as the Bible warns us, of an "angel of light".
The latest such successful attempt to spread hatred and violence has been to take that wonderful call to "justice" and insert one word in front of it that makes it "better" - as in, "social justice".
The Left has long been a master of the use of verbiage and language. Who could be against "choice", for instance? We all want more "choices" right? The reality is that the attractive word of "choice" was cleverly chosen to hide the ugliness of what the choice is about - allowing mothers to freely kill their pre-born babies. (Watch for decent Americans everywhere to be swept up in the coming months - without ever critically thinking about it - into supporting one of President Obama's favorite government decrees, the 'Freedom of Choice Act", which would wipe out all parental notification, parental consent and informed consent laws passed on the state level.) It's so much easier in this busy world to just nod in agreement to lovely sounding terms than it is to painfully look beyond the headlines and clever jargon and discover the demons underneath the pretty packaging. After all, if you find evil....then you have to stop and fight it, right? Most prefer the peaceful life of ignorance.
David Kupelian, managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com, wrote one of the best books I've ever seen on how the Left uses clever wording and deceptive language to market their socialist ideas. It's a must-read for anyone scratching their heads over how those who believe in traditional Judeo-Christian values seem to always be playing catch-up in the war of ideas. In "The Marketing of Evil", Kupelian painstakingly documents the process and practices the Left has mastered to dupe good Americans into carrying the poisonous waters of socialism, immorality and...just plain evil.
Which brings me back to the now popular term, "social justice". The combination of these words makes one feel so good. But it's time to pull back the curtain and find out what the term has come to mean, how it has been able to gain such massive popularity, and who is behind it.
Can you say, "William Ayers"?
Yes, that William Ayers. The same guy that planted bombs in the Pentagon and US Capitol as part of his efforts to use hatred and violence to overthrow the free-market system and replace it with a socialist one through his now infamous organization, "Weather Underground". Government officials basically botched the investigation against him through the improper collection of evidence and Ayers walked away from his terrorist activities a free man. Later he proudly exclaimed, "Guilty as hell. Free as a bird."
Knowing that decent Americans were growing weary of the radical protests by liberals in the 60's and 70's, Ayers cleverly decided to adopt a new tactic for the spreading of his socialist agenda: use the massive government education system. Ayers knew that 89 percent of America's children are educated in the government schools. He knew that parents are often all-too-willing to just hand their kids over to "professional educators" eight hours a day without ever bothering to read their textbooks. He knew that many of the people who go into education do so with altruistic motives, and that if you capture them as young adults in education colleges you can easily warp their thinking. He knew that the teacher's union (NEA) is an incredibly left-leaning organization that pressures all teachers to follow the "status quo". He knew how easy it is to manipulate the hearts and minds of boys and girls who will be in the system the majority of their waking hours throughout their formative years. Yes, the path was very clear: systematically indoctrinate teachers through educational training programs and the books you give them, and you can use them to then produce an army of young men and women to carry forth revolution in just one generation. So, as Phyllis Schlafly documents in The Phyllis Schlafly Report, (available at www.eagleforum.org), "Ayers enrolled in Columbia Teachers College where he picked up a Ph.D., and emerged as a Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago." Since then, his influence in education has been remarkable - which of course, has made him incredibly influential in the culture at large, and especially among today's young adults - without their even knowing it. The Manhattan Institute's Sol Stern has said that William Ayers is one of the leaders in "bringing radical social-justice teaching into our public school classrooms."
The 2008 election saw that the young people in Evangelical churches had been duped by the teaching of Ayers' and company brand of "social justice". A whopping 32 percent of 18-29 year-old evangelicals voted for Barak Obama even though he advocates abortion on demand, including the killing of babies who have survived botched abortions. What was the attraction? Many of them listed Obama's concern for "social justice" as the reason for supporting the Senator who would-be savior. Among all 18-29 year-old voters, 2008 post-elections surveys reveal that a full 70 percent of them favor expanding the role of government and want the federal government to be more active.
What is Ayers brand of "social justice" that now permeates our schools and society at large? It is a perversion of what Scripture calls for. If you read his text books and those of his compatriots, you know that he uses the term to call for overthrowing the free-market system - which affords equal opportunity for everyone - and replacing it with a system that forces the "redistribution of wealth" - and he's not afraid to use violence, hatred and class warfare to do it. He believes that America as a nation is today unjust and oppressive. He freely admits that he is a "communist street fighter". His courses, recommended books (such as Queering Elementary Education) and theories are now widely adopted at teacher's colleges around the country. Part of Ayer's success has been to first teach such messages of hatred and racism in inner-city schools. But like everything else from the spread of violent rap music, to the "gangsta clothing" styles and the attitudes that go with them, to the problems of out of wedlock sex and pregnancy, when you take advantage of disadvantaged kids and feed the problems, those ills eventually spread into the suburban communities as well. (Star Parker, the founder of CURE - the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education - is an expert on the subject of how "The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner-cities, dysfunctional inner-city schools, and broken black families." She has also writes and speaks extensively on how such problems eventually spread throughout all of American culture.)
So, the next time you hear the phrase, "social justice", take time to question the one who is using it, and challenge them to read some of the resources I have mentioned above. Maybe their motives are pure and they are using the word "justice" in its classic, biblical sense. But chances are they have no idea that the vision of justice that has taken their hearts captive was perpetrated by a terrorist who is using their good will to spread his hatred and to bring forth a more authoritative government where the individual is held captive to a few elitists with ultimate power.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Another Day, Another Scary Nomination.
Another Day, Another Scary Nomination
David Limbaugh
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
As usual, President Barack Obama is multi-tasking the dismantling of the American system on so many fronts that not all of the outrages can be properly monitored. So while you should be mortified by his dictatorial power grab with General Motors, please don't miss his recent nomination of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as legal adviser for the State Department.
In his new position, Koh not only would represent the United States before international bodies, such as the U.N. and the International Court of Justice, but also would influence the degree to which laws of other countries should influence American jurisprudence.
After reading an alarming piece by Meghan Clyne in the New York Post concerning the Koh nomination and the degree to which Koh believes it's appropriate for courts to consider other nations' laws in interpreting our Constitution, I read a number of Koh's legal writings and speeches.
Clyne reported that New York lawyer Steven Stein said that Koh, in addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, claimed that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States."
It turns out that on March 21, 2007, Carol Iannone, on Phi Beta Cons blog, published a letter from Stein to Dean Koh about his Yale Club remarks. Stein wrote, in part, "In your discussion of 'global law' I recall at least one favorable reference to 'Sharia', among other foreign laws that could, in an appropriate instance (according to you) govern a controversy in a federal or state court in the US."
Whether or not Koh ever responded to Stein's letter, Stein's representations of Koh's remarks are certainly consistent with Koh's writings that I reviewed.
In Fordham Law Review, Koh asserted that the U.S. "Supreme Court is divided between two judicial camps: the transnationalists and the nationalists." Koh considers himself a transnationalist and justices Roberts, Scalia and Alito nationalists.
Koh explained the differences between these two judicial philosophies. According to Koh, transnationalist judges look to U.S. interdependence, whereas nationalists tend to look to U.S. autonomy. Transnationalists think about how U.S. law fits into a framework of transnational law, while nationalists see a rigid foreign and domestic divide. Transnationalists think that courts can "domesticate" international law (make it part of our law), whereas nationalists think that only the political branches can. Transnationalists favor the development of a global legal system, while nationalists prefer a national legal system.
In other words, nationalists don't believe that it's appropriate to look to foreign law in interpreting our Constitution. They believe that only the political branches, not the courts, can adopt provisions of international law, and they don't believe in slavish deference to global legal authorities, such as the International Criminal Court.
Transnationalists clearly believe in an ever-changing, living Constitution and reject originalism (interpreting the Constitution according to its original understanding). They are obviously globalists, not overly concerned with American's national sovereignty. They see the international community, in the words of Koh, as a "community of reason" and believe that American judges, in interpreting our Constitution, can resort to this "community of reason" (foreign laws) to choose between two "plausible" legal positions. Indeed, Koh wrote approvingly of United States Supreme Court decisions acknowledging "evolving standards of decency" and that we may look to this global community of reason to determine what those standards are.
If any of this is too legalistic, let me quote from Koh's "Jefferson Memorial Lecture on Transnational Legal Process After September 11," published in the Berkeley Journal of International Law.
In his introductory remarks, Koh said the United States, along with North Korea and Iran, form "the axis of disobedience," that is, those nations "whose disobedience with international law has attracted global attention after Sept. 11." Are you beginning to see the picture here?
If not, try his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 16, 2008, in which he lamented that the Bush administration forfeited the "universal sympathy" America enjoyed as a victim of the 9/11 attacks with a "series of unnecessary, self-inflicted wounds, which have gravely diminished our global standing and damaged our reputation for respecting the rule of law," including Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture, indefinite detention of enemy combatants, military commissions, warrantless wiretaps, evasion of the Geneva Conventions and international human rights treaties, excessive government secrecy, attacks on the United Nations, and others.
It's no surprise to me that President Obama seeks to install as assistant State Department legal counsel a man who, like George Soros and a host of ultra-left-wing bloggers, believes America is always the bad guy and that we should rehabilitate ourselves through following the wisdom of foreign nations and international bodies.
Does it surprise you?
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
David Limbaugh
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
As usual, President Barack Obama is multi-tasking the dismantling of the American system on so many fronts that not all of the outrages can be properly monitored. So while you should be mortified by his dictatorial power grab with General Motors, please don't miss his recent nomination of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as legal adviser for the State Department.
In his new position, Koh not only would represent the United States before international bodies, such as the U.N. and the International Court of Justice, but also would influence the degree to which laws of other countries should influence American jurisprudence.
After reading an alarming piece by Meghan Clyne in the New York Post concerning the Koh nomination and the degree to which Koh believes it's appropriate for courts to consider other nations' laws in interpreting our Constitution, I read a number of Koh's legal writings and speeches.
Clyne reported that New York lawyer Steven Stein said that Koh, in addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, claimed that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States."
It turns out that on March 21, 2007, Carol Iannone, on Phi Beta Cons blog, published a letter from Stein to Dean Koh about his Yale Club remarks. Stein wrote, in part, "In your discussion of 'global law' I recall at least one favorable reference to 'Sharia', among other foreign laws that could, in an appropriate instance (according to you) govern a controversy in a federal or state court in the US."
Whether or not Koh ever responded to Stein's letter, Stein's representations of Koh's remarks are certainly consistent with Koh's writings that I reviewed.
In Fordham Law Review, Koh asserted that the U.S. "Supreme Court is divided between two judicial camps: the transnationalists and the nationalists." Koh considers himself a transnationalist and justices Roberts, Scalia and Alito nationalists.
Koh explained the differences between these two judicial philosophies. According to Koh, transnationalist judges look to U.S. interdependence, whereas nationalists tend to look to U.S. autonomy. Transnationalists think about how U.S. law fits into a framework of transnational law, while nationalists see a rigid foreign and domestic divide. Transnationalists think that courts can "domesticate" international law (make it part of our law), whereas nationalists think that only the political branches can. Transnationalists favor the development of a global legal system, while nationalists prefer a national legal system.
In other words, nationalists don't believe that it's appropriate to look to foreign law in interpreting our Constitution. They believe that only the political branches, not the courts, can adopt provisions of international law, and they don't believe in slavish deference to global legal authorities, such as the International Criminal Court.
Transnationalists clearly believe in an ever-changing, living Constitution and reject originalism (interpreting the Constitution according to its original understanding). They are obviously globalists, not overly concerned with American's national sovereignty. They see the international community, in the words of Koh, as a "community of reason" and believe that American judges, in interpreting our Constitution, can resort to this "community of reason" (foreign laws) to choose between two "plausible" legal positions. Indeed, Koh wrote approvingly of United States Supreme Court decisions acknowledging "evolving standards of decency" and that we may look to this global community of reason to determine what those standards are.
If any of this is too legalistic, let me quote from Koh's "Jefferson Memorial Lecture on Transnational Legal Process After September 11," published in the Berkeley Journal of International Law.
In his introductory remarks, Koh said the United States, along with North Korea and Iran, form "the axis of disobedience," that is, those nations "whose disobedience with international law has attracted global attention after Sept. 11." Are you beginning to see the picture here?
If not, try his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 16, 2008, in which he lamented that the Bush administration forfeited the "universal sympathy" America enjoyed as a victim of the 9/11 attacks with a "series of unnecessary, self-inflicted wounds, which have gravely diminished our global standing and damaged our reputation for respecting the rule of law," including Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture, indefinite detention of enemy combatants, military commissions, warrantless wiretaps, evasion of the Geneva Conventions and international human rights treaties, excessive government secrecy, attacks on the United Nations, and others.
It's no surprise to me that President Obama seeks to install as assistant State Department legal counsel a man who, like George Soros and a host of ultra-left-wing bloggers, believes America is always the bad guy and that we should rehabilitate ourselves through following the wisdom of foreign nations and international bodies.
Does it surprise you?
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
What Is Washington Smoking Now?
What Is Washington Smoking Now?
Chuck Norris
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Smoke screening is an effective military maneuver used to mask the locations or movements of units, such as infantry, aircraft, tanks and ships. But those who have mastered that art of deception are not only those on the battlefield but also those in the halls of Washington.
Back on Nov. 9, 2008, just five days after the election, Rahm Emanuel, who is now the White House chief of staff, explained the future Obama administration's philosophy for governing, i.e., for smoke screening: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before." Here's how they and Congress are living out those words today.
The present smoke hovering over the capital's landscape is the American International Group, which has been bailed out four times by the government since last September -- to the tune of roughly $170 billion. And while our eyes have been on the AIG associates who pilfered $165 million through bonuses and the congressional participants who have condoned such abuses, the federal government is running a quarterback sneak in areas ranging from funding European economies to unhinging America's conservative underpinnings.
First, while people blow a cork over AIG corruptions, far larger amounts of money are being funneled to European financial groups without a peep of protest. AIG employee bonuses are chump change in comparison.
Where is the roughly $170 billion AIG received from taxpayers going? Some of the biggest beneficiaries of the bailouts are European financial affiliates of AIG.
While AIG's bailout money was distributed to American companies Goldman Sachs ($13 billion), Merrill Lynch ($7 billion) and Bank of America ($5 billion), European partners were making out like bandits, too. The banks include Societe Generale of France ($12 billion), the Deutsche Bank of Germany ($12 billion), Barclays of Britain ($8.5 billion) and UBS of Switzerland ($5 billion). Can you believe it?
And it also should be noted that while AIG associates in America are considering giving back their bonuses, AIG executives in Europe say they have no such intentions. (By the way, about $85 million of the $165 million in AIG bonus money was given outside the U.S.)
Of course, financial institutions are not the only ones "benefiting" from Washington's smoke screens. So are pet projects and liberal philosophical platforms across the country. Here are just a few other arenas in which Congress and the president have made political headway while we were sleeping under AIG corruptions and other alleged economic recovery incentives:
--Let's not forget that Congress and the president passed the $410 billion omnibus "stimulus" bill, with its 9,000 earmarks (despite the fact that during his campaign, Obama said he would be against earmarks).
--More politicians with tax evasion problems have been appointed to the Obama Cabinet than were appointed to any previous president's Cabinet (despite the fact that he said his administration would perform the "most sweeping ethics reform in history").
--Obama appointed (and Congress confirmed) David Ogden, a defender of child pornography, to the No. 2 position in the Justice Department.
--Obama's newly appointed secretary of education, Arne Duncan, isn't likely to win the hearts of parents committed to private or home schooling. As he explained in a radio interview, "I'm a big believer in choice and competition, but I think we can do that within the public-school framework." (Mr. Duncan, great to hear you can articulate what you think, but will you represent "we the people" in your decisions? I hear you're a good man, so please don't abandon those of us who choose options other than public schools.)
--Obama's new budget would reduce tax deductions for charitable gifts and severely cripple nonprofits, which already are hurting because of America's recession.
--If Congress passes Obama's new budget, increased taxes will fall upon a larger number of small-business owners than once projected, which ultimately will discourage economic growth and penalize productivity. As Yale University professor Michael Graetz noted, "We're shooting ourselves in the foot economically by relying as heavily as we do on income taxes when the rest of the world relies on consumption taxes."
--Despite its history of fraud, ACORN, that alleged political bastion of election neutrality, will participate in the 2010 census.
--An executive order was signed for Gitmo to be closed, and the war on terror was reassigned as an "overseas contingency operation."
--And Obama announced just this past week that he's sending 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan and possibly 30,000 more troops next year (despite the fact that during his campaign, he promised to reduce the number of our troops in the Middle East).
--Pro-choice platforms and practices have been pushed in ways that America hasn't seen since the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. Obama overturned the "Mexico City policy," thus allowing federal funds to support international family planning groups that provide abortions. Restrictions for federal funding for embryonic stem cell research have been lifted. And if the public doesn't fight immediately, the conscience clause will be rescinded. Parental rights are about to be handed over to the United Nations. And the Freedom of Choice Act is closing fast on the horizon.
In two-thirds of his first 100 days, Obama has spent more money than any president to date (and most combined), grown big government larger than any administration, raised the debt ceiling and national budget higher than any government in the world, made more liberal changes than Planned Parenthood could plan, and gotten away with breaking any campaign promise he chooses. And he's done all of that with virtually no contests or rebuttals and a continued 65 percent approval rating.
One thing is certain: There's nothing that Obama can't get away with at this point. He is the orchestra leader of a new political blitzkrieg, which makes the Clinton machine look like Tinkertoys.
And you thought AIG was the problem!
America, please wake up and let your voice be heard by your legislators that "we are TEA'D!" Go to http://www.TeaPartyDay.com.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Chuck Norris
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Smoke screening is an effective military maneuver used to mask the locations or movements of units, such as infantry, aircraft, tanks and ships. But those who have mastered that art of deception are not only those on the battlefield but also those in the halls of Washington.
Back on Nov. 9, 2008, just five days after the election, Rahm Emanuel, who is now the White House chief of staff, explained the future Obama administration's philosophy for governing, i.e., for smoke screening: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before." Here's how they and Congress are living out those words today.
The present smoke hovering over the capital's landscape is the American International Group, which has been bailed out four times by the government since last September -- to the tune of roughly $170 billion. And while our eyes have been on the AIG associates who pilfered $165 million through bonuses and the congressional participants who have condoned such abuses, the federal government is running a quarterback sneak in areas ranging from funding European economies to unhinging America's conservative underpinnings.
First, while people blow a cork over AIG corruptions, far larger amounts of money are being funneled to European financial groups without a peep of protest. AIG employee bonuses are chump change in comparison.
Where is the roughly $170 billion AIG received from taxpayers going? Some of the biggest beneficiaries of the bailouts are European financial affiliates of AIG.
While AIG's bailout money was distributed to American companies Goldman Sachs ($13 billion), Merrill Lynch ($7 billion) and Bank of America ($5 billion), European partners were making out like bandits, too. The banks include Societe Generale of France ($12 billion), the Deutsche Bank of Germany ($12 billion), Barclays of Britain ($8.5 billion) and UBS of Switzerland ($5 billion). Can you believe it?
And it also should be noted that while AIG associates in America are considering giving back their bonuses, AIG executives in Europe say they have no such intentions. (By the way, about $85 million of the $165 million in AIG bonus money was given outside the U.S.)
Of course, financial institutions are not the only ones "benefiting" from Washington's smoke screens. So are pet projects and liberal philosophical platforms across the country. Here are just a few other arenas in which Congress and the president have made political headway while we were sleeping under AIG corruptions and other alleged economic recovery incentives:
--Let's not forget that Congress and the president passed the $410 billion omnibus "stimulus" bill, with its 9,000 earmarks (despite the fact that during his campaign, Obama said he would be against earmarks).
--More politicians with tax evasion problems have been appointed to the Obama Cabinet than were appointed to any previous president's Cabinet (despite the fact that he said his administration would perform the "most sweeping ethics reform in history").
--Obama appointed (and Congress confirmed) David Ogden, a defender of child pornography, to the No. 2 position in the Justice Department.
--Obama's newly appointed secretary of education, Arne Duncan, isn't likely to win the hearts of parents committed to private or home schooling. As he explained in a radio interview, "I'm a big believer in choice and competition, but I think we can do that within the public-school framework." (Mr. Duncan, great to hear you can articulate what you think, but will you represent "we the people" in your decisions? I hear you're a good man, so please don't abandon those of us who choose options other than public schools.)
--Obama's new budget would reduce tax deductions for charitable gifts and severely cripple nonprofits, which already are hurting because of America's recession.
--If Congress passes Obama's new budget, increased taxes will fall upon a larger number of small-business owners than once projected, which ultimately will discourage economic growth and penalize productivity. As Yale University professor Michael Graetz noted, "We're shooting ourselves in the foot economically by relying as heavily as we do on income taxes when the rest of the world relies on consumption taxes."
--Despite its history of fraud, ACORN, that alleged political bastion of election neutrality, will participate in the 2010 census.
--An executive order was signed for Gitmo to be closed, and the war on terror was reassigned as an "overseas contingency operation."
--And Obama announced just this past week that he's sending 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan and possibly 30,000 more troops next year (despite the fact that during his campaign, he promised to reduce the number of our troops in the Middle East).
--Pro-choice platforms and practices have been pushed in ways that America hasn't seen since the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. Obama overturned the "Mexico City policy," thus allowing federal funds to support international family planning groups that provide abortions. Restrictions for federal funding for embryonic stem cell research have been lifted. And if the public doesn't fight immediately, the conscience clause will be rescinded. Parental rights are about to be handed over to the United Nations. And the Freedom of Choice Act is closing fast on the horizon.
In two-thirds of his first 100 days, Obama has spent more money than any president to date (and most combined), grown big government larger than any administration, raised the debt ceiling and national budget higher than any government in the world, made more liberal changes than Planned Parenthood could plan, and gotten away with breaking any campaign promise he chooses. And he's done all of that with virtually no contests or rebuttals and a continued 65 percent approval rating.
One thing is certain: There's nothing that Obama can't get away with at this point. He is the orchestra leader of a new political blitzkrieg, which makes the Clinton machine look like Tinkertoys.
And you thought AIG was the problem!
America, please wake up and let your voice be heard by your legislators that "we are TEA'D!" Go to http://www.TeaPartyDay.com.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
7 Techniques Liberals use to Lie about Conservatives.
The Top Seven Techniques Liberals Use to Lie About Conservatives
John Hawkins
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Liberals spend much of their time trying to hide what they believe from the public while conservatives are perpetually frustrated by the fact that the American people don't seem to understand what we really believe. Both problems spring from a single source: liberals lie incessantly. That's not to say that there aren't conservative liars or truthful liberals; there are, but for liberals, lying is the rule, not the exception.
There are two reasons why liberals lie much more than conservatives. First off, this is a center-right country and liberal beliefs are much more unpopular than conservative ones. If liberals told the truth about what they believe and want to do, the Democratic Party would practically be wiped out in much of the country.
Additionally, conservatives tend to think liberals are merely stupid or emotional, while liberals tend to view conservatives as evil -- and liberals use that belief to justify lying about conservatives. After all, if you lie about someone who's evil to keep them from doing bad things, couldn't that be considered virtuous? You may disagree with that, but liberal politicians, bloggers, and journalists live by that rule. Any lie told about a conservative, even one that liberals know isn't true, will be uncritically repeated ad nauseum by the Left until the point it becomes politically disadvantageous to do so.
So, in order to help fight the lies of the Left, here's a guide to the most prevalent techniques that liberals use to mislead people about conservatives. If you're listening to liberals talk about conservatives, you're virtually guaranteed to hear at least one of these techniques used.
1) Question The Motivations: When liberals are losing an argument, they love to shift the discussion not to the facts at hand, but to the motivation of the person on the other side. That's because it's almost impossible to prove what someone's motive may be for a particular action.
Thus, liberals can claim that Charles Pickering, a man who went toe-to-toe with the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan in the sixties, is actually a racist or that George Bush invaded Iraq to try to steal its oil.
From the liberal perspective, the more shameless the lies, the better because the target of the scandalous accusation and his defenders will often waste inordinate amounts of time and energy fighting ridiculous, unfounded allegations that a certain percentage of uninformed Americans will simply assume are true without evidence.
2) The Anonymous Smear: Want to launch an attack at a conservative, but don't have a credible source handy? No problem. Just take a vicious critic or an unreliable source and make them "anonymous."
CBS did it with Bill Burkett, who provided them with the fake "Bush was AWOL" documents during the 2004 campaign. Had they revealed who he was, the story would have been treated as not credible from day one.
If even that proves too troublesome, some members of the media (I strongly suspect Seymour Hersh is guilty of this) just make things up and attribute them to non-existent sources. Since their sources are anonymous, unless they make the mistake of including verifiable details like the New Republic's Scott Beauchamp, it's almost impossible to prove they're lying.
3) The Teary Eyed Spokesman: One of the Left's favorite tactics of late is to pick pathetic figures we're supposed to feel sorry for as spokesmen. That way, if you try to respond to the lies of someone like Cindy Sheehan, you're accused of picking on the mother of a dead soldier. If you try to respond to the lies of Max Cleland, you're accused of picking on a crippled vet. At this point, I'm surprised they haven't found a gaunt, stuttering orphan to serve as Obama's Press Secretary. Worst-case scenario, he couldn't do much worse than Robert Gibbs.
4) Rewriting History: The American public has a short memory and liberals count on that to get away with many of their most egregious lies. For example, that's the factor liberals count on when they try to pretend that George Bush lied about WMDs to get us into Iraq. Lies of that sort usually seem to work until someone points out that Democrats, including our current Secretary of State, were saying things like this before the war,
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002
5) Everybody Knows: When liberals want to avoid a losing argument, they sometimes just refuse to have the argument at all and assure everyone that the matter has already been decided. Why, there's no need for Al Gore to even debate global warming with people who could easily blow holes the size of the Grand Canyon in his arguments because he insists that there's a non-existent "scientific consensus."
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? As long as the Kerry campaign ignored them, most of the mainstream media did, too, but then the line of attack was immediately that the Swifties had already been "discredited." Who discredited them? How did it happen? What made them less credible than Kerry, particularly since they made him change his story more than once? Whenever you hear liberals in some form or fashion insisting that the argument with conservatives on a particular issue is already over, it's a good indication that they believe they'll really get their clocks cleaned in a straight up debate.
6) The Ransom Note Method: One of the Left's favorite tricks is to take something a conservative says completely out-of-context and to attack that comment, even if it's obvious that they're twisting the meaning of what was said. This is how the Left can accuse John McCain of wanting to fight for 100 years in Iraq or say Rush Limbaugh wants Barack Obama to fail even if it hurts the country.
This one is especially insidious because some conservatives foolishly blame other conservatives for having their words taken out of context. However, the reality is that if someone is determined to distort what you say, he can always find something to twist around. The people who deserve blame in that situation are not the people whose words were misrepresented; it's the liars who have chosen to misrepresent what they said.
7) The Straw Man: If you can't find a sin conservatives have committed to attack, then invent one. This is one of the most used arrows in the quiver of liberals who claim the Right wants to create a theocracy, kick senior citizens off of Social Security, or reward the rich at the expense of the middle class.
The Left uses this tactic against specific politicians as well. Remember during the 2004 campaign when the Left kept promising to fight a draft that Bush didn't propose and didn't support? How about all the attacks on Saxby Chambliss because he supposedly questioned the patriotism of crippled war vet Max Cleland? Except, of course, Saxby Chambliss never questioned Cleland's patriotism.
Unlike liberals, conservatives believe most Americans share our values and so, if you want to know what we think, all you have to do is ask us and we will tell you.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
John Hawkins
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Liberals spend much of their time trying to hide what they believe from the public while conservatives are perpetually frustrated by the fact that the American people don't seem to understand what we really believe. Both problems spring from a single source: liberals lie incessantly. That's not to say that there aren't conservative liars or truthful liberals; there are, but for liberals, lying is the rule, not the exception.
There are two reasons why liberals lie much more than conservatives. First off, this is a center-right country and liberal beliefs are much more unpopular than conservative ones. If liberals told the truth about what they believe and want to do, the Democratic Party would practically be wiped out in much of the country.
Additionally, conservatives tend to think liberals are merely stupid or emotional, while liberals tend to view conservatives as evil -- and liberals use that belief to justify lying about conservatives. After all, if you lie about someone who's evil to keep them from doing bad things, couldn't that be considered virtuous? You may disagree with that, but liberal politicians, bloggers, and journalists live by that rule. Any lie told about a conservative, even one that liberals know isn't true, will be uncritically repeated ad nauseum by the Left until the point it becomes politically disadvantageous to do so.
So, in order to help fight the lies of the Left, here's a guide to the most prevalent techniques that liberals use to mislead people about conservatives. If you're listening to liberals talk about conservatives, you're virtually guaranteed to hear at least one of these techniques used.
1) Question The Motivations: When liberals are losing an argument, they love to shift the discussion not to the facts at hand, but to the motivation of the person on the other side. That's because it's almost impossible to prove what someone's motive may be for a particular action.
Thus, liberals can claim that Charles Pickering, a man who went toe-to-toe with the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan in the sixties, is actually a racist or that George Bush invaded Iraq to try to steal its oil.
From the liberal perspective, the more shameless the lies, the better because the target of the scandalous accusation and his defenders will often waste inordinate amounts of time and energy fighting ridiculous, unfounded allegations that a certain percentage of uninformed Americans will simply assume are true without evidence.
2) The Anonymous Smear: Want to launch an attack at a conservative, but don't have a credible source handy? No problem. Just take a vicious critic or an unreliable source and make them "anonymous."
CBS did it with Bill Burkett, who provided them with the fake "Bush was AWOL" documents during the 2004 campaign. Had they revealed who he was, the story would have been treated as not credible from day one.
If even that proves too troublesome, some members of the media (I strongly suspect Seymour Hersh is guilty of this) just make things up and attribute them to non-existent sources. Since their sources are anonymous, unless they make the mistake of including verifiable details like the New Republic's Scott Beauchamp, it's almost impossible to prove they're lying.
3) The Teary Eyed Spokesman: One of the Left's favorite tactics of late is to pick pathetic figures we're supposed to feel sorry for as spokesmen. That way, if you try to respond to the lies of someone like Cindy Sheehan, you're accused of picking on the mother of a dead soldier. If you try to respond to the lies of Max Cleland, you're accused of picking on a crippled vet. At this point, I'm surprised they haven't found a gaunt, stuttering orphan to serve as Obama's Press Secretary. Worst-case scenario, he couldn't do much worse than Robert Gibbs.
4) Rewriting History: The American public has a short memory and liberals count on that to get away with many of their most egregious lies. For example, that's the factor liberals count on when they try to pretend that George Bush lied about WMDs to get us into Iraq. Lies of that sort usually seem to work until someone points out that Democrats, including our current Secretary of State, were saying things like this before the war,
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002
5) Everybody Knows: When liberals want to avoid a losing argument, they sometimes just refuse to have the argument at all and assure everyone that the matter has already been decided. Why, there's no need for Al Gore to even debate global warming with people who could easily blow holes the size of the Grand Canyon in his arguments because he insists that there's a non-existent "scientific consensus."
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? As long as the Kerry campaign ignored them, most of the mainstream media did, too, but then the line of attack was immediately that the Swifties had already been "discredited." Who discredited them? How did it happen? What made them less credible than Kerry, particularly since they made him change his story more than once? Whenever you hear liberals in some form or fashion insisting that the argument with conservatives on a particular issue is already over, it's a good indication that they believe they'll really get their clocks cleaned in a straight up debate.
6) The Ransom Note Method: One of the Left's favorite tricks is to take something a conservative says completely out-of-context and to attack that comment, even if it's obvious that they're twisting the meaning of what was said. This is how the Left can accuse John McCain of wanting to fight for 100 years in Iraq or say Rush Limbaugh wants Barack Obama to fail even if it hurts the country.
This one is especially insidious because some conservatives foolishly blame other conservatives for having their words taken out of context. However, the reality is that if someone is determined to distort what you say, he can always find something to twist around. The people who deserve blame in that situation are not the people whose words were misrepresented; it's the liars who have chosen to misrepresent what they said.
7) The Straw Man: If you can't find a sin conservatives have committed to attack, then invent one. This is one of the most used arrows in the quiver of liberals who claim the Right wants to create a theocracy, kick senior citizens off of Social Security, or reward the rich at the expense of the middle class.
The Left uses this tactic against specific politicians as well. Remember during the 2004 campaign when the Left kept promising to fight a draft that Bush didn't propose and didn't support? How about all the attacks on Saxby Chambliss because he supposedly questioned the patriotism of crippled war vet Max Cleland? Except, of course, Saxby Chambliss never questioned Cleland's patriotism.
Unlike liberals, conservatives believe most Americans share our values and so, if you want to know what we think, all you have to do is ask us and we will tell you.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Monday, March 30, 2009
How to Cure Your Daughter's STD
How to Cure Your Daughter’s STD
Mike S. Adams
Monday, March 30, 2009
Dear Steve:
Thanks for writing me with your concerns about your daughter’s recent visit home from college. I don’t have a daughter but I can understand the concern you have after seeing such dramatic changes in her after just six months at a public university. After all, you didn’t save money for eighteen long years in order to pay someone to teach her to despise the values you taught for, well, eighteen long years.
First of all, I want you to understand that many of the crazy ideas you hear your daughter espousing are commonplace on college campuses. Nonetheless, it must have been shocking for you to hear that she supported Barack Obama in the last election principally because of his ideas about “the redistribution of wealth.” I know you were also disappointed to hear of her sudden opposition to the War on Terror and her sudden embrace of the United Nations. Most of all, I know you are disappointed that she has stopped going to church altogether.
Now that your daughter is not going to church it will be easier to get her to accept other policies based on economic and cultural Marxism. Socialist professors like the fact that average church attendance drops dramatically after just one year of college. God and socialism are simply incompatible. One cannot worship both Jesus Christ and Karl Marx.
But there is good news, Steve. I think I can implement a program that will cure your daughter’s Socialist Teaching Disorder (STD) in just a few short days. In case you were wondering, I define STD as the sudden infatuation with socialism brought on by exposure to pro-socialist ideas without a corresponding exposure to anti-socialist ideas. Although not recognized by the APA, this emotional disorder is running rampant at American universities.
The solution to your daughter’s STD is to be found in your decision to award her a sum of $4000 if she returns from her freshman year with a 3.5 GPA or above. Previously, you explained to me that you decided to do this for two reasons: 1) Your daughter had earned a $4000 scholarship, which meant you had the extra money, and 2) Your only son had gone to college five years ago and flunked out after one year.
Now that your daughter has maintained a 3.6 GPA (so far) you are happy. But you are unhappy that you are about to reward her newfound love of socialism when you had only intended to reward her studiousness. I have a solution that involves three steps. If you follow these steps (in order) we’ll have this little problem cured in no time:
1. When your daughter returns from college in early May (presumably with a GPA over 3.5) I want you to tell her that you lied. Put simply, when she asks about her $4000 just tell her that you never really had any intention of delivering on your promises.
This revelation will, no doubt, cause significant consternation and outrage. But when she protests, simply point out that her choice for president, Barack Obama, also lied to her. Note that his lies about earmarks and line-by-line analysis of the budget will probably end up costing her more than $4000. She might say, “But you’re my father.” If she does, respond by saying “But I’m not your president.” If things get too uncomfortable, just tell her the $4000 promise was technically “last year’s business.”
2. When your daughter has cooled down somewhat from the realization that her father is a confessed liar I want you to strike again. Since your son, now 23, still lives at home it will be possible for you to implement step two in the presence of both children. This step will involve simply taking out your wallet and writing a $2000 check to your son.
This action will, no doubt, cause even more consternation and outrage for your daughter. She may well point out that her brother is unemployed. She may also point out that he has been in rehab twice and that he once punched you in the face while under the influence of drugs. But, when she protests, simply say that it was Barack Obama who taught you to reward failure.
She may well say “But that’s half of the money I was supposed to get.” If so, point out that it is Barack Obama who would like to take other people’s money – at least half, if not more – and use much of it to reward bad behavior. By this time, she will probably hate socialism and the lesson will have saved you a lot of money.
But, just in case the point is not yet made, there is a third step to my plan. And this is where I get actively involved.
3. I’m going to take your daughter and the remaining $2000 - in the form of one hundred $20 bills – to the “hood.” Specifically, I am going to take her to places where crack cocaine is sold here in Wilmington in the middle of the afternoon. This will include grocery stores and actual crack houses. Don’t worry about your daughter’s safety as I will be armed with a .357 magnum loaded with 145-grain silver tipped hollow point bullets. When I approach a crack head I will first ask whether he paid income taxes last year. If he says “no” I will hand him $20.
If your daughter asks me why I give money to people who don’t pay taxes I’ll remind her that this is what President Obama does. Then I’ll ask her if she still believes in “spreading the wealth” without regard to individual merit.
By the end of the afternoon, I can guarantee your daughter will be cured of her STD. Sorry if I sound overly optimistic, Steve. I got my optimism from the same place I got my love of capitalism. I learned it from Ronald Reagan, not Barack Obama.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Mike S. Adams
Monday, March 30, 2009
Dear Steve:
Thanks for writing me with your concerns about your daughter’s recent visit home from college. I don’t have a daughter but I can understand the concern you have after seeing such dramatic changes in her after just six months at a public university. After all, you didn’t save money for eighteen long years in order to pay someone to teach her to despise the values you taught for, well, eighteen long years.
First of all, I want you to understand that many of the crazy ideas you hear your daughter espousing are commonplace on college campuses. Nonetheless, it must have been shocking for you to hear that she supported Barack Obama in the last election principally because of his ideas about “the redistribution of wealth.” I know you were also disappointed to hear of her sudden opposition to the War on Terror and her sudden embrace of the United Nations. Most of all, I know you are disappointed that she has stopped going to church altogether.
Now that your daughter is not going to church it will be easier to get her to accept other policies based on economic and cultural Marxism. Socialist professors like the fact that average church attendance drops dramatically after just one year of college. God and socialism are simply incompatible. One cannot worship both Jesus Christ and Karl Marx.
But there is good news, Steve. I think I can implement a program that will cure your daughter’s Socialist Teaching Disorder (STD) in just a few short days. In case you were wondering, I define STD as the sudden infatuation with socialism brought on by exposure to pro-socialist ideas without a corresponding exposure to anti-socialist ideas. Although not recognized by the APA, this emotional disorder is running rampant at American universities.
The solution to your daughter’s STD is to be found in your decision to award her a sum of $4000 if she returns from her freshman year with a 3.5 GPA or above. Previously, you explained to me that you decided to do this for two reasons: 1) Your daughter had earned a $4000 scholarship, which meant you had the extra money, and 2) Your only son had gone to college five years ago and flunked out after one year.
Now that your daughter has maintained a 3.6 GPA (so far) you are happy. But you are unhappy that you are about to reward her newfound love of socialism when you had only intended to reward her studiousness. I have a solution that involves three steps. If you follow these steps (in order) we’ll have this little problem cured in no time:
1. When your daughter returns from college in early May (presumably with a GPA over 3.5) I want you to tell her that you lied. Put simply, when she asks about her $4000 just tell her that you never really had any intention of delivering on your promises.
This revelation will, no doubt, cause significant consternation and outrage. But when she protests, simply point out that her choice for president, Barack Obama, also lied to her. Note that his lies about earmarks and line-by-line analysis of the budget will probably end up costing her more than $4000. She might say, “But you’re my father.” If she does, respond by saying “But I’m not your president.” If things get too uncomfortable, just tell her the $4000 promise was technically “last year’s business.”
2. When your daughter has cooled down somewhat from the realization that her father is a confessed liar I want you to strike again. Since your son, now 23, still lives at home it will be possible for you to implement step two in the presence of both children. This step will involve simply taking out your wallet and writing a $2000 check to your son.
This action will, no doubt, cause even more consternation and outrage for your daughter. She may well point out that her brother is unemployed. She may also point out that he has been in rehab twice and that he once punched you in the face while under the influence of drugs. But, when she protests, simply say that it was Barack Obama who taught you to reward failure.
She may well say “But that’s half of the money I was supposed to get.” If so, point out that it is Barack Obama who would like to take other people’s money – at least half, if not more – and use much of it to reward bad behavior. By this time, she will probably hate socialism and the lesson will have saved you a lot of money.
But, just in case the point is not yet made, there is a third step to my plan. And this is where I get actively involved.
3. I’m going to take your daughter and the remaining $2000 - in the form of one hundred $20 bills – to the “hood.” Specifically, I am going to take her to places where crack cocaine is sold here in Wilmington in the middle of the afternoon. This will include grocery stores and actual crack houses. Don’t worry about your daughter’s safety as I will be armed with a .357 magnum loaded with 145-grain silver tipped hollow point bullets. When I approach a crack head I will first ask whether he paid income taxes last year. If he says “no” I will hand him $20.
If your daughter asks me why I give money to people who don’t pay taxes I’ll remind her that this is what President Obama does. Then I’ll ask her if she still believes in “spreading the wealth” without regard to individual merit.
By the end of the afternoon, I can guarantee your daughter will be cured of her STD. Sorry if I sound overly optimistic, Steve. I got my optimism from the same place I got my love of capitalism. I learned it from Ronald Reagan, not Barack Obama.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
I'm Having a Very Good Crisis.
"I'm Having a Very Good Crisis"
Sandy Rios
Monday, March 30, 2009
“Get the bonus, we will get your children,” “Jacob the Killer” e-mailed AIG executives.
“In China they execute executives like you,” read a sign held by protestors outside AIG offices.
“All you mother******s should be shot…we will hunt you down.”
“Thanks for [messing] up our economy and taking our money,” wrote others.
AIG executives have been harassed and threatened … not just by fellow Americans, but by the government that’s supposed to be bailing them out. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo threatened to release their names if they did not return financial bonuses, which many received in lieu of salary while trying to save the company. And while President Obama and Commerce Secretary Tim Geithner feigned outrage over the legislative provision of which they were both fully aware, to secure those bonuses, they maligned Wall Street types as often as they could, alleging repeatedly that it was specifically AIG executives who caused this “crisis.” Television and print and late night comedians have been eager to join the fray as have politicians from both parties. Anyone for a good lynching? Can there be any denying that the dynamics at work are not more than a hair’s breath different from the mob at a hanging or an arena?
“Never waste a good crisis,” said Rahm Emmanuel recently … quickly echoed by Hillary Clinton. That philosophical method goes at least back to European Communists who trained Mao Tse-tong in the art of disrupting in order to take power in China. They taught him to work through labor unions and natural disasters, stirring up dissension and distorting facts to agitate and pit people against each other. Class envy was a powerful tool used not only by Mao but by the Bolsheviks in Russia. “Fairness” and “equality” were established to make the state the center of all things. But in order to get to that point one had to sufficiently agitate to gain power. Create disturbance, anxiety—and “never waste a good crisis.”
“Agitate” repeated Saul Alinsky, who made it relevant in modern day America with “Rules for Radicals.” Hillary Clinton wrote her masters thesis on Alinsky while Barack Obama was the star “organizer” of his methods.
It’s not that there’s no wrongdoing, no natural disaster, no need for “fairness” in the workplace. It’s just that the Left takes these opportunities to twist and distort and confuse and promise things they can never deliver. Once the people have figured that out, more often than not, it’s too late.
The newest method, coming out of the Sao Paulo Forum in South America involves a change of sorts. Whereas revolutions in the past were bloody, the new plan is more seductive because it works through the system. Get elected … establish power … undermine the law and the constitution … disrupt and contaminate the election process and then you have the same radical result: revolution.
Ask Hugo Chavez, ask Alejandro Peña Esclusa, who has been tried four times for opposing him. The people of Venezuela, especially the poor, were promised everything by Chavez but by the time disillusionment set in, he had changed the constitution and cemented power in a way they could not overcome without bloody rebellion.
AIG is certainly not perfect, but it is not a demon. Neither is big business, nor the wealthy. God bless them for the contribution they have made to our national prosperity, for their charitable work here and abroad, for creating jobs and giving opportunity to entrepreneurs and artists and gifted people everywhere. As we descend into “fairness,” we will miss them and long for the days when their bonuses were all we had to fret about.
“I’m having a very good crisis,” declared Hungarian-American-leftist-billionaire George Soros to The Australian newspaper. “The financial crisis has been ‘stimulating,’ the ‘culminating point of my life’s work,’” Soros reported to the Daily Mail Online.
We can’t know for certain who is orchestrating our downfall in this moment, but you can be sure this cagey financial giant of MoveOn.org and Daily Kos fame is giving us a major clue.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Sandy Rios
Monday, March 30, 2009
“Get the bonus, we will get your children,” “Jacob the Killer” e-mailed AIG executives.
“In China they execute executives like you,” read a sign held by protestors outside AIG offices.
“All you mother******s should be shot…we will hunt you down.”
“Thanks for [messing] up our economy and taking our money,” wrote others.
AIG executives have been harassed and threatened … not just by fellow Americans, but by the government that’s supposed to be bailing them out. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo threatened to release their names if they did not return financial bonuses, which many received in lieu of salary while trying to save the company. And while President Obama and Commerce Secretary Tim Geithner feigned outrage over the legislative provision of which they were both fully aware, to secure those bonuses, they maligned Wall Street types as often as they could, alleging repeatedly that it was specifically AIG executives who caused this “crisis.” Television and print and late night comedians have been eager to join the fray as have politicians from both parties. Anyone for a good lynching? Can there be any denying that the dynamics at work are not more than a hair’s breath different from the mob at a hanging or an arena?
“Never waste a good crisis,” said Rahm Emmanuel recently … quickly echoed by Hillary Clinton. That philosophical method goes at least back to European Communists who trained Mao Tse-tong in the art of disrupting in order to take power in China. They taught him to work through labor unions and natural disasters, stirring up dissension and distorting facts to agitate and pit people against each other. Class envy was a powerful tool used not only by Mao but by the Bolsheviks in Russia. “Fairness” and “equality” were established to make the state the center of all things. But in order to get to that point one had to sufficiently agitate to gain power. Create disturbance, anxiety—and “never waste a good crisis.”
“Agitate” repeated Saul Alinsky, who made it relevant in modern day America with “Rules for Radicals.” Hillary Clinton wrote her masters thesis on Alinsky while Barack Obama was the star “organizer” of his methods.
It’s not that there’s no wrongdoing, no natural disaster, no need for “fairness” in the workplace. It’s just that the Left takes these opportunities to twist and distort and confuse and promise things they can never deliver. Once the people have figured that out, more often than not, it’s too late.
The newest method, coming out of the Sao Paulo Forum in South America involves a change of sorts. Whereas revolutions in the past were bloody, the new plan is more seductive because it works through the system. Get elected … establish power … undermine the law and the constitution … disrupt and contaminate the election process and then you have the same radical result: revolution.
Ask Hugo Chavez, ask Alejandro Peña Esclusa, who has been tried four times for opposing him. The people of Venezuela, especially the poor, were promised everything by Chavez but by the time disillusionment set in, he had changed the constitution and cemented power in a way they could not overcome without bloody rebellion.
AIG is certainly not perfect, but it is not a demon. Neither is big business, nor the wealthy. God bless them for the contribution they have made to our national prosperity, for their charitable work here and abroad, for creating jobs and giving opportunity to entrepreneurs and artists and gifted people everywhere. As we descend into “fairness,” we will miss them and long for the days when their bonuses were all we had to fret about.
“I’m having a very good crisis,” declared Hungarian-American-leftist-billionaire George Soros to The Australian newspaper. “The financial crisis has been ‘stimulating,’ the ‘culminating point of my life’s work,’” Soros reported to the Daily Mail Online.
We can’t know for certain who is orchestrating our downfall in this moment, but you can be sure this cagey financial giant of MoveOn.org and Daily Kos fame is giving us a major clue.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Barack Obama, Our First European President
This is an important article. It should really give us something to think about - I mean really, really think about...
I know there are Obama supporters who are just completely hopeless, as far as getting them to care about the future of our country. I know there are others who were just disgusted with Bush and only really voted for Obama because the economy went downward just before the election (despite the fact that the Democrats have been in control of the House and Senate for the last 2 years before - but I digress). I really hope and pray that these people are paying attention to what is going on all around us, and we boot as many Democrats to the sidelines as soon as possible - starting in 2010. We have now seen how completely moral bankrupt so many of them are and they have completely destroyed any shred of credibility they may have once had with the public.
Barack Obama, Our First European President
Bruce Bialosky
Monday, March 30, 2009
Bill Clinton was fondly referred to as our first Black President. Our truly first Black President, Barack Obama, has been called our first Hispanic President by some. By his words and deeds, President Obama has become our first European President.
Having studied our nascent period, our founding fathers were extremely desirous of not only creating a new country on a new continent, but also creating a society distinctly different than that of their European ancestors. They felt the class systems that existed in Europe inhibited the opportunities for individuals to reach their full potential.
Americans became proud of boasting leaders who came from humble beginnings in the fields of government and commerce. Every elementary school teaches of the log cabin roots of our most famous President, Abe Lincoln. The fact that early business titans such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller came from meager beginnings radiates through the business world.
President Obama has used this economic crisis to up-end our historic respect for the people who succeed in this society. During his campaign he made clear that he wanted to increase taxes on the most successful members of our country. He successfully pitted the masses against the top 5% of income earners by promising tax cuts for the remainder of the population. He never outlined that he wanted to limit the income of the top earners, but he has taken the AIG bonuses as his opening to attack high compensation for any corporate employees.
Don’t be fooled by the misdirection of his administration focusing on AIG employees. Obama and his party cohorts in Congress have it out for any highly-compensated corporate employees. The Congress has been attempting to do this for many years. These financials times have allowed Obama and some Democrats in Congress a window to severely restrict income for most corporate employees.
Listen to what the President emphasizes these days. If you discount the fact that he mainly focuses on our economy, there is no need for him to constantly bring up limiting compensation unless it is a passion of his. He mentioned it in his 60 Minutes interview. The real shocker was his out-of-nowhere comment in his public letter regarding the pending G-20 meeting. In a list of goals to achieve, the President states “the days of out-of-control compensation must end.” Rest assured no other American President has established a goal of this nature.
This is a purely European, class-warfare statement. Americans have never begrudged the success of people. It is a European attitude that pits the successful against those who are not in the same economic strata.
There has been a saying around for a while that defines the difference in outlook. The saying goes that when a European sees someone driving an expensive car, they ask why that person gets to drive that vehicle. When an American sees someone driving an expensive car, they say “I am going to get me one of those.” Americans don’t begrudge others’ success; they just want to join them.
Despite my trips to Europe, I was not quite clear that the Europeans actually thought so selfishly about others’ success. It became clear when I had the opportunity to meet Shel Talmy. Mr. Talmy came into my office for some financial help. You may be unaware of this man, but he‘s quite famous in the history of Rock and Roll. Mr. Talmy was the original record producer not only for The Who, but also for The Kinks. He had lived in England for over thirty years despite being American born. When I inquired as to why he had returned after all these years, he stated he could no longer handle the negative attitude of the Brits. He then launched into retelling me the parable about the car. Mr. Talmy could not handle the negativism any longer.
My German client expressed the same attitude. When we met her in her hometown of Munich, she expressed how much she missed the positivism of America. Questioning other peoples’ success is a quintessentially European trait.
Mr. Obama has become our first European President by buying into their attitudes about people’s success. His overture to the G-20 on limiting compensation appears to be an end run around the American people and their reluctance to prohibit other’s success. Maybe he believes if the G-20, largely populated by European leaders, goes along with his onslaught against higher-income folks, he will be able to fulcrum that through the Congress and the American people.
Our country has always been a place of limitless opportunity. If you achieve, you are rewarded. Though there are inequities, the system usually rewards the hardest workers and the risk-takers. It may not be a perfect system, but it has created 42 million jobs over the last 25 years while Europe has been stagnant.
Mr. Obama has achieved much despite his modest beginning. He now has a large home and a chauffeured-driven car. What he should aim for is everyone in America having the same opportunity. He should forget the European attitude and encourage people to want to get a Corvette. That is the America we want to keep and that is why our forefathers left Europe behind.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
I know there are Obama supporters who are just completely hopeless, as far as getting them to care about the future of our country. I know there are others who were just disgusted with Bush and only really voted for Obama because the economy went downward just before the election (despite the fact that the Democrats have been in control of the House and Senate for the last 2 years before - but I digress). I really hope and pray that these people are paying attention to what is going on all around us, and we boot as many Democrats to the sidelines as soon as possible - starting in 2010. We have now seen how completely moral bankrupt so many of them are and they have completely destroyed any shred of credibility they may have once had with the public.
Barack Obama, Our First European President
Bruce Bialosky
Monday, March 30, 2009
Bill Clinton was fondly referred to as our first Black President. Our truly first Black President, Barack Obama, has been called our first Hispanic President by some. By his words and deeds, President Obama has become our first European President.
Having studied our nascent period, our founding fathers were extremely desirous of not only creating a new country on a new continent, but also creating a society distinctly different than that of their European ancestors. They felt the class systems that existed in Europe inhibited the opportunities for individuals to reach their full potential.
Americans became proud of boasting leaders who came from humble beginnings in the fields of government and commerce. Every elementary school teaches of the log cabin roots of our most famous President, Abe Lincoln. The fact that early business titans such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller came from meager beginnings radiates through the business world.
President Obama has used this economic crisis to up-end our historic respect for the people who succeed in this society. During his campaign he made clear that he wanted to increase taxes on the most successful members of our country. He successfully pitted the masses against the top 5% of income earners by promising tax cuts for the remainder of the population. He never outlined that he wanted to limit the income of the top earners, but he has taken the AIG bonuses as his opening to attack high compensation for any corporate employees.
Don’t be fooled by the misdirection of his administration focusing on AIG employees. Obama and his party cohorts in Congress have it out for any highly-compensated corporate employees. The Congress has been attempting to do this for many years. These financials times have allowed Obama and some Democrats in Congress a window to severely restrict income for most corporate employees.
Listen to what the President emphasizes these days. If you discount the fact that he mainly focuses on our economy, there is no need for him to constantly bring up limiting compensation unless it is a passion of his. He mentioned it in his 60 Minutes interview. The real shocker was his out-of-nowhere comment in his public letter regarding the pending G-20 meeting. In a list of goals to achieve, the President states “the days of out-of-control compensation must end.” Rest assured no other American President has established a goal of this nature.
This is a purely European, class-warfare statement. Americans have never begrudged the success of people. It is a European attitude that pits the successful against those who are not in the same economic strata.
There has been a saying around for a while that defines the difference in outlook. The saying goes that when a European sees someone driving an expensive car, they ask why that person gets to drive that vehicle. When an American sees someone driving an expensive car, they say “I am going to get me one of those.” Americans don’t begrudge others’ success; they just want to join them.
Despite my trips to Europe, I was not quite clear that the Europeans actually thought so selfishly about others’ success. It became clear when I had the opportunity to meet Shel Talmy. Mr. Talmy came into my office for some financial help. You may be unaware of this man, but he‘s quite famous in the history of Rock and Roll. Mr. Talmy was the original record producer not only for The Who, but also for The Kinks. He had lived in England for over thirty years despite being American born. When I inquired as to why he had returned after all these years, he stated he could no longer handle the negative attitude of the Brits. He then launched into retelling me the parable about the car. Mr. Talmy could not handle the negativism any longer.
My German client expressed the same attitude. When we met her in her hometown of Munich, she expressed how much she missed the positivism of America. Questioning other peoples’ success is a quintessentially European trait.
Mr. Obama has become our first European President by buying into their attitudes about people’s success. His overture to the G-20 on limiting compensation appears to be an end run around the American people and their reluctance to prohibit other’s success. Maybe he believes if the G-20, largely populated by European leaders, goes along with his onslaught against higher-income folks, he will be able to fulcrum that through the Congress and the American people.
Our country has always been a place of limitless opportunity. If you achieve, you are rewarded. Though there are inequities, the system usually rewards the hardest workers and the risk-takers. It may not be a perfect system, but it has created 42 million jobs over the last 25 years while Europe has been stagnant.
Mr. Obama has achieved much despite his modest beginning. He now has a large home and a chauffeured-driven car. What he should aim for is everyone in America having the same opportunity. He should forget the European attitude and encourage people to want to get a Corvette. That is the America we want to keep and that is why our forefathers left Europe behind.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Squaring Off With Obama.
Squaring Off With Obama
Burt Prelutsky
Friday, March 27, 2009
I have to hope for the sake of our country’s future that when people voted for Obama they really had no idea what a disaster he would be, even though I kept warning them that he was a left-wing lug nut. It seemed to me that his legion of fans had been hypnotized or sprinkled with fairy dust. They blindly accepted that words like “hope” and “change” were complete sentences that actually added up to a national policy.
We, who assumed that a grown-up whose friends and mentors were people like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Saul Alinsky, the folks at ACORN and the most corrupt of Chicago politicians, believed he was more likely to belong in a square cell than in the Oval Office.
For my part, I felt a lot like Kevin McCarthy in the movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” trying to warn my fellow earthlings that the pod people were among us and definitely up to no good.
It’s not just the big things the man does, things such as the kazillion dollar bail-outs, the trichinosis-infested budget and the threat of the Fairness Doctrine being enacted, that make my blood run cold. It’s not even the allegedly eloquent orator requiring a TelePrompter in order to say, “Hello.” What I’m referring to is the Commander in Chief’s earmarking $900 million for Hamas and, worse yet, making veterans financially responsible for their own service-related medical treatments. (That comes under the heading of adding insult to injury.) And let us not forget Obama’s sending the bust of Winston Churchill back to the English embassy and then, compounding that infantile act of boorishness, by treating the Prime Minister of our staunchest ally like a guttersnipe.
Funny, I seem to recall Obama’s partisans insisting that he would personally make the United States popular the world over. Well, so far, he has certainly reached out to Cuba, Venezuela and Iran, and I suppose if he actually closes Gitmo, Islamics will dance in the street of Tehran just before dropping the bomb on Israel.
Regarding the recent brouhaha, I’m afraid I’m one of the few people who wasn’t up in arms over the AIG bonuses. To me, they were just an obvious distraction by the administration, just like the unwarranted attacks on Rush Limbaugh or Clinton’s bombing of the pharmaceutical factory. I’m not saying I was happy about the bonuses, but a contract is a contract, and I prefer to see a bunch of scumbags collect their undeserved millions than to see the day that contracts in America are no longer worth the paper they’re written on.
I keep hearing people on the radio and TV going ballistic over the fact that employees at a failed company were collecting as much as four million taxpayer dollars for being rotten at their jobs, and I’m sick and tired of it. How is it that nobody is demanding that 435 self-righteous congressmen and 100 arrogant senators give back their salaries? They’re the folks who not only oversaw a failing economy, but, thanks to pushing sub-prime home loans on people who didn’t have a pot to piss in, did the most to cause the financial calamity in the first place.
On top of all that, I’ve heard that Obama and his legislative cronies plan to give AIG at least another 30 billion before they’re done. So how about, instead of having to watch politicians grandstanding over the measly $165 million in bonuses and Charley Schumer’s threatening to get the money back by having the IRS bludgeon these folks to death, the schmucks in Washington just write the company a check for $29,835,000,000 the next time around?
I understand that, according to some recent polls, Obama and the Democrats, in spite of a pandering media, are losing some of their allure after a relatively brief honeymoon. Which can’t help but remind me of a line attributed to Oscar Wilde, that Niagara Falls is only the second biggest disappointment in the life of an American bride.
Someone recently suggested that in less than three months, Obama went from being a messiah to being a mess. However, here in Hollywood, he is still sheer magic. They utter his name with the same reverence as when Christians refer to Jesus or Bill Maher refers to himself.
But, then, Hollywood is a peculiar place where celebrities who treat their own assistants and household help like underpaid coolies, are constantly demanding that Washington should do more for the poor and the oppressed. Hollywood is where actors think God was created in their image, while actresses are so full of plastic and collagen that even their own dogs can’t pick them out of a crowd.
I’m sure that Sean Penn thinks he should be ambassador to Cuba, and if only he owed back taxes, I’m certain this administration would give him the gig.
Even as I dream of the day when conservatives take back the reins of government, I worry that in the meantime the liberals will find a way to place a luxury tax on our dreams.
Finally, in case any of you were wondering, it will be 117,936,218 seconds until Obama’s term ends. But, who’s counting?
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Burt Prelutsky
Friday, March 27, 2009
I have to hope for the sake of our country’s future that when people voted for Obama they really had no idea what a disaster he would be, even though I kept warning them that he was a left-wing lug nut. It seemed to me that his legion of fans had been hypnotized or sprinkled with fairy dust. They blindly accepted that words like “hope” and “change” were complete sentences that actually added up to a national policy.
We, who assumed that a grown-up whose friends and mentors were people like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Saul Alinsky, the folks at ACORN and the most corrupt of Chicago politicians, believed he was more likely to belong in a square cell than in the Oval Office.
For my part, I felt a lot like Kevin McCarthy in the movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” trying to warn my fellow earthlings that the pod people were among us and definitely up to no good.
It’s not just the big things the man does, things such as the kazillion dollar bail-outs, the trichinosis-infested budget and the threat of the Fairness Doctrine being enacted, that make my blood run cold. It’s not even the allegedly eloquent orator requiring a TelePrompter in order to say, “Hello.” What I’m referring to is the Commander in Chief’s earmarking $900 million for Hamas and, worse yet, making veterans financially responsible for their own service-related medical treatments. (That comes under the heading of adding insult to injury.) And let us not forget Obama’s sending the bust of Winston Churchill back to the English embassy and then, compounding that infantile act of boorishness, by treating the Prime Minister of our staunchest ally like a guttersnipe.
Funny, I seem to recall Obama’s partisans insisting that he would personally make the United States popular the world over. Well, so far, he has certainly reached out to Cuba, Venezuela and Iran, and I suppose if he actually closes Gitmo, Islamics will dance in the street of Tehran just before dropping the bomb on Israel.
Regarding the recent brouhaha, I’m afraid I’m one of the few people who wasn’t up in arms over the AIG bonuses. To me, they were just an obvious distraction by the administration, just like the unwarranted attacks on Rush Limbaugh or Clinton’s bombing of the pharmaceutical factory. I’m not saying I was happy about the bonuses, but a contract is a contract, and I prefer to see a bunch of scumbags collect their undeserved millions than to see the day that contracts in America are no longer worth the paper they’re written on.
I keep hearing people on the radio and TV going ballistic over the fact that employees at a failed company were collecting as much as four million taxpayer dollars for being rotten at their jobs, and I’m sick and tired of it. How is it that nobody is demanding that 435 self-righteous congressmen and 100 arrogant senators give back their salaries? They’re the folks who not only oversaw a failing economy, but, thanks to pushing sub-prime home loans on people who didn’t have a pot to piss in, did the most to cause the financial calamity in the first place.
On top of all that, I’ve heard that Obama and his legislative cronies plan to give AIG at least another 30 billion before they’re done. So how about, instead of having to watch politicians grandstanding over the measly $165 million in bonuses and Charley Schumer’s threatening to get the money back by having the IRS bludgeon these folks to death, the schmucks in Washington just write the company a check for $29,835,000,000 the next time around?
I understand that, according to some recent polls, Obama and the Democrats, in spite of a pandering media, are losing some of their allure after a relatively brief honeymoon. Which can’t help but remind me of a line attributed to Oscar Wilde, that Niagara Falls is only the second biggest disappointment in the life of an American bride.
Someone recently suggested that in less than three months, Obama went from being a messiah to being a mess. However, here in Hollywood, he is still sheer magic. They utter his name with the same reverence as when Christians refer to Jesus or Bill Maher refers to himself.
But, then, Hollywood is a peculiar place where celebrities who treat their own assistants and household help like underpaid coolies, are constantly demanding that Washington should do more for the poor and the oppressed. Hollywood is where actors think God was created in their image, while actresses are so full of plastic and collagen that even their own dogs can’t pick them out of a crowd.
I’m sure that Sean Penn thinks he should be ambassador to Cuba, and if only he owed back taxes, I’m certain this administration would give him the gig.
Even as I dream of the day when conservatives take back the reins of government, I worry that in the meantime the liberals will find a way to place a luxury tax on our dreams.
Finally, in case any of you were wondering, it will be 117,936,218 seconds until Obama’s term ends. But, who’s counting?
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
The Death of Common Sense in America
The Death of Common Sense in America
John Hawkins
Friday, October 03, 2008
"The charge is often made against the intelligentsia and other members of the anointed that their theories and the policies based on them lack common sense. But the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else?" -- Thomas Sowell
There are a number of great challenges that this country faces, but perhaps none is so large as the death of basic, common sense. By that, I mean that large portions of our country, including many of our representatives in Congress, have lost sight of conclusions so skull splittingly obvious that fifty years ago, Americans of both political parties would have agreed upon them almost unanimously.
Just to name a few examples, when you borrow money, it does eventually have to be paid back. You shouldn't buy a house you can't afford. Nobody owes you a living. It's not justice when the rulings of judges depend on ideology and personal preferences, not the Constitution. If we set up a tax system that puts all the taxes on the people at the top, they'll eventually, one way or the other, find a way to stop paying the check -- whether it be through loopholes, deliberately earning less money, or just leaving the country. Families are the building block of our society and the government should be extremely careful when it passes legislation that could negatively impact the family structure. People come before animals. You reap what you sow. It's good for America to have a patriotic populace. Many other countries aren't "nice" and don't "wish us well." There is no such thing as a "free" lunch. People who do a bad job shouldn't be rewarded for it. When you deliberately lie, your credibility should suffer for it. You don't have a "right" to other people's property. You are the person primarily responsible for taking care of yourself.
Truisms of this sort shouldn't have much to do with politics or ideological leanings. They're the sort of thing most people should learn from their parents, in church, or in elementary school. They're that basic, that simple. Yet, you can point to people at every level of American society, including most significantly, large portions of Congress, that act as if these rules don't apply.
We run a large deficit every year. Congress has knowingly pushed banks to give loans for homes to people who couldn't afford them. We have large numbers of people who expect the government to take care of them if they choose not to work. Liberals openly say they believe in a "living constitution," which is little better than believing in no Constitution at all. Large portions of the American public pay no income tax while politicians claim the people who are paying 86% of the income tax we collect aren't "paying their fair share." The left is pushing gay marriage and legalized polygamy won't be far behind. The interests of animals, from caribou to endangered species, are often given preference over those of human beings. People who make terrible decisions, like buying houses they can't afford, coming to this country illegally, or running banks into the ground, have countless defenders in government who don't believe they should suffer for their mistakes. The Democratic candidate for President made a big deal publicly of not wearing a flag pin anymore and only relented when there were cacophonous public complaints. There's a foolish belief many people have that any problem we have with another nation can be fixed simply by discussing it with them. Many Americans want rebate checks paid for by our government with loaned money, "free" health care, and "free" government services, all paid for by other people. Men like Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and William Jefferson have been reelected by their constituents despite committing offenses so egregious and widely known that I don't even have to mention them here. Politicians, including both of our presidential candidates regularly lie to the public. We have politicians and activists speaking of things like "housing" and "medical care" as rights, despite the fact that other people have to pay for those "rights." We regularly hear people bemoaning the fact that "the government doesn't care about them," blaming other people, blaming society, and blaming various "isms" for their state of their lives.
For a season, we have been able to get away with the sort of foolishness that only a prosperous people living off the national wealth delivered by the blood and sweat of others can be deluded enough to believe in. However, the lifestyle Americans are living today is absolutely unsustainable economically, culturally, and socially over the long-haul. That doesn't necessarily mean we're doomed, but what it does mean is that we can be sure that there is rather sharp correction coming to this country because history doesn't suffer fools gladly.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
John Hawkins
Friday, October 03, 2008
"The charge is often made against the intelligentsia and other members of the anointed that their theories and the policies based on them lack common sense. But the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else?" -- Thomas Sowell
There are a number of great challenges that this country faces, but perhaps none is so large as the death of basic, common sense. By that, I mean that large portions of our country, including many of our representatives in Congress, have lost sight of conclusions so skull splittingly obvious that fifty years ago, Americans of both political parties would have agreed upon them almost unanimously.
Just to name a few examples, when you borrow money, it does eventually have to be paid back. You shouldn't buy a house you can't afford. Nobody owes you a living. It's not justice when the rulings of judges depend on ideology and personal preferences, not the Constitution. If we set up a tax system that puts all the taxes on the people at the top, they'll eventually, one way or the other, find a way to stop paying the check -- whether it be through loopholes, deliberately earning less money, or just leaving the country. Families are the building block of our society and the government should be extremely careful when it passes legislation that could negatively impact the family structure. People come before animals. You reap what you sow. It's good for America to have a patriotic populace. Many other countries aren't "nice" and don't "wish us well." There is no such thing as a "free" lunch. People who do a bad job shouldn't be rewarded for it. When you deliberately lie, your credibility should suffer for it. You don't have a "right" to other people's property. You are the person primarily responsible for taking care of yourself.
Truisms of this sort shouldn't have much to do with politics or ideological leanings. They're the sort of thing most people should learn from their parents, in church, or in elementary school. They're that basic, that simple. Yet, you can point to people at every level of American society, including most significantly, large portions of Congress, that act as if these rules don't apply.
We run a large deficit every year. Congress has knowingly pushed banks to give loans for homes to people who couldn't afford them. We have large numbers of people who expect the government to take care of them if they choose not to work. Liberals openly say they believe in a "living constitution," which is little better than believing in no Constitution at all. Large portions of the American public pay no income tax while politicians claim the people who are paying 86% of the income tax we collect aren't "paying their fair share." The left is pushing gay marriage and legalized polygamy won't be far behind. The interests of animals, from caribou to endangered species, are often given preference over those of human beings. People who make terrible decisions, like buying houses they can't afford, coming to this country illegally, or running banks into the ground, have countless defenders in government who don't believe they should suffer for their mistakes. The Democratic candidate for President made a big deal publicly of not wearing a flag pin anymore and only relented when there were cacophonous public complaints. There's a foolish belief many people have that any problem we have with another nation can be fixed simply by discussing it with them. Many Americans want rebate checks paid for by our government with loaned money, "free" health care, and "free" government services, all paid for by other people. Men like Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and William Jefferson have been reelected by their constituents despite committing offenses so egregious and widely known that I don't even have to mention them here. Politicians, including both of our presidential candidates regularly lie to the public. We have politicians and activists speaking of things like "housing" and "medical care" as rights, despite the fact that other people have to pay for those "rights." We regularly hear people bemoaning the fact that "the government doesn't care about them," blaming other people, blaming society, and blaming various "isms" for their state of their lives.
For a season, we have been able to get away with the sort of foolishness that only a prosperous people living off the national wealth delivered by the blood and sweat of others can be deluded enough to believe in. However, the lifestyle Americans are living today is absolutely unsustainable economically, culturally, and socially over the long-haul. That doesn't necessarily mean we're doomed, but what it does mean is that we can be sure that there is rather sharp correction coming to this country because history doesn't suffer fools gladly.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Budget Smoke and Mirrors: Where's the Outrage?
Budget Smoke and Mirrors: Where's the Outrage?
David Limbaugh
Friday, March 27, 2009
There has doubtlessly been great anxiety about the economy, but I think even greater anxiety exists over what President Barack Obama is doing and planning to do to this country. We've always had economic downturns, and we've always recovered, but we've never deliberately planned to spend ourselves into bankruptcy, from which we may not be able to recover.
True, our smorgasbord of entitlements has threatened our long-term solvency for some time, and reckless politicians have been negligent in refusing to reform them and, instead, have just created more. But Obama takes profligate spending to entirely new levels while pretending to be a fiscal hawk.
With all due respect to Mr. Obama, I don't recall ever seeing another president whine so much about the mess his predecessor left him, disgracing the motto of former Democratic President Harry Truman that "the buck stops here." Though childish and unpresidential, the worst part about it is that he's using it as a bogus justification to do much worse.
Seriously, how many times are we going to have to hear him say, "Republicans have a short memory, because as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion annual deficit from them"?
Stop right there. This is grossly misleading on many levels. In the first place, President Bush's budget deficits were declining nicely each year before the subprime crisis hit in 2008 (fiscal year 2004: $412.7 billion; FY 2005: $318.3 billion; FY 2006: $248.2 billion; FY 2007: $160.7 billion; and FY 2008: $454.8 billion). Second, Democrats took control of Congress in 2006 and thus share blame. Third, the 2009 budget, upward of $1.3 trillion, contained the extraordinary bailout and rescue expenditures, which Obama voted for. Fourth, eight months of this FY 2009 budget that Obama is blaming on President Bush will occur on Obama's watch (Jan. 20 through Oct. 1, 2009). Fifth, but most important, Obama is seeking to establish this atypical, artificially bloated FY 2009 as the new baseline from which his budgets should be compared, falsely implying that President Bush incrementally increased the deficit each year until it reached the annual figure of $1.3 trillion (the above numbers show the opposite) and that it will remain that high unless he -- Obama -- brings it down. Apparently smiling at our collective stupidity, he thus plans to disguise his increases in annual spending as decreases and take credit for cutting the budget in half by the end of his term.
When we cut through the smoke and mirrors, we see that Obama's plan is to ratchet up annualized spending to rates greatly exceeding President Bush's budgets. The Heritage Foundation reports that President Bush ran budget deficits that averaged $300 billion annually (see figures above), while Obama's are projected to average more than $600 billion, "even after the economy recovers and the troops return home from Iraq."
Obama also doesn't mention, and then dissembles when asked about it, that after his first term -- in the so-called out years -- his deficit numbers start rising even more precipitously, to some $1.2 trillion -- almost the level of FY 2009. All one really needs to do to understand Obama's unconscionable plan to bankrupt America is to look at a simple chart comparing his deficits with those of President Bush, prepared by The Heritage Foundation.
Obama should look at this egregious $1.3 trillion figure (some say it's substantially more than that) with horror, instantly promise never to allow it to happen again, and have extreme confidence he could fulfill that promise merely by cutting out the extraordinary items. But he's doing just the opposite, with fraud in the inducement and malice aforethought.
His ideology compels him to grow government exponentially, national deficits and debt be damned. Oh, sure, he tells us he has to spend these enormous amounts to stimulate the economy, but he knows the vast majority of his expenditures aren't even designed to stimulate the economy, and he's also aware that the economy will turn around anyway in due course, without government intermeddling on the spending side.
Adding insult to injury, he's claiming he's saving $2 trillion in spending, when the truth is that a great portion of these "savings" will result from withdrawing our troops from Iraq, which was also going to happen anyway. Another portion involves trillions of dollars in tax increases, which have never before been considered "savings." By the time he's done -- if he serves two terms -- he will have almost doubled the national debt, according to conservative estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, and we're supposed to thank him for impoverishing and enslaving our children. This is what Obama calls "A New Era of Responsibility."
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
David Limbaugh
Friday, March 27, 2009
There has doubtlessly been great anxiety about the economy, but I think even greater anxiety exists over what President Barack Obama is doing and planning to do to this country. We've always had economic downturns, and we've always recovered, but we've never deliberately planned to spend ourselves into bankruptcy, from which we may not be able to recover.
True, our smorgasbord of entitlements has threatened our long-term solvency for some time, and reckless politicians have been negligent in refusing to reform them and, instead, have just created more. But Obama takes profligate spending to entirely new levels while pretending to be a fiscal hawk.
With all due respect to Mr. Obama, I don't recall ever seeing another president whine so much about the mess his predecessor left him, disgracing the motto of former Democratic President Harry Truman that "the buck stops here." Though childish and unpresidential, the worst part about it is that he's using it as a bogus justification to do much worse.
Seriously, how many times are we going to have to hear him say, "Republicans have a short memory, because as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion annual deficit from them"?
Stop right there. This is grossly misleading on many levels. In the first place, President Bush's budget deficits were declining nicely each year before the subprime crisis hit in 2008 (fiscal year 2004: $412.7 billion; FY 2005: $318.3 billion; FY 2006: $248.2 billion; FY 2007: $160.7 billion; and FY 2008: $454.8 billion). Second, Democrats took control of Congress in 2006 and thus share blame. Third, the 2009 budget, upward of $1.3 trillion, contained the extraordinary bailout and rescue expenditures, which Obama voted for. Fourth, eight months of this FY 2009 budget that Obama is blaming on President Bush will occur on Obama's watch (Jan. 20 through Oct. 1, 2009). Fifth, but most important, Obama is seeking to establish this atypical, artificially bloated FY 2009 as the new baseline from which his budgets should be compared, falsely implying that President Bush incrementally increased the deficit each year until it reached the annual figure of $1.3 trillion (the above numbers show the opposite) and that it will remain that high unless he -- Obama -- brings it down. Apparently smiling at our collective stupidity, he thus plans to disguise his increases in annual spending as decreases and take credit for cutting the budget in half by the end of his term.
When we cut through the smoke and mirrors, we see that Obama's plan is to ratchet up annualized spending to rates greatly exceeding President Bush's budgets. The Heritage Foundation reports that President Bush ran budget deficits that averaged $300 billion annually (see figures above), while Obama's are projected to average more than $600 billion, "even after the economy recovers and the troops return home from Iraq."
Obama also doesn't mention, and then dissembles when asked about it, that after his first term -- in the so-called out years -- his deficit numbers start rising even more precipitously, to some $1.2 trillion -- almost the level of FY 2009. All one really needs to do to understand Obama's unconscionable plan to bankrupt America is to look at a simple chart comparing his deficits with those of President Bush, prepared by The Heritage Foundation.
Obama should look at this egregious $1.3 trillion figure (some say it's substantially more than that) with horror, instantly promise never to allow it to happen again, and have extreme confidence he could fulfill that promise merely by cutting out the extraordinary items. But he's doing just the opposite, with fraud in the inducement and malice aforethought.
His ideology compels him to grow government exponentially, national deficits and debt be damned. Oh, sure, he tells us he has to spend these enormous amounts to stimulate the economy, but he knows the vast majority of his expenditures aren't even designed to stimulate the economy, and he's also aware that the economy will turn around anyway in due course, without government intermeddling on the spending side.
Adding insult to injury, he's claiming he's saving $2 trillion in spending, when the truth is that a great portion of these "savings" will result from withdrawing our troops from Iraq, which was also going to happen anyway. Another portion involves trillions of dollars in tax increases, which have never before been considered "savings." By the time he's done -- if he serves two terms -- he will have almost doubled the national debt, according to conservative estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, and we're supposed to thank him for impoverishing and enslaving our children. This is what Obama calls "A New Era of Responsibility."
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Racism, Privilege, and Envy
Racism, Privilege, and Envy.
You hear a lot from the left-liberal side about something called “white privilege”. It mostly comes from race-baiters, people who like to inject the subject of race into any discussion they can. Some people even have blogs where the main theme is race and racism. Why do they seem so obsessed with race? Sometimes they are people who have hardly ever actually experienced racism themselves, for example a white person living amongst mostly other white people, or a black person living mostly among other black people, or insert any race here. People like this throw the “racist” label around everywhere, especially at those who don’t agree with them. Many liberals tend to call people racists when they want them to keep quiet, because they know most people don’t want to be known as racists – call it an intimidation tactic that often works against weaker people. It was definitely an effective tool for Obama and his supporters during our last presidential election, and it continues to this day. McCain was a weaker person and he simply just buckled under on this issue, but it’s hard to fight someone who without a doubt has the backing of the whole mainstream media on his side. As it turns out Obama is a big joke as president in many ways, but one of the funniest things about him is he only wants to talk with those who agree with him. That will guarantee him a loss in the next election unless he can take complete control and become king-dictator and succeed at completely throwing out our constitution as he wishes.
Many liberals like to tell colored people “look at what white people have done to you. We try to force you to live within our culture. We keep you down. Our justice system is unfair to you and we put you in jail unjustly. Our police beat you for no good reason. We follow you around when you come into our stores to make sure you don’t shoplift anything. We don’t provide you with the education that you need. We continue to segregate you into your own neighborhoods and fill them with liquor stores and give you guns. We allow the inner-cities where many of you live to just deteriorate. We help to give you drugs. Of course these conditions are going to lead to more crime but it’s not your fault – the deck is stacked against you. It’s all a part of ‘white privilege’.”
Of course these liberals see themselves as heroic because they believe they are the only ones willing to be honest, when in actuality they are heavily distorting the facts and much too widely spreading the blame, all at once.
There are colored people who obviously disregard this nonsense and they grow up like anyone else, get an education, go to college, and become successful. Who held them down? If whites are all so evil why didn’t these people end up just like the ones who listen to most liberals? Obviously they just didn’t listen and decided not to use such misleading information as an excuse to not even try to succeed. Some of them did get mistreated by others, sometimes just because of their race, but they didn’t let this prevent them from trying and rising above their circumstances. Others live in an area where they hardly had to deal with racism, or maybe they just didn’t look for it around every corner. Myself I know there’s a lot of evil in this world but that doesn’t mean I have to look for it, or dwell with it. I just choose to rise above it because I know God is on my side and he always triumphs over evil.
Too many liberals like to use terms like “white privilege” or “rich corporate banker or executive” or “rich oilman” because they know for many it will lead to “envy”. There is a reason envy is often mentioned as sinful in the Bible – in fact it is in 2 of the 10 Commandments, namely thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife or goods (property). Why? Because when we start dwelling on what other people have that we don’t it has a tendency to make many humans jealous and angry, and when most liberals pile on with all of the “injustice” of all of these so called “ill gotten gains” that just increases the anger. It’s a perception that they themselves create. When these people are constantly preached to about not taking responsibility for themselves and where they are in life, then it becomes easy to shift the blame elsewhere. Most liberals always strongly encourage the blame to be shifted to the “white conservative male”, and if they can throw the “Christian” label in there as well – bonus.
Why do many liberals make things worse for colored people by treating them like such puppets? One word – “power”. They know if they can fool people into thinking they are the ones who can take care of them then they will have their votes to stay in power. Do they really care about the minorities – obviously not! Our country is supposed to be about our government working for us, not about the government controlling the people and robbing us blind. Most liberals always, always push for more governmental control and ownership, and less individual liberty. They want everything to be collective, not individual, but the thing is their ideas have been (and are still being) tried and they have never worked. The following e-mail we received recently is a good example of why…
A Lesson in Economics – Socialism.
An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. This class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we’ll have an experiment in this class on socialism.
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little. The second test average was a D!
No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.
Brett
You hear a lot from the left-liberal side about something called “white privilege”. It mostly comes from race-baiters, people who like to inject the subject of race into any discussion they can. Some people even have blogs where the main theme is race and racism. Why do they seem so obsessed with race? Sometimes they are people who have hardly ever actually experienced racism themselves, for example a white person living amongst mostly other white people, or a black person living mostly among other black people, or insert any race here. People like this throw the “racist” label around everywhere, especially at those who don’t agree with them. Many liberals tend to call people racists when they want them to keep quiet, because they know most people don’t want to be known as racists – call it an intimidation tactic that often works against weaker people. It was definitely an effective tool for Obama and his supporters during our last presidential election, and it continues to this day. McCain was a weaker person and he simply just buckled under on this issue, but it’s hard to fight someone who without a doubt has the backing of the whole mainstream media on his side. As it turns out Obama is a big joke as president in many ways, but one of the funniest things about him is he only wants to talk with those who agree with him. That will guarantee him a loss in the next election unless he can take complete control and become king-dictator and succeed at completely throwing out our constitution as he wishes.
Many liberals like to tell colored people “look at what white people have done to you. We try to force you to live within our culture. We keep you down. Our justice system is unfair to you and we put you in jail unjustly. Our police beat you for no good reason. We follow you around when you come into our stores to make sure you don’t shoplift anything. We don’t provide you with the education that you need. We continue to segregate you into your own neighborhoods and fill them with liquor stores and give you guns. We allow the inner-cities where many of you live to just deteriorate. We help to give you drugs. Of course these conditions are going to lead to more crime but it’s not your fault – the deck is stacked against you. It’s all a part of ‘white privilege’.”
Of course these liberals see themselves as heroic because they believe they are the only ones willing to be honest, when in actuality they are heavily distorting the facts and much too widely spreading the blame, all at once.
There are colored people who obviously disregard this nonsense and they grow up like anyone else, get an education, go to college, and become successful. Who held them down? If whites are all so evil why didn’t these people end up just like the ones who listen to most liberals? Obviously they just didn’t listen and decided not to use such misleading information as an excuse to not even try to succeed. Some of them did get mistreated by others, sometimes just because of their race, but they didn’t let this prevent them from trying and rising above their circumstances. Others live in an area where they hardly had to deal with racism, or maybe they just didn’t look for it around every corner. Myself I know there’s a lot of evil in this world but that doesn’t mean I have to look for it, or dwell with it. I just choose to rise above it because I know God is on my side and he always triumphs over evil.
Too many liberals like to use terms like “white privilege” or “rich corporate banker or executive” or “rich oilman” because they know for many it will lead to “envy”. There is a reason envy is often mentioned as sinful in the Bible – in fact it is in 2 of the 10 Commandments, namely thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife or goods (property). Why? Because when we start dwelling on what other people have that we don’t it has a tendency to make many humans jealous and angry, and when most liberals pile on with all of the “injustice” of all of these so called “ill gotten gains” that just increases the anger. It’s a perception that they themselves create. When these people are constantly preached to about not taking responsibility for themselves and where they are in life, then it becomes easy to shift the blame elsewhere. Most liberals always strongly encourage the blame to be shifted to the “white conservative male”, and if they can throw the “Christian” label in there as well – bonus.
Why do many liberals make things worse for colored people by treating them like such puppets? One word – “power”. They know if they can fool people into thinking they are the ones who can take care of them then they will have their votes to stay in power. Do they really care about the minorities – obviously not! Our country is supposed to be about our government working for us, not about the government controlling the people and robbing us blind. Most liberals always, always push for more governmental control and ownership, and less individual liberty. They want everything to be collective, not individual, but the thing is their ideas have been (and are still being) tried and they have never worked. The following e-mail we received recently is a good example of why…
A Lesson in Economics – Socialism.
An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. This class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we’ll have an experiment in this class on socialism.
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little. The second test average was a D!
No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.
Brett
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Those Republicans Running Congress
Those Republicans Running Congress
Rich Galen
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Barack Obama is very good at things like his press conference last night. He is too smooth to get trapped by a tough question, and reporters know there are about three years, nine months to go in this term and don't want to be locked out for the duration.
Before we get going, I have some tactical suggestions for the staff.
On his list of reporters he is to call on, it would useful to put an arrow as to which third of the room that reporter is sitting in so the President of the United States doesn't look like Ben Stein searching for Ferris Bueller in a high school economics class which, by the way, this sort of sounded like.
He must find a new phrase to replace "a whole host of …" Last night we heard about "a whole host of:" banks, adjustments, veteran's issues, people, things, and steps; according to the NY Times transcript.
Tell him he must not get cranky when he IS pressed by a reporter. From the Transcript:
The President: Okay. Ed Henry. Where's Ed? There he is. [Bueller? Bueller?]
CNN's Ed Henry asked why the Attorney General of New York, Andrew Cuomo seems to be getting more done on the A.I.G. bonus issue than the Administration and why "you didn't go public immediately with that outrage?" But then, because he couldn't stop himself, Ed went on to ask the President if he thought he was going to be leaving a huge deficit for his daughters.
The President chose to answer question 1B and slid off the A.I.G. question. When Henry circled back and asked him again why his outrage took so long to germinate, Obama said:
Well, it took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak. All right?
The transcript said (Laughter), but it sounded more like (Nervous tittering) to me.
The predicate to Henry's answer was a question by CBS' Chip Reid about the $2.3 trillion difference in the size of the debt between the Administration's estimates and the Congressional Budget Office. "Some Republicans," he said, "called your budget … the most irresponsible budget in American history."
Obama may be sitting in the Oval Office and he might have promised to open the post-partisan era, but his answer was:
First of all, I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them.
Return with me now to January 3, 2007 when John Boehner, Republican of Ohio was elected Speaker of the House following the 2006 mid-term elections.
Whoa! What? Nancy Pelosi became Speaker? And the Democrats controlled the House? And the Senate? And they have controlled the budget committees for the past two years? So the "$1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit" was adopted by the Democrat-controlled Congress?
Well, then, which Congressional Republicans could President Obama have been talking about? Must have been those Republican Chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees, U.S. Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND).
The A.I.G. contracts were put in place while Republicans Barney Frank (D-MA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) were in control of the House and Senate Banking Committees. Those same two Guardians of the Working Man were supposed to be overseeing the S.E.C. while Bernie Madoff was playing Bernie Ripoff.
On a question about the Israel-Palestinian issue, the President said, "What we do know is this; that the status quo is unsustainable."
Those darned Republicans in the Congress again. There they were, day after day in charge of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unable to break through that status quo.
Say, just who was the Republican Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations over the past two years?
Oh, yes. Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE).
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Rich Galen
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Barack Obama is very good at things like his press conference last night. He is too smooth to get trapped by a tough question, and reporters know there are about three years, nine months to go in this term and don't want to be locked out for the duration.
Before we get going, I have some tactical suggestions for the staff.
On his list of reporters he is to call on, it would useful to put an arrow as to which third of the room that reporter is sitting in so the President of the United States doesn't look like Ben Stein searching for Ferris Bueller in a high school economics class which, by the way, this sort of sounded like.
He must find a new phrase to replace "a whole host of …" Last night we heard about "a whole host of:" banks, adjustments, veteran's issues, people, things, and steps; according to the NY Times transcript.
Tell him he must not get cranky when he IS pressed by a reporter. From the Transcript:
The President: Okay. Ed Henry. Where's Ed? There he is. [Bueller? Bueller?]
CNN's Ed Henry asked why the Attorney General of New York, Andrew Cuomo seems to be getting more done on the A.I.G. bonus issue than the Administration and why "you didn't go public immediately with that outrage?" But then, because he couldn't stop himself, Ed went on to ask the President if he thought he was going to be leaving a huge deficit for his daughters.
The President chose to answer question 1B and slid off the A.I.G. question. When Henry circled back and asked him again why his outrage took so long to germinate, Obama said:
Well, it took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak. All right?
The transcript said (Laughter), but it sounded more like (Nervous tittering) to me.
The predicate to Henry's answer was a question by CBS' Chip Reid about the $2.3 trillion difference in the size of the debt between the Administration's estimates and the Congressional Budget Office. "Some Republicans," he said, "called your budget … the most irresponsible budget in American history."
Obama may be sitting in the Oval Office and he might have promised to open the post-partisan era, but his answer was:
First of all, I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them.
Return with me now to January 3, 2007 when John Boehner, Republican of Ohio was elected Speaker of the House following the 2006 mid-term elections.
Whoa! What? Nancy Pelosi became Speaker? And the Democrats controlled the House? And the Senate? And they have controlled the budget committees for the past two years? So the "$1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit" was adopted by the Democrat-controlled Congress?
Well, then, which Congressional Republicans could President Obama have been talking about? Must have been those Republican Chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees, U.S. Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND).
The A.I.G. contracts were put in place while Republicans Barney Frank (D-MA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) were in control of the House and Senate Banking Committees. Those same two Guardians of the Working Man were supposed to be overseeing the S.E.C. while Bernie Madoff was playing Bernie Ripoff.
On a question about the Israel-Palestinian issue, the President said, "What we do know is this; that the status quo is unsustainable."
Those darned Republicans in the Congress again. There they were, day after day in charge of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unable to break through that status quo.
Say, just who was the Republican Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations over the past two years?
Oh, yes. Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE).
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
To GIVE and To SERVE - $6 Billion National Service Boondoggle.
To GIVE and To SERVE: The $6 Billion National Service Boondoggle
Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Maybe it's just me, but I find federal legislation titled "The GIVE Act" and "The SERVE Act" downright creepy. Even more troubling: the $6 billion price tag on these bipartisan bills to expand government-funded national service efforts.
Volunteerism is a wonderful thing, which is why millions of Americans do it every day without a cent of taxpayer money. But the volunteerism packages on the Hill are less about promoting effective charity than about creating make-work, permanent bureaucracies and left-wing slush funds.
The House passed the "Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act" -- or the GIVE Act -- last week. The Senate took up the companion SERVE Act Tuesday afternoon. According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Senate bill (S.277), it would cost "$418 million in 2010 and about $5.7 billion over the 2010-2014 period."
Like most federal programs, these would be sure to grow over time. The bills reauthorize the Clinton-era AmeriCorps boondoggle program and the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973.
The programs have already been allocated $1.1 billion for fiscal year 2009, including $200 million from the porkulus package signed into law last month. In addition to recruiting up to 250,000 enrollees in AmeriCorps, the GIVE/SERVE bills would create new little armies of government volunteers, including a Clean Energy Corps, Education Corps, Healthy Futures Corps, Veterans Service Corps, and an expanded National Civilian Community Corps for disaster relief and energy conservation.
But that's not all. Spending would include new funds for:
-- Foster Grandparent Program ($115 million);
-- Learn and Serve America ($97 million);
-- Retired and Senior Volunteer Program ($70 million);
-- Senior Companion Program ($55 million);
-- $12 million for each of fiscal years 2010 through 2014 for "the Silver Scholarships and Encore Fellowships programs";
-- $10 million a year from 2010 through 2014 for a new "Volunteers for Prosperity" program at USAID to "award grants to fund opportunities for volunteering internationally in coordination with eligible organizations"; and
-- Social Innovation Fund and Volunteer Generation Fund -- $50 million in 2010; $60 million in 2011; $70 million in 2012; $80 million in 2013; and $100 million in 2014.
Social Innovation Fund? If that sounds familiar, it should. I reported last fall on the Democratic Party platform's push to fund a "Social Investment Fund Network" that would reward "social entrepreneurs and leading nonprofit organizations" and "support results-oriented innovators." It is essentially a special taxpayer-funded pipeline for radical liberal groups backed by billionaire George Soros that masquerade as public-interest do-gooders.
Especially troublesome to parents' groups concerned about compulsory volunteerism requirements is a provision in the House version directing Congress to explore "whether a workable, fair and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic and educational backgrounds."
Those who have watched AmeriCorps from its inception are all too familiar with how government volunteerism programs have been used for propaganda and political purposes. AmeriCorps "volunteers" have been put to work lobbying against the voter-approved three-strikes anti-crime initiative in California and protesting Republican political events while working for the already heavily tax-subsidized liberal advocacy group ACORN.
D.C. watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste also documented national service volunteers lobbying for rent control, expanded federal housing subsidies and enrollment of more women in the Women, Infants and Children welfare program. AmeriCorps volunteers have also been paid to shuffle paper at the Department of Justice, the Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Legal Services Corporation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
(Now, imagine Obama's troops being sent overseas -- out of sight and unaccountable -- as part of that $10 million a year USAID/Volunteers for Prosperity program. Egad.)
One vigilant House member, GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx, successfully attached an amendment to the GIVE Act to bar National Service participants from engaging in political lobbying; endorsing or opposing legislation; organizing petitions, protests, boycotts or strikes; providing or promoting abortions or referrals; or influencing union organizing.
Supporters of GIVE/SERVE are now fighting those restrictions tooth and nail, screaming censorship and demanding the provisions be dropped -- which tells you everything you need to know about the true nature of this boondoggle. Taxpayers GIVE their money to SERVE a big government agenda under the guise of helping their fellow man. It's charity at the point of a gun.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Maybe it's just me, but I find federal legislation titled "The GIVE Act" and "The SERVE Act" downright creepy. Even more troubling: the $6 billion price tag on these bipartisan bills to expand government-funded national service efforts.
Volunteerism is a wonderful thing, which is why millions of Americans do it every day without a cent of taxpayer money. But the volunteerism packages on the Hill are less about promoting effective charity than about creating make-work, permanent bureaucracies and left-wing slush funds.
The House passed the "Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act" -- or the GIVE Act -- last week. The Senate took up the companion SERVE Act Tuesday afternoon. According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Senate bill (S.277), it would cost "$418 million in 2010 and about $5.7 billion over the 2010-2014 period."
Like most federal programs, these would be sure to grow over time. The bills reauthorize the Clinton-era AmeriCorps boondoggle program and the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973.
The programs have already been allocated $1.1 billion for fiscal year 2009, including $200 million from the porkulus package signed into law last month. In addition to recruiting up to 250,000 enrollees in AmeriCorps, the GIVE/SERVE bills would create new little armies of government volunteers, including a Clean Energy Corps, Education Corps, Healthy Futures Corps, Veterans Service Corps, and an expanded National Civilian Community Corps for disaster relief and energy conservation.
But that's not all. Spending would include new funds for:
-- Foster Grandparent Program ($115 million);
-- Learn and Serve America ($97 million);
-- Retired and Senior Volunteer Program ($70 million);
-- Senior Companion Program ($55 million);
-- $12 million for each of fiscal years 2010 through 2014 for "the Silver Scholarships and Encore Fellowships programs";
-- $10 million a year from 2010 through 2014 for a new "Volunteers for Prosperity" program at USAID to "award grants to fund opportunities for volunteering internationally in coordination with eligible organizations"; and
-- Social Innovation Fund and Volunteer Generation Fund -- $50 million in 2010; $60 million in 2011; $70 million in 2012; $80 million in 2013; and $100 million in 2014.
Social Innovation Fund? If that sounds familiar, it should. I reported last fall on the Democratic Party platform's push to fund a "Social Investment Fund Network" that would reward "social entrepreneurs and leading nonprofit organizations" and "support results-oriented innovators." It is essentially a special taxpayer-funded pipeline for radical liberal groups backed by billionaire George Soros that masquerade as public-interest do-gooders.
Especially troublesome to parents' groups concerned about compulsory volunteerism requirements is a provision in the House version directing Congress to explore "whether a workable, fair and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic and educational backgrounds."
Those who have watched AmeriCorps from its inception are all too familiar with how government volunteerism programs have been used for propaganda and political purposes. AmeriCorps "volunteers" have been put to work lobbying against the voter-approved three-strikes anti-crime initiative in California and protesting Republican political events while working for the already heavily tax-subsidized liberal advocacy group ACORN.
D.C. watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste also documented national service volunteers lobbying for rent control, expanded federal housing subsidies and enrollment of more women in the Women, Infants and Children welfare program. AmeriCorps volunteers have also been paid to shuffle paper at the Department of Justice, the Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Legal Services Corporation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
(Now, imagine Obama's troops being sent overseas -- out of sight and unaccountable -- as part of that $10 million a year USAID/Volunteers for Prosperity program. Egad.)
One vigilant House member, GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx, successfully attached an amendment to the GIVE Act to bar National Service participants from engaging in political lobbying; endorsing or opposing legislation; organizing petitions, protests, boycotts or strikes; providing or promoting abortions or referrals; or influencing union organizing.
Supporters of GIVE/SERVE are now fighting those restrictions tooth and nail, screaming censorship and demanding the provisions be dropped -- which tells you everything you need to know about the true nature of this boondoggle. Taxpayers GIVE their money to SERVE a big government agenda under the guise of helping their fellow man. It's charity at the point of a gun.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Saul Alinsky: the Puppet Master.
I just thought I would post an old one by Burt that seems to fit into the present times just fine.
Saul Alinsky: the Puppet Master
Burt Prelutsky
Friday, September 19, 2008
Sometimes I think I may be developing ulcers, and it has nothing to do with the way that the New York Yankees are performing this year or with eating spicy food. It has everything to do with America’s left-wingers. I could probably learn to accept their being on the wrong side of every single issue, but it’s their lies and evasions that get my innards rumbling like an espresso machine.
For instance, the other day I had occasion to send the following letter to my local rag, the L.A. Times: “Dear Editor: On page 10 of the front section, you ran an article sub-headed ‘TV networks and newspapers deny bias claims.’ Obviously, yours was one of the newspapers doing the objecting. However, on the very next page, at the end of an article in which Jon Voight was quoted as saying that he hoped that more of his Hollywood colleagues would come around to the McCain-Palin ticket, your “reporter” couldn’t resist adding, in parentheses: ‘Some people might argue that the Democrats in the entertainment industry have been awakened by the selection of Palin. They’re even more determined in their support of Obama.’
“Confirming bias in the media,” I concluded, “is easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Sincerely, Burt Prelutsky.”
Understand, dear readers, this wasn’t an editorial or an op-ed piece. This was supposed to be a news item, and a Times reporter was permitted -- encouraged?-- to tack on a partisan comment, and yet the Times vehemently denies that it or any other member of the left-wing MSM is attempting to pass off political propaganda in the guise of objective reporting.
But there are far more egregious examples. The latest being the way the liberal hounds have jumped all over Sara Palin’s pregnant daughter while giving Obama a pass over his long-time friendship with the unrepentant Weatherman terrorist, William Ayers.
Furthermore, has the MSM once mentioned the influential role that the late Saul Alinsky played in the lives of leading Democrats, and how he helped turned the party so far to the left that if men like Harry Truman and John Kennedy came back to life, they would assume the Soviet Union had won the Cold War?
Saul Alinsky, who died in 1972, at the age of 63, was a Chicago Marxist. Among his many books was one titled “Rules for Radicals,” in which he explained to his acolytes, “The most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired results.” It took Alinsky 11 words to paraphrase Karl Marx’s far more succinct “The ends justify the means.”
Alinsky, by the way, dedicated that particular book to Lucifer, whom he coyly referred to as “the first radical.”
The reason I’m bringing up Alinsky 26 years after he wound up in a place where he could personally autograph his book for Beelzebub is because his disciples are still very much with us. For instance, he just happened to be the subject of Hillary Rodham’s senior honors thesis at Wellesley College. It was such a glowing homage that, in 1968, a most appreciative Alinsky offered her a job in Chicago, but Ms. Rodham, as we all know, had bigger fish to fry. However, when she became America’s First Lady, the White House asked Wellesley to restrict access to the paper, and Wellesley wisely obliged, just as Princeton did when the Obamas requested that Michelle’s racist screed be removed from circulation.
Many people, once they grow up, would be embarrassed if people knew what they were drinking or smoking during their college days, but leftists don’t even want us to know what they were thinking.
But it wasn’t just young Ms. Rodham who had a connection to the late, unlamented Saul Alinsky. Thirteen years after the Chicago radical died, a group of his most devoted disciples hired 24-year-old Barack Obama to be a community organizer in South Chicago.
Saul Alinsky: the Puppet Master
Burt Prelutsky
Friday, September 19, 2008
Sometimes I think I may be developing ulcers, and it has nothing to do with the way that the New York Yankees are performing this year or with eating spicy food. It has everything to do with America’s left-wingers. I could probably learn to accept their being on the wrong side of every single issue, but it’s their lies and evasions that get my innards rumbling like an espresso machine.
For instance, the other day I had occasion to send the following letter to my local rag, the L.A. Times: “Dear Editor: On page 10 of the front section, you ran an article sub-headed ‘TV networks and newspapers deny bias claims.’ Obviously, yours was one of the newspapers doing the objecting. However, on the very next page, at the end of an article in which Jon Voight was quoted as saying that he hoped that more of his Hollywood colleagues would come around to the McCain-Palin ticket, your “reporter” couldn’t resist adding, in parentheses: ‘Some people might argue that the Democrats in the entertainment industry have been awakened by the selection of Palin. They’re even more determined in their support of Obama.’
“Confirming bias in the media,” I concluded, “is easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Sincerely, Burt Prelutsky.”
Understand, dear readers, this wasn’t an editorial or an op-ed piece. This was supposed to be a news item, and a Times reporter was permitted -- encouraged?-- to tack on a partisan comment, and yet the Times vehemently denies that it or any other member of the left-wing MSM is attempting to pass off political propaganda in the guise of objective reporting.
But there are far more egregious examples. The latest being the way the liberal hounds have jumped all over Sara Palin’s pregnant daughter while giving Obama a pass over his long-time friendship with the unrepentant Weatherman terrorist, William Ayers.
Furthermore, has the MSM once mentioned the influential role that the late Saul Alinsky played in the lives of leading Democrats, and how he helped turned the party so far to the left that if men like Harry Truman and John Kennedy came back to life, they would assume the Soviet Union had won the Cold War?
Saul Alinsky, who died in 1972, at the age of 63, was a Chicago Marxist. Among his many books was one titled “Rules for Radicals,” in which he explained to his acolytes, “The most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired results.” It took Alinsky 11 words to paraphrase Karl Marx’s far more succinct “The ends justify the means.”
Alinsky, by the way, dedicated that particular book to Lucifer, whom he coyly referred to as “the first radical.”
The reason I’m bringing up Alinsky 26 years after he wound up in a place where he could personally autograph his book for Beelzebub is because his disciples are still very much with us. For instance, he just happened to be the subject of Hillary Rodham’s senior honors thesis at Wellesley College. It was such a glowing homage that, in 1968, a most appreciative Alinsky offered her a job in Chicago, but Ms. Rodham, as we all know, had bigger fish to fry. However, when she became America’s First Lady, the White House asked Wellesley to restrict access to the paper, and Wellesley wisely obliged, just as Princeton did when the Obamas requested that Michelle’s racist screed be removed from circulation.
Many people, once they grow up, would be embarrassed if people knew what they were drinking or smoking during their college days, but leftists don’t even want us to know what they were thinking.
But it wasn’t just young Ms. Rodham who had a connection to the late, unlamented Saul Alinsky. Thirteen years after the Chicago radical died, a group of his most devoted disciples hired 24-year-old Barack Obama to be a community organizer in South Chicago.
Channeling Anger.
Channeling Anger
Cal Thomas
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
One of the more familiar sayings in politics is "don't get angry, get even."
The anger caused by using millions in taxpayer bailout money to pay "retention" bonuses to current and former AIG employees and to fund banks that mostly won't tell what they did with the money is an object lesson for all of us. It offers taxpayers an opportunity to "get even" with those who have violated the U.S. Constitution, helped put our nation in peril and spent us into economic servitude to the Chinese.
President Obama has said he is angry, too, but he wants that anger to be "channeled" so that it might do the most good. I agree with the president. But where should that anger be channeled? The president wants to channel it in ways that will create more government regulation of banks. The New York Times reported Sunday that the president "will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation."
Is that the best way to channel our anger so that it will do the most good? Should Congress and the regulatory authorities, which have failed so spectacularly and at every level (and in both parties), be allowed to manage and repair the financial damage they helped cause? Can they be trusted with even more power to invade private industry, overrule stockholders, and effectively run more and more companies? This is what totalitarian societies do, isn't it? The answer isn't more laws; it's enforcing the laws already on the books. The solution can be found in proper oversight, not in overlooking transgressions.
Those busloads of people who last weekend descended on Connecticut neighborhoods where AIG executives live were in the wrong place. And by the way, who ordered up that little charade and media opportunity? It sounds like something MoveOn.org, or some other left-wing political outfit might do in order to divert attention from the real culprits, who are located a few hundred miles south in Washington, D.C.
Next week, millions of tourists will begin the annual ritual of visiting Washington to see the cherry blossoms bloom. They might wish to organize a bus ride up to Capitol Hill and make their blooming idiot senators and congresspersons feel their wrath. Then they should go home and organize tea parties and anything else that will unite them with others in the fed-up community, and then vow to throw these bums out come the 2010 election.
Their list should include Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Speaker Nancy Pelosi and especially Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn). In a brazen example of political bipolarity, Dodd stated contradictory positions in just 24 hours. First, he claimed to have had nothing to do with a bill that sent bailout money to AIG. A day later he said he did, indeed, have plenty to do with the bill, but that he succumbed to pressure from the Treasury Department not to cap bonuses.
No political fish should be too big to touch and goodness knows fish like these have been stinking up Washington for far too long. Showing the most powerful the door is the only way we can liberate the country (and ourselves) from these overpaid, egotistical, self-centered, corrupt, uncaring pack of rats.
Voters should force term limits on these power-hungry, money-grubbing people (I'm talking Congress, not AIG). And by the way, if Congress is successful in prying all or most of our money from the tight-fisted hands of AIG executives, how about a provision that would force every member of Congress who took campaign money from AIG to rebate the taxpayers?
If the public doesn't rise up and stop this political coup of private industry, we will all be the worse for it. While AIG is paying for its real and perceived sins, the company's mistakes should not be a pretext for politicians to accrue more power when they have abused the power they have.
That should make us all angry and we should channel that anger right back at the politicians most responsible and clean House (and Senate) in November 2010.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Cal Thomas
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
One of the more familiar sayings in politics is "don't get angry, get even."
The anger caused by using millions in taxpayer bailout money to pay "retention" bonuses to current and former AIG employees and to fund banks that mostly won't tell what they did with the money is an object lesson for all of us. It offers taxpayers an opportunity to "get even" with those who have violated the U.S. Constitution, helped put our nation in peril and spent us into economic servitude to the Chinese.
President Obama has said he is angry, too, but he wants that anger to be "channeled" so that it might do the most good. I agree with the president. But where should that anger be channeled? The president wants to channel it in ways that will create more government regulation of banks. The New York Times reported Sunday that the president "will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation."
Is that the best way to channel our anger so that it will do the most good? Should Congress and the regulatory authorities, which have failed so spectacularly and at every level (and in both parties), be allowed to manage and repair the financial damage they helped cause? Can they be trusted with even more power to invade private industry, overrule stockholders, and effectively run more and more companies? This is what totalitarian societies do, isn't it? The answer isn't more laws; it's enforcing the laws already on the books. The solution can be found in proper oversight, not in overlooking transgressions.
Those busloads of people who last weekend descended on Connecticut neighborhoods where AIG executives live were in the wrong place. And by the way, who ordered up that little charade and media opportunity? It sounds like something MoveOn.org, or some other left-wing political outfit might do in order to divert attention from the real culprits, who are located a few hundred miles south in Washington, D.C.
Next week, millions of tourists will begin the annual ritual of visiting Washington to see the cherry blossoms bloom. They might wish to organize a bus ride up to Capitol Hill and make their blooming idiot senators and congresspersons feel their wrath. Then they should go home and organize tea parties and anything else that will unite them with others in the fed-up community, and then vow to throw these bums out come the 2010 election.
Their list should include Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Speaker Nancy Pelosi and especially Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn). In a brazen example of political bipolarity, Dodd stated contradictory positions in just 24 hours. First, he claimed to have had nothing to do with a bill that sent bailout money to AIG. A day later he said he did, indeed, have plenty to do with the bill, but that he succumbed to pressure from the Treasury Department not to cap bonuses.
No political fish should be too big to touch and goodness knows fish like these have been stinking up Washington for far too long. Showing the most powerful the door is the only way we can liberate the country (and ourselves) from these overpaid, egotistical, self-centered, corrupt, uncaring pack of rats.
Voters should force term limits on these power-hungry, money-grubbing people (I'm talking Congress, not AIG). And by the way, if Congress is successful in prying all or most of our money from the tight-fisted hands of AIG executives, how about a provision that would force every member of Congress who took campaign money from AIG to rebate the taxpayers?
If the public doesn't rise up and stop this political coup of private industry, we will all be the worse for it. While AIG is paying for its real and perceived sins, the company's mistakes should not be a pretext for politicians to accrue more power when they have abused the power they have.
That should make us all angry and we should channel that anger right back at the politicians most responsible and clean House (and Senate) in November 2010.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
We've Legalized Theft in America.
We've legalized theft in America
Star Parker
Monday, March 23, 2009
It says something about the dismal state of affairs in our country today by what outrages folks.
Sure, if we want to portray business as the root of our economic ills, outrage about executives getting bonuses at a company that received taxpayer bailout funds has political sex appeal. Or perhaps that some company that got bailed out sent their managers to a fancy retreat somewhere. Or that maybe a bailed-out company sponsored a golf tournament.
But where's the outrage about the circumstances that allow this all to happen to begin with? Where is the outrage about the ease with which politicians can expropriate hundreds of billions of taxpayers' funds to do these bailouts?
I have been looking through a new study, released by an organization called the Property Rights Alliance, called the International Property Rights Index. The study examines 115 nations worldwide and examines the correspondence between prosperity in a country and how secure private property is there.
It shows a practically perfect correlation. The more secure private property is in a given country, the more prosperous it is. Countries rated in the top 25 percent in secure and safe private property have on average nine times more income per person than those in the bottom 25 percent.
It's one of those things that makes so much sense that you wonder why you have to do a study to show it. The easier it is to steal in any given country the less likely the economy will function well there.
You really don't even need a fancy business degree to predict this. One of the Ten Commandments, transmitted so many thousands of years ago, instructs us not to steal.
Yet, basic truths such as this are becoming increasingly lost in our country and this is what should be driving our outrage. That we now live in a country where our private property is no longer safe and the very government that supposedly exists to protect it has become the thief we have to worry about.
President Obama went on Jay Leno's popular Tonight Show and talked about the current crisis. Listening to him, there seems little doubt that everything started on Wall Street. "The problem is ... people were able to take huge, excessive risks with other people's money."
But, Mr. President, half the mortgages in this country are owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which were and are backed up with the money of us taxpayers. An easy flowing mortgage credit market built by politicians, by setting us taxpayers up to guarantee it all, which is what we wound up doing, is what started this whole thing.
The president and Leno bantered about electric cars and, talk about taking risks with other people's money, the president apparently sees no problem tapping into us taxpayers to finance research into these cars. "So, we're going to be investing billions of dollars in research and development around these technologies -- that's what's going to create the auto industry of the future," Obama said.
We've already used taxpayer funds to bail out auto companies. Now we're going to use them to take over their research and development functions.
Given what the International Property Rights Index shows, we might consider that because private property has become as insecure as it has in our country -- that we have really legalized theft -- that this might be what's at the root of our economic chaos.
So, we can have government-issue edicts on what executives are paid at companies that politicians bail out with taxpayer funds. Or maybe we should check if families whose mortgages we bail out are going on vacation or out to dinner.
Or we can re-direct our attention from symptoms to causes. We can recall that the founders of our country intended the role of government to protect our lives and property, not violate them. And that in times when we have respected that proper use of government, our country has prospered.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Star Parker
Monday, March 23, 2009
It says something about the dismal state of affairs in our country today by what outrages folks.
Sure, if we want to portray business as the root of our economic ills, outrage about executives getting bonuses at a company that received taxpayer bailout funds has political sex appeal. Or perhaps that some company that got bailed out sent their managers to a fancy retreat somewhere. Or that maybe a bailed-out company sponsored a golf tournament.
But where's the outrage about the circumstances that allow this all to happen to begin with? Where is the outrage about the ease with which politicians can expropriate hundreds of billions of taxpayers' funds to do these bailouts?
I have been looking through a new study, released by an organization called the Property Rights Alliance, called the International Property Rights Index. The study examines 115 nations worldwide and examines the correspondence between prosperity in a country and how secure private property is there.
It shows a practically perfect correlation. The more secure private property is in a given country, the more prosperous it is. Countries rated in the top 25 percent in secure and safe private property have on average nine times more income per person than those in the bottom 25 percent.
It's one of those things that makes so much sense that you wonder why you have to do a study to show it. The easier it is to steal in any given country the less likely the economy will function well there.
You really don't even need a fancy business degree to predict this. One of the Ten Commandments, transmitted so many thousands of years ago, instructs us not to steal.
Yet, basic truths such as this are becoming increasingly lost in our country and this is what should be driving our outrage. That we now live in a country where our private property is no longer safe and the very government that supposedly exists to protect it has become the thief we have to worry about.
President Obama went on Jay Leno's popular Tonight Show and talked about the current crisis. Listening to him, there seems little doubt that everything started on Wall Street. "The problem is ... people were able to take huge, excessive risks with other people's money."
But, Mr. President, half the mortgages in this country are owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which were and are backed up with the money of us taxpayers. An easy flowing mortgage credit market built by politicians, by setting us taxpayers up to guarantee it all, which is what we wound up doing, is what started this whole thing.
The president and Leno bantered about electric cars and, talk about taking risks with other people's money, the president apparently sees no problem tapping into us taxpayers to finance research into these cars. "So, we're going to be investing billions of dollars in research and development around these technologies -- that's what's going to create the auto industry of the future," Obama said.
We've already used taxpayer funds to bail out auto companies. Now we're going to use them to take over their research and development functions.
Given what the International Property Rights Index shows, we might consider that because private property has become as insecure as it has in our country -- that we have really legalized theft -- that this might be what's at the root of our economic chaos.
So, we can have government-issue edicts on what executives are paid at companies that politicians bail out with taxpayer funds. Or maybe we should check if families whose mortgages we bail out are going on vacation or out to dinner.
Or we can re-direct our attention from symptoms to causes. We can recall that the founders of our country intended the role of government to protect our lives and property, not violate them. And that in times when we have respected that proper use of government, our country has prospered.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Card Check: Good for Unions, Bad for America
Card Check: Good for Unions, Bad for America
Michael Barone
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Obama administration's budget is full of proposals that threaten to weaken our staggering economy. Higher taxes on high earners and reduced deductions for their charitable contributions and mortgage interests. A cap-and-trade system that will impose higher costs on everyone who uses electricity. A national health insurance program that will take $600 billion or so out of the private-sector economy.
But the most grievous threat to future prosperity may be off-budget -- the inaptly named Employee Free Choice Act. Also known as card check, the legislation would effectively abolish secret ballots in unionization elections. It provides that once a majority of employees had filled out sign-up cards circulated by union organizers, the employer would have to recognize and bargain with the union. And if the two sides didn't reach agreement in a short term, federal arbitrators would impose one. Wages, fringe benefits and work rules would all be imposed by the federal government.
It's not difficult to see why union leaders want this. Union membership has fallen from more than 30 percent of the private-sector workforce in the 1950s to about 8 percent today. Union leaders would like to see that go up. So would most Democratic politicians, since some portion of union dues -- unions try to conceal how much -- goes directly or indirectly to support Democratic candidates. The unions and the Democrats want to put up a tollgate on as much of the private sector as they can, to extract money from consumers of goods and services.
They have already set up such tollgates on much of the public sector. In the 1950s, very few public-sector workers were union members. Today, nearly half of all union members are public-sector employees. In many states and central cities -- think California and New York City -- public-sector unions channel vast flows of money, all of it originating from taxpayers, to themselves and to Democratic politicians. The unions use that money to promote some public policies that are not obviously in the interests of public-sector employees -- restrictive trade regulations, for example, which appeal to nostalgic union leaders who would like to see millions of unionized autoworkers and steelworkers once again.
In the previous Congress, the unions got the Democratic House to pass the card check proposal and got every Democratic senator not only to vote for it but to co-sponsor it, as well. But the votes of all Democrats plus that of Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter were not enough then to overcome a Senate filibuster. This year, there is little doubt that Speaker Nancy Pelosi could again jam card check through the House. But moderate Democrats from districts where unions are unpopular have gotten her to spare them a vote until and unless the measure gets through the Senate.
There, its prospects are not so good, now that there is no longer a Republican president to veto it. Card check supporters have a list of 15 Democratic senators who have expressed some manner of unease about the issue. Does Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln, up for re-election in 2010, really want to pass a law strongly opposed by her state's biggest business, Wal-Mart, long a target of union organizers? Do Democratic senators from right-to-work states where employees can't be required to join unions want to go along?
As for Specter, union leaders have publicly said they'll support him if he backs card check. His public response has been to hail the importance of the secret ballot and the undesirability of mandatory arbitration.
Politicians can read numbers. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reported last week that 61 percent of Americans think it's fair to require a secret ballot vote if workers want a union. Only 18 percent disagree. Congressional Democrats used to believe that themselves -- in the course of a trade debate in 2001, they urged that Mexico hold secret ballot unionization elections.
Rasmussen also reported an interesting difference between current union members and non-members. Union members by a 47 percent to 18 percent margin thought most workers want to join a labor union. But non-members believe by a 56 percent to 14 percent margin that most workers don't.
Are non-union members deluded? Why don't they want the supposedly higher wages and job protections unions purport to give them? Maybe it's because the adversarial unionism promoted by the Wagner Act of 1935 is out of date. It made some sense when employers used time-and-motion study to speed up assembly lines and squeeze the last quantum of energy out of workers and could lay off workers at will.
But today's employees have unemployment compensation and are protected by various anti-discrimination laws. There is a whole raft of employment law that didn't exist in 1935, and corporate human resources departments are disciplined by that law.
As the Detroit automakers' troubles show, the adversarial work rules insisted on by the United Auto Workers -- a relatively enlightened union in this area -- made them unable to compete in quality or cost with foreign automakers who employ cooperative management techniques and treat their workers as intelligent partners rather than as dumb animals, the way the time-and-motion study managers did in the 1930s.
Card check would give coercive union organizers the chance to impose on large swaths of the private-sector economy the burdens the UAW imposed on the Detroit automakers. It would set up tollgates to channel the money of consumers as well as taxpayers to the Democratic Party. You can see how that would be good for union leaders and Democrats. But good for America?
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Michael Barone
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Obama administration's budget is full of proposals that threaten to weaken our staggering economy. Higher taxes on high earners and reduced deductions for their charitable contributions and mortgage interests. A cap-and-trade system that will impose higher costs on everyone who uses electricity. A national health insurance program that will take $600 billion or so out of the private-sector economy.
But the most grievous threat to future prosperity may be off-budget -- the inaptly named Employee Free Choice Act. Also known as card check, the legislation would effectively abolish secret ballots in unionization elections. It provides that once a majority of employees had filled out sign-up cards circulated by union organizers, the employer would have to recognize and bargain with the union. And if the two sides didn't reach agreement in a short term, federal arbitrators would impose one. Wages, fringe benefits and work rules would all be imposed by the federal government.
It's not difficult to see why union leaders want this. Union membership has fallen from more than 30 percent of the private-sector workforce in the 1950s to about 8 percent today. Union leaders would like to see that go up. So would most Democratic politicians, since some portion of union dues -- unions try to conceal how much -- goes directly or indirectly to support Democratic candidates. The unions and the Democrats want to put up a tollgate on as much of the private sector as they can, to extract money from consumers of goods and services.
They have already set up such tollgates on much of the public sector. In the 1950s, very few public-sector workers were union members. Today, nearly half of all union members are public-sector employees. In many states and central cities -- think California and New York City -- public-sector unions channel vast flows of money, all of it originating from taxpayers, to themselves and to Democratic politicians. The unions use that money to promote some public policies that are not obviously in the interests of public-sector employees -- restrictive trade regulations, for example, which appeal to nostalgic union leaders who would like to see millions of unionized autoworkers and steelworkers once again.
In the previous Congress, the unions got the Democratic House to pass the card check proposal and got every Democratic senator not only to vote for it but to co-sponsor it, as well. But the votes of all Democrats plus that of Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter were not enough then to overcome a Senate filibuster. This year, there is little doubt that Speaker Nancy Pelosi could again jam card check through the House. But moderate Democrats from districts where unions are unpopular have gotten her to spare them a vote until and unless the measure gets through the Senate.
There, its prospects are not so good, now that there is no longer a Republican president to veto it. Card check supporters have a list of 15 Democratic senators who have expressed some manner of unease about the issue. Does Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln, up for re-election in 2010, really want to pass a law strongly opposed by her state's biggest business, Wal-Mart, long a target of union organizers? Do Democratic senators from right-to-work states where employees can't be required to join unions want to go along?
As for Specter, union leaders have publicly said they'll support him if he backs card check. His public response has been to hail the importance of the secret ballot and the undesirability of mandatory arbitration.
Politicians can read numbers. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reported last week that 61 percent of Americans think it's fair to require a secret ballot vote if workers want a union. Only 18 percent disagree. Congressional Democrats used to believe that themselves -- in the course of a trade debate in 2001, they urged that Mexico hold secret ballot unionization elections.
Rasmussen also reported an interesting difference between current union members and non-members. Union members by a 47 percent to 18 percent margin thought most workers want to join a labor union. But non-members believe by a 56 percent to 14 percent margin that most workers don't.
Are non-union members deluded? Why don't they want the supposedly higher wages and job protections unions purport to give them? Maybe it's because the adversarial unionism promoted by the Wagner Act of 1935 is out of date. It made some sense when employers used time-and-motion study to speed up assembly lines and squeeze the last quantum of energy out of workers and could lay off workers at will.
But today's employees have unemployment compensation and are protected by various anti-discrimination laws. There is a whole raft of employment law that didn't exist in 1935, and corporate human resources departments are disciplined by that law.
As the Detroit automakers' troubles show, the adversarial work rules insisted on by the United Auto Workers -- a relatively enlightened union in this area -- made them unable to compete in quality or cost with foreign automakers who employ cooperative management techniques and treat their workers as intelligent partners rather than as dumb animals, the way the time-and-motion study managers did in the 1930s.
Card check would give coercive union organizers the chance to impose on large swaths of the private-sector economy the burdens the UAW imposed on the Detroit automakers. It would set up tollgates to channel the money of consumers as well as taxpayers to the Democratic Party. You can see how that would be good for union leaders and Democrats. But good for America?
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
The Burden of Battle.
This article should help us see how little regard our current administration has for our veterans who have been wounded in battle.
The Burden of Battle
Oliver North
Friday, March 20, 2009
"To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan."
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs claims this is its "mission." The slogan -- extracted from the last paragraph of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address -- is inscribed proudly on metal plaques at the entrance of the VA's headquarters in Washington. The Obama administration made a mockery of this pledge by proposing to charge veterans' private insurance companies for treatment of service-connected injuries, wounds or sickness. Had the White House not rescinded this immoral and unethical proposal, the VA could have been sued for false advertising.
The "O-Team" claimed that charging veterans' private insurers for service-connected medical care would have "saved" $540 million. How they concocted this number is anyone's guess, but the affront offers a window into the kind of "thinking" going on in this administration.
It also started a wildfire among America's vets. Some described the proposal as part of "a conspiracy against our military." Veterans blogs cited administration deliberations on allowing U.S. military personnel to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, talk of allowing practicing homosexuals into the armed forces, and deep cuts in defense spending in the midst of a war as part of a pattern of anti-military bias.
Whether it is malevolence, ideology or incompetence that is driving these strategies, none of this helps recruiting or retaining the brightest and best-educated, -trained, -led and -equipped military force the world ever has seen. Had this ploy worked, the new recruiting pitch to some bright young person about to graduate from high school would have to include this warning: If you are wounded in the service to your country, we're going to make you pay for any medical care you receive after we get you off the battlefield.
On the same day that this "private payer for war wounds" travesty was being discussed at the White House, we also learned that $6.4 million of taxpayer money was given to an AIG executive as a "retention bonus." Apparently, the O-Team's half-baked idea for a military "retention bonus" was to have those wounded in war find private insurers to cover the costs of their service-connected medical care.
The scheme was dead on arrival. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who should have known better than to defend it, was raked over the coals in a House Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing March 10. At a White House meeting Monday, March 16, the O-Team -- with the man himself attending -- tried to jam the idea down the throats of Veterans Service Organizations.
By Tuesday, members of both houses and both parties on Capitol Hill were paying attention as the blogosphere filled with ire from veterans and their families. On Wednesday, House Republicans sent a letter to the White House denouncing the proposal as a breach of faith in "a solemn obligation to our nation's veterans." A few hours later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was applauded for announcing that the O-Team had "made the decision that the combat-wounded veterans should not be billed through their insurance policies for combat-related injuries."
Full disclosure here: I'm relieved because, among other things, I had a personal stake in the outcome.
According to the VA, my service-connected wounds and injuries amount to a 40 percent disability. I receive $541 a month from the VA as "disability compensation." Unlike civilian private-sector or government retirees receiving "disability," my military retired pay is reduced by the same amount.
Like most veterans, I now have a "civilian" job, which pays me a lot more to be shot at than the Marines did. My employer has a private insurance plan in which my wife and I participate. Under existing rules, the VA is required to pay for any medical treatment I receive as a consequence of my service-connected injuries.
The O-Team's proposal unfairly would have made our private insurance company pay for this care, even though neither my present employer nor insurer had anything to do with my being wounded in Vietnam. Like most private insurance policies, ours has a maximum benefit amount, which we could exceed if those old injuries required prolonged care. The prospect of my wife being unable to receive medical treatment because we had "run out of insurance" was too painful to contemplate.
Had the administration's despicable design succeeded, the burden on those wounded in the current war would have been unthinkable. The O-Team rescinded its shameful plot to make veterans pay for combat-related medical treatment, but only because Americans were repulsed by the idea. It remains to be seen whether similar outrage will be provoked by White House plans to burden our children with debt and use the tax code to wage class warfare.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
The Burden of Battle
Oliver North
Friday, March 20, 2009
"To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan."
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs claims this is its "mission." The slogan -- extracted from the last paragraph of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address -- is inscribed proudly on metal plaques at the entrance of the VA's headquarters in Washington. The Obama administration made a mockery of this pledge by proposing to charge veterans' private insurance companies for treatment of service-connected injuries, wounds or sickness. Had the White House not rescinded this immoral and unethical proposal, the VA could have been sued for false advertising.
The "O-Team" claimed that charging veterans' private insurers for service-connected medical care would have "saved" $540 million. How they concocted this number is anyone's guess, but the affront offers a window into the kind of "thinking" going on in this administration.
It also started a wildfire among America's vets. Some described the proposal as part of "a conspiracy against our military." Veterans blogs cited administration deliberations on allowing U.S. military personnel to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, talk of allowing practicing homosexuals into the armed forces, and deep cuts in defense spending in the midst of a war as part of a pattern of anti-military bias.
Whether it is malevolence, ideology or incompetence that is driving these strategies, none of this helps recruiting or retaining the brightest and best-educated, -trained, -led and -equipped military force the world ever has seen. Had this ploy worked, the new recruiting pitch to some bright young person about to graduate from high school would have to include this warning: If you are wounded in the service to your country, we're going to make you pay for any medical care you receive after we get you off the battlefield.
On the same day that this "private payer for war wounds" travesty was being discussed at the White House, we also learned that $6.4 million of taxpayer money was given to an AIG executive as a "retention bonus." Apparently, the O-Team's half-baked idea for a military "retention bonus" was to have those wounded in war find private insurers to cover the costs of their service-connected medical care.
The scheme was dead on arrival. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who should have known better than to defend it, was raked over the coals in a House Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing March 10. At a White House meeting Monday, March 16, the O-Team -- with the man himself attending -- tried to jam the idea down the throats of Veterans Service Organizations.
By Tuesday, members of both houses and both parties on Capitol Hill were paying attention as the blogosphere filled with ire from veterans and their families. On Wednesday, House Republicans sent a letter to the White House denouncing the proposal as a breach of faith in "a solemn obligation to our nation's veterans." A few hours later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was applauded for announcing that the O-Team had "made the decision that the combat-wounded veterans should not be billed through their insurance policies for combat-related injuries."
Full disclosure here: I'm relieved because, among other things, I had a personal stake in the outcome.
According to the VA, my service-connected wounds and injuries amount to a 40 percent disability. I receive $541 a month from the VA as "disability compensation." Unlike civilian private-sector or government retirees receiving "disability," my military retired pay is reduced by the same amount.
Like most veterans, I now have a "civilian" job, which pays me a lot more to be shot at than the Marines did. My employer has a private insurance plan in which my wife and I participate. Under existing rules, the VA is required to pay for any medical treatment I receive as a consequence of my service-connected injuries.
The O-Team's proposal unfairly would have made our private insurance company pay for this care, even though neither my present employer nor insurer had anything to do with my being wounded in Vietnam. Like most private insurance policies, ours has a maximum benefit amount, which we could exceed if those old injuries required prolonged care. The prospect of my wife being unable to receive medical treatment because we had "run out of insurance" was too painful to contemplate.
Had the administration's despicable design succeeded, the burden on those wounded in the current war would have been unthinkable. The O-Team rescinded its shameful plot to make veterans pay for combat-related medical treatment, but only because Americans were repulsed by the idea. It remains to be seen whether similar outrage will be provoked by White House plans to burden our children with debt and use the tax code to wage class warfare.
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