Immigration Protests: An Act of Domestic Terrorism

Immigration Protests: An Act of Domestic Terrorism
Friday, July 30, 2010 Posted by : Katie Pavlich at 12:47 PM

It seems as though illegal immigration advocates will never be satisfied. After Judge Susan Bolton blocked the most controversial parts of SB 1070, essentially taking out all real power from the bill, a group known as "Freedom for Arizona," committed an act of domestic terrorism by spreading out over 15 tires connected by rope and covered in tar, a banner, brown paint and shards of broken glass across I-19 in Arizona, a busy interstate with a 65 mph speed limit covering approximatly 70 miles between Tucson and Nogales. This action not only stopped all traffic flow, but could have killed innocent people in the process.

The goal of the tires, glass and paint was to stop all deportations back to Mexico as well as stopping all capital flow to damage the economy. The banner placed across the interstate read, "Stop All Militarization! The Border is Illegal!"

The group took full responsibility for the closure on their blog, Resistance to SB1070: No Borders, No State No Papers:

Partial justice is no justice at all! Despite Judge ruling to block parts of SB 1070, racial-profiling, raids, deportations and the militarization of the border will continue unchallenged. This is why today we shut down Interstate 19 (I-19).

The group issued a statement on their blog the day before shutting down the freeway exposing their plan and claimed that land in Arizona is indiginous.

The State of Arizona ruthlessly disrupts and terrorizes the lives of non-white communities on a daily basis. SB 1070 is yet another example of how migrants and people of color are criminalized. Today’s action is a declaration of resistance to the criminalization of affected communities and the militarization of indigenous land.

Neither SB 1070 nor the deployment of National Guard troops to the border do anything to address the root causes as to why people migrate. U.S. economic policies and wars have displaced and impoverished millions of people all over the world. Capital-driven policies, such as NAFTA, create poverty. These policies and laws not only consume and exploit land and people, but they also displace us from our homes, forcing us to migrate in order to survive. If policymakers were serious about stopping “illegal immigration,” they would end these capitalist exploitations and stop their military invasions abroad.

We want an end to the militarization of indigenous land, I.C.E. raids, deportations, the attacks on ethnic studies, violence against women and queer people, the expansion of prisons and immigration detention centers, empire, the border wall and the genocide at the Arizona-Sonora border that has claimed the lives of over 153 people during the first 8 months of this fiscal year alone.

Today we interrupt the flow of Arizona’s traffic to bring attention to the following points:

ABOLISH ALL OF SB 1070 AND OTHER ANTI-MIGRANT LAWS.

STOP ALL MILITARIZATION. NO NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS ON INDIGENOUS LAND.

BORDERS AND THE ARIZONA GOVERNMENT ARE ILLEGITIMATE.

NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL—THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM IS TO BLAME.

WE WANT RESPECT AND JUSTICE FOR ALL PEOPLE.

We affirm our dignity and promote the well-being of all people. We stand for solidarity, peace, self-determination and autonomy. We assert the rights of all people everywhere to feel safe and live free of oppression and state violence.

On top of that, according to the Arizona Daily Star, 13 people were arrested in downtown Tucson for blocking local streets. In Phoenix the Arizona Republic has reported at least 50 people were arrested for civil disobediance which included chaining themselves to one of the jails where Sheriff Joe Arpaio operates.

But don't worry, the mainstream media and people with their head in the sand are calling the protests "mostly peaceful." Open border groups and immigration protestors are showing their true colors and proving this fight has nothing to do with SB 1070 and everything to do with these groups not wanting any enforcement of immigration policy whatsoever.

The Tortured Logic of a Liberal

The Tortured Logic of a Liberal

The following is the text of a guest viewpoint published in the Binghamton, NY Press & Sun-Bulletin
By Sid Dunn • July 27, 2010, 12:00 am

The original liberal's text is in italics followed by my rebuttals in plain text.

It is amazing how many pundits continually chide the current president at every single inappropriate opportunity. Among the examples: * The president had the audacity to be playing golf on Father's Day while BP's oil spill spewed in the Gulf. Hm-mm. Now how many days did the former president spend at his ranch in Texas? Bush seemed to spend as much time in Crawford, Texas, as he did at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Mr. Dunn completely and conveniently misses the point. Why was Obama golfing when he should have been concerned more about the oil spill? In fact, why did it take Obama more than two months before he took the spill seriously?

The president has had over one and one-half years to correct the financial crisis he inherited. Hm-mm. Now where and when did this crisis originate and on whose watch was it?

Well, how about the well-intentioned Community Reinvestment Act signed into law by Pres. Carter. Then Pres. Clinton got his hands on it and really screwed the housing market creating the crisis. He ordered banks to write mortgages to people who had no way to repay the loan. This, of course, led to sub-prime mortgages which the home buyers never really understood. They were totally unprepared when their mortgage payments suddenly sky-rocketed beyond their ability to pay. And since the interest was accruing during the “teaser” rate period, they suddenly had whatever equity they had built up simply wiped out. But Clinton couldn't stop there. He also ordered the banks to include unearned income in order to qualify the home buyer. This included welfare benefits, food stamps (it is illegal to use food stamps to pay for anything except food), alimony and child support which are totally unreliable. If the banks didn't comply, they would be severely penalized. Then there's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd kept assuring they were sound despite the fact they facing bankruptcy because of all the bad mortgages they were saddled with.

The president is handling the war in Afghanistan completely wrong. Hm-mm. Now who started this war that virtually no other nation on Earth is committed to?

Ah, Afghanistan. He increased the number of troops beyond what were already there and then crippled the military with his totally irresponsible change to the rules of conduct. Also, the number of American casualties in the short time Obama has been in office skyrocketed way beyond the casualties during Pres. Bush's term. And let's not forget Obama's promise that he would “invade any country at any time with or without the country's permission to hunt down the terrorists.” He is more bellicose that Pres. Bush ever hoped to be. And by the way, NATO still has troops in Afghanistan, not just us. And, yes, he is handling it all wrong. He completely ignored the advice of the ground commander that he himself appointed. Then, rather comically, he replaced Gen. McCrystal with Gen. Petreaus who left called Gen. 'Betray Us' when Pres. Bush was in office.

The president has thrown us into too much debt. Hm-mm. Now when did the bulk of this debt come into existence? Let's see. It took someone eight years to take this country from a surplus to a deficit and now the current administration did it all on its own? Hm-mm.

I'm assuming he's referring to the “alleged” $15 trillion+ surplus at the end of Clinton's term of office. Here's a news flash, bucky, it never existed. That 'surplus' was simply the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO – which has always been mathematically challenged) estimate of the surplus before 9/11, before the housing meltdown (which I have already explained), before Wall Street crashed (thanks to the Democrats). While the economy had started to recover before the end of Pres. Bush's term. Obama maxed out the federal debt and more than tripled it in less than one year. There's an old saying, 'when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging'.

The president is a Socialist with his socialistic health care reform. I wonder what these pundits would have said when the government historically created a program called "social" Security? But of course I must be confused because none of these pundits would ever have or had any use for anything at any time called Social Security, let alone a viable health care system.

It was another socialist president, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who created Social Security and we're still paying for that horrendous mistake. Not to sound like a broken record, but every country that has tried socialized health has failed at it miserably. Sweden, the model of socialism, is now privatizing its health care. Great Britain's health care system is bankrupting the country while patients languish and die due to the lack of proper health care. And why do so many Canadians come here for medical treatment at their own expense?

One more point Mr. Dunn conveniently forgot to mention – unemployment. When Obama took office, the unemployment rate was between 4.5% and 5%. So how did jump all the way to 10% in the short time that Obama has been in office. It has been over 9% for quite a few months already. He promised that the 'stimulus bill' would create 2,000,000 new jobs. Where are they? He also had the audacity to promise that the unemployment rate would never go above 8%?! What's with that? BTW, we're still hemorrhaging jobs thanks to Obama and his pet sycophants.

It is honorable and a constitutional right to be of one political party versus another one. But to condemn and constantly be vitriolic solely because one, in political office, has a different letter after his or her name, be it an R or D, is borderline bigotry.

Good point. Too bad you haven't learned it.

So the next time you hear one of your favorite pundits spinning a tale, like Chicken Little and "the sky is falling, the sky is falling," please try to remember that it is nothing more than a tale. A bedtime story for the bigots and the narrow-minded and for those who believe in the Fox in the Henhouse and drink the Fox Kool-aid and have tea parties. And not too Rush for and to conclusions.

Nope, no bigotry here. (I'm being sarcastic.)

And for those of you who are in the zone and have stoically read through this and consider it nothing more than liberal socialist babble, I am reminded of some of the words of one of Greta and Urban Van Susteren's closest family friend, who often said when his political career was in disarray: " .... I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were known to the secretary of state as being members of the Communist Party ...," according to Haynes Johnson's "The Age of Anxiety."

I'm still trying to figure out where he's going with this one. BTW, Joe McCarthy did prove that the administration was riddled with Communists.

Needless to say, as reality and history finally came to light, the list never existed. Seems like history is repeating itself, once again.

Actually, you're just rewriting history, something liberals love to do.
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To read about how Obama is destroying America, click here.

The New York Times, Billionaire Buffett and the Weeping Abortionist

The New York Times, Billionaire Buffett and the Weeping Abortionist
Ken Blackwell
7-29-10

It can’t be news that the Gray Lady—the unofficial title of the New York Times—is militantly pro-abortion. It might even be called a house organ of the abortion lobby.

But a recent lengthy story in the Times (“The New Abortion Providers,” July 12, 2010) is a goldmine of information for pro-lifers about this execrable traffic.

Did you know that Warren Buffett has given $3 billion—yes, three billion dollars—to promote abortion here in the U.S. and around the world? Often, government officials in developing countries are under pressure to control population in order to qualify for international aid. So they pressure women in the villages to get abortions. Western Europe is especially strong in pushing for abortion in these developing countries.

The Times article quotes Buffett’s late wife telling interviewer Charlie Rose “Warren feels that women all over the world get shortchanged. That’s why he’s so pro-choice.” The article tells us after Susan Thompson Buffett moved from Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco in 1977, she and Warren remained close. She even introduced Warren to the woman he has lived with since 1978. This threesome would send out Christmas cards together, the Times informs us.

Warren Buffett strongly backed Barack Obama. On January 23, 2009, President Obama’s first official act was to open the sluice gates of taxpayer support for abortion worldwide. The U.S. has now joined those exerting pressure on women in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We may be going broke, but Planned Parenthood is still making a killing.

Abortion promotion is a national security crisis for the U.S. Men and women in the Third World get it. They know that by pressing abortion on their countries—as Joe Biden has done recently in Kenya--the Obama administration wants fewer of them. These peoples will become fertile ground for anti-Americanism.

The Times also reports abortionists in this country are “startled by some poll numbers that for the first time, more Americans call themselves pro-life than pro-choice—a shift that includes young people.” The author of the article, a zealous pro-abortion writer named Emily Bazelon, noted that four of seven medical residents in one training program she witnessed chose not to take part in abortion.

All over the world, it seems, abortion traffickers are losing support. Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood center director from Texas, quit and joined the pro-life side. Her story made headlines on FOX News, on cable shows, and on the talk show circuit.

Of course, not all abortionists are affected by these changing currents of opinion. The respected journal First Things carried this stunning item last January:

In stark and sad contrast to the story of Abby Johnson is the story of a doctor in the Midwest who wrote about her own moment of disillusionment. It came as she performed an abortion on a woman eighteen weeks pregnant while she herself was eighteen weeks pregnant. “I felt a kick—a fluttery ‘thump, thump’ in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement. There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a ‘thump, thump’ in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes—without me—meaning my conscious brain—even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling—a brutally visceral response—heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics.” Horrifyingly, for this woman, unlike Abby Johnson, that was not the end of it. Her illusion was gone, but she continued to perform abortions. “Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy,” she said. “In fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder.” First Things has long led in reporting important news about the Culture of Life. From this source, we learn that 78% of abortion facilities are located in or near minority neighborhoods in this country. Is it, therefore, any surprise to learn that Warren Buffett has joined the club of billionaires who pressure black and brown women around the world to kill their unborn children? Planned Parenthood is the favorite charity of many billionaires. The problem Buffett and others of his ilk have is the weeping abortionists. The law that is written on our heart tells us not to kill our own kind. Even if all the people on earth hardened their hearts to those kicks, those fluttery thump-thumps, the very stones would cry out.

Three Leaks: On Warming, The Press, And Afghanistan

Three Leaks: On Warming, The Press, And Afghanistan
Ross Mackenzie
7-29-10

Leaks are having a good year, but today's discussion does not include the leaking underwater gusher at the Gulf of Mexico's Macondo well-site. Rather, the topic is leaked e-mails relating to global warming, the media, and -- most recently -- the war against jihadist terror in Afghanistan.

All three leaks speak of secrecy and power. They reek of adamant leftism. And they brim with collusion.

Remember the leaked e-mails late last year from England's University of East Anglia? They revealed that key players in the global-warming argument, contending carbon-creating man plays the central role in causing it, were secretly manipulating the data -- while simultaneously suppressing countervailing data and views.

There was secrecy and collusion to maintain power in the global-warming debate. Disclosure of the East Anglia e-mails crushed the man's-role argument that long has been a leftist precept -- and killed President Obama's congressional cap-and-trade initiative. The leaked East Anglia e-mails may have capped the global-warming gusher.

THEN CAME the leaked e-mails from JournoList, a cyber circle of about 400 self-styled mainline pressies (yet wacked-out leftists all -- conservatives and moderates were denied entry to the group). And what did they do? They made stuff up and developed distracting, disparaging, or dismissive lines of reasoning -- all to advance the Obama candidacy or the leftist cause.

Jeremiah Wright? Smear conservatives as racists. Sarah Palin -- an attractive, achieving, conservative woman who is liberal feminists' worst nightmare? Smear her as a ditzy bimbo who can't string together two coherent words.

The JournoList e-mails didn't change much. Liberalism long has overwhelmed the press that conceals its extremism behind words such as moderate, objective, and mainline. Today network television news is struggling, and many outlets in the print media -- newspapers, news magazines, and book publishers -- are on life-support. Moderates and conservatives have fled, and practitioners in the remnant are writing and broadcasting for the approval of those who share their views.

Notes Andrew Ferguson in the July/August Commentary about Newsweek's downward spiral, "Journalists who write to satisfy people like themselves soon will run out of readers." Their power will dissipate, as well, and the lifted mask of secrecy in re JournoList suggests -- more than ever -- their crippling collusion.

AS A free-lancer for Rolling Stone -- a leftist magazine that began as a shill for rock bands -- brought down the commander of anti-jihadist forces in Afghanistan, so WikiLeaks may help to do for the rest of the enterprise. Think Daniel Ellsberg and the classified "Pentagon papers" and the help they gave to collapsing the American effort in Vietnam.

The other day on a TV panel, Ellsberg and the Rolling Stone guy (Michael Hastings) said America has no business being in Afghanistan. WikiLeaks' top hombre, Julian Assange, agrees. Blathering on about "war crimes" committed by NATO forces, he posted on the Web 91,000 illegally acquired Pentagon e-mails labeled secret -- and has helped reporters reach all his intended conclusions about them. As Ellsberg wanted U.S. troops out of Vietnam, so Hastings and Assange want them out of Afghanistan. Only then (goes the line) will war crimes committed by American forces stop.

Based in Sweden and hence beyond the easy reach of American law, WikiLeaks long has been a semi-secret operation regarding its methods of information acquisition. But its founders' ideology and intent scarcely can be anything but hostile to the Western (American) military offensive to throttle al-Qaeda and the Taliban -- and to rid the world of jihadist terror. Honk once if the release of classified American military e-mails advances American interests. Honk twice if they aid the enemy.

ALL THIS is huge. Leaked East Anglia e-mails demonstrating intellectual fraud in the case for global warming as man-caused. Leaked JournoList e-mails showing collusion among "mainline" pressies and leftists with partisan axes to grind. And 91,000 leaked U.S. military classified e-mails made public clearly to complicate -- no, to end -- the U.S. war against jihad.

The Obama administration has reacted angrily to the leaking of the classified e-mails. Yet is that anger genuine? Will it last? Keep in mind that this is an administration led by a peacenik who, as a candidate, suggested we should leave Iraq and bomb not Afghanistan but Pakistan. That candidate, now president, publicly agonized last fall over whether to fight on in Afghanistan -- indeed whether victory is possible. He answered commendably yes on both counts. Still, he remains a president reluctant to link terror to radical Islam, or to employ -- or sanction within his administration -- use of the term jihad.

Will the WikiLeaked e-mails now fuel doubts among the public about the American role in Afghanistan -- and so wobble the knees of the president? That was the intent of Daniel Ellsberg, a patron saint of the leftist breed into which Barack Obama was born and raised -- and currently leads.
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To read another article by Ross MacKenzie, click here.

Only in Washington Is This Transparency

Only in Washington Is This Transparency
Debra J. Saunders
7-29-10

Only in Washington Is This Transparency

The Senate Democrats' "DISCLOSE" Act -- "DISCLOSE" stands for "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections" -- represents perhaps the baldest, if failed, power grab attempted this year. But you wouldn't guess it reading news stories on the bill.

As The New York Times reported, "The Senate on Tuesday refused to take up a bill that would require more disclosure of the role of corporations, unions and other special interests in bankrolling political advertisements, after Democrats failed to persuade even one Republican to support it."

The Washington Post began, "Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked legislation requiring fuller disclosure of the money behind political advertising, derailing a major White House initiative and virtually ensuring an onslaught of attack ads during this year's midterm election season."

So ... it's the Republicans' fault if there are attack ads in November?

The leads to these stories have one thing right. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., failed to garner a single Republican supporter and hence failed to reach the 60-vote mark needed to bring it to a floor vote. Thus, it died with 57 votes in favor and 41 against.

But don't let the first paragraphs fool you. The bill isn't simply a spending disclosure reform; the DISCLOSE Act also would bar "electioneering communications" by corporations that have government contracts worth more than $10 million, received TARP funds or are controlled by foreign entities. So it's not simply about disclosure; it's also about suppressing free speech.

You also would not know that while proponents frame the bill as a response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 Citizens United ruling, which lifted restrictions on independent political advertising by labor and corporations, the House version of the bill imposed restrictions on the above corporations -- with no parallel restrictions on labor.

On the disclosure front, Schumer made a nod toward fairness. Unlike the House bill, Schumer's measure would require that union heads, like CEOs, disclose contributions to political ads or mailers. Hence his claim that the bill promotes transparency. Quoth Schumer, "All we're saying is that if you attack us, put your name on the ad."

Facing the same spotlight that Schumer would shine on corporations, the AFL-CIO now "reluctantly" opposes the bill.

Other special interests fared better. Both the House and Senate bills exempted powerful special-interest groups, including the National Rifle Association and Sierra Club, from their disclosure rules.

Perhaps the most naked provision in the bills was language that would have made the DISCLOSE Act federal law within 30 days of President Obama's promised signature. Clearly, the Dems were trying to skew the rules before the November elections.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, hit it when she said, "We have not had hearings, no vetting, no attempt, I think, to bring people together to work on an issue that responds to the Supreme Court's decision."

The Democrats tried to sneak this so-called reform onto the books like a midnight pay raise.

National Health Service: It's Coming to America

National Health Service: It's Coming to America
Cal Thomas
7-29-10

PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told a group of liberal activists meeting in Las Vegas they shouldn't worry about not getting the single-payer provision in the new health care law. "We're going to have a public option," Reid said. "It's just a question of when."

Remember the objections conservatives and many Republicans raised during the debate about government-run health care and the danger of eliminating private health insurance, despite its many flaws? Recall that Britain's National Health Service (NHS) was frequently cited as an example of where the U.S. health system might be headed: coverage for all, but with lower quality, long waits for major surgery and denial of care when the government decides the procedure is not "cost effective".

Anyone who believes a U.S. health care system based on the NHS model can somehow fare better than Britain's had better consider this recent headline and story from London's Sunday Telegraph: "Axe Falls on NHS Services; Hip operations, cataract surgery and IVF rationed; Cancer care, maternity, pediatric services at risk."

Rationing? Oh yes, and it is something the unconfirmed, recess-appointed U.S. health care czar, Donald Berwick, strongly favors.

British government leaders had promised to protect frontline services. The Obama administration also made similar promises in order to win enough support from members of Congress, most of whom never read the bill before they voted for it.

Here's what America can look forward to if it follows the NHS model, according to an investigation by the Sunday Telegraph: "Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends." Never has "take two aspirin and call me in the morning" sounded more callous.

Nursing homes for the elderly would be closed, the number of hospital beds for the mentally ill reduced and general practitioners would be discouraged from sending patients to hospitals. Accident and emergency department services would also be cut.

Thousands of jobs would be lost at NHS hospitals, reports the Telegraph, "including 500 staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff shortages." Katherine Murphy of the Patients Association called the cuts "astonishingly brutal." She expressed particular concern at attempts to ration (that word again) hip and knee operations. "These are not unusual procedures," she said. "This is a really blatant attempt to save money by leaving people in pain."

What do politicians care about that? In Britain, as in America, top officials (including Berwick who has lifetime health coverage given to him by the Institute for Health Care Improvement) will always have access to the best care, even while they decide the rest of us cannot.

This paragraph in the Telegraph story should send chills down the spine of every American: "Doctors across the country have already been told that their patients can have the operations only if they are given 'prior approval' by the Primary Care Trust, with each authorization made on a 'case by case' basis."

When cost, rather than the value of life becomes supreme, rationing will inevitably lead to other cost-cutting policies. And yes, despite protestations from those who favored Obamacare that "death panels" would not be part of the equation, you can count on them. They will, of course, be called something else. We wouldn't want to disturb any remaining moral sensibilities we might have.

It has taken the NHS 62 years to get to this point. America's journey should be a lot shorter given the declared goals of Harry Reid and Donald Berwick.

It is more than ironic that this is taking place in the year when Britain is observing the centenary of the revered nurse Florence Nightingale. Given the prevailing attitude toward the value of human life and its care, her replacement might be the likes of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Hemlock, anyone?

Liberals? Progressives? Just Call Them Control Freaks

Liberals? Progressives? Just Call Them Control Freaks
Terry Jeffrey
7-28-10

Liberals have been looking for a new name, most likely driven by the uncharacteristically sensible realization that most Americans reject their big-government philosophy.

When the Gallup poll asked Americans last year whether they considered themselves conservative, moderate or liberal, only 21 percent said they were liberal, while 40 percent said they were conservative.

Nor was this plurality of the right confined to red states. Self-professed conservatives outnumbered self-professed liberals in every state of the Union -- from Massachusetts to Hawaii.

In the face of this, some advocates of big government now call themselves progressives -- without specifying exactly where it is they want America to progress.

When that question is answered accurately, a better new name for liberals suggests itself: Control Freaks.

My new book, "Control Freaks: 7 Ways Liberals Plan to Ruin Your Life," looks at various aspects of American life and asks a simple question: Who is in control? The individual or the government?

Where liberals have already had their way, government is in control. Where liberals are still moving to advance their agenda, their success would mean an increase in government intrusion into the lives of individuals.

As they attempt to move the country on a trajectory toward greater government control of our lives, liberals are also pushing the country away from two great constants consistently advocated by the Founding Fathers: the principles of limited government chartered in the Constitution and the natural moral law enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

President Barack Obama played perhaps the perfect role of the Control Freak last year when he issued an executive order directing that federal tax dollars be used to fund stem cell research that kills human embryos. Under Obama's program, the government will take money from Americans who profoundly -- and correctly -- object to the deliberate killing of any innocent human being because it is a violation of the inalienable God-given right to life and gives that money to scientists who will use it to assume God-like authority over the lives of others, reducing them to mere instruments of their research.

The federally funded embryonic stem cell researcher takes absolute government-approved control of the embryo surrendered to his custody. The only difference between that embryonic human being and the human beings reading this column is age. And the only reason a government that uses tax dollars to kill human embryos would not use tax dollars to kill human grandmothers and grandfathers is if the people running the government concede there is a moment in time between when a human is an embryo and when a human is a grandparent that they attain human rights the government has a duty to protect.

When exactly that happens, however, is not something President Obama cares to specify. During the 2008 campaign, Pastor Rick Warren asked Obama, "At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?"

"Well, you know," said Obama, "I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade."

Since then, Obama's pay grade has jumped from a senator's salary of $174,000 per year to the president's salary of $400,000 per year -- but he still apparently does not know when humans get human rights.

American embryos not killed in government-funded research or in legal abortions that Control Freaks justify on the basis of "freedom of choice" can look forward to being forced by the health care law Obama signed in March to buy a federally approved health insurance plan where the benefits they receive will be determined by federal bureaucrats -- all of whom, presumably, will have achieved the proper pay grade to make such decisions.

The greatest fiscal danger the nation faces as a result of the Control Freak's agenda is the coming crisis of the welfare state. According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's analysis of Treasury Department figures, the federal government now faces $61.9 trillion in unfunded liabilities. That astounding number is comprised of the federal debt plus the cost of entitlements -- such as Medicare and Social Security benefits -- promised to people now alive that is not covered by the revenue the current tax structure is expected to yield.

This $61.9 trillion in unfunded liabilities, by the way, equals $200,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States -- not counting embryos.

Where is the government going to find that kind of cash? The Control Freaks know where to look for it: Wherever you put your money.
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To read another article by Terry Jeffrey, click here.

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Keith Olbermann?

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Keith Olbermann?
Ann Coulter
7-28-10

While engaging in astonishing viciousness, vulgarity and violence toward Republicans, liberals accuse cheerful, law-abiding Tea Party activists of being violent racists.

Responding to these vile charges, conservative television pundits think it's a great comeback to say: "There is the fringe on both sides."

Both sides? Really? How about: "That's a despicable lie"? Did that occur to you simpering morons as a possible reply to the slanderous claim that conservatives are fiery racists?

All the accusations of "racism" at anti-Obama rallies so far have turned out to be completely false. The most notorious was the allegation that one black congressman was spat on and another called the N-word 15 times at an anti-ObamaCare rally on Capitol Hill last March.

The particularly sensitive Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., perhaps walking too closely to a protester chanting "Kill the Bill," was hit with some spittle -- and briefly thought he was a Freedom Rider! When observers contested Cleaver's account -- with massive video evidence -- he walked back his claim of being spat upon.

The slanderous claim that a protester called the civil rights hero John Lewis the N-word 15 times was an outrageous lie -- never made by Lewis himself -- but promoted endlessly by teary-eyed reporters, most of whom cannot count to 15.

The media never retracted it, even after the N-word allegation was proved false with a still-uncollected $100,000 reward for two seconds of video proof taken from a protest crawling with video cameras and reporters hungry for an act of racism.

When St. Louis Tea Party co-founder Dana Loesch did make the point on CNN that no one spat on any black congressmen at the anti-ObamaCare rally, a liberal on the panel, Nancy Giles, told her to "shut your mouth," while alleged "comedian" Stephanie Miller repeatedly called Tea Party activists "tea baggers."

It's like watching Hitler hysterically denounce Poland for being mean to Nazi Germany while Polish TV commentators defend Poland by saying, "There are mistakes on both sides."

Meanwhile, we do have video proof of the New Black Panthers standing outside a polling station in Philadelphia in 2008 with billy clubs threatening white voters who tried to vote. And there is video footage of Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice as well as a slew of conservative college speakers being assaulted by crazed liberals.

We also have evidence of liberals' proclivity for violence in the form of mountains of arrest records. Liberal protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention were arrested for smashing police cars, slashing tires, breaking store windows, and for possessing Molotov cocktails, napalm bombs and assorted firearms. (If only they could muster up that kind of fighting spirit on foreign battlefields.)

There were no arrests of conservatives at the Democratic National Convention.

Over the past couple of election cycles, Bush and McCain election headquarters around the country have been repeatedly vandalized, ransacked, burglarized and shot at (by staunch gun-control advocates, no doubt); Bush and McCain campaign signs have been torched; and Republican campaign volunteers have been physically attacked.

It was a good day when George Bush was merely burned in effigy, compared to Hitler or, most innocuously, compared to a monkey.

In the fall of 2008, Obama supporters Mace'd elderly volunteers in a McCain campaign office in Galax, Va. In separate attacks, a half-dozen liberals threw Molotov cocktails at McCain signs on families' front yards in and around Portland, Ore. One Obama supporter broke a McCain sign being held by a small middle-aged woman in midtown Manhattan before hitting her in the face with the stick. These are just a few acts of violence from the left too numerous to catalog.

There were arrests in all these cases. There was, however, absolutely no national coverage of the attacks by Obama supporters.

Obama is in danger from the Tea Partiers! The Poles are mobilizing on the border!

Since Obama became president, the only recorded violence at Tea Parties or Town Halls has been committed by liberals. Last fall, a conservative had his finger bitten off by a man from a MoveOn.org crowd in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Two Service Employees International Union thugs have been charged with beating up an African-American selling anti-Obama bumper stickers at a St. Louis Tea Party in August 2009.

Respected elder statesmen of the Democratic Party have referred to Obama's "Negro dialect" (Harry Reid), said he would be getting them coffee a few years ago (Bill Clinton), and called him "clean" (Joe Biden). And that's not including the former Ku Klux Klan Democratic senator, the late Bob Byrd.

So I'm thinking that maybe when conservatives are called racists on TV, instead of saying, "There are fringe elements on both sides," conservative commentators might want to think about saying, "That is a complete lie."

Liberals explode in rage when we accuse them of being unpatriotic based on 50 years of treasonous behavior. They have zero examples of conservative racism, but the best our spokesmen can think to say when accused of racism is: "Man is imperfect."

Conservatives who prefer to come across on TV as wonderfully moderate than to speak the truth should find another line of work and stop defaming conservatives with their "both sides" pabulum.

I hear BP is looking for a new spokesman.
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To read another article by Ann Coulter, click here.

How Smart Are We?

How Smart Are We?
Thomas Sowell
7-27-10

Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time-- and with the same disastrous results.

One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take their own course. It sounds so logical and plausible that demanding hard evidence would seem almost like nit-picking.

In one form or another, this idea goes back at least as far as the French Revolution in the 18th century. As J.A. Schumpeter later wrote of that era, "general well-being ought to have been the consequence," but "instead we find misery, shame and, at the end of it all, a stream of blood."

The same could be said of the Bolshevik Revolution and other revolutions of the 20th century.

The idea that the wise and knowledgeable few need to take control of the less wise and less knowledgeable many has taken milder forms-- and repeatedly with bad results as well.

One of the most easily documented examples has been economic central planning, which was tried in countries around the world at various times during the 20th century, among people of differing races and cultures, and under government ranging from democracies to dictatorships.

The people who ran central planning agencies usually had more advanced education than the population at large, and probably higher IQs as well.

The central planners also had far more statistics and other facts at their disposal than the average person had. Moreover, there were usually specialized experts such as economists and statisticians on the staffs of the central planners, and outside consultants were available when needed. Finally, the central planners had the power of government behind them, to enforce the plans they created.

It is hardly surprising that conservatives, such as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Britain and President Ronald Reagan in the United States, opposed this approach. What is remarkable is that, after a few decades of experience with central planning in some countries, or a few generations in others, even communists and socialists began to repudiate this approach.

As they replaced central planning with more reliance on markets, their countries' economic growth rate almost invariably increased, often dramatically. In the largest and most recent examples-- China and India-- people by the millions have risen above these countries' official poverty rates, after they freed their economies from many of their suffocating government controls.

China, where famines have repeatedly ravaged the country, now has a problem of obesity-- not a good thing in itself, but a big improvement over famines.

This has implications far beyond economics. Think about it: How was it even possible that transferring decisions from elites with more education, intellect, data and power to ordinary people could lead consistently to demonstrably better results?

One implication is that no one is smart enough to carry out social engineering, whether in the economy or in other areas where the results may not always be so easily quantifiable. We learn, not from our initial brilliance, but from trial and error adjustments to events as they unfold.

Science tells us that the human brain reaches its maximum potential in early adulthood. Why then are young adults so seldom capable of doing what people with more years of experience can do?

Because experience trumps brilliance.

Elites may have more brilliance, but those who make decisions for society as a whole cannot possibly have as much experience as the millions of people whose decisions they preempt. The education and intellects of the elites may lead them to have more sweeping presumptions, but that just makes them more dangerous to the freedom, as well as the well-being, of the people as a whole.
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To read another article by Thomas Sowell, click here.

JournoList Erodes Media Prestige

JournoList Erodes Media Prestige
Brent Bozell
7-28-10

Tucker Carlson's website, the Daily Caller, has unearthed a treasure trove of liberal journalists talking (nastily) to themselves in a private e-mail list about how they should use their media power to remake the world in their image.

The funniest thing about this expose of JournoList was witnessing journalists say it was unfair to leak these e-mails when reporters had an "expectation of privacy." More than 90,000 pages of secret documents on Afghanistan have been leaked and journalists are tripping over one another in a mad stampede to cover the story. Everyone should laugh heartily at leak-devouring journalists getting a fistful of their own bitter pills.

The saddest thing about all this is the confirmation (as if it were necessary) that liberal journalists really aren't journalists first. They're political strategists. They pretend to be the Hollywood version of Woodward and Bernstein, the brave sleuths digging out government malfeasance and corruption. But in reality, they're the Woodward and Bernstein who plotted how to get Richard Nixon impeached and ready the way for pacifist and socialist "Watergate babies" like Chris Dodd and Henry Waxman to take seats of power. Ethics are only relevant if they're a weapon.

Jonathan Strong's first installment for the Daily Caller proved that with a wallop. Take former New York magazine political writer Michael Tomasky's plea to "kill ABC" for talking about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright: "Listen folks -- in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn't about defending Obama. This is about how the (mainstream media) kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people."

Liberal journalists in this crowd favor only discourse that "serves the people" -- meaning, a "debate" that advances the ball for socialism. Any other uncooperative or unhelpful line of journalism, questioning, discussion, balance or objectivity is "idiocy" that should be "killed." At its heart, liberal bias isn't just about slanting the news against conservatives; it's about slanting the news to discredit and then ignore conservatives until they sit grumpily on the ash heap of history. If that includes censorship, like yanking the journalist credentials of Fox News, some on the JournoList eagerly have encouraged it.

The "mainstream" (ha!) media's first bucket of water on the Daily Caller's fire was to claim that the participants on the JournoList weren't primarily "objective" media types. It was heavily salted with The Nation, Mother Jones, The American Prospect and obscure magazines like Government Executive. But the rebuttal is obvious. The list's creator, Ezra Klein, rose from The American Prospect to being the 25-year-old blogging boy wonder of the Washington Post, whose opinions pop up all over the paper. It's not at all uncommon for "mainstream" journalists to be groomed at liberal opinion rags. Think of JournoList as part of a finishing school for "objective" journalists, and you can see where conservatives never trust the national media elite.

The second liberal self-defense of JournoList was that Klein claimed there was no plan for partisan "message coordination." But the Daily Caller showed how no one on the list was really paying attention to that alleged plan. After Sarah Palin was picked for the GOP ticket in 2008, Suzanne Nossel of Human Rights Watch insisted, "I think it is and can be spun as a profoundly sexist pick. Women should feel umbrage at the idea that their votes can be attracted just by putting a woman, any woman, on the ticket no matter her qualifications or views."

Jonathan Stein of Mother Jones insisted the entire left should spread that spin: "That's excellent! If enough people -- people on this list? -- write that the pick is sexist, you'll have the networks debating it for days. And that negates the SINGLE thing Palin brings to the ticket," he wrote. No message coordination there.

Some of the exposed journalists have defended themselves by saying they never put their vicious messages in the media mainstream. Others suggested they were just as earnestly biased in public as they were in private. Anyone paying attention to the media during the 2008 campaign clearly didn't need the JournoList ravings to realize the media immediately despised Palin and hailed Barack Obama as the glowing receptacle of liberal hopes, dreams and fairy tales.

But these leaked messages are serious business. What they prove is that the "mainstream" media today are often just a shameless channel for leftist message coordination, and that anyone who assumes he's simply getting the "news" from the national media is a very callow and uninformed consumer.

What's most shocking is the silence. How many in the "mainstream" press are publicly denouncing those members of JournoList for their blatant disregard of journalistic ethics? Listen to the crickets.

Court Upholds Expulsion of Counseling Student Who Opposes Homosexuality

Court Upholds Expulsion of Counseling Student Who Opposes Homosexuality
By Todd Starnes

Published July 28, 2010
FoxNews.com

Courtesy of Alliance Defense Fund

A federal judge ruled schools can expel students, like Julea Ward, who believe homosexuality is morally wrong. Ward's lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University was dismissed.

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a public university that removed a Christian student from its graduate program in school counseling over her belief that homosexuality is morally wrong. Monday's ruling, according to Julea Ward's attorneys, could result in Christian students across the country being expelled from public university for similar views.

“It’s a very dangerous precedent,” Jeremy Tedesco, legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, told FOX News Radio. “The ruling doesn’t say that explicitly, but that’s what is going to happen.”

U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Ward’s lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University. She was removed from the school’s counseling program last year because she refused to counsel homosexual clients.

The university contended she violated school policy and the American Counseling Association code of ethics.

“Christian students shouldn’t be expelled for holding to and abiding by their beliefs,” said ADF senior counsel David French. “To reach its decision, the court had to do something that’s never been done in federal court: uphold an extremely broad and vague university speech code.”

Eastern Michigan University hailed the decision.

“We are pleased that the court has upheld our position in this matter,” EMU spokesman Walter Kraft said in a written statement. “Julea Ward was not discriminated against because of her religion. To the contrary, Eastern Michigan is deeply committed to the education of our students and welcomes individuals from diverse backgrounds into our community.”

In his 48-page opinion, Judge Steeh said the university had a rational basis for adopting the ACA Code of Ethics.

“Furthermore, the university had a rational basis for requiring students to counsel clients without imposing their personal values,” he wrote in a portion of his ruling posted by The Detroit News. “In the case of Ms. Ward, the university determined that she would never change her behavior and would consistently refuse to counsel clients on matters with which she was personally opposed due to her religious beliefs – including homosexual relationships.”

Ward’s attorneys claim the university told her she would only be allowed to remain in the program if she went through a “remediation” program so that she could “see the error of her ways” and change her belief system about homosexuality.

The case is similar to a lawsuit the ADF filed against Augusta State University in Georgia. Counseling student Jennifer Keeton was allegedly told to stop sharing her Christian beliefs in order to graduate.

Keeton's lawsuit alleged that she was told to undergo a reeducation program and attend “diversity sensitivity training.”

University officials declined to comment on specifics of the lawsuit but released a statement to FOX News that said Augusta State does not discriminate on the basis of students’ moral, religious, political or personal beliefs.

Tedesco said both cases should be a warning to Christians attending public colleges and universities.

“Public universities are imposing the ideological stances of private groups on their students,” he said. “If you don’t comply, you will be kicked out. It’s scary stuff and it’s not a difficult thing to see what’s coming down the pike.”

The Alliance Defense Fund told FOX News it will appeal the ruling.
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More articles on gay's - click here.

More Unaccountable Obama Czars

More Unaccountable Obama Czars
Phyllis Schlafly
7-27-10

Barack Obama has appointed another czar from Chicago: the new Food Czar Sam Kass. Officially, he is labeled senior policy adviser for healthy food initiatives, but he's joining the list of more than 35 czars given broad and unaccountable power over our lives, habits and spending.

Everybody laughed when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) asked Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan if it would be constitutional for Congress to order Americans "to eat three vegetables and three fruits every day." Kagan declined to give a straightforward answer, maybe because she knew that exactly that type of dictatorial mandate was coming soon -- in both Obamacare and a ukase issued by the new Food Czar.

Far scarier is Obama's appointment of his new Health Czar, Donald Berwick, to be the top administrator over Medicare and Medicaid. This is the most shocking of all Obama's appointments because of the life-and-death powers he will exercise, the huge sums of taxpayers' money he will direct, and the dishonest way Obama evaded the Senate's constitutional right to interrogate and reject him.

Obama told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to redistribute the wealth. We didn't realize what else Obama planned to redistribute.

Czar Berwick is on record as saying, "Excellent health care is by definition redistributional." He used this favorite Obama term in the context of praising Britain's socialized medicine system as "a global treasure" and "I love it."

Coincidentally with the announcement of Berwick's appointment, Britain's major newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph, uncovered widespread cuts in British health care that were adopted in secret and buried in obscure appendices and lengthy policy documents. These include restrictions on common operations, such as hip and knee replacements and cataract surgery, the closure of many nursing homes for the elderly, and a reduction in hospital beds and staff.

Berwick admits that redistributing health care means rationing health care, which is why he has been called a one-man Death Panel. Last year he admitted in an interview, "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care -- the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

Note the imperial "we." That's the way czars talk.

Like a typical arrogant totalitarian socialist, Berwick assumes that smart bureaucrats should make life-and-death decisions and spend the money belonging to those they disdain as dumb, ordinary citizens. Berwick said, "I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do."

Berwick even promises that he will train young doctors and nurses to understand "the risks of too great an emphasis on individual autonomy." To eliminate individual health care choices, Berwick's bureaucracy will have a budget that is larger than the Defense Department and is 4 percent of our GDP.

Berwick's paper trail of "baggage" is why Obama gave him a recess appointment. He wanted to avoid the Senate's advice-and-consent power altogether and keep Berwick's damaging statements out of the news.

The term czar has come to mean a presidential crony appointee who was never vetted by the Senate and who exercises sweeping regulatory authority without congressional oversight. But let's not lose sight of the vastly increased regulations issued by established agencies.

Obamacare's 2,000-plus pages created about 160 new agencies and boards with regulatory power. The Department of Health and Human Services just published 864 pages of regulations to govern electronic medical records.

President Obama just signed the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. Its implementation will require at least 243 new regulations by 11 federal agencies, several of which do not yet exist.

Obama's Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, brags that under his leadership, the Department of Energy (DOE) has "accelerated the pace" of regulation and "placed new resources and emphasis behind the enforcement" of new regulations which "increase the stringency" of "minimum conservation standards" for all sorts of home appliances. Look out! The energy police are invading our homes.

In April, DOE issued a new rule that gas fireplace logs cannot use more than 9,000 BTUs per hour, which is about one-tenth of what current gas logs require. This new rule will wipe out the gas fireplace industry, and the gas log in my home would become illegal.

In May, DOE effectively banned showerheads with multiple nozzles by ruling that all nozzles combined will be permitted to deliver no more than an anemic 2.5 gallons per minute. This rule will destroy upscale showers and handheld sprays used by the disabled and elderly, like the one I use.

Obama wasn't kidding when he promised to "fundamentally transform the United States." He has figured out how to bypass Congress and rule us by czars and a tsunami of regulations.

Why are we discussing racism?

Why are we discussing racism?
Star Parker
7-28-10

Can anyone tell me why suddenly race is the hot topic of national discourse?

According to Gallup polling of last week, the issues most on the minds of Americans are the economy and jobs followed by dissatisfaction with all aspects of government.

I didn’t notice racism on the list anywhere.

The NAACP says it was “snookered” by Fox News on the Shirley Sherrod story.

I say we’ve all been snookered by the NAACP.

The NAACP has shown that those who have written this organization off as irrelevant are wrong. It demonstrated this past week that if it so chooses it can dominate the national discussion with its racial agenda, regardless of what the real pressing issues of national concern may be.

The accusation about Tea Party racism is ridiculous. But even if you don’t think it’s ridiculous, is this the discussion we need to be having when national unemployment hovers at ten percent, and when black unemployment is closer to 15%, double that of whites?

Now, of course, we should be talking about racism if this is what is driving black unemployment. But is it?

I don’t think so. Nor do most blacks.

In January of this year, well into our recession, and well into the emergence of the Tea Party movement, the Pew Research Center surveyed black attitudes.

In answer to the question, “When blacks don’t make progress, who or what is to blame?”, 52% of blacks responded that “blacks” themselves are “mostly responsible”, and 34% said “racism.” This is the reverse of how blacks responded to this question just 15 years ago, when 56% said that racism was the impediment to black progress.

In the same survey, blacks responded almost identically as whites to the question of whether success in life is “determined by forces beyond one’s control” or whether “everyone has the power to succeed.”

Seventy seven percent of blacks and 82% of whites said that “everyone has the power to succeed” and 16% of blacks and 12% whites said success is “determined by forces beyond one’s control.”

And when blacks were asked in this same survey about the main problems facing black families, the response was overwhelmingly exactly the same as the general result of the Gallup poll of last week. Jobs.

So, Americans of all colors today generally feel responsible for their own lives and the main concern of most is the sick state of our economy.

So let’s have that discussion.

Clearly, there are differences of opinion about how to light a fire under this economy and the role of government. Some think government is the answer. Some think it’s the problem.

But this is a difference of opinion about how the world works. Why are we talking about racism?

Racism is about people being persecuted and endangered because of their color. It’s about not be treated equally under the law or denied access to public facilities or work because of one’s color.

Fortunately, those ugly days are behind us. And aside from the political and legal truths that verify this, black attitudes themselves, as the Pew data bears out, support it. And, if we need further verification, sitting in the White House is a black man who is there with the help of 43% of the votes of white Americans.

Talk about racism may help employment for those in the race business. But it has little relevance to getting the American economy working again, which is what we should be single mindedly focused on.

And allowing race to become the focus of public discourse shuts out the very message that blacks need to hear. That they are disproportionately hurt by a recession being prolonged by excessive government growth and interference.
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To read another article by Star Parker, click here.

The Left Hates Conservatives

The Left Hates Conservatives
Dennis Prager
7-27-10

Perhaps the most telling of the recent revelations of the liberal/left Journolist, a list consisting of about 400 major liberal/left journalists, is the depth of their hatred of conservatives. That they would consult with one another in order to protect candidate and then President Obama and in order to hurt Republicans is unfortunate and ugly. But what is jolting is the hatred of conservatives, as exemplified by the e-mail from an NPR reporter expressing her wish to personally see Rush Limbaugh die a painful death -- and the apparent absence of any objection from the other liberal journalists.

Every one of us on the right has seen this hatred. I am not referring to leftist bloggers or to anonymous extreme comments by angry leftists on conservative blogs -- such things exist on the right as well -- but to mainstream elite liberal journalists. There is simply nothing analogous among elite conservative journalists. Yes, nearly all conservatives believe that the left is leading America to ruin. But while there is plenty of conservative anger over this fact, there is little or nothing on the right to match the left's hatred of conservative individuals. Would mainstream conservative journalists e-mail one another wishes to be present while Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or Michael Moore dies slowly and painfully of a heart attack?

From Karl Marx to today, the Left has always hated people on the Right, not merely differed or been angry with them.

The question is: why?

Here are three possible answers.

First, the left thinks the right is evil.

Granting for exceptions that all generalizations allow for, conservatives believe that those on the left are wrong, while those on the left believe that those on the right are bad, not merely wrong. Examples are innumerable. For example, Howard Dean, the former head of the Democratic Party said, "In contradistinction to the Republicans ... (Democrats) don't believe kids ought to go to bed hungry at night."

Or take Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., who, among many similar comments, said, "I want to say a few words about what it means to be a Democrat. It's very simple: We have a conscience."

Has any spokesman of the Republican Party ever said anything analogous about Democrats not caring about the suffering of children or not having a conscience?

Second, when you don't confront real evil, you hate those who do.

You can see this on almost any school playground. The kid who confronts the school bully is often resented more than the bully. Whether out of guilt over their own cowardice or fear that the one who confronted the bully would provoke the bully to lash out more, those who refuse to confront the bully often resent the one who does. During the 1980s, the left expressed far more hatred of Ronald Reagan than of Soviet Communist dictator Leonid Brezhnev. And, when Reagan labeled the Soviet Union an "evil empire," the liberal world was enraged ... at Reagan.

Those (usually on the left) who refused to confront communism hated those (usually on the right) who did. They called the latter "war mongers," "cold warriors," charged them with having "missile envy" and with loving war.

Today, the left has similar contempt for those who take a hard line on Islamic terror. The liberal and leftist media routinely place quote marks around the words War on Terror. To the left, such a war is manufactured by rightists for nefarious reasons (oil, self-enrichment, imperialism, etc.). Indeed, the Obama administration has actually forbidden use of the term "Islamic terror." America is at war with a nameless enemy. The real enemies the Democratic administration is prepared to name are the Republican Party, tea parties, Fox News and talk radio.

Third, the left's utopian vision is prevented only by the right.

From its inception, leftism has been a secular utopian religion. As Ted Kennedy, famously quoting his brother Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Some (people) see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?" That exemplifies leftwing idealism -- imagining a utopian future. There will be no poor, no war, no conflict, no inequality. That future is only a few more government programs away from reality. And who stands in the way of such perfection? Conservatives. How could a utopian not hate a conservative?

To put in another way, the famous '60s left-wing motto "Make love, not war" embodies the problem as the left sees it: The left makes love in the world and the right makes war in the world. How could you not hate the right? The right, with its beliefs in a strong military; in individuals, not the state; taking care of themselves, their families and their neighbors; and in punishing criminals, is the anti-Love, a figure as reviled on the left as the antichrist is to Christians.

This hatred will only increase if the left feels its programs to greatly increase the size of the government are in any way threatened in the forthcoming elections. The problem is that this hatred does not decrease even when the left is in power.

Hatred of conservatives is so much part of the left that the day the left stops hating conservatives will mark the beginning of the end of the left as we know it.

Cry Racism! and Let Slip the Dogs of Politics

Cry Racism! and Let Slip the Dogs of Politics
Tony Blankley
7-28-10

In the last fortnight: 1) The NAACP called the tea party racists; 2) Andrew Breitbart called the NAACP racist; 3) Shirley Sherrod called Republican opponents of Obamacare racists; 4) Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack called Shirley Sherrod racist; 5) many in mainstream media called Andrew Breitbart racist; 6) Howard Dean called Fox racist; and, 7) it was revealed that liberal journalist Spencer Ackerman proposed calling Fred Barnes and Karl Rove racist.

Thus, through a confluence of bizarrely unlikely events, the vicious act of falsely accusing people of racism became a laughing stock. It went from being a career killer to a punch line; from villainy to vaudeville; from knife in the back to pie in the face.

It started at about noon Monday when Andrew Breitbart publishes on his website an edited video of Shirley Sherrod (giving a speech to an NAACP audience this spring), which he describes, in part thusly: "Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn't do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from "one of his own kind".

"She refers him to a white lawyer. Sherrod's racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement."

The week before, the NAACP, without evidence, had attacked the tea parties for alleged racism in its rank and file. This is part of a running smear now about a year old, by prominent Democrats such as Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and legions of Democratic Party support groups that the Tea Party (now identified with by about a third of the country) is racist, Nazi, un-American, etc.

Breitbart strikes back, with evidence (in the form of the video of the audience reaction to the moment in Sherrod speech before she talks of racial reconciliation) demonstrating anti-white racism in a NAACP audience. The story of the week is thus launched.

Notice, by the way, that he alerts the viewer that "Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help." It's in the video and it is in the text of Breitbart's original post on the topic. But the mainstream media selectively edits out this exonerating fact in virtually every story about Breitbart. So the subsequent charges against Breitbart by the mainstream media that his editing was misleading was itself misleading and wrong.

In a seemingly unrelated story just after midnight Tuesday morning (July 20) Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller reported on leaked emails from the liberal media cabal Journolist in which, when the Rev, Wright issue first emerged during the 2008 campaign, one of the participating liberal journalists, Spencer Ackerman, proposed defending Obama by using a racial smear tactic:

" If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take one of them-Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares-and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction."

At last, we have the smoking gun that proves to the American public that at least some liberal reporters are quite prepared to make false charges of racism to advance their liberal political agenda-and to conspire with other like-minded character assassin journalists in the so doing.

So far, there are just two web site stories. But then the White House panics, and turns a couple of, until then, minor web stories into one of the worst political weeks for any White House since Nixon's many sad examples of terrible political weeks in 1974.

According to Mrs. Sherrod, she is forced to resign her post immediately at Department of Agriculture under pressure from the White House which was afraid that Glenn Beck was about to report the story of her NAACP speech. (In the Obama version of FDR "The only thing we have to fear is the Glenn Beck Show itself-- -nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. "

The compliant NAACP then itself apologizes. The next day, more of Mrs. Sherrod's speech becomes available, where she describes how she over comes that first instinct of racial bigotry three decades ago and helps out the white farmer. The white farmer's wife then goes on CNN and says what a nice and helpful lady Mrs. Sherrod is.

The White House panics again and instructs the Sec. of Agriculture to apologize and offer her job back to her. The NAACP then withdraws its apology and says it was "snookered" by Breitbart (even though it was their event with a room full of their members available to the NAACP last week.)

Then some more of her speech-after the reconciliation of the races section-is made available and includes the following sentences: " I haven't seen such a mean-spirited people as I've seen lately over this issue of health care. (Murmurs of agreement.) Some of the racism we thought was buried -- (someone in the audience says, "It surfaced!") Didn't it surface? Now, we endured eight years of the Bushes and we didn't do the stuff these Republicans are doing because you have a black president. (Applause) " (Text courtesy of National Review).

In other words, she is accusing up to 70 million Americans (registered Republican voters) of opposing Obamacare because the President is black-rather than because we disagree with the policy-as we did with Hillarycare in 1994. That is a broad-brush bigoted attitude by Mrs. Sherrod against all of us who opposed the president's healthcare policy. She implicitly accuses all 70 million of us of being racist.

Then Mrs. Sherrod goes on CNN with Anderson Cooper and says she thinks that Andrew Breitbart wants America to return to slavery for the blacks. And that is the last mainstream television seems to want to present of Mrs. Sherrod live and unedited. After dominating the news for the week, the eloquent Mrs. Sherrod is not invited to a single Sunday show.

And so did the rank cynicism of overplaying the race card turn that dreaded knave into a joker.

The New Journalism

The New Journalism
Jonah Goldberg
7-28-10

"The high standards and wise judgments of people like Walter Cronkite once acted as a national immune system, zapping scandal mongers and quashing wild rumors," wrote former "green jobs czar" Van Jones in Sunday's New York Times.

This may be one of the most unintentionally hilarious lines in recent memory. Jones, you may recall, left the White House when his background -- not just as an alleged 9/11 truther but as a self-confessed "Communist" and "revolutionary" -- became grist for the Fox News mill. Mainstream publications mostly ignored the controversy until after he was fired, and then focused on the fact that he directed an expletive at Republicans in a YouTube video.

Now Jones, with billets at Princeton and the Center for American Progress, casts himself as yet another victim, just like Shirley Sherrod, the Department of Agriculture employee fired after Andrew Breitbart released a misleadingly edited video of her. (Breitbart, a friend of mine, insists to me that he did not edit the video himself.)

You've just got to love a former member of STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), a Mao-influenced organization with a professed "commitment to the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism," giving Walter Cronkite -- the dashboard saint of American bourgeois conformity -- his due as the bulwark of decency. Yes, yes, Jones says he's grown and is no longer the Red he was even a few years ago. But come on.

For generations, conservatives lamented the decline in standards. When Hollywood portrayed glandular instincts as the new moral compass of the secular age, conservatives waxed nostalgic over the lost decency of the "studio system." When the education industry shelved the great books in favor of hugs, conservatives lamented the demise of the three Rs and the "closing of the American mind." When the left became enamored with a "riot ideology" that mistook lawlessness for political protest, conservatives invoked "law and order." Name a front in the political and culture wars, and conservatives defended the authority of authority and the tradition of tradition, while liberals and leftists defended sticking it to the man.

But now that the legacy media is one of the last resources the left still has at its disposal, even Comrade Jones isn't immune to mossy nostalgia for Walter Cronkite (who, by the way, is easily one of the most overrated American icons).

And that's the irony: The left only believes in sticking it to the man when it isn't the man. Teachers unions and tenured professors, now that they control their guilds, are darn near reactionary in their white-knuckled grip on the status quo. Liberal legal scholars are a cargo cult to stare decisis, for the simple reason that the precedents are still on their side.

The essence of the culture war today is a battle over whose "gatekeepers" are legitimate and whose are not.

Nowhere is this more true than in the temples of journalism, where the high priests are barricading the doors with pews and candelabras to fend off the barbarians.

Among the liberal Brahmins of the legacy media, probity, standards and restraint are the order of the day for inconvenient news. Feeding frenzies are reserved for the fun news, i.e., the news that reinforces liberal assumptions.

So, when the Climategate e-mails were released, the New York Times' chief environmental correspondent refrained from posting private e-mails, a standard he would never have taken with internal e-mails from, say, BP. The leak of Valerie Plame's identity: a shocking scandal that tore at the heart of the Bush administration. The leaking of vital state secrets: great journalism.

The house Cronkite built did many fine and noble things. It also locked out competing points of view, buried inconvenient bodies, spun the news with centrifugal force and racked up a formidable list of Shirley Sherrods all its own. The New York Times whitewashed Stalin's genocide. Cronkite misreported the significance of the Tet Offensive to say the Vietnam War was unwinnable. Dan Rather, Cronkite's replacement, began his career falsely reporting that Dallas schoolchildren cheered JFK's murder and ended it falsely reporting on forged National Guard memos. The Rodney King video was misleadingly edited, the Tailwind story was not true. And that's only a snippet of the list.

The media environment today is dizzying not because of one revolution but two complimentary ones. First there's the churn of the Internet, from Wikileaks to wilding bloggers. But there's also a second revolution that amounts to consumer backlash against the House of Cronkite. It has fueled the rise of Fox News and the new alternative media.

This pincer movement can be scary. But it's progress.
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To read another article by Jonah Goldberg, click here.

Hide-and-Seek Hypocrites on the Hill

Hide-and-Seek Hypocrites on the Hill
Michelle Malkin
7-28-10

You know when a politician starts a sentence with "frankly," he's about to lie to your face. The same principle applies to campaign finance legislation dubbed the "DISCLOSE Act." The voter's instinctive reaction should be: What are they trying to hide now? Drafted out of public view with left-wing lobbyists and rammed through Congress after bypassing committee hearings, this bum bill would have been better named the CLOSEDDOOR Act.

At a Rose Garden press conference on Monday, President Obama decried the influence of "shadow groups" on elections and urged the Senate to pass the "reform" sponsored by N.Y. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer. But the loophole-ridden package exempts large nonprofits with 500,000 or more members. Behemoth labor unions get preferential treatment. Bradley Smith, former Federal Elections Commission chairman, noted that the law places radical speech-squelching restrictions on companies' ability to run independent political ads: "(I)f you're a company with a government contract of over $10 million (like more than half of the top 50 U.S. companies) or if you're a company with more than 20 percent foreign shareholders, you can't even mention a candidate in an ad for up to a full year before the election. ... There are no similar prohibitions for unions representing government contractors or unions with foreign membership."

GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell put it more starkly during Tuesday's debate before the Senate cloture vote on the bill: The DISCLOSE Act, he said, is a "transparent attempt to rig the fall elections." At bottom, McConnell diagnosed correctly, this is a jobs-protection bill for entrenched incumbents more interested in protecting their hides than protecting the Constitution. While the cloture vote fell three votes short of the needed 60 on Tuesday, Schumer vowed to resurrect the issue "again and again and again until we pass it."

In attacking Republicans who oppose this campaign finance Kabuki, Obama audaciously feigned alarm over the proliferation of fake grassroots groups with innocuous-sounding names. Special interests, he complained, "can hide behind a name like 'Citizens for a Better Future,' even if a more accurate name would be 'Companies for Weaker Oversight.'" Let me supply some more examples that won't appear on Obama's teleprompter anytime soon:

How about "Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity"? That's the front group White House senior adviser David Axelrod formed to shill for a massive utility tax hike championed by Commonwealth Edison in Chicago.

Or how about "Americans for Stable Quality Care"? That was the government health care takeover-promoting special interest coalition funded by Big Pharma, the AARP, AMA and the Service Employees International Union. The group pitched in $150 million for pro-Obama health care ads to create the illusion of grassroots support.

Or how about "Health Care for America Now"? That's the 1825 K Street-based "grassroots" lobbying conglomerate funded by radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros and the brass-knuckled, purple-shirted bosses of the SEIU.

Or how about "American Rights at Work"? That's the far-left, pro-Big Labor lobbying group that Obama's labor secretary, Hilda Solis, served as treasurer for while a congresswoman -- a position she failed to disclose while lobbying for the Big Labor card-check bill she was sponsoring at the same time.

Or how about the "American Public Policy Committee"? That's the umbrella group for Beltway-based union and progressive lobbyists run by D.C. money-shuffler Craig Varoga, who is now harnessing Washington bucks to attack tea party activists.

It's the president's biggest donors and advisers who perfected the art of Astroturf. Don't be so modest, man.

Team Obama and their allies on Capitol Hill have some nerve gnashing their teeth about transparency after two years of backdoor kickbacks, secret Big Labor deals, C-SPAN camera evasion, White House disclosure-ducking coffeehouse meetings, and sunlight-shirking holiday and midnight floor votes. And while they preached about America's right to know and posed as crusaders for open access, Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate continued to stonewall on public hearings for health care rationing czar Donald Berwick -- Obama's recess-appointed head of Medicare and Medicaid.

A White House spokesman called the battle over the DISCLOSE Act a "defining moment for the public." Nah. It's just another example of the Democratic majority's endless hide-and-seek hypocrisy.
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To read another article by Michelle Malkin, click here.