Race and Resentment

Race and Resentment
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Recent stories out of both Philadelphia and San Francisco tell of black students beating up Asian American students. This is especially painful for those who expected that the election of Barack Obama would mark the beginning of a post-racial America.

While Obama's winning the majority of the votes in overwhelmingly white states suggests that many Americans are ready to move beyond race, it is painfully clear that others are not.

Those who explain racial antagonisms on some rationalistic basis will have a hard time demonstrating how Asian Americans have made blacks worse off. Certainly none of the historic wrongs done to blacks was done by the small Asian American population who, for most of their history in this country, have not had enough clout to prevent themselves from being discriminated against.

While ugly racial or ethnic conflicts can seldom be explained by rational economic or other self-interest, they have been too common to be just inexplicable oddities-- whether in America or in other countries around the world, and whether today or in centuries past.

Resentments and hostility toward people with higher achievements are one of the most widespread of human failings. Resentments of achievements are more deadly than envy of wealth.

The hatred of people who started at the bottom and worked their way up has far exceeded any hostility toward those who were simply born into wealth. None of the sultans who inherited extraordinary fortunes in Malaysia has been hated like the Chinese, who arrived there destitute and rose by their own efforts.

Inheritors of the Rockefeller fortune have been elected as popular governors in three states, attracting nothing like the hostility toward the Jewish immigrants who rose from poverty on Manhattan's Lower East Side to prosperity in a variety of fields.

Others who started at the bottom and rose to prosperity-- the Lebanese in West Africa, the Indians in Fiji, the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, for example-- have likewise been hated for their achievements. Being born a sultan or a Rockefeller is not an achievement.

Achievements are a reflection on others who may have had similar, and sometimes better, chances but who did not make the most of their chances. Achievements are like a slap across the face to those who are not achieving, and many people react with the same kind of anger that such an insult would provoke.

In our own times, especially, this is not just a spontaneous reaction. Many of our educators, our intelligentsia and our media -- not to mention our politicians-- promote an attitude that other people's achievements are grievances, rather than examples.

When black school children who are working hard in school and succeeding academically are attacked and beaten up by black classmates for "acting white," why is it surprising that similar hostility is turned against Asian Americans, who are often achieving academically more so than whites?

This attitude is not peculiar to some in the black community or to the United States. The same phenomenon is found among lower-class whites in Britain, where academically achieving white students have been beaten up badly enough by their white classmates to require hospital treatment.

These are poisonous and self-destructive consequences of a steady drumbeat of ideological hype about differences that are translated into "disparities" and "inequities," provoking envy and resentments under their more prettied-up name of "social justice."

Asian American school children who are beaten up are just some of the victims of these resentments that are whipped up. Young people who are seething with resentments, instead of seizing educational and other opportunities around them, are bigger victims in the long run, whether they are blacks in the US or lower-class whites in the UK. A decade after these beatings, these Asian Americans will be headed up in the world, while the hoodlums who beat them up are more likely to be headed for crime and prison.

People who call differences "inequities" and achievements "privilege" leave social havoc in their wake, while feeling noble about siding with the less fortunate. It would never occur to them that they have any responsibility for the harm done to both blacks and Asian Americans.
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To read more wisdom of Dr. Thomas Sowell, click here.

Forever Mother

Forever Mother
Rebecca Hagelin
Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Thank goodness I spotted the embroidered pillow on my mother-in-law's couch well before I had children of my own. It read: "A mother holds her children's hands for a little while; their hearts, forever." That simple truth has come to mind many times throughout my 22 years of mothering.

It has caused me to reach for my child's hand in times when she was frustrated or lonely. To take the initiative to embrace the sullen teenager that, on the surface, appeared aloof. When I hugged him tight, he started hugging back and I knew that the reassurance of my love for him through physical touch was exactly what he needed - in fact, it was what he had been craving, but didn't even realize it himself until it happened.

Many mothers aren't quite prepared for that moment when their grade school child suddenly instructs, "Mom, don't hold my hand in public." It is a universal, natural transition signaling that our little boys and girls are growing up.

Separation. Pulling apart. A growing need for freedom. They are healthy, important parts of becoming an independent human being who can eventually make their way in the world without you.

But don't let the modern culture twist that truth into a lie that says your teenagers or adult children don't need mothering. They do. There is no such thing as temporary motherhood.

No matter how hard society tries to devalue the role of active mothering, the fact is that God caused children to be born of mothers. When a child is separated from her birthmother the obvious need is for another woman who has that calling to become the mother. It's inescapable: children need moms. And there's also no escaping that mothers have a tremendous impact on us well beyond our childhood years.

I still need my own mother. Although she died some eight years ago and I have adult children of my own, I so treasure the wisdom and love my mother poured into me when I was a child.

When I recount the comforting warmth and deep happiness I felt from her approving smiles; the sting and jolt of shame that overcame me when I was righty reprimanded; or the stability I have known as an adult because she grounded me in biblical teachings, I realize just how powerful a force my mother remains in my life.

An important element of her lingering power rests in the memories of her physical touch. I've had to remind myself often that my children will recount my interactions with them throughout their lives, and those actions will shape the way they pass on a blessing or a curse to their own children.

We were all created to be held. When it is no longer appropriate or even possible for a mother to hold her child's hand, it is always important for them to be certain of our love.

If you are lucky enough to still have young children who are totally dependent on you, make it a point to reach for their tiny hands, to cuddle with them often, to be affectionate and fill their need for loving, human touch.

As our children grow older and the expressions of our love morph into new ones, it's important to silence the shrill voices that devalue the continuing role of mom.

And, as your children become adults, the wise mother knows she must begin to fade into the background; but she also understands that fading does not mean disappearing. Allowing your adult children to live their own lives is a critical part of mothering. And so is letting them know that you are there when needed, and that the values you taught them when they were young will be true throughout their lives.

Yes, the time will come when you will no longer hold your children's hands; but you will always continue to mold and be felt in their hearts. You are a Forever Mother.

Why Tea Partiers Say Throw the Bums Out

Why Tea Partiers Say Throw the Bums Out
Phyllis Schlafly
Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Proof that the Tea Partiers and others are on target when they criticize both political parties was supplied by the behavior of the U.S. House on April 29. Demoting all major economic and corruption problems facing our country to the bottom of the agenda, the House devoted a long afternoon and 12 roll-call votes to passing a bill to force U.S. statehood on Puerto Rico.

Of course, this ploy had to be Nancy Pelosi's doing, but she made it bipartisan by getting 39 Republicans to vote with her. They walked like lambs to the slaughter, led by (I'll tactfully omit the appropriate metaphor) Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.

Puerto Ricans have voted against statehood in three referenda, most recently in 1998. Congress didn't get the message and plans to make them vote again.

However, the new vote prescribed in the mischievously named "Democracy" bill will set an all-time record for dishonest elections. The plan will require Puerto Rico to hold two new referenda that are rigged to enable some to claim that Puerto Rico voted to become a state.

The first referendum would require Puerto Ricans to vote on whether they want to retain their current commonwealth status or change their "political status." Try asking any Republican whether he wants to change our current political status, and you will see what a ridiculous question that is.

If "change" wins the first referendum, a second referendum will require Puerto Ricans to choose among four options: statehood, independence, "sovereignty in association with the United States" (an obviously vague choice) or retain the current commonwealth status. With four choices on the ballot, the winner would receive only a plurality, not a majority.

The bill would allow persons who were born in Puerto Rico but now live and vote in the United States to vote in these Puerto Rican referenda. That means giving the vote to a group based on ethnicity rather than on residency, and should be held unconstitutional under the 15th Amendment.

If statehood is approved by a plurality, the game plan of the statehood lobbyists is immediately to elect persons designated as U.S. senators and representatives, put them on a plane and send them to knock on the U.S. Capitol door demanding to be seated. Those who object to recognizing these Puerto Ricans as U.S. Senate and House members would be labeled racists.

One explanation for this dishonest scheme to create a new state is political pandering to the Hispanic vote, yet not only the Hispanics but even the Puerto Ricans are very divided on statehood. The most prominent Hispanic member of Congress, Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and one of the most prominent Puerto Ricans in Congress, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., voted no on the statehood bill.

The whole idea of allowing Puerto Rico to decide to become our 51st state is offensive to our constitutional government. We the people of the United States are the only ones to decide whether or not to accept a new state as one of our United States.

A major reason why the American people do not want to accept Puerto Rico as a state is that this would overnight make the United States a bilingual nation because Puerto Rico will not accept English as its official language. Many U.S. pro-English laws and customs make it is clear that the American people do not want to be a bilingual country.

Puerto Rican legislative and judicial proceedings are conducted entirely in Spanish, with English translations available only on request. It is asking for big trouble to admit a state when at least half of its people voted against becoming a state, and most of its residents won't accept English as their official language.

We need only look as far away as Canada to see what happens to a country trying to cope with two languages. In 1995, a proposal for French-speaking Quebec to secede from Canada failed on a referendum by only one-half of one percent with a 92 percent turnout.

Are you concerned about our current Congress spending too much money? Accepting Puerto Rico as a state would vastly increase federal spending for entitlements because 45 percent live below the poverty level and would immediately become eligible for Barack Obama's "spread the wealth" policies of transferring money from U.S. taxpayers to non-taxpayers.

It made no sense at all for Republicans to vote for this Puerto Rican bill because statehood would mean adding two senators and at least six House members, and they would all be Democrats. Puerto Rico would then have more members of Congress than 24 of our 50 states.

“Cuba Si!—Arizona No! “ Says Mexican President Felipe Calderon

“Cuba Si!—Arizona No! “ Says Mexican President Felipe Calderon (Among Many Others)
Humberto Fontova
Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Mexican President Felipe Calderon can hardly contain his revulsion and rage against Arizona’s SB 1070. He’s "deeply troubled" reports the Associated Press over a law he denounces as "discriminatory and racist," not to mention “a dire threat to the whole Hispanic-American population."

This new Arizona law "opens the door to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement," sputters the Mexican President.

Indeed, this “threat to Hispanics” and these “abuses in law enforcement," have been ongoing for years. The Associated Press carried a story where a Maria Elena Gonzalez, reported how female migrants were “forced to strip by abusive police officers, supposedly to search them, but the purpose is to sexually abuse them."

Jose Ramos, 18, reported “that extortion by border police occurs at every stop on their migratory route. Until migrants are left penniless and begging for food.”

According to this Associated Press story: “Others said they had seen migrants beaten to death by police, their bodies left near the railway tracks to make it look as if they had fallen from a train. "If you're carrying any money, they take it from you," said Carlos Lopez. "Federal, state, local police--all of them shake you down. If you're on a bus, they pull you off and search your pockets, and if you have any money, they keep it all and say, get out of here.”

All of the above “hate” and “abuses in law enforcement” as reported by the Associated Press, befell Central American migrants who enter Mexico. So perhaps Mexican President Calderon knows what he’s talking about?

But what he’s also talking lately--rather than getting his own house in order--is an economic boycott of Arizona.

“Commercial ties between Mexico and Arizona will be affected by this law,” vowed President Calderon in a speech last week to the Institute for Mexicans Abroad. “We are going to act.”

The hear-hears, toasts and tinkling wineglasses after Calderon’s pronouncement have been many. Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva, for instance, took a few minutes off from denouncing American economic sanctions against Stalinist Cuba to champion American economic sanctions against his state.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, hails Fidel Castro as, "one of the three most impressive people I have ever met" and deplores his “demonizing” in the U.S. After all, while Fidel Castro’s guest in 2000, Mr. Sharpton saw “absolutely no human rights violations in Cuba.” So impressed was Mr. Sharpton by Fidel’s fiefdom that he even tried organizing a Hip-Hop concert in Havana to “bring down the embargo (of Cuba)!” Now he plans a “freedom-walk” to help erect one against Arizona.

South African Bishop Desmond Tutu also advocates unfettered commerce with the regime that jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin's and executed more people (out of a population of 6.5 million) in its first three years in power than Hitler's executed (out of a population of 65 million) in its first six. These Cuban political prisoners, by the way, included the longest suffering black political prisoner of the 20th century, Eusebio Penalver. As I write, Oscar Elias Biscet, another black Cuban, suffers a sentence of 25 years in Castro's torture chambers. His crimes consist essentially of quoting the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and the Works of Martin Luther King in a Cuban public square.

“Viva Fidel!” bellowed embargo-opponent Rev. Jesse Jackson during a speech at the University of Havana in June 1984, while trailing a 300 person entourage that included Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “Viva Che Guevara!” he yelled again with fists raised high. "Long live our cry of freedom!"

"He (Jesse Jackson) is a great personality," reciprocated a beaming Fidel Castro, whose regime ranks among the U.S. State departments, State Sponsors of Terrorism. "Jackson is a brilliant man,” continued Castro, “his main characteristic is honesty. He is sincere and there is no hint of demagoguery in his speech" (italics mine).

While calling for an embargo against Arizona last week, Jesse Jackson denounced SB 1070 as “terrorism for the innocent.”

At a European summit last year Mexican president Calderon explained his fastidious “no sanctions” policy towards Stalinist, Cuba. “Respect for the decisions of the Cuban people should mark the political future of the Caribbean nation,” he declared to loud applause.

Yes, Senor Calderon but as you undoubtedly realize, the “decisions of the Cuban people” are not precisely those of the Stalinist regime that enslaves them and prevents them under penalty of firing squad and/or torture from expressing their decisions in a manner Arizonans recently decided by a margin of almost 70% with SB 1070.

(P.S. I’ve used the incorrect term “embargo” for simplicities sake. Despite what you constantly read and hear from his agents (on the payroll and off) the U.S. has been Castro’s main food supplier and 4th biggest trading partner for close to a decade now).
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Majority Of Americans Agree With AZ's Immigration Laws
Posted by: Jillian Bandes at 4:45 PM Tuesday, May 04, 2010

A poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS found that 51 percent of Americans supported Arizona's immigration law. Thirty-six percent said the law went too far and 9 percent said it did not go far enough.

According to the same poll, 78 percent of Americans thought that the federal government should be doing more to protect our borders.

Naturally, the New York TImes advertised the "slim margin" by which Americans favor the law. Check out their lede:

The overwhelming majority of Americans think the country’s immigration policies need to be seriously overhauled. And despite protests against Arizona’s stringent new immigration enforcement law, a majority of Americans support it, even though they say it may lead to racial profiling.

A Vietnam War Lesson

A Vietnam War Lesson
Oliver North
Friday, April 30, 2010

WASHINGTON -- Just before first light April 30, 35 years ago this week, a U.S. Marine CH-46 helicopter from HMM-165, call sign "Lady Ace 09," landed on the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam, to pick up Ambassador Graham Martin. Moments later, a message -- classified "secret" by the National Security Agency -- was flashed to the Oval Office informing the president, "Lady Ace 09 has the ambassador and his immediate staff on board."

Over the next several hours, dozens more messages were transmitted to the commander in chief, detailing virtually in real time herculean efforts to evacuate the remaining Americans from the city as North Vietnamese army, or NVA, regulars closed in on our last diplomatic, military and intelligence missions in the Republic of Vietnam. The now-declassified Operation Frequent Wind intercepts in the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library read like a novel.

Nineteen minutes after the first transmission: "Lady Ace 09 reports feet wet. ... Lady Ace 13 reports outbound with 16 USA. ... Lady Ace 10 going in for landing." Two of the cables describe CS tear gas that nearly blinded the pilots. A half-hour into the evacuation: "Lady Ace 14 is on the roof. He reports small-arms fire on the northeast corner of the building in a small clump of trees at ground level. Lady Ace is loading at this time." Then, three minutes later: "Spectre reports numerous firefights all around the building. Swift 33 inbound feet dry. Lady Ace 14 reports off with 21 pax." The abbreviation "pax" is military-speak for passengers.

At 7:53 a.m., the final helicopter off the embassy roof -- a Marine CH-46 from HMM-164, call sign "Swift 22" -- brought out Maj. James Kean, the Marine Security Guard commander, and the last 10 of his Marines. Less than four hours later, NVA armor and infantry captured the presidential palace in Saigon.

This week, Lady Ace 09, freshly painted in Vietnam-era markings, was commemorated at the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum, at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, in California. Among the pilots and aircrew who gathered for the celebration were those like retired Col. Gerald Berry, who saved the U.S. ambassador and helped rescue more than 7,100 Americans and our allies during the frantic hours of Operation Frequent Wind. There were even more attendees who were veterans of the current war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But no matter where or when they fought, nearly all had a common refrain: "This war shouldn't end like Vietnam." It doesn't have to.

There are pundits in the so-called mainstream media waxing eloquent about parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan, but those making the comparisons ignore some very inconvenient facts. Most importantly, the adversaries confronted in both wars are radically dissimilar.

In Vietnam, U.S. troops and our allies faced nearly a quarter-million conscripted but well-trained, -disciplined and -equipped NVA regulars and upward of 100,000 highly organized Viet Cong insurgents from 1966 onward. Each year of the war, the NVA launched multiple major campaigns against U.S. and Republic of Vietnam forces in accord with orders issued by authorities in Hanoi. When the Viet Cong collapsed in the aftermath of the 1968 Tet offensive, the NVA -- supported by the Soviet Union, Communist China and the Warsaw Pact -- simply increased its numbers.

The Republic of Vietnam didn't succumb to an insurgency 35 years ago this week. It was invaded by the army of a hostile neighbor. None of that is happening in the shadows of the Hindu Kush -- yet.

The 10,000 to 25,000 Taliban currently operating in Afghanistan have cross-border "safe havens" in Pakistan and receive some military training, equipment and logistics support from Pakistan and Iran. Taliban leaders once counted on financing from radical Wahhabi Islamists and received support and direction from elements of the Pakistani intelligence service. Today the Taliban are a narco-insurgency, funded almost exclusively by opium. Their "warriors" and zealous "martyrs" claim Muslim purity, but their "military campaigns" are limited to planting improvised explosive devices, suicide bombings and murders. They aren't about to overwhelm Kabul -- or even a provincial capital.

That, of course, doesn't mean this war can't be lost, for there is one very important similarity between Vietnam and Afghanistan -- a parallel promise of withdrawing American troops and assistance. In 1973, President Richard Nixon withdrew all American troops except for a handful of advisers from the Republic of Vietnam. The following December, Congress cut off all military aid to Vietnam. Four months later, U.S. Marines were making desperate sorties to the roof of our embassy in Saigon.

On this 35th anniversary of that event, President Barack Obama and his advisers would be wise to remember where the Vietnam War was really lost. It wasn't in the paddies or triple-canopy mountains of Southeast Asia. Vietnam was lost in the corridors of power in our own nation's capital. That never should happen again.

6 Reasons Capital Gains Tax Should be Abolished.

6 Reasons Capital Gains Tax Should be Abolished.

To view the video...

Click Here

To summarize, Capital Gains Taxation is a preemptive form of double taxation by our government. If you by something and sell it later at a profit, it is the taxation of these profits. Obama wants to raise the Capital Gains Taxation rate from 15% to 20%, so he wants to increas it by 1/3.

Conservatives prefer consumption based taxation, by either a flat tax, consumption tax, or a sales tax. Liberals (Progressives) prefer the Haig-Simmons taxation, which includes 4 layers of taxation - Capital Gains, Corporate Tax, Personal Tax, and Death Taxation. However when we spend instead of saving or investing then we are taxed once and often twice - payroll taxes and sales taxes. So we are actually penalized more by saving or investing.

The price of stocks go up if the expected future income(dividends) will increase. Capital Gains taxes actually can prevent this from happening.

The 6 Reasons Capital Gains tax should be abolished....

1) Less Investment.
2) Less Risk-taking.
3) Less Competitiveness.
4) Less Privacy (eliminates government intrusion).
5) Less Employment.
6) Less Fairness - people who save and invest are penalized way more than people who spend, but all pay some taxes.

Happy Meal Insanity in the New Nanny State

Happy Meal Insanity in the New Nanny State
Mike Gallagher
Monday, May 03, 2010

I never thought being called an “ass” on national TV could be so much fun.

It happened the other night on Fox News Channel’s “O’Reilly Factor.” I was a guest with substitute host Juan Williams, and I was brought on to debate some anti-obesity activist -- who would ever think obesity could spawn activists? -- named MeMe somebody. I think her name is MeMe Roth. Or maybe it’s Ross. It’s not important.

The “debate” was over a new ordinance passed by a local government in Santa Clara, California that bans toys being sold with Happy Meals at McDonald’s. Now why in the world would the local Board of Supervisors bother to ban toys being sold with Happy Meals, one might ask? Evidently, they have the peculiar belief there that allowing parents to buy their own children meals at fast food restaurants that include toys only encourages the little whippersnappers to become fat.

I’m not kidding.

So when the Fox News producer invited me to appear on the show to discuss this little slice of insanity, I didn’t expect there’d be much of a debate. What could possibly be the argument? Seemed perfectly clear to me that Santa Clara, California has a few numbskulls that masquerade as Board of Supervisors who have nothing better to do with their time than to tell adults what products they may or may not purchase from a private business like McDonald’s.

But there would be a debate! MeMe whats-her-name was ready and loaded for bear.

She seemed to center on what she called “the nag factor.” She lectured me about how parents shouldn’t have to be subjected to their little bundles of joy nagging them into buying things that aren’t good for them, namely chicken strips or cheeseburgers that include little toy characters or plastic thing-a-ma-jigs, or whatever they’re putting in Happy Meals these days.

As the parent of four grown boys, I asked her if she was a parent, too. She sarcastically told me that she was quite capable of reproducing (this was not a very pleasant lady), and that yes, she did have two children.

At that point, I suggested that she might consider doing what my wife and I always did when our kids wanted something, and perhaps ponder the reaction of millions and millions of parents since the beginning of time -- say no.

That prompted a most interesting reply on her part: “Oh, don’t be an ass, Mike.”

Which led to guest-host Juan Williams, to give a, “Whoa, whoa there, MeMe!”

Whoa there, MeMe, indeed.

I hate to continue to pick on the anti-obesity activist. I think I got under her skin enough already.

But she advocates a point of view that is becoming an increasingly pervasive aspect of life in these United States. The belief that government must be the ultimate nanny to our children is one of the fundamental philosophical disagreements between the right and left. And the ideology that dictates more government instead of less is what is driving people into the streets with tea party rallies and protests.

Liberals don’t think parents can be left to their own devices when it comes to raising our children. In fact, at one point during the Fox News debate, MeMe told me that while she and I might be able to say no to our whining, nagging children, many American parents cannot. And that’s why an ordinance like this makes sense, she said.

The arrogance of the left always fascinates me. I suppose MeMe thinks she’ll be nominated for mother-of-the-year but other Americans are too stupid to know how to tell their child they’re not getting french fries for dinner.

We’re watching the government tell us what kind of health care coverage we must have, what kind of light bulbs we have to buy, how much water we can use to flush our toilets, and how much power our big screen TV’s are allowed to use. None of this comes by way of education or recommendation. These are mandates.

And now, along comes a local government that has decided to make McDonald’s Happy Meal toys the same as crack cocaine.

The Santa Clara story is the perfect snapshot of the direction our country is headed, unless we take action and put this train back on the rails again.

November 2, 2010 cannot get here quickly enough.

Beware of Obama Bearing Gifts to Greeks

Beware of Obama Bearing Gifts to Greeks
Lurita Doan
Monday, May 03, 2010

President Obama is focusing his attention on Greece and its financial collapse. Oh no! American taxpayers should brace themselves for another raid on the U.S. Treasury that will ultimately result in even higher taxes as our own debt grows. President Obama is ignoring the many parallels between U.S. and Greece--both are countries with growing budgetary deficits and expanding entitlement programs. The U.S. could learn from the Greek debt crisis, but the President and Democrats in congress, bizarrely, seem determined to put the U.S. on the same path that Greece has followed off the cliff.

The financial problems Greece now faces are dire and their social welfare problems are just as acute. Recent reports cite current government debt at approximately 115% of GDP. And, Greece needs about $160 billion in emergency aid within the next few days in order to prevent a total collapse. Since investors are no longer willing to provide funding to Greece by purchasing bonds, Greece has been forced to come hat-in-hand to the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an immediate bailout.

How much will Germany and the other financially solvent European states pony up and how much will come from the IMF? That's the question that Germany’s Merkel and President Obama are discussing. You can be sure that Merkel is anxious for the IMF, and not Germany, to be on the hook for most of the cash required.

Americans should be alarmed, for 17% of all IMF funding comes from the US taxpayer, which means that America, at least indirectly, is going to be one of the largest sources of cash to prop up and bailout Greece.

Greece can no longer fund its expansive government entitlements and has done nothing to improve the competitiveness of Greek industry. Consider: huge and expanding government, powerful and intractable labor unions, womb-to-tomb entitlements and regulatory Kafkaesque restrictions on small business growth – sounds a bit like what's happening in the U.S? These kinds of flawed policies have brought Greece to its knees. Now, we have President Obama trying to implement a similar set of policies in the U.S.

President Obama will likely cut a deal to help bailout Greece with US money and quickly, while Americans are focused on financial reform and immigration issues in Arizona. The last thing President Obama wants right now is for average, over-taxed and over-regulated Americans to understand exactly how Greece got into the mess, for, Obama has placed the U.S. on the same path.

Team Obama, in only 18 months, has ballooned the deficit with all sorts of dodgy pork projects to favored constituents, has supported historic expansions of entitlements and huge growth in government, all while disguising the true costs. Team Obama’s policies have squandered American wealth, eroded competitiveness while racking up a deficit we may be unable to repay.

The Obama Administration is working hard to convince Americans that it is right and proper for the government to take money or property away from some Americans and redistribute it to others. At the core of President Obama’s policies is the notion that there is no limit to what the government can spend. We can, he suggests, have it all without any consequences. Obama's policies mirror the bloated and irresponsible financial and social policies that have led Greece to ruin.

Expect some rising resentment when hard working Americans figure out that taxpayer funds are supporting Greek retirees, who retire between 50 and 60. President Obama is considering supporting this folly from Greek Unions, just at a time when the U.S. Social Security Administration deficits force the U.S. to consider raising the U.S. retirement age. Resentment will only grow when Americans discover that some Greek workers retire as early as 50 because they were employed in a dangerous occupation like hairdressing which the Greek government has designated as “hazardous” (because of the proximity of toxic chemicals in beauty salons).

Other Americans will question the wisdom of President Obama lecturing Greece on budgetary issues when the U.S. federal government is running almost a $13 trillion dollar deficit and when total U.S. indebtedness including the federal, state, local and personal debt of American citizens is over $55 trillion dollars.

None of the concerns of American taxpayers seem sufficient to stop Obama from taking this country down the same, failed, rocky road as Greece. So Beware America: whether you approve or not, Obama is bearing gifts to the Greeks.

Immigration Issue Reveals Prejudice of Leaders

Immigration Issue Reveals Prejudice of Leaders
Carol Platt Liebau
Monday, May 03, 2010

Last week, the immigration issue told voters a lot about the men leading Great Britain and its erstwhile colony, the United States. Unfortunately, most of it wasn’t very good.

Hapless British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s re-election campaign was shaken to its roots when a live microphone broadcast him calling Gillian Duffy, one of his constituents, a “bigoted woman.” The basis for Brown’s claim? The grandmotherly Duffy had asked him, “You can’t say anything about the immigrants, because you’re saying that you’re… but all these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they all flocking from?” That was all.

Here in the United States, President Obama has been lucky enough to evade open microphones. Even so, he’s made his views clear when it comes to those who favor stemming the tide of illegal immigrants into the Southwest. After Arizona passed a law empowering state and local police to determine people's immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in the United States illegally, Obama immediately denounced the law as “misguided” and slammed the “irresponsibility” of the Arizona legislature.

He went on to assert that the law will not only “undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans,” but that it might also mean that “if you are a Hispanic American in Arizona . . . suddenly if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to be harassed.” Not to put too fine a point on it, the President clearly believes that the people who passed the law (and those who will enforce it) are . . . bigoted.

It’s worth noting that Brown and Obama lead political parties – Labour and Democrat, respectively – that take pride in characterizing themselves as representatives of “the common man.” Why, then, are they so quick to impugn the characters of regular, everyday people who simply disagree with them on immigration issues?

Of course, fingering others as mindlessly prejudiced flatters the moral vanity of the accuser, who condemns from Olympian heights of tolerance and large-heartedness. But there’s more to it than that.

Being able to dismiss as ignorance or bigotry the wishes and opinions of one’s constituents relieves a leader of responsibility for acting. That’s convenient, especially in the immigration debate – where “inclusiveness,” that Holy Grail of political correctness, can conflict with hard truths on the ground.

In fact, an influx of Eastern Europeans into northern Britain has placed severe economic pressure on working class people like Gillian Duffy. The high-tax, growth-suppressing policies embraced by Brown’s Labour Party certainly don’t do much to solve the problem. Paul Waugh, deputy political editor of the London Evening Standard – and a native of the same town as Brown’s interlocutor – characterized the entire exchange between Brown and Duffy as “a cry for help from working class Britain.”

In many ways, the Arizona law reflects the same kind of desperation. My hairstylist’s sister-in-law bought what she thought was a wonderful new house in Arizona – only to find that, every morning, her front yard is a well-traveled byway for illegal immigrants entering this country. In southwestern states, overcrowded schools, jam-packed emergency rooms, teeming prisons and congested highways have become the norm, all as a result of the federal government’s ongoing refusal to enforce the immigration laws on the books. It’s unreasonable – and unfair – to believe that everyone who objects does so only for invidious reasons.

Ultimately, perhaps the greatest failing of Brown and Obama – and those in the governing classes more generally – is one of imagination. As governments in both countries grow by leaps and bounds, every new layer of bureaucracy further insulates and isolates the rulers from the everyday existences of those they rule. If the Prime Minister and the President honestly can’t discern any reason but bigotry for their fellow citizens’ concerns about immigration, perhaps it means they’ve been living a life of privilege, courtesy of the taxpayers, for just a little too long.

The NAACP and Abortion Politics

The NAACP and Abortion Politics
Star Parker
Monday, May 03, 2010

Why would a bill that criminalizes abortion motivated by race not have the support of the NAACP? Or, even more perplexing, why would the NAACP endorse such a bill and then rescind its endorsement?

This is exactly what just happened in Georgia.

The Georgia Senate passed a bill that would make it a crime to abort a child because of its race or gender.

The bill had the endorsement of Georgia’s NAACP, along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and over 100 local, mostly black, pastors.

After the bill moved to the House for passage, suddenly Edward DuBose, president of the Georgia NAACP, had a change of heart. In a statement withdrawing NAACP’s support for the bill, DuBose claimed they didn’t “fully understand” it when they endorsed it.

In NAACP’s press statement, DuBose said they came to the realization that the bill amounted to “nothing more than using women’s health as a political tool.”

It’s not news that an abortion holocaust is taking place in black America. Blacks, about 12% of our population, account for almost 40% of the abortions that are performed nationwide each year.

Georgia, Mr. DuBose’s state, has the distinction of leading the nation in abortions in the black community.

According to Catherine Davis, Director of Minority Outreach for Georgia Right to Life, there were 18,901 abortion performed on black women in Georgia in 2008, amounting to 60% of all abortions performed in the state.

Clearly there was concern at Georgia’s NAACP about this troubling reality. They passed a resolution in 2007 noting the need to minimize abortion in the black community.

With this background, Georgia Right to Life reached out to the NAACP to endorse the “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act” and got it.

And then suddenly, mysteriously, after giving its endorsement, the NAACP realized it didn’t “fully understand” and backed off.

Particularly troubling for a matter this grave, they felt no compunction to provide any serious arguments regarding concerns about the language or provisions of the bill that provoked the change of support. They only served up the usual political buzzwords of the pro-abortion community about women’s “health.”

It doesn’t take much imagination to conclude that the NAACP’s priority became politics and not the welfare of the black community, its alleged mission.

Taking a pro-life stand would have put the Georgia NAACP out of sync with its national organization.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund recently issued a statement of effusive praise for retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens – a member of the court’s liberal and pro-abortion contingent, who now must be replaced.

Organizations come into existence to solve problems. What happens when those problems get solved? Three possible outcomes. The organization closes. The organization shifts focus to new problems. Or it starts just existing to perpetuate itself and sustain the power and income of those whom it employs and who have political interests in its existence.

It’s the latter reality that defines today’s NAACP. It’s why it has lost major support over recent years and no longer holds the hearts and minds of most black Americans.

NAACP was born when the primary problem of black Americans was political. Blacks needed political action to secure equal protection under law they weren’t getting. This was achieved in the 1960’s through the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

The challenge facing black America today is moral, not political. Abortion, AIDS, crime, poor education, family breakdown. These reflect poor personal decisions, not politics.

Apparently for Georgia’s NAACP, being out of sync with political interests was too much to handle.

For black Americans to solve their considerable problems today, we’re going to have to get back to caring more about truth than political interests.

White And Conservative? Must Be A Racist

White And Conservative? Must Be A Racist
David Stokes
Sunday, May 02, 2010

Writing about race and racism in America is always risky and potentially polarizing if you are—like me—a middle-aged white guy from the suburbs. So I am a little hesitant to weigh in with some observations about the current climate in America.

As a minister who leads a congregation composed of people from more than 30 nations (not descendants—first generation here), I have the opportunity to interact with wonderful people from around the world. I have learned much from them over the years about the challenges and hardships they have faced, both back in the old country, and trying to assimilate here and carve out their own niche of the American dream.

Being on the conservative side of all things political—with an emergent streak of libertarianism—I realize that this adds another strike against me when it comes to sharing (or in the view of some—even having) a reasonable and valid opinion on the subject of racism. Because I am a white man and a conservative, therefore I must be a racist.

Strike three is the fact that I did not vote for Barack Obama (though a significant number of my congregants surely did) and my opposition to his presidential policies has been unwavering. That seals the deal. Back to the dugout for me it is—I have no credibility. How dare I talk about this issue?

Yet, I am distressed by what I am seeing and hearing—distressed enough to speak up. As the Apostle Paul’s spirit was stirred in him while visiting Athens (Acts chapter 17) because of what he saw and heard (in that case, pervasive idolatry), my spirit is troubled because of what I see in America these days.

The problem in America is not racism. Sure, there are cases of enmity driven by bigoted ignorance, but the greatest prejudice in this country is the now systemic painting of those who oppose policy as racists—ipso facto. We have a new McCarthyism in the nation—one that paints with a broad brush. “Are you now, or have you ever been, a card-carrying racist?”

We are witnessing the “borking” of America. Robert Bork, of course, was Ronald Reagan’s nominee to the Supreme Court in 1987. He found himself the victim of an insidious smear campaign—that worked—and his name became a verb: "To defame or vilify (a person) systematically, esp. in the mass media.”

If you’re a white person and you don’t support Obamacare—you must be a bigot. If you think global warming is an overheated issue—it’s surely racially motivated. The same goes with what is happening now in Arizona. It must be racism driving all the “hate.” The 7 out of 10 citizens of Arizona who support the recently signed immigration law must be motivated by “hate.” That whole property, safety and not wanting to overtax an already cash-strapped state with financial burdens—well, that’s just a cover.

To hear some describe it (newspapers, blogs or any hour on MSNBC), racism is all over the place and there is no defense allowed if you are accused. It’s a charge that sticks. It’s also a charge that, to an extent, works. This is why playing the race card tends these days to be the first from the deck. It has a way of stopping further discussion. It’s a tried and true intimidator.

Martin Luther King Jr. famously said something about people not being judged by the “color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Amen! That statement rings so true. But what kind of character is represented when former ACORN president, Bertha Lewis, slanders the Tea Party movement as a “bowel movement” riddled with and motivated by “racism.” She was speaking, by the way to a group called the Young Democratic Socialists (the youth arm of the Democratic Socialists of America). Or for that matter, what kind of character was represented by the now discredited ACORN and their financial and moral bankruptcy?

It is disturbing to me that the historic election of the first black President of the United States has not led to a “post-racial” national experience, but rather it’s polarizing opposite. Are we moving toward a kind of country where speaking out and reasonable—even animated—opposition to policies and those who make them can be dismissed as merely racist and therefore irrelevant?

I do not support President Obama’s policies, but I am not a racist. I pray for the man (and other leaders) every day, by name, following the scriptural directive. I make sure to commend him when I can—for example, I thought his remarks at the memorial service for the West Virginia miners a week ago were excellent. He fulfilled one of his presidential duties—an extraordinarily difficult one (as any clergyman knows)—with grace and obvious compassion.

Mr. Obama loves his wife and children—they are truly a beautiful family. So, when I disagree with what he stands for politically I am not “hating” a man, or his “race,” I am simply exercising my rights as a citizen. But it is now clear that we have entered into a part of our national narrative, one that at first promised to be “post-racial,” that is becoming “most-racial.” The president has recently made a video for the Democratic National Committee appealing directly to (his words) "young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women,” in an effort to mobilize people to vote for his party in 2010.

How is that “post-racial?”

I implore all those on the other side of the political spectrum from today’s conservatives to resist the temptation to throw the racist flag when all that is happening is that some are voicing their disagreements to policies, the very way many of you did when George W. Bush was in office. It’s quintessentially American to disagree and speak out.

I recently heard a clergyman—someone I know and respect but strongly disagree with in this case—suggest that what Christians need to do these days is to “obey the powers that be.” This is, of course, Paul’s admonition from Romans 13 and it means that we are to be law-abiding citizens. However, the minister was using the text as a “proof text”—suggesting that speaking out or criticizing our current national leaders and their policies is a violation of scripture. Interestingly, I am not sure that text and argument were rolled out 5 years ago, but I digress.

What that clergyman—and some Americans—miss is that the “powers that be” in this nation are not merely governmental (though they are, in part), but reside ultimately in “We The People.” And we have a right to criticize and oppose and should be able to do so without heavy-handed “theologies” and broad-brush smears of racism.

Shakira, Immigration and the Pop Culture Politics of the Left

Shakira, Immigration and the Pop Culture Politics of the Left
Austin Hill
Sunday, May 02, 2010

What should you do when you’re the Mayor of America’s 5th largest city, your state has just enacted America’s most far –reaching law regarding illegal immigration, and you’re trying to make a career of leftist, race-baiting politics?

Honestly, there’s only one thing a person in this situation can do – hold a press conference with Shakira.

This, by the way, is precisely what Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon did last Thursday, April 29th. After a week of hand-wringing, editorializing in the Washington Post about how Arizona’s new immigration law “requires” police officers to “profile” people with “brown skin,” and repeatedly vowing “not in my city,” Mayor Gordon got really serious about his city’s illegal immigration crisis, and hosted the Grammy Award winning Latina recording artist (and very sexy dancer) Shakira at City Hall.

After a behind-closed-doors meeting with the beautiful Colombian pop star (who is now, apparently, a U.S. immigration policy analyst), Mayor Gordon, Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, and Vice Mayor Michael Nowakowski all joined Shakira at the podium as she weighed-in on America’s big public policy debate before the gathered press. And for this, the Phoenix-area media reported that Mayor Gordon’s “position” had “developed clout.”

Gordon, as a matter of background, was once a very moderate, even somewhat “conservative Democrat” who earned the trust and respect of the predominantly Republican city of Phoenix such that he was twice elected Mayor. Yet after his re-election in 2007 things changed.

A series of high-profile incidents back in 2007 and 2008 unfolded, involving illegal immigrant “day laborers” gathering and blocking traffic in front of Phoenix’ landmark “Pruitt’s Furniture” store, while the city leadership did essentially nothing. Mayor Gordon’s refusal to intervene on behalf of the suffering business – combined with his “nothing to see here-move along now” response to the cold-blooded murder of multiple Phoenix police officers at the hands of Hispanic illegal immigrants, eventually prompted famed Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio to move-in and do what the city police refused to do. This is to say that Arpaio and company actually began “policing” crime scenes that appeared to involve illegal immigrants – and come to find out, some of those crime scenes actually did entail actual illegal immigrants.

From there, the political “die” was cast. Mayor Gordon could not continue trying to portray himself as a “moderate” to a predominantly Republican city, when his neglect of U.S citizens, city residents and business owners had just been stood-up by Sheriff Arpaio. He could either move to the right and try to “out Arpaio” Arpaio (which was never going to happen), or he could run to the rabid political left and join Arizona’s small but vocal “open borders-si se’ puede-Somos America – it’s all racism” crowd.

And run to the left he did. From then on, whenever Sheriff Arpaio held a press conference to discuss one of his “crime sweep” operations, Mayor Gordon held a press conference to explain that Arpaio’s efforts were all about “racism.” Last year when a tragic shooting took place at the United States’ Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., Mayor Gordon exploitatively held a press conference to announce that “anti-Semitism” had been involved in the museum murder, and that there was also “anti-Semitism” present within Sheriff Joe’s department (which amounted to quite a non sequitur for the local media).

Indeed, over the past three years or so, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has mastered the artistry of buzz words, headline grabbing, and race baiting. And by bringing Shakira into the mix, the Mayor has now secured for himself a more prominent position in the world of online search engine history.

But let me be clear in stating the obvious. Mayor Gordon has not added more value, or validity, or “clout” to his policies and ideas simply because an attractive, talented singer shared the podium with him (just as a Cameron Diaz press conference about “global warming” adds no validity to junk science). This kind of “politicking” creates headlines and soundbytes to which millions of our fellow Americans gravitate, but it does nothing to advance our nation’s on-going debate, and it is most certainly not the stuff of which rational public policy is made.

Unfortunately, this vacuous approach to public office is dominating Washington right now. The good news, however, is that Americans are waking-up to it, and are beginning in large numbers to reject it.

Despite the fact that in 2008 we elected the “anti-Bush” presidential candidate with the Muslim-sounding middle name, Iran is as threatening and anti-American as ever, and Americans are realizing this. And when Americans question and disagree with the President and the Congress on everything from healthcare to immigration, they are labeled as “anti-American” and “terrorists,” and this, too, is not setting well.

Let America’s liberal left be America’s liberal left. Let their gamesmanship be put on display for all to see. Americans will then be better able to discern who has “clout” - and whether they want statesmanship, or pop-culture politics.

(Desperately) Looking for Arctic warming

(Desperately) Looking for Arctic warming
Paul Driessen
Saturday, May 01, 2010

co-authored by scientist Willie Soon

First American Ann Bancroft and Norwegian Liv Arnesen trekked off across the Arctic in the dead of the 2007 winter, “to raise awareness about global warming,” by showcasing the wide expanses of open water they were certain they would encounter. Instead, icy blasts drove temperatures inside their tent to -58 F, while outside the nighttime air plunged to -103 F.

Open water is rare at those temperatures, the intrepid explorers discovered. Facing frostbite, amputated toes and even death, the two were airlifted out 18 miles into their 530-mile expedition.

Next winter it was British swimmer and ecologist Lewis Gordon Pugh, who planned to breast-stroke across open Arctic seas. Same story. Then fellow Brit Pen Hadow gave it a go, but it was another no-go.

This year Aussie Tom Smitheringale set off to demonstrate “the effect that global warming is having on the polar ice caps.” He was rescued and flown out, after coming “very close to the grave,” he confessed.

Hopefully, all these rescue helicopters were solar-powered. Even hardened climate disaster deniers wouldn’t want these brave (if misguided) adventurers to be relegated to choppers fueled by hated hydrocarbons. They may be guilty of believing their own alarmist press releases – and the likes of Al Gore, James Hansen, the IPCC and Michael Mann, father of broken hockey sticks and Mann-made global warming. But missing digits or ideological impurity is a high price to pay.

Nonetheless, it’s easy to envision them dreaming of stoking up the boiler from the wreck of the “Alice May” over yonder on Lake Lebarge and chattering in their sleep: “Since I left Plumtree down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

The explorers tried to put the best spin on their failures. “One of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability,” Bancroft-Arnesen expedition coordinator Anne Atwood said helpfully. “But please know global warming is real, and with it can come extreme unpredictable changes in temperature,” added Arnesen.

“Global warming can mean colder. It can mean wetter. It can mean drier. That’s what we’re talking about,” Greenpeace activist Stephen Guilbeault chimed in.

Who was it that defined insanity as hitting your thumb repeatedly with a hammer, expecting it won’t hurt the next time? And who’s paying for all these rescue operations? Mostly the same taxpayers who are also paying for the junk science that insists the entire ice cap will melt away by 2014.

Actually, the Arctic ice has been rebounding since its latest low ebb around September 2007. And despite steadily rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels – from 0.0285% or 285 ppm in 1870 to 0.0388% or 388 ppm today – average global temperatures have been stable or declining since 1995.

Even UK Climate Research Unit chief Phil Jones and other Climategate emailers acknowledge that now. “We can’t account for the lack of warming, and it’s a travesty that we can’t,” Kevin Trenberth moaned in one of the infamous Climategate emails.

Instead of sleds and snowshoes, the explorers should have rented Doc Brown’s “Back to the Future” time machine. They would have found plenty of the global warming and open waters they so desperately seek.

Vikings built homes, grew crops and raised cattle in Greenland in 950-1300, before they were frozen out by the Little Ice Age and encroaching pack ice and ice sheets.

Many warm periods followed, marked by open seas and minimal southward extent of Arctic sea ice, as noted in ships’ logs and discussed in scientific papers by Torgny Vinje and other experts. The warm periods of 1690-1710, 1750-1780 and 1918-1940, for instance, were often preceded and followed by colder temperatures, severe ice conditions and maximum southward ice packs, as during 1630-1660 and 1790-1830.

“Not only in the summer, but in the winter the ocean [in the Bering Sea region] was free of ice, sometimes with a wide strip of water up to at least 200 miles away from the shore,” Swedish explorer Oscar Nordkvist reported in 1822.

“We were astonished by the total absence of ice in Barrow Strait,” Francis McClintock, captain of the “Fox,” wrote in 1860. “I was here at this time in 1854 – still frozen up – and doubts were entertained as to the possibility of escape.”

In 1903, during the first year of his three-year crossing of the Northwest Passage, Roald Amundsen noted that his party “had made headway with ease,” because ice conditions had been “unusually favorable.”

The 1918-1940 warming also resulted in Atlantic cod increasing in population and expanding their range some 800 miles, to the Upernavik area of Greenland, fisheries biologist Ken Drinkwater has reported.

Global warming and climate change are certainly real. They’ve been real throughout Earth’s history, from the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, Little Ice Age and Dust Bowl – to countless other cycles of warming and cooling, flood and drought, storm and calm, open Arctic seas and impassable ice.

Humans clearly influence weather and climate – at least on a local scale – through heat and emissions from cities and cars, our clearing of forests and grasslands, our diversion of rivers.

But that is not the issue. Nor is it enough to say – as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson often does – that “the climate is changing and mankind is responsible in part for that change.” The assertion is simplistic and misleading. It skews the debate, stigmatizes fossil fuel use, and preordains public policy responses that are excessive, costly and unjust. The fundamental issue is this:

Are humans causing imminent, unprecedented, global climate change disasters? And can we prevent those alleged disasters, by dramatically increasing the price of carbon, drastically curtailing hydrocarbon use, slashing living standards, and imposing government control over industries and people’s lives?

On that, the evidence simply is not there – a reality underscored by the glaring fact that the headline-grabbing disasters and nearly one-third of all the citations in the IPCC’s massive 2007 climate report were not peer-reviewed studies. They were newspaper articles, student papers, and even press releases from climate activists and lobbyists.

That leaves us with crisis scenarios conjured up by computer models that reflect CO2-centric assumptions, presume clouds exert only warming influences, and rely on temperature data that come from urban heat islands or have been manipulated by the modelers. In short, the climate models are little better than Farmville or Sim Earth.

They help scientists visualize how climate systems work. But they’re useless for predicting the future. They create virtual realities and virtual crises, and then “solve” them with virtual solutions. We need reality-based science and public policy.

No wonder most Americans now blame climate change on natural forces, not human activity – and 75% are unwilling to spend more than $100 per year in higher energy bills to “stabilize” Earth’s turbulent and unpredictable climate (Rasmussen polls). These citizens display a refreshing dose of commonsense.
________________________________________________

Is the Climate Bill Frozen?
Ken Blackwell
Monday, May 03, 2010

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is increasingly frustrated. He is hot to trot. He wants action on the climate. But he seems to be getting the cold shoulder. Not so much from his fellow Republicans as from his Democratic partners across the aisle.

No one seems to be paying much mind to Graham’s feverish efforts at bi-partisanship. Or, might it be because global warming passions have cooled? Last week’s Earth Day was a tepid affair. Gone was the hot passion that stoked the fires of environmental activism in years past.

“Where are the snows of yesterday,” asked the French poet Francois Villon in the Middle Ages. Do we now think this Gallic green was really lamenting the Medieval Warming Period?

Maybe Sen. Graham’s colleagues have had their ardor chilled by the latest Gallup polls. A March poll said Americans’ concern about global warming have dipped to their lowest point since 1997. Since 2007, the saliency of the global warming issue has dropped precipitously. In that last year of economic prosperity, 41% of Americans told pollsters they were “very concerned” about global warming. Today, those who “worry a great deal” about climate change has dropped to 28% of the nation. Of eight environmental issues, Americans are most concerned about the purity of drinking water and least about global warming.

Much of this cooling has been the result of the meltdown of the economy, to be sure. But ClimateGate hasn’t helped. We learned last year, just before President Obama jetted off to a world climate summit in Copenhagen, that climate scientists had been faking their data, pulling “tricks” to make warming seem more alarming than it is. The leaked emails from climate scientists at Britain’s University of East Anglia and from some stateside institutions showed a willingness of the climate science clique to try to blackball any reputable scientist who happened to dissent from their Doomsday scenarios.

Britains’ Nigel Lawson is no climate scientist, he readily admits. But he did deal with many of the issues of how governments respond to such crises when he served as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. That’s a top post. Lord Lawson has written: An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming. In this short book, the former Secretary of State for Energy lays out a calm and carefully modulated response to climate hot air.

Will an increase over 100 years of between 4.5º C. and 7.5º C. really mean the end of civilization as we know it? Lawson asks if humans have adapted to living in Singapore (average annual temperature of 84º F) and Helsinki (average annual temperature of 41º F)? Is the gradual northerly creep of wine-producing vineyards necessarily a bad thing?

He explains how carbon dioxide must not be considered a pollutant. It is essential to life on earth.

If environmentalists really insist on a climate bill, Lord Lawson argues, then it should be a simple carbon tax. Tax gasoline. Tax heating oil. Tax electricity. This carbon tax would, of course, hit lower income folks hardest. But, he says, their carbon tax could be offset by corresponding cuts in their income tax.

I should emphasize that I do not agree with this proposal of this distinguished British writer. That’s because I think the increasing taxes on carbon would never be offset by tax cuts on lower income families. Government is simply too voracious for new revenue.

Still, I see the force of Nigel Lawson’s reasoning. The Cap and Trade Bill is really a Cap and Tax Bill. And if Lindsey Graham succeeds in passing this, it will create a huge and cumbersome new bureaucracy which itself eats up vast revenues—and—worst of all—becomes the source for untold corruption of government. You will see corporations lining up to get favored treatment from government. Cap and Tax is really Cap, Tax, and Plunder. Washington, D.C.’s famous K Street would become home to hundreds of new lobbyists, each angling for bonanzas from government for his bosses. The infamous “K Street strut” would give way to a K Street glut.

I hope Sen. Graham does not find any dance partners on the Hill. This bill is ill-timed and ill-advised. It’s time the lawmakers started listening more to those who have to live under the laws they pass.

Strikingly Unpresidential

Strikingly Unpresidential
David Limbaugh
Friday, April 30, 2010

President Barack Obama doesn't deserve the reputation he's had for his style and temperament and for being gracious, civil, bipartisan and post-racial. He is often ungracious, uncivil, hyper-partisan, race-oriented and vindictive. He mocks and ridicules almost for sport. More than any president in my memory, he often does not comport himself presidentially.

Why does this matter? Well -- if I even have to answer that -- he is the face of America. The left constantly talked about George W. Bush's swagger and his cowboy diplomacy and how that damaged our "image" in the world and our relations with other nations.

But George W. Bush was nothing if not circumspect, discreet and respectful in his dealings with foreign leaders and his dealings with his political opponents. He was exceedingly presidential, demonstrating an extremely high respect for the office he held and what it represented.

How the president presents himself does matter for all the obvious reasons, but I believe Obama's behavior and the public's perception of it are relevant for other equally important reasons. He came into office with a reputation for being sophisticated, gentlemanly, above the political fray and open-minded. But it was a facade, facilitated by good looks, a seemingly pleasant demeanor and an extraordinarily fawning -- and forgiving -- media. He has been getting a pass on his unseemly conduct for way too long, which partially explains the disconnect between his personal likability and the unpopularity of his socialist agenda.

I believe that if the public were fully attuned to how unpresidentially he has consistently behaved, it wouldn't be as approving of him personally, and in turn, politicians wouldn't be so afraid to call him out on his Machiavellian and brutish behavior, the exposure of which would have an electoral impact. If more people understood what I believe to be this man's actual character, they wouldn't -- in the face of his consistently highhanded tactics in pushing each and every one of his destructive agenda items -- reflexively assume he's such a nice guy who means well. Then, they might be more vigilant, and heaven knows we need megadoses of vigilance these days.

I have theories about why Obama is consistently getting a pass, beyond the media's corrupt liberalism and the allies he's created through his racial and class warfare, but that's another column. The point for now is that he is getting a pass, and his behavior is increasingly indefensible.

We talk about Obama as a graduate of Saul Alinsky's school of thuggish street agitation, but it is more than just a casual charge. He is Alinsky personified with a disarming smile. It's not just a matter of his having embraced a political strategy that involves hitting below the belt and abusing power to help his friends and hurt his enemies. His behavior is not just a tactic; it's part of who he is. It is apparent that he has been coddled so long that he simply has zero tolerance for any opposition.

Indeed, he is exactly the opposite of who he billed himself to be: "I will bring a new type of politics to Washington." As a committed liberal ideologue, he is neither a uniter nor one willing to consider both sides of an issue. But it's not just his extremist views that are divisive. He is also often personally divisive, petty and mean-spirited.

From the time he cavalierly dismissed Hillary Clinton during a presidential debate with "You're likable enough, Hillary," I knew some cold blood ran through his veins. As president, he has been gratuitously nasty with people who have dared oppose him, and he has affirmatively targeted and demonized entire industries to advance his agenda.

Consider: his command that "the folks who created the mess" not "do a lot of talking"; his endless scapegoating of George Bush; his rude treatment of foreign leaders, from Britain's Gordon Brown to France's Nicolas Sarkozy; his abominable treatment of Israel and its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; his character assassination of inspector general Gerald Walpin for blowing the whistle on his friends; his demonization of surgeons and primary care physicians as dishonest mercenaries, Republicans as "liars," secured creditors as "speculators," tea partiers as "domestic terrorists," Arizonans as "irresponsible," rural Americans as bitter clingers and America itself as being "dismissive," "arrogant" and "derisive" and as having "a responsibility to act" because it is the only nation to have ever "used a nuclear weapon"; his vilification of Wall Street "fat cat" bankers, big pharma, big oil, insurance companies, big corporations, corporate executives, Cambridge policemen, conservative talk show hosts and Fox News; his snubbing even of the liberal press pool; his egomaniacal behavior at the health care summit; and his administration's flirtation with criminalizing Bush-era officials for their legal opinions.

The Corrupt Party, the Stupid Party, and the Birth of Crony Fascism

The Corrupt Party, the Stupid Party, and the Birth of Crony Fascism
Scott Wheeler
Friday, April 30, 2010

[Note: This column is coauthored by Buckley Carlson]

In the high-stakes poker game of Washington, D.C., power-politics, Democrats are holding a pair of deuces but telling Republicans they’ve got a royal flush. Poker is all about bluff and bluster and unfounded confidence. And the rules governing politics aren’t much different. So, good for the Democrats. What’s upsetting, though, is that the Republicans are ready to fold, despite holding a full house, aces high. It’s pathetic. And at this particular table – where the minimum bet is the future of America’s free market system – it’s unacceptable.

Watching and listening to the debate over Obama’s so called “financial reform” bill, one could be excused the impression that Republicans are “the party of Wall Street,” flush with corrupt banker cash, desperate to stymie justice, and eager to craft a reform bill that conforms to Wall Street’s specific wish list. How do we know? Well, Democrats have been making the case all week. As they did to the Politico on Wednesday:

“’Bipartisanship for Republican leaders means bringing Wall Street to the table, bring Wall Street banks into the room, and let them help you write the legislation,’ said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).”

This is akin to Eliot Spitzer blackmailing a prostitute, Nancy Pelosi calling someone else a lunatic, or Bill Clinton ascribing “political” motives to an electoral opponent. But the Democrat narrative on Wall Street – the corrupting influence of cash, and which party wallows most in the trough – is just as ludicrous, and just as blatantly dishonest. And make no mistake, it is the ONLY narrative on the subject, currently. And yet, Republicans are too timid, too disorganized or just too plain pathetic to raise even the smallest flag of protest. How can it be?

For more than a week now, we’ve been advising Republican Senators that they must demand a special prosecutor investigate the already documented connection between President Obama, Wall Street Financiers and the Congressional Democrats who have been loudly posturing that they are going after “big business.”

A brief perusal of FEC filings shows that Obama has been the recipient of nearly a million dollars from Goldman Sachs – Obama’s largest corporate contributor, the very entity under investigation by his own SEC, the same folks dragged to the Hill in televised humiliation this week — AND that the majority of Wall Street dough lands in Democrat campaign accounts. Pretty shocking revelations, there for all to witness, and yet, silence from Republicans.

Democrats have been publicly assaulting the free enterprise system for years. And now, finally, they have the votes, the political coverage and the compliant press required for them to fashion legislation that assumes control of certain businesses, allowing them to pick and choose who succeeds based solely on their record of donations to Democrats. It’s a modern-day spoils system, designed by shameless and hypocritical legislators, and guaranteed the approval of America’s first socialist president.

So often we hear the term “crony capitalism” bandied about. It’s a tired, and clichéd phrase, adopted mostly by those who are too lazy, or too uninquisitive, to observe what is really going on in the debate over Wall Street. Today, we declare that term dead. The process we are now witnessing can go by no other name than, “crony fascism.”

It’s so Machiavellian and so strategically brilliant that under other circumstances we couldn’t fail to be impressed by it; Democrats are blackmailing Republicans for the very corruption the Democrats themselves own. And the Republicans are too stupid, or too wimpy, or too insecure to cry foul, seize the issue and clobber Democrats over the head with it.

Republicans in power may refuse to acknowledge it, but we won’t: Democrats assume this populist issue of Wall Street “reform,” for show only…and to continue extorting large piles of cash from big business. It’s as if this is a pro-wrestling match, where everything about the fight is fake, but the payday is real. Too real.

And yet, the solution is simple: demand a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s relationship with Goldman Sachs and Wall Street; the taxpayer bailouts and the individuals who profited from them; and the corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – for which Rep. Barney Frank, for one, has never been held accountable, and for which the Democrats were directly responsible. When the Democrats object, as they inevitably will, make that the issue.

Not only would this route allow Republicans to take back the high ground from the Democrats – and set the stage for a productive, national lecture to the Democrats regarding the corrupt big business/big government nexus -- it would have the benefit also of actually being good for the country. Imagine, a win for Republicans and a win for America!

The night before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid forced Republicans to capitulate on “reform,” he took a break from attacking the GOP as the party of big business, so he could jet up to New York, and prostrate himself in front of the same Wall Street firms he’d spent the week excoriating, and beg for some cash. With his reelection campaign coffers newly topped off, he returned to Washington. And, as the Politico reported, “Reid took his criticisms a step further Wednesday, calling Republicans ‘anti-American’ for blocking the Wall Street reform bill.” And in response, how did the Republicans defend themselves? They sheepishly agreed to allow debate on the bill, as though they were the ones with something to hide!

Make no mistake, the “Reform Bill” lays the foundation for this new era of “Crony Fascism.” It gives Democrats – along with their lefty, Trojan Horse friends on Wall Street -- the power to destroy the free enterprise system that they almost succeeded in destroying with ceaseless meddling in Fannie and Freddie during the past decade.

And to those conspiracy theorists out there who will protest that “Republicans are in on it, too; both parties conspire against America and take turns running the country,” let us just say this: Republicans are too stupid and too incompetent to conspire with the Good Humor man to even land an ice cream sandwich. High-stakes poker is well beyond their reach.

Freedom Road

Freedom Road
Kathryn Lopez
Friday, April 30, 2010

The Fourth of July came early this year. It fell, somewhat ironically, on the anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

On the morning of April 29, I was co-hosting a national radio show, when a woman named Kim called from Detroit. At 19 years old, she and her family were among "the boat people" who fled Vietnam in 1975, escaping the Communist takeover. Her father "knew that he didn't want to be there when (the Communists) took over Saigon." He had been born in Hanoi and moved south "because he wanted freedom," she said. And now he was going to make sure his entire family had it.

When Kim's family's boat failed, American servicemen took them the rest of the way and gave them water. "But these people don't know us," Kim remembered saying. One serviceman even gave Kim, she says, a $10 bill. "He said I might need it. I didn't know the value of it." Kim and her family didn't know a word of English. But once she got to a refugee camp, she was taught it. "They didn't have to do that," she remembered, 35 years later, holding back tears. "This is the greatest country. I am forever grateful."

When Kim's family arrived on these shores, her father was full of hope and determination. "If you cannot succeed here, you cannot do it anywhere else," she remembers him declaring. "Set your goal and go after it." Kim did; she's a physician. Her early experiences provided the inspiration she needed to succeed. She recalls, "When we lined up in Detroit for unemployment, for food stamps, I'd never seen my dad so sad. He said, 'We have our hands and feet, why are we standing here?' We left the line."

When people talk about American exceptionalism, it is the hope Kim's father saw here that they are thinking of. Kim called in response to a letter that to this day is hard to read. It's about an American surrender.

As we were moving out of South Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge was taking over nearby Cambodia. The America ambassador asked Prince Sirik Matak of that country if he wanted to flee, too. He did not. And he explained that he "never believed for a moment that (America) would have this sentiment of abandoning a people, which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. ... I have only committed this mistake of believing in you."

Matak, who would be shot by the Khmer Rouge, didn't err, we did. Our political leaders disappointed him, and our servicemen were ill-served and underappreciated.

After the radio show that morning, another listener e-mailed me. I had referred to Kim's call as the welcome parade Vietnam veterans never received. In response, he said: "I'm one of those vets and your observation made me feel better about the sacrifice I made small though it was compared to that of others." He wrote: "Several years ago my daughter-in-law mentioned my year in Vietnam and thanked me for serving there. I surprised her when I told her that she was the first person to tell me that."

Warts and all, we are an exceptional nation of exceptional people -- most of us motivated by the founding principles that men fought and died for, principles that motivated our involvement in Vietnam and that we lost along the way there; principles that many of us worry the majority of our political class is forgetting again.

"Every morning I wake up and thank God that I'm here," said Mike, calling the same radio program during the same week. He was responding to a New York Times story about American expatriates renouncing their citizenship.

Mike, who was born in Croatia but raised a family here, would have none of it. A listener to conservative radio, he's become too used to hearing not from overtaxed executives living in Switzerland, but regular folks incensed at the major shift the Democratic Party seems to be forcing on the country.

"I cannot believe that one and a half years of Obama will bring the American people to its knees," Mike said. "You have to fight for your freedom."

There is something special about America. We have to work to keep it that way, forever treasuring the beacon that our nation is and needs to be, and never forgetting the dad from Hanoi, the proud soldiers or the lovers of freedom from all parts of the world.

A Manifesto on the "Manifesto"

A Manifesto on the "Manifesto"
Dr. Paul Kengor
Friday, April 30, 2010

I knew the time would come. America’s public schools and ideologically monolithic universities have spawned a generation woefully uninformed in the most elementary facts about free markets, socialism, and communism. Personally, after teaching this material for years, I’m getting an inordinate number of questions about communism in particular, as that word is bandied about like crazy—the result of America’s decisive lurch leftward since the election of November 2008.

There’s so much to say, especially about communism in practice, where the story is unprecedented misery: a death toll of 100-140 million human beings since 1917. That’s twice the combined corpses of WWI and WWII.

But what about communism as a theory?

We constantly hear the claim: Communism in theory is not as bad as communism in practice. If you read Marx, you’ll see that communism promotes sharing, equality, love of man.

In truth, this is arrant nonsense. When I hear it, I know the person has never read Marx’s Communist Manifesto, a plainly awful book, packed with hatred and, frankly, stupidity. But rather than just say this, I thought I’d attempt a public service by laying out key facts on the Communist Manifesto—another teachable moment. So, here we go:

First off, Marx’s Manifesto is very brief and inexpensive, leaving no excuse for someone with a strong opinion to not read it. Originally published in 1848, there are several recent editions, small enough to fit in your pocket. Most have decent introductions by some recognized authority. Here, I’ll refer to a 1998 edition by Penguin’s Signet Classics ($5.95), with an introduction by the outstanding scholar, Martin Malia, a Harvard Ph.D. and UC-Berkeley professor. This edition contains several earlier prefaces, with the actual Manifesto covering 42 pages.

Marx’s writing was painfully ambiguous, though certain identifiable elements emerge, from his revulsion of religion to disgust of traditional morality and the family. (Click here for my 2007 lecture on the communist war on religion.) Yet, Marx’s common thread, which we need to remember, was his contempt for private property. On page 67, he emphasized something all Americans should know, particularly students suffering the perverse professor who somehow admires communism. Stated Marx: “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”

That’s the essence of communism, which Marx returned to repeatedly, including in the final paragraph of the Manifesto.

Of course, on this point, a first grader—let alone a grown adult—ought to immediately recognize that Marxism can’t work. Abolishing private property is completely contrary to human nature, violating the most innate precepts of all peoples, from the cave to the courthouse. It shatters Judeo-Christian thinking, Western philosophy, the ancient and modern worlds, Cicero, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Locke, Jefferson, Old Testament, New Testament, Moses, Jesus, you name it. Only a fool would not instantly, intuitively realize that implementing this vision would generate mass bloodshed.

This is why, I imagine, most Marxist professors dare not have students read the Communist Manifesto.

In another illuminating section (page 75), Marx interrupted his meandering sophistries with a 10-point program of specific policy recommendations. I’m not going to shy from stating the obvious: Marx’s list is chillingly similar—in some respects, certainly not all—to what to what the American left has pushed for decades, from progressive income taxes, to inheritance taxes, to centralization and nationalization. Here they are, in direct quotation:

Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Abolition of all right of inheritance.
Confiscation of all property of emigrants and rebels.
Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Equal obligation of all to work….
… gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
Free education for all children in public schools….
That’s what the Communist Manifesto really says, and, worse, desired for not one country but the whole world (page 91). It’s a prescription for despotism, as Marx himself conceded, prefacing his 10 points: “Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads.”

Marxism wasn’t hijacked by despots; Marxism demanded despots.

Communism is not a good idea, in theory or practice, and likewise for its ugly stepsister: socialism. Both are about statism, collectivism, redistribution, nationalization, appropriation, excessive taxation, the inane assertion that public services are “free” services, and, overall, government control. They—along with modern progressivism—differ in degree.

Americans must understand this. They must in order to know what not to support, and, most important, who not to vote for.
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To read another article on the historical thread, click here.