The meaning of Massachusetts

It turns out conservatism isn't dead after all.

It was only a year or so ago we were being told that conservatism had been relegated to the ash heap of history. An obsolete and outdated philosophy bitterly clung to only by angry white tea baggers, racist rubes and gun-totin' hicks.

Recall Newsweek declaring that we are all socialists now. And Colin Powell's assertion that people wanted more government in their lives — not less.

Not surprisingly, rumors of conservatism's death were premature. In fact I'm not sure it can die in what remains a center-right country. But it can be temporarily abandoned. And it certainly was by a big-spending Republican president and congress during the early 2000's. Of course you could argue they had bigger things to focus on such as defending the country against the jihadist onslaught. But that is only a partial excuse.

In many ways we conservatives should thank Barack Obama for stirring the sleeping giant.

A good many people had become turned off to politics. Tired of the abrasive chatter and negativity. After eight years of Bush and the bitter 2000 election and truthers and other weird national distractions it could only be the election of a hard left ideologue — a true believer — to rattle us back to our senses. Had the Democratic party filtered out a pragmatic centrist it is possible none of the current hyper-partisanship would be happening.

But as I have opined before, the Democratic party is historically awful at vetting their candidates during the primary process. At least in the last couple of decades (See Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry). So while we were inundated with commentary that Bush had ruined the Republican brand and that conservatism would wander in the wilderness for a generation, when you look at the big picture, the truth is Bush's unpopularity and the GOP's following slide over those eight years were merely a blip compared to the larger thirty-year decline of the Democratic party.

A decline that has forged that party's angry identity and has led it far from the mainstream.

It is now a party that has allowed its leadership to ratchet their platform and policy way to the left. It is no longer the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers. No longer the party of the working man. It's the party of ex-60's radicals and neo-socialist Europhiles and Alinsky revolutionaries.

Kooks in suits. All adopting the appearance of normality. Becoming the man to beat the man. The modern American fifth column of the glorious workers revolution. Down with the long struggle. Patient. Creeping in. Hollowing out the capitalist system from the inside.

It has become something that many Americans find distasteful and scary. A party that welcomes the Cindy Sheehans and Ward Churchills and Noam Chomskys and the 20% or so (my estimate) of people who actually believe maybe we were behind the 9/11 attack — or at least deserved it. While the other 80% — Republican and Democrat — who still cherish the foundations and institutions and goodness of this country find that kind of thinking repulsive and offensive.

It has become a party that is both arrogant and ignorant at the same time. A party that believes it is entitled to rule instead of blessed to represent. More interested in fomenting victimhood in order to sustain voter rolls than to solve real problems.

I believe that while the natural born instinct of most Americans is to resist big government. It is also natural to resist a group which openly works to tear down this country.

The perception that the Democratic party of today doesn't take national security and American sovereignty seriously exists because, well, they don't. They are too busy domestically trying to transform this country into a sunlit dreamland where all needs are attended to by the State.

An ideal and just and "fair" society forcefully created by redistributive social and economic change. A great societal realignment to atone for centuries of imperialist oppression and other perceived global sins. Utopia, at long last — or at least Switzerland.

While the rest of us who live in reality understand that while improvement is a necessity, perfection is a fantasy. And in some cases not a harmless one.

Now the mask is off. And many people — including independents and blue-collar Democrats in Massachusetts — are rejecting what they see. If this is not a repudiation of the current administration's stated agenda what else could it possibly be?

With such a stunningly quick reversal in national opinion, then, how do you explain what happened in 2008 anyway? I'm not sure it can ever be completely understood. But essentially Barack Obama rode an anti-Bush, anti-war wave into office with just the right mixture of superbly canned happy talk about hope and change, GOP missteps and media worship on a level not seen before. No one — except for a few of us — seemed to want to question seriously whether this person was actually right for the job. Whether this former street radical and liberal law professor and cultural Marxist actually deserved to be given the privilege of leading this great nation and the solemn honor of commanding her armies.

It always seemed to me that Obama was just the same old stale populist leftism we've heard for years. Platitudes and cliches. Tired and empty and meaningless words. But many were just taken in by the American Idol marketing, followed the conventional wisdom, and dared not be called out as someone who didn't appreciate the historical significance. After all, if you disagreed with Obama the candidate or didn't care for him, you had the added racial guilt to live with.

Those of us who felt we had the correct sense seem to have been proven right. That this is a man that is all about words and appearances and less about substance and action. So after a year of our President's constant and sometimes bizarre speechifying the backlash has culminated with the stunning victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. A Republican from a deep blue state. A regular guy. A moderate. An average American who drives a truck and believes in limiting government and reducing taxes and treating terrorists as terrorists. A citizen legislator who understands that government does not increase the standard of living of people — liberty does.

The result of this victory seems to have many of the left in a simultaneous state of confusion, denial and delusion.

Well, as our President's former pastor would say, the chickens are coming home to roost.

Some have an amazing ability to self-delude

President Obama said this on January 5, 2010 during his remarks about the pantybomber:

But make no mistake: We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al Qaeda. In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And, as I've always said, we will do so – we will close the prison in a manner that keeps the American people safe and secure.

I am not even going to address in-depth the question of how Gitmo has "damaged our national security interests." But I would like to know exactly what Obama means by this and in what specific ways Gitmo has "damaged our national security interests." Did it "damage our national security interests" before 9/11 when it did not even exist as a terrorist detention center? Could it be there are other "recruiting tools" – such as the chance to kill Americans – that attract these fools to the jihadist death cult?

More importantly though, based on The President's logic, would it be fair to say that one of the objectives of the terrorists is to have Gitmo closed? So, by closing Gitmo, we will be doing something that the terrorists want. In other words, terrorist activity directly results in a desired goal and a change in American policy. They commit slaughter, babble on about holy war, and The Great Satan decides to close Gitmo.

Yes. This certainly seems like it will help to discourage future terrorist activity.

Or. Maybe. Perhaps. Just maybe. Appeasement and weakness actually encourage and motivate terrorists even more.

After all, it was Bin Laden who famously said, "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse."

America did not ask for this war and would be happy for it to be over tomorrow. But the other side is not interested in ending this war.

And that is really unfortunate since America just doesn't seem to be interested in being the strong horse anymore.

With department heads like these...

With people like this in charge of our security, maybe it's a good thing the TSA chief position hasn't been filled yet.

BBC questions Global Warming

Amazing. Just amazing to see the BBC of all sources printing a story which questions Global Warming. They rightly point out that indeed there has been zero increase in global temperatures since 1998.

When the BBC starts running stories like this, you have to wonder how long the Global Warming mongers have to pass their prosperity-killing policies.

Thomas Friedman officially goes off the deep end

Until he adopted the global warming scheme as his life cause, I was actually a fan of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. I thought his writings and views on the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict were among the most intelligent and sharp you could find.

But in the last few years he's gone further and further into koo koo land, and the final push over the cliff and into the abyss of lunacy took place a few days ago in his latest column.

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

So, there it is. Communist, oppressive, human-rights-abusing, protest-'discouraging', soul-crushing China is the model for which we free people in democratic America should now be looking to. Because, despite those inconvenient 'drawbacks', their 'enlightened' leaders really know how to get stuff done.

From the 'top down'.

You almost don't know where to begin. So I'll just let it speak for itself.

As with my previous post, there's been a lot of the Liberal-Progressive mind exposed here lately. Call it Libs Gone Wild, if you will. Naked and joyous to the world.

It's both amazing and horrifying at the same time.

Jonah Goldberg nails it here.

UPDATE: But, once again, it should be noted any time someone is complaining about the GOP being the party of "no": The GOP does not have the votes to stop any legislation the Democrats want to pass.

The GOP is not what is stopping Obama and his merry band of Dems from passing their paradigm-shifting, massive entitlement programs during a recession and two wars. What is stopping them is that they simply lack the political courage to ram these things through on their own. They want the political cover of 'bipartisanship' when these ideas inevitably fail.

"They may not know what's good for them"

Andrea Mitchell, of state-run MSNBC, recently had one of those unguarded moments when the true impulse of the Liberal mind reveals itself:



She means you, by the way. The sheep. The cattle.

Only the elite minds of Washington and New York are enlightened enough to guide all of you rubes in flyover country.

Right?

This really shouldn't surprise anyone who understands how Liberals think and view the world. Notice how easily the words rolled off the tongue.

Leftists constantly pat themselves on the back for their 'good intentions' and concern for the poor and downtrodden. Problem is, it's all bull.

The real motivation underlying the Liberal-Progressive mind is quite simply the urge to control. The urge to tell you how to live your life. The urge to force. To dominate.

Moments like this one crystallize that notion.

Friends on my side often complain about the obvious bias in the state-run media. I say fine. Set them free. Let them show their true selves.

They seem to be doing it more and more lately.

Recent must-reads

Pat Buchanan — Socialist America Sinking

After half a century of fighting encroachments upon freedom in America, journalist Garet Garrett published “The People’s Pottage.” A year later, in 1954, he died. “The People’s Pottage” opens thus:

“There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.”

Garrett wrote of a revolution within the form. While outwardly America appeared the same, a revolution within had taken place that was now irreversible. One need only glance at where we were before the New Deal, where we are and where we are headed to see how far we are off the course the Founding Fathers set for our republic.

Charles Krauthammer — Why Obamacare is sinking

This is not about politics? Then why is it, to take but the most egregious example, that in this grand health-care debate we hear not a word about one of the worst sources of waste in American medicine: the insane cost and arbitrary rewards of our malpractice system?

When a neurosurgeon pays $200,000 a year for malpractice insurance before he even turns on the light in his office or hires his first nurse, who do you think pays? Patients, through higher doctors’ fees to cover the insurance.

And with jackpot justice that awards one claimant zillions while others get nothing — and one-third of everything goes to the lawyers — where do you think that money comes from? The insurance companies, who then pass it on to you in higher premiums.

But the greatest waste is the hidden cost of defensive medicine: tests and procedures that doctors order for no good reason other than to protect themselves from lawsuits. Every doctor knows, as I did when I practiced years ago, how much unnecessary medical cost is incurred with an eye not on medicine but on the law.

Tort reform would yield tens of billions in savings. Yet you cannot find it in the Democratic bills. And Obama breathed not a word about it in the full hour of his health-care news conference. Why? No mystery. The Democrats are parasitically dependent on huge donations from trial lawyers.

George Will — Cold Shoulder to Climate 'Urgency'

The costs of weaning the U.S. economy off much of its reliance on carbon are uncertain, but certainly large. The climatic benefits of doing so are uncertain but, given the behavior of those pesky 5 billion, almost certainly small, perhaps minuscule, even immeasurable.

Fortunately, skepticism about the evidence that supposedly supports current alarmism about climate change is growing, as is evidence that, whatever the truth about the problem turns out to be, U.S. actions cannot be significantly ameliorative.

Mark Steyn — Gaia's Right

Environmentalism opposes that kind of mobility. It seeks to return us to the age of kings, when the masses are restrained by a privileged elite. Sometimes they will be hereditary monarchs, such as the Prince of Wales. Sometimes they will be merely the gilded princelings of the government apparatus — Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi. In the old days, they were endowed with absolute authority by God.

Today, they’re endowed by Mother Nature, empowered by Gaia to act on her behalf. But the object remains control — to constrain you in a million ways, most of which would never have occurred to Henry VIII, who, unlike the new cap-and-trade bill, was entirely indifferent as to whether your hovel was “energy efficient.” The old rationale for absolute monarchy — Divine Right — is a tough sell in a democratic age. But the new rationale — Gaia’s Right — has proved surprisingly plausible.

Head, meet sand

A great piece by Bill Muehlenberg on why Political Correctness is not just silly, it's dangerous. You'll want to read the whole thing, but here's a highlight:

Political Correctness is certainly annoying, foolish and a pain in the neck. However, it can also be quite dangerous, especially when it is applied to issues of national security, policing and justice. In the attempt of our elites to make sure we do not offend anyone, ordinary citizens can find themselves in positions of real danger.

Consider a recent news item about the effort to turn all of our leaders – including the police – into politically correct lackies, regardless of the harmful consequences. Here is how an Age article describes this situation:

“A guidebook for politicians, police and public servants on how to talk about Muslims and terrorism without implicating the religion of Islam should be released by the end of the year. The book, A Lexicon on Terror, was conceived by Victoria Police and the Australian Multicultural Foundation, but was so popular it became a national project, an international conference on Islamophobia at Monash University heard yesterday.”

The article continues, “Multicultural Foundation head Hass Dellal told The Age many Muslims interpreted ‘war on terror’ as a war on Islam. Other terms to be avoided included ‘Islamic terrorism’, ‘Islamo-fascists’, ‘Middle Eastern appearance’, and ‘moderate Muslim’, which suggested to Muslims they were inadequate in their faith.”

While seeking to help different groups get along in order to achieve a harmonious society may be praiseworthy, there are at least three big problems with all of this. First, this attempt at PC simply denies reality. The sad truth is, the overwhelming majority of the acts of terrorism which we read about on a regular basis, including last week’s attacks on two hotels in Jakarta, are committed by Muslims.

No amount of PC can deny the truth that there is a war against the West taking place, and that this comes primarily from those who call themselves Muslim. From the September 11 attacks to the Bali bombings, the Madrid train bombings, the London underground attacks, the Mumbai terrorist attack, and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, to name just a few, what we have is violence done by Muslims in the name of Islam.

To ignore or seek to downplay the source of these attacks does nothing except benefit those who are carrying them out – Muslims. When we are faced with mortal danger, the first step in self defence is to know who the enemy is. Sure, not all Muslims approve of such violent jihad, but that does not do away with the fact that the terrorist threat we face is overwhelmingly an Islamic terrorist threat.

Here's a related story about the Islamofascist group Hizb ut-Tahrir and their recent conference in Chicago which was called "Fall of Capitalism, Rise of Islam". From Fox News:

A group committed to establishing an international Islamic empire and reportedly linked to Al Qaeda is stepping up its Western recruitment efforts by holding its first official conference in the U.S.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Sunni network with reported ties to confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq's onetime leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It has operated discreetly in the U.S. for decades.

Now, it is coming out of the shadows and openly hosting a July 19 conference entitled, "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam," at a posh Hilton hotel in a suburb of Chicago.

Hizb ut-Tahrir insists that it does not engage in terrorism, and it is not recognized by the State Department as a known terror group.

But some terrorism experts say it may be even more dangerous than many groups that are on the terror list.

"Hizb ut-Tahrir is one of the oldest, largest indoctrinating organizations for the ideology known as jihadism," Walid Phares, director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told FOXNews.com.

Phares said that Hizb ut-Tahrir, rather than training members to carry out terrorist acts like Al Qaeda, focuses instead on indoctrinating youths between ages of 9 and 18 to absorb the ideology that calls for the formation of an empire — or "khilafah" — that will rule according to Islamic law and condones any means to achieve it, including militant jihad.

Hizb ut-Tahrir often says that its indoctrination "prepares the infantry" that groups like Al Qaeda take into battle, Phares said.

"It's like a middle school that prepares them to be recruited by the high school, which is Al Qaeda," he said. "One would compare them to Hitler youth. ... It's an extremely dangerous organization."

Phares said Hizb ut-Tahrir has strongholds in Western countries, including Britain, France and Spain, and clearly is looking to strengthen its base in the U.S.

More about the recent conference in Chicago from Townhall.com:

On the morning of July 17th 2009, coordinated explosions tore through a pair of luxury hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia—killing nine people and injuring dozens more. The attacks are believed to be the work of a local Islamist terror outfit known as Jemaah Islamiyah, an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Southeast Asia.

On the morning of July 19th 2009, hundreds of American Muslims gathered at a luxury Hotel in suburban Chicago. They were attending the first ever U.S. meeting of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic supremacist organization whose extreme teachings have influenced hundreds of thousands of Muslims worldwide. Not coincidentally, the group has a strong following in Indonesia.

Put simply, Hizb ut-Tahrir serves as an ideological incubator that radicalizes Muslims, some of whom go on to join Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Its roster of notorious alumni includes 9/11 Mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad and former Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Its leaders have urged Muslim governments to hinder international war efforts against radical Islam, and its literature has defended jihad as “legal, an obligation…the apex of Islamic ethics.” An official organization leaflet published in March called for the declaration of “a state of war” against the United States.

According to InvestigativeProject.org , attendees at Sunday’s event in Chicago heard from a number of speakers throughout the day, all addressing the event’s theme, “Fall of Capitalism, Rise of Islam.” One featured Imam offered this message to the assembled group:

“If [Americans] offer [Muslims] the sun, or the moon, or a nice raise, or a passport, or a house in the suburbs, or even a place to pray at the job—on the condition that we stop calling for Islam as a complete way of life, we should never do that, ever do that—unless and until Islam becomes victorious, or we die in the attempt.”

Also related, Turkish police arrest 'Islamists', from BBC News:

Turkish police have arrested almost 200 people suspected of being members of the banned Islamist group Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami, reports say.

The arrests were made early in the morning during simultaneous raids in 23 cities, the Anatolia news agency said.

Turkish police have repeatedly detained members of the group in the past.

Founded in 1953, Hizb al-Tahrir seeks to establish a pan-Islamic state covering all Muslim lands. It is banned in many countries throughout the world.

The group is widely viewed as extremist and anti-Semitic. However, it denies these charges and says it preaches non-violent political Islam.

Yes. The Chicago in Illinois which is in America.

And finally, another Islamic 'honor' killing.

GOP: far from dead

Marc Rotterman, a senior fellow at the John Locke Foundation, wrote a good column in my local State-run media fishwrap yesterday about Obama's "persuasion gap". With the wacky Democratic party unwisely overreaching in all sorts of ways up in Washington, the backlash could come sooner rather than later.

The piece begins:

The cliché that bad policy makes bad politics is beginning to be borne out again with the drop in President Barack Obama's poll numbers. A new Gallup Poll shows Obama's job approval rating at 56 percent -- down from his honeymoon high of 66 percent.

A job approval rating of 56 percent this early in his presidency is still very respectable by historical standards, but the dropoff in key swing states among independents is a cause for alarm for the White House's inner circle.

In the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, independents had virtually voted in lockstep with the Democratic Party, resulting in the Democrats' seizing the majority in the House and Senate in 2006 and the White House in 2008.

Obama and his team mistakenly, in my view, misread his election as a mandate to institute the largest peacetime expansion of government in the history of this country. Now, as unemployment numbers rise and the economy continues to falter, it is becoming increasingly clear that independents are rejecting the Obama administration's expansive and wildly expensive programs.

Reality is setting in, and Obama's soaring rhetoric is not matching the results in communities around the country and at the kitchen table.

Numerous polls reflect the growing skepticism of Obama's programs. The middle class sees no tangible results (jobs) and understands that there is a huge downside to all this debt. People wonder out loud how the government can create jobs or for that matter run General Motors.

Exactly.

Read the whole article here.

Joe Biden exemplifies the soulless politician who talks a lot while saying nothing

This is possibly the most egregious example of a politician completely flapping his gums without really saying anything.

We all know the Vice President is a total windbag. But even for him, this is particularly horrid.

From CNSNews.com:

Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.

“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”

Some politicians are liars. Some are cheaters.

And some are just empty suits. Devoid of blood, brain, and soul.

I really believe Joe Biden doesn't actually think about or listen to what he says. I honestly think he just hopes people pick up on some keywords like "must pass health care" and "bankrupt" and that they don't really pay any attention.

And that requires either an appalling level of stupidity or just an extreme amount of condescension toward the average person.

Read the entire story here.

Crock

Fear-mongering moonbats at their worst:

WASHINGTON — If the Senate doesn't pass a bill to cut global warming, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer says, there will be dire results: droughts, floods, fires, loss of species, damage to agriculture, worsening air pollution and more.

She says there's a huge upside, however, if the Senate does act: millions of clean-energy jobs, reduced reliance on foreign oil and less pollution for the nation's children

I grow beyond weary of this nonsense. The whole story from McClatchy is here.

Memo to Colin Powell: Really??????????

Colin Powell said this on Monday: "Americans are looking for more government in their lives, not less."

Of course, he said a lot more, like bashing Rush and Sarah Palin and how the GOP is in shambles and how he knows how to fix it. But for me, the doozy above is what caught my eye.

Anyone who knows me knows that veterans get an almost infinite free pass. I have all the respect in the world for General Powell — but somehow I think this is more about repairing his legacy after the unfortunate "U.N. WMD slideshow incident" than it is actually helping the GOP.

And for the Rush haters, I really don't get it. Why does he get under your skin so much? He's a dude on the radio, he can't raise your taxes, or send your kids to war, or ban spicy mustard on burgers — he's just a dude on the radio.

Get over it already.

An Enchanted Evening at The White House

Do liberal reporters ever actually listen to themselves?



I guess this is the new, hopey changey, metrosexual White House press corps.

Can you imagine W getting that kind of softball?

'Extremists' protest ginormous government on tax day

As normal, average, everyday Americans across the country yesterday gathered to protest bailouts, higher taxes and general government bloating, the media and leftwing blogosphere predictably treated the whole affair with the usual snarky, mocking, and dismissive tone. [Examples here, here, and here.]

Here are a few things the mockers should note:

These protests are not about Barack Obama, he's just a catalyst, but not the source of frustration. If anything, Republicans on Capital Hill should be paying the most attention to these protests. More votes in favor of bailouts, amnesty for illegal immigrants, cap and trade, unaffordable universal healthcare, and any other such rushed, non-debated nonsense from those clowns will certainly open them up to future election defeats.

These protests are a backlash against decades of growth in Federal power, including growth under Republican administrations. So by all means, save the 'bitter clingers who just don't like Obama' criticism for something else.

These protests are not just a bunch of radical right-wing Jesus Campers out looking to network. Read or watch just about any [unbiased] report about any of the hundreds of gatherings and that's clear. Beyond that, I personally know a few registered Democrats who attended the event in Raleigh, NC. Apparently, not every Democrat is on board with the current direction of this country. Who knew?

Despite the constant talking point mantra, this was not some carefully crafted Fox News conspiracy, that's just another straw man argument that the left are masters of. Fox was simply the only network giving these protests any coverage beforehand.

Finally, it can't be coincidence that our current Department of Homeland Security just recently issued a report to law enforcement agencies nationwide about the rise of "right-wing extremist activity". Apparently, the DHS secretary feels "right-wing extremists" are every bit as dangerous to Americans as Islamic terrorists — and other than being absurd, that's just sick and sad. Especially when you consider the fast and loose definition of "right-wing extremists" given in the report.

Truly shameless.

Darwin vs. The Islamists

This is pretty interesting. From The Wall Street Journal:

ISTANBUL -- As scientists around the world celebrate the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's seminal work on evolution, Adnan Oktar, a college dropout turned theorist of Islamic creationism, is working on the fifth volume of a 14-part masterwork that he says will bury Darwinism once and for all.

"Darwin and his theory are dead," says Mr. Oktar, founder and honorary president of the Science Research Foundation, an Istanbul outfit dedicated to debunking the Victorian-era English naturalist. Darwin, says his 52-year-old Turkish scourge, is "Satan's biggest trick on humanity."

Mr. Oktar, who briefly studied interior design, hasn't had much success swaying scientists with the weight of his research. "He is a complete and utter ignoramus," says Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and Oxford University professor.

The physical weight of Mr. Oktar's work, however, is considerable. Each volume of his anti-Darwin magnum opus, "Atlas of Creation," weighs more than 13 pounds. Also weighing in on his side are very aggressive lawyers. They've repeatedly gone to court in Turkey to silence critics whom Mr. Oktar accuses of spreading "lies and insults." Scores of Web sites have been banned at his behest.

Read the entire story here.

The glass is half empty

This is more than a little disturbing. According to Rasmussen, only 53% of Americans believe capitalism is better than socialism.

Let me repeat that: Only 53% of Americans believe capitalism is better than socialism.

Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.

Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better.

At the risk of sounding kooky, I don't think there can be any doubt that the indoctrination via watered-down and politically-correct curricula in our government schools, undeniable liberal media bias, Hollywood pop culture that celebrates general pinko-ness, and an overall dumbing down of the electorate have all contributed to this frightening reality.

The foundations, traditions and institutions of this country have been aggressively deconstructed for so long now that it's actually working. The light of the shining city on the hill is fading.

America's sunset is upon us. Well, it was good while it lasted anyway.

John Stossel: Bailouts and Bull

John Stossel has always been one of my favorite all-around dudes. No one points out how we're pretty much idiots, who get led around by even bigger idiots (politicians), quite as well as he does.

If you missed his recent 20/20 special called "Bailouts and Bull", here are my favorite parts:

Daniel Hannan: A star is born?

I've been busy, what can I say?

This clip has been making the rounds but I couldn't resist posting it myself. What a great example of common sense and the dressing down of a big government politician like Gordon Brown.

You might be witnessing a future Prime Minister of Great Britain:




The transcript:

Prime Minister, I see you’ve already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate. You’ve spoken here about free trade, and amen to that. Who would have guessed, listening to you just now, that you were the author of the phrase ‘British jobs for British workers’ and that you have subsidised, where you have not nationalised outright, swathes of our economy, including the car industry and many of the banks? Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words? Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the councils of the world if the United Kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G20 country?

The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around £20,000. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child. Now, once again today you try to spread the blame around; you spoke about an international recession, international crisis. Well, it is true that we are all sailing together into the squalls. But not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition. Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear their rigging; in other words – to pay off debt. But you used the good years to raise borrowing yet further. As a consequence, under your captaincy, our hull is pressed deep into the water line under the accumulated weight of your debt. We are now running a deficit that touches 10% of GDP, an almost unbelievable figure. More than Pakistan, more than Hungary; countries where the IMF have already been called in. Now, it’s not that you’re not apologising; like everyone else I have long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It’s that you’re carrying on, wilfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. Last year - in the last twelve months – a hundred thousand private sector jobs have been lost and yet you created thirty thousand public sector jobs.

Prime Minister, you cannot carry on for ever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we’re ‘well-placed to weather the storm’, I have to tell you that you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. You know, and we know, and you know that we know that it’s nonsense! Everyone knows that Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so; the European Commission has said so; the markets have said so – which is why our currency has devalued by thirty percent. And soon the voters too will get their chance to say so. They can see what the markets have already seen: that you are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government.

This dude is righteous, and his blog is here.

Global Whining

According to Gallup, an increasing number of Americans think Global Warming is exaggerated:

Although a majority of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated, a record-high 41% now say it is exaggerated. This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject.

This is good news for common sense, and bad news for L. Ron Gore and the Climate pimps. More and more people are starting to see this nonsense for what it is.

Whenever thinking about this subject it is always good to revisit the classic Confessions of a Global Warming Agnostic by Charles Krauthammer from NRO. A highlight:

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class — social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts, and their left-wing political allies — arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (Communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).

Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher’s England to Deng’s China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.

Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual Left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but — even better — in the name of Earth itself.

Environmentalists are Gaia’s priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. (See Newsweek above.) And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment — carbon chastity — they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.

The dismal tide

Should any of this surprise us?

The Dow is crashing.

Job losses are mounting.

The general unease is growing.

Universal Health Care that is neither constitutional nor affordable is creeping.

The Global Warming swindle — with its boring and brainwashed moonbats — is marching forward.

The War on Capitalism is in full swing.

The War on Terror is in full retreat.

But again I ask, should any of this surprise us?

When you elect someone with zero executive experience, who marinated in radicalism their entire adult life, who learned the art of the "manufactured crisis" from Moonbat-in-chief Saul Alinsky, who pretended to be a centrist during an unvetted campaign — should any of this surprise us?

Thanks, Obama voters.

Are you eating crow yet?