Liberalism's problem in two graphs

You'd never know this or this reading the editorial page of the newspaper.

The real "crazy" talk

For the last year or so, there has been a constant drumbeat that the Tea Party is "crazy" and "extremist" and "dangerous". One of the biggest beaters of that drum has been Washington Post columnist and uber-Lib Eugene Robinson.

His latest column has no shortage of delusional and "crazy" talk itself. And interestingly, it's not because it's the usual boilerplate Tea Party bashing or 'Republicans are racist' stuff, it's crazy because he tries to defend the indefensible.

That's right. It's a love letter to Nancy Pelosi.

Let's parse some of the nonsense:

Losing elections is an occupational hazard for politicians, so there's no need to get all weepy about the Democratic officeholders who suddenly find themselves with more time to spend with their families. It would be more appropriate to shed a tear or two for the future of the country, what with the Tea Party brigade coming to town.

It didn't take long to get the jab in against the Tea Party. And he may claim there's no need to get weepy, but I'm willing to bet after last Tuesday Eugene did in fact get a little weepy.

President Obama still has the ability to set the nation's agenda - and also the power of the veto, in case of emergency. Harry Reid is still Senate majority leader - and after the way he punched and scrapped his way to victory, who wants to mess with him? As for John Boehner, he'll soon learn that his new job requires a more extensive vocabulary than "no."

I'm sure John Boehner's vocabulary comes from the same dictionary the Democratic party used from the years 2000 to 2008. Wouldn't you agree, Eugene?

This is the absurd double standard in American politics. When Republicans lose, they are supposed to concede, relax their principles, and rubber-stamp whatever the Democrats want to do. When the Democrats lose power, well, dissent becomes "patriotic" and they speak "truth to power" and their own crazy rhetoric gets overlooked by the Eugene Robinsons of the world.

But amid the wreckage of Tuesday's GOP rampage, there's one person for whom I feel awful: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She's losing her job not because she does it poorly but because she does it so well.

This is wrong on so many levels. But let's continue.

Pelosi would never ask for, or even accept, my sympathy - that's not her style. Her place in history was secure the moment she became the first woman to take possession of the speaker's gavel. Still, she squeezed every drop out of her four-year tenure. To string together a couple of sports cliches, she came to play and she left it all on the field.

As usual, the "historic" gender/race component of anything is the most important thing to a Liberal. Not the substance. Not what someone does. Not what they believe. She was the first female speaker. That's it. That's all that matters. Unless the "she" is a conservative.

I regret that the nation has never come to know the actual Nancy Pelosi. Most Americans are probably familiar only with the caricature that her political opponents sketched - the effete "San Francisco liberal" who knew nothing of America outside her mink-lined cocoon, where the taps ran with chablis and nourishment consisted of unpronounceable French cheeses, served on silver platters by waiters who were certainly gay, and quite possibly married.

Sounds about right.

That's not the Nancy Pelosi known to anyone who has ever met her. While the term "San Francisco liberal" is accurate, it's also true that she grew up - and learned the rough-and-tumble of politics - in gritty Baltimore. Her father, Tommy D'Alesandro, was a legendary "Charm City" mayor and political boss. Her education in how to count votes, and keep them counted, began at a young age.

Well, then, color me impressed. She was involved in politics from an early age? Her father was a big-time "political boss" in Baltimore? She was essentially born with a Democratic leader's congressional pen stuck in her power suit?

Only the most ardent water-carriers and out of touch beltwayers would make these points and think they are actually defending someone.

Mr. Robinson, this is exactly the problem that people have with the government in our country right now. This is one of the reasons you are seeing the rise of the Tea Party that you denounce as racist and crazy and extreme.

People are sick and tired of career politicians, born into this "show business for the ugly", entitled to rule instead of blessed to represent. People who have never run a business or met a payroll or waited tables or dug a ditch or lifted a finger to do anything other than carry a community organizer's clipboard – yet demand and command from their Washington perches more money, more liberty, more attention than us flyover rubes would ever really prefer to give them.

Kapish?

He goes on...

When she appears before the cameras, Pelosi often seems stiff and almost brittle. In person, she's warm and engaging - also funny, earthy and just plain good company. She tells a great story. She turns a mean phrase. Colleagues on Capitol Hill almost universally describe her as a good boss and simply a good person.

It was frustrating to hear Republicans demonize her in their thunderous public statements, then confess privately that they really liked her. Ain't politics grand?

And demonize her they did. In their midterm campaign, Republicans attacked Pelosi more often, and more brutally, than they attacked Obama. They made her the living embodiment of Evil Washington, or of limousine socialism, or of whatever alleged plagues that Democrats were supposedly visiting upon the body politic.

Sounds familiar. Wasn't Bush sometimes stiff in front of the camera? I wonder, was Eugene Robinson frustrated by the Democrats "demonizing" Bush "in their thunderous public statements" as well?

Some of the votes she won looked impossible. On health-care reform, there appeared to be no way the House could ever be persuaded to pass the more conservative bill that had passed the Senate. At one point, she told me she could find only "maybe a dozen votes" for the measure. But she and Reid managed to find a workable set of modifications - and a clever parliamentary maneuver to pull the whole thing off.

I was at the Capitol that day when the House passed the landmark health-care bill. Tea Party groups were protesting outside, egged on by Republican members of Congress who came out onto a balcony and led the catcalls.

Pelosi did what was right for the country, and what's right isn't always what's popular. Democrats may decide they need a less polarizing figure as minority leader; if they do, well, that's politics. But I'd love to see her stay in the Democratic leadership - and I'm betting that eventually she'd find a way to take back the gavel that she pounds with such righteous authority.

Again, this is how you defend something? A "clever parliamentary maneuver to pull the whole thing off"? And this is supposed to make us feel all warm and fuzzy about Nancy Pelosi and Obamacare?

As far as doing what's "right for the country", well, I would argue that there are differing opinions on that.

We know that, to progressives, getting the foot in the health care door and then driving out private insurance so we can get to a full-commie single payer system seems like what's "right for the country". They've been telling us so for years, by the way.

But a majority of Americans do not agree with you, Eugene. A majority of Americans reject your ideas about the role of government in our everyday life. A majority of Americans, coincidentally, disagree with President Obama's ideas about that as well.

A majority of Americans made that very clear on November 2, 2010. If you still don't get that, Eugene, well, just wait until 2012. The message will likely be even louder and clearer.

The Times Square (almost) Massacre

First, the AP story, which has some chilling quotes from Faisal Shahzad:

"Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun."

"Consider me the first droplet of the blood that will follow."

"We are only Muslims trying to defend our religion, people, homes and land, but if you call us terrorists, then we are proud terrorists and we will keep on terrorizing you until you leave our lands and people at peace."

The judge cut him off at one point to ask if he had sworn allegiance to the U.S. when he became a citizen last year. "I did swear, but I did not mean it," Shahzad said.

In his address to the court, he said Osama bin Laden "will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade" — a reference to the Muslim hero of the Crusades. He also said: "If I'm given 1,000 lives, I will sacrifice them all."

Somehow I doubt the third one.

And beyond the obvious death cult rambling, some questions come to mind:

1) I haven't seen any comment from Mayor Bloomberg, but I wonder if he feels bad for initially waxing detective and pinning this on teabaggers who didn't like the health care bill?

2) I wonder whether Faisal Shahzad supports the Islamic Cultural Center which is not a mosque and is located near Ground Zero but is not at Ground Zero?

3) I wonder what The Falling Man would have thought of the Islamic Cultural Center which is not a mosque and is located near Ground Zero but is not at Ground Zero?

4) How many Muslims take an oath of citizenship but do not "mean it"?

5) How many Faisal Shahzads are out there?

6) Does the punishment fit the crime?

This dude's ranting reminds me of a great column by Mark Goldblatt which says in part:

The war against Islamic totalitarianism — to call the thing what it is — is a war of perception as much as a war of bullets and bombs. Killing and capturing terrorists makes us marginally safer day by day but does not get at the core problem: the false perception among the terrorists' religious sympathizers and financial enablers (and there are millions of them) that their side has a fighting chance. Since the war is not an engagement between sovereign nations, it cannot end with a peace treaty; it can only end with the recognition that a worldwide Caliphate is not a possibility, that sharia law is not going to replace democratic government, that Islamic values are not going to trump Enlightenment values. The outcome of the war, on this level, is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether the body count will number in the hundreds of thousands — if we continue the long hard slog of spreading democracy — or in the scores of millions — if we retreat from the world stage, defer the combat a generation or two, and bequeath to our children and grandchildren a bloodier but more recognizable world war.

Is it islamophobic to even be linking to and discussing this story? I suppose. I guess this is all just right-wing fear-mongering on my part. What can you do in such confusing times?

I am never sure if I'm supposed to believe the passive multicultists or if I am supposed to believe the jihadists – like Shahzad – who actually tell us what their goals are.

Case closed. Justice is served. We can go back to putting our heads in the sand.

Competence

Do you ever feel like you're losing your country?

Robert Krentz might have, before he was brutally murdered on his own land. This is outrageous.

DOUGLAS, Arizona (Reuters) – The murder of a prominent Arizona rancher near the Mexican border is spurring charges that Washington is doing too little to stop Mexico's raging drug war from spilling over into the United States.

Robert Krentz was shot last Saturday while working at his remote cattle ranch some 30 miles northeast of this city on the Arizona-Mexico border.

Investigators tracked the footprints of the suspected gunman about 20 miles south to the border with Mexico, prompting some authorities to blame smugglers or illegal immigrants for the killing.

"The ranchers have feared for their lives for a long time and they've told the people from Washington, but they don't pay attention to us," Michael Gomez, the mayor of Douglas, told Reuters.

"This continues to be a hot area for illegal crossings and they have to do something to stop it."

Krentz, 58, was well liked and respected in southeastern Arizona, where his family's ranch sprawled over 35,000 acres.

No arrests have been made and there is no clear motive or any named suspect, the Cochise County Sheriff's Office said.

The killing comes amid ever-more brazen and brutal attacks by cartels in northern Mexico that are fighting for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes into the United States.

Last month, gunmen killed two Americans in Ciudad Juarez, south of El Paso, Texas, renewing fears in the United States that escalating violence may spill north over the border.

More from a column by Lionel Waxman.

Rancher Robert Krentz didn't deserve to die on his own land in the USA

By Lionel Waxman, Inside Tucson Business

Published on Friday, April 02, 2010

Robert Krentz was a good man. People who knew him say he was a humanitarian and a Good Samaritan. He didn’t deserve to die in the dirt - on his own land - at what law enforcement investigators believe was the gunpoint of an illegal border crosser. His family didn’t deserve to lose him. The nearby Cochise County communities of Douglas and Portal didn’t deserve to lose him. But all did some time on March 27. And why?

There’s plenty of blame to go around.

Let’s allocate some of that blame. Maybe it will become obvious what we have to do to make sure we don’t lose more good people in this fashion.

Most of the blame falls on the Mexican drug cartels. They are willing to do anything for money. The Mexican government has been unsuccessful in curbing their reign of terror. It is almost as though the cartels are fighting it out to prove one or more of them is the government.

Next, blame goes to the United States government. Notwithstanding many requests, federal officials have failed and refused to militarize the border which desperately needs military control. When Janet Napolitano was governor of Arizona, she seemed to understand the problem, not that she ever did anything about it. Now that she is in Washington, she serves only her beltway masters. No Army troops for the border. Not even National Guard troops are allowed.

One way the feds ensure that Arizona will not put National Guard troops on the border is by calling them up for deployment to Afghanistan. And that’s where members of the Arizona National Guard are headed this month to Afghanistan when they are needed in Douglas.

But President Obama has bigger plans for the border. Heap blame on him. He wants illegals to flood across the border because he has plans to grant them amnesty so they can vote. They will vote Democratic, and that’s more important to him than the lives of a few Americans living on the border.

To be fair, we ought to assign some small amount of blame to the farmers and ranchers who refuse to get out while the gettin’s good. They are living in a war zone. That’s not a good idea.

What can we do about it? There isn’t much we can do about the Mexican government or even the Mexican drug cartels. But there is something we can do about the U.S. government. We have to make it clear to the bozos in Washington that we will no longer tolerate being deprived of the services of our National Guard. If the feds want to fight a war in Afghanistan, that is what the regular Army is for. We must demand that the Arizona National Guard be released for service in Arizona. And we must demand they be adequately armed to meet the challenge.

And we must make certain the Washington politicians understand that we will not permit illegal aliens to vote. We’ll do this by denying them entry.

This is the only way we will ever get our state back. Otherwise, we’ll wake up one day and find ourselves living in Aztlán with bandits running wild in the streets.

And if we don’t do that, then the bulk of the blame must fall on ourselves. This is still the United States of America. This is our country. We make the rules. We must enforce them.

The health care debate is already over

I present my two cents on the issue. And it's not likely to win me much popularity. But as far as I'm concerned I don't understand why we're debating anyway. The issue reflects the larger shift society is making toward obsessive and insufferable "health" and "safety", unreasonable regulations, and micro-management of all facets of daily life. In my completely pessimistic view, the debate is pointless. Even if the current health care "reform" push is defeated, it will just come back again and again until it is fully realized. On that sunny note, let me begin.

There are many factors but mostly we have ourselves to blame for the mess that our health care system is in.

For starters, the real cost of medical treatment is hidden to the average person because insurance companies or the government pays those costs. You have an out of pocket co-payment or deductible, which is generally small, compared to the hundreds and thousands doled out by that third party. But the actual cost of the doctor's expertise and the drugs and technology is nebulous because it is not market-determined but determined through bureaucratic and administrative and middle-man costs. The patient's ability to pay does not factor into the pricing of medical care in any way.

Also, in recent years doctors have had to increase prices to help pay for the unreasonable rise in malpractice protection costs. Doctors have no choice but to pass that cost on to the customer. And no, that customer is not you, but the insurance company who pays on your behalf. Since the insurance company must pay more, it stands to reason they are going to charge you more to carry that policy. The insurance company is in the business to provide a service and to make money — that should not shock anyone — so when you file frequent claims and over-use your insurance, as many do, it should not be hard to understand why they are raising your premiums when the policy renews. You are costing them more, and you are still paying a very small fraction of what they pay on your behalf. And that's just for private individual policies. Imagine the complexities insurance companies deal with trying to price group coverage for employers and large companies? This is not to defend insurance companies or single out the unfortunate souls with insurance horror stories. I am simply pointing out a fact about how insurance works.

Also, I don't think it's strictly anecdotal because I know and work with plenty of folks who do this, but a lot of people run to the doctor for just about every little problem these days. Yes, it's a cliché, but is it not true? Think of the people you know. How many of them are like that? A headache, sniffles, a mild fever, a stubbed toe, the blues, et al. Can it be denied that many doctor visits occur for non-chronic, minor conditions that could probably be treated at home? Or ridden out? And, of course, everyone wants the best doctors, the best diagnostic tests and equipment, the fanciest MRI machines and newest technologies. None of these are cheap. Yet we all expect and even demand them and have no real sense of the cost because, in reality, someone else is paying. If people paid directly out-of-pocket for most of the medical care they received, and only used insurance for the most catastrophic situations, it stands to reason they would be more discerning and "consume" less health care generally. Prices would automatically come down because all of those for-profit doctors and wellness centers and hospitals and drug companies would have to compete better for your money.

Competition is the key. And an honest person admits there isn't anything in the current legislation being discussed that truly addresses that. Adding a "public option" — essentially a government insurance company — does nothing to increase competition or address the core issue: the direct cost of health care. It simply creates another insurance company to choose from when deciding on who will pay the ridiculous medical costs for you. And since government consistently underpays doctors and providers this really will have no impact on reducing costs. It just means a larger share of health care expenditures will be underpaid.

On top of all of that, and perhaps most importantly, we refuse to change our lifestyles in any significant way. We continue to eat fast food and processed junk, smoke, drink and lead sedentary lifestyles with little or no exercise. We know all of that is bad, but we are too lazy to do anything about it. In other words, we want to have our cake and eat it too. And by the way, personally, I am completely in favor of letting people do whatever they want, no matter how bad, dumb or harmful. More on that in a moment. But we want to do whatever we want, then have the consequences of those behaviors taken care of by the best health system in the world, and we want to pay very little for that quality and excellence. And if things go wrong, we want to make sure we can file a mega-lawsuit as well.

Many people would be just fine with the government taking over all aspects of the health care system. Do away with private insurance and just have a huge universal Medicare system for every citizen. "Health Care for All" as they say. We're already paying a lot through insurance, what's the difference if we just replace those insurance premiums with taxes to Uncle Sam? The irony is, private insurance has no say-so in your lifestyle, but all of those people who love the idea of a "universal" health care system can be sure that when government is invested in your health, they certainly can and will have an interest in monitoring and managing your lifestyle.

Universalizing health care forces me to be an investor in your lifestyle. Currently, I don't care what you do. But when taxpayers are footing the bill, you can be sure we will all take an interest in what you do, even if on a philosophical level we couldn't care less. And that is the problem. In a free society, I don't want to take an interest in your lifestyle. I don't want to be forced to care about what you do. Because I might have some crazy ideas about what your lifestyle should be, and you might have some crazy ideas about what my lifestyle should be. So why would we want to do that to each other? Why would we want to take that power out of the disinterested private sector and hand it to the very interested public sector?

To take this back where I began, frankly speaking, I think this whole debate is a moot point anyway. I believe we will not only have health care "reform", I believe eventually we will indeed have a fully socialized universal system where the government funds all health care expense and it is paid for through taxes. It may be 10 years or 30 years, but it will happen. Why? Because there are just too many people in this country who feel entitled to it. Who believe it is a "human right". And those people reproduce, and their offspring will have the same mental condition. Combine that with the fact that it's just an emotionally appealing idea that's very difficult to oppose. After all, who can be against "health care for all"? What person wishes to be labeled cold and heartless for saying no to something that feels so good and right? It's an unfortunate but unstoppable tide.

I'm sure the intentions are pure. It's not a "bolshevik plot". But if the end result looks the same, what's the difference? I am not worried about death panels and abortion funding and "cornhusker kickbacks". It's not the delivery of health care that's going to be rationed, it's those cheeseburgers and beers and sugary treats and countless other little liberties that will be. Smoking bans and trans-fat bans are only the beginning. The red-tape killjoys of the world are ready and willing to hang the figurative hazard sign on just about everything you do. And when all health care is governmentalized, they will. So be sure and turn out the lights on your way out, America, the party's over. We'll have only our very safe selves to blame.

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.