Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The temple of postmodern liberalism was rocked these last few weeks, as a number of supporting columns and buttresses simply crashed, leaving the entire edifice wobbling.

Victor Davis Hanson "In short, liberalism does not work, contrary as it is to human nature. I wish I could just say that about every thirty years or so, forgetful Americans take an allergy shot of it, suffer the reaction, and then get another three decades of Carter/Obama immunity. But instead statist redistribution and intrusion are an insidious process, no longer specific just to Democrats, but bound up in the growing affluence and leisure of the West—both serving its various needs of alleviating guilt to the masses, subsidizing half the nation, and providing much envied power and lucre to a highly educated and technocratic elite who have little talent for acquiring either in the private sector. 
CherokeeDelaware
That it is not sustainable does not mean that it will not cause havoc as it totters and collapses. Look at Russia and Eastern Europe circa 1989, or the present-day EU, or Greece proper, or California or Illinois today."
Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez
Thomas Lifson: Another terrible day for Elizabeth Warren  "Elizabeth Warren, the poster girl for phony liberals, is the gift that just keeps on giving, as far as I am concerned. She embodies  so many aspects of the foibles of the crowd that took over the Democratic Party, the media, and the academy that she stands as a virtual ideal-type of the ruling class hypocrite."


Legal Insurrection: Cruel irony in Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee saga  "In what may be the ultimate and cruelest irony, not only is it unlikely that Elizabeth Warren’s great-great-great grandmother was Cherokee, it turns out that Warren’s great-great-great grandfather was a member of a militia unit which participated in the round-up of the Cherokees in the prelude to the Trail of Tears."


In what must be a badge of honor for Cornell Law Professor Jacobsen there comes this endorsement from the left:
 "Jacobson is doing only what other McCain supporters are starting to do, produce these worthless pieces from some narrow perch in order to cover up their own racist bigotry"
I love these intellectual battles of ideas, don't you? 

Gay Creeps, Black Thugs, and Horrible Women: The Left’s Idea of Tolerance

Andrew Klavan  "When homosexual bully Dan Savage unleashed a foul-mouthed tirade against the religious beliefs of a group of teenagers at the National High School Journalism Convention in Seattle last month, he exposed the lie behind the Left’s idea of tolerance. Savage used obscenities to describe passages in the Bible he disliked and displayed either ignorance or dishonesty in talking about the role of Christianity in advancing the cause of freedom."


Severe language advisory in this video along with lots of laughter and applause on the Bill Maher show, though you really don't need to play it to appreciate the wisdom of Mr. Klavan's article. But you will see the unvarnished left as they are and be highly thankful for people like Andrew Klavan.TD

...."The Left tells me it’s wrong to be suspicious when a black punk wearing a hood and loose pants slouches into my neighborhood? The Left tells me to listen with respect to the destructive deceptions of con-men like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? The Left tells me not to fight back when some shrill, man-hating feminist virago goes on the rampage? They tell me not to be judgmental when I witness a young woman getting herself drunk enough to accept being used like a piece of meat by any young man without the virility to escort her safely home? And now the Left tells me I should not look askance at some gay weasel who abuses the privilege of speaking to young people by unleashing a foul-mouthed display of hatred, prejudice and rage?
"Well, thanks, but no."....
OBAMA TEAMS WITH ANTI-CHRISTIAN BULLY SAVAGE "So why would so many members of the Obama administration and their Democratic allies in the House go out of their way to endorse an anti-bullying project run by Savage, rather than the dozens of other anti-bullying projects throughout the United States? They knew all this about Savage when they decided to endorse his project."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/keshet/5912792696/sizes/m/in/photostream/
  • President Obama;
  • Vice President Joe Biden (who can be seen grinning with Savage and Terry Miller here);
  • Secretary of State Hillary Clinton;
  • House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi;
  • Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius;
  • Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack;
  • Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis;
  • The Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice;
  • The White House Staff; and more.
MSM turns Savage into a hero  "The hypocrisy here is insane. The same media that says that Rush Limbaugh is a bully for calling out Sandra Fluke – a woman who put herself in the public spotlight – says that Dan Savage is a hero for attacking Christian students who did nothing to earn his ire, save acting with dignity." 
Dan Savage: bully  "They used to arrest middle-aged perverts who get their jollies from talking dirty to children. Today, they get a television show, a nationally syndicated column, a lecture circuit and multiple visits to the Obama White House."

The failure of Communism

Photo Gallery: East Germany's Transformation  During and after communism; life under the Communists contrasted with life after them. Perhaps only the Pete Seegers and Barack Obamas can explain why life under free enterprise and capitalism is so appealing to them


Reunification Renovations  Though it seems the author is disappointed that the buildings were not restored to their historic look. However in the upcoming communist plans, those not going to rot were to be torn down completely.
"One-time stables in Zittau in 1990. The wall shows the building's history. The light patches in the stone work mark the original 16th-century roof profile. Above that the darker stone shows the mansar roof added during the Baroque period."
"Zittau in 2001. All traces of the past have been plastered and painted over. After the renovation project the building was converted into shopping mall."

Obama, Gay Marriage and Evolution

Left Coast Rebel  "White House press secretary Jay Carney, when questioned if Biden's remarks signaled a change in Obama's position, repeatedly told the press that Obama's views were "evolving". When pressed if "evolving" meant "changing his position", Carney mustered his best double speak, twisted himself into a pretzel worthy of the name, and mumbled something about evolving "not necessarily" meaning change. Come again? 
Let me quote three of the first four words Wikipedia uses to describe evolution: "Evolution is...change...". The Random House Dictionary lists "change" as one of the synonyms for evolution. Some speculate that Obama wants to signal his liberal friends that he will be "more flexible" after the election in pursuing a more left leaning position, but that he cannot afford to offend any of his more conservative, churchgoing base. 

Is Obama’s Vetting Finally Beginning?

Alana Goodman "As trivial as the Obama-eats-dogs and composite-girlfriend memes might seem, they actually speak to a deeper issue. At the Telegraph, Tim Stanley argues:
What stands out from the composite story isn’t that Obama amalgamated characters, it’s that the press hadn’t noticed until now. As with the dog story, this confirms the suspicion that the mainstream media gave Obama a free pass in 2008 and declined to check too deeply into his background. Even The Atlantic’s [David] Graham admits that he’s never read Dreams From My Father, and neither, it would seem, has anyone else in the press corps. They have the excuse that the book is incredibly narcissistic and boring, but otherwise isn’t this exactly the sort of character assessment/assassination that should have happened four years ago?
  Emphasis added.


 Neal Boortz: Obama official cites .. Karl Marx. No, really.
Karl Marx
"If there was a widespread awareness that Obama is more communist than capitalist he would have no chance for reelection.  So it would be wise for administration officials to try to keep the communist rhetoric as subdued as possible. 
"Someone needs to get this message to a senior Obama administration official by the name of Rick Bookstaber currently serves on the Financial Stability Oversight Council.  This is the body of unelected bureaucrats created by the Dodd-Frank fiasco, charged with the task of ensuring financial stability in our financial system." 

France's election

Mr. Terrell's brain should be preserved at all costs and studied after he is gone.


Morning Bell: Socialism Rises Again  "Last weekend, the people of France took a sharp turn to the left, and the rest of Europe may be on the brink of rebuking its recent tack toward fiscal responsibility. With Sunday’s election of French Socialist leader Francois Hollande, France has leapt backward toward the policies that have helped sink the continent in a sovereign debt crisis. Disturbingly, the big government platform Hollande campaigned on is all too familiar to the American people, and if the United States is not careful, it could suffer the same fate as its European allies." "
...."Though Europe is an ocean away, the policies that are sinking the continent could have the same impact in the United States if replicated here. Endless spending has dire consequences, and if America is not careful, it could follow Europe’s path to economic ruin."

Life in ObamaWorld


"Look, self-absorption’s part of the occupational hazard of politics and it’s also part of the job description of being president. All that said, try to imagine Dwight Eisenhower talking about D Day, saying, “I did this, I decided this, I did this, and then I did that” — it’s inconceivable. If you struck from Barack Obama’s vocabulary the first-person singular pronoun he would fall silent, which would be a mercy to us and a service to him actually, because he has been so incontinent in his speechmaking for the last three years that you wind up with, as you said, an Ohio State University, empty seats."
Victor Davis Hanson: Secretaries Gone WildThe Obama cabinet lacks experience and follows its own rules.  "Chu also once warned that California’s Central Valley agriculture might disappear owing to global warming. True, it could decline, but that would more likely be due to the Obama administration’s decision to divert irrigation water in hopes of helping out the three-inch San Francisco Delta smelt. Chu should realize that private-sector California farmers create thousands of jobs, while his own cabinet’s Solyndra-like projects have done precisely the opposite."  Page 2:
"The common theme with these cabinet secretaries is loud, uninformed rhetoric; a lack of practical experience; a certain utopian zealotry — and an expectation that there are rules for government grandees and quite different ones for the rest of us."

Monday, May 7, 2012

Could the U.S. give up Mount Rushmore? Iconic site is on list of 'sacred lands' UN says must be returned to Native Americans

UK Daily Mail  "James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, unveiled his recommendations in Geneva on Friday after completing a 12-day visit to the U.S. where he met with representatives of indigenous peoples in six states.
"The fact-finder also had a chance to meet members of the Obama administration and briefed the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, but no member of Congress agreed to meet with him."   Here comes Alcatraz all over again.
"The U.S. is home to some two million Native Americans, nearly half of them living on 310 reservations. While some tribes have prospered thanks to the booming gambling business, others are trailing national averages in income and health."


Rick Moran: UN official says US should return land to the Indians  "This is only one of the problems with satisfying land claims of "indigenous" people. The tribes with which we are familiar with today may have arrived relatively recently in the New World (3-5,000 years), according to some linguistic studies. Before their arrival, a group of Native Americans known as the Clovis people occupied much of the US and Canada. What happened to them? No one knows, but it's a pretty good bet that the newcomers either killed them off or interbreeding gradually eliminated the Clovis culture.

"What part of a Native American land repatriation would go to the ancestors of the Clovis people - assuming any could be found?
"For that matter, there isn't a European culture that didn't displace another one somewhere along the line. Do we give England back to the Celts? Or the Anglo Saxons? The Normans conquered England and oppressed the indigenous people as much or more as we oppressed the Indians. Where do you draw the line? How far back can one go to satisfy "indigenous" rights?"

More Media Bias

Neal Boortz:  Blatant stupefying media bias .. but who's surprised?   "Last week we talked a bit about the Obama campaign spot ...  In that commercial here is what Bill Clinton said:
“That’s one thing George Bush said that was right:  the President is the Decider-in-Chief.  Nobody can make that decision for you.  Look, he knew what would happen.  Suppose the navy SEALs had gone in there and it hadn’t been bin Laden?  Suppose they’d been captured or killed?  The downside would have been horrible for him.  But he reasoned, ‘I cannot in good conscience do nothing.’  He took the harder and more honorable path, and one that produced, in my opinion, the best result.”
Immediately the ad was criticized because Clinton mused about how horrible it would have been if the Navy SEALs had been killed … how horrible it would have been for OBAMA!"
.... “That’s one thing George Bush said that was right:  the President is the Decider-in-Chief.  Nobody can make that decision for you.  Look, he knew what would happen.  Suppose the navy SEALs had gone in there and it hadn’t been bin Laden?  Suppose they’d been captured or killed?  The downside would have been horrible.  But he reasoned, ‘I cannot in good conscience do nothing.’  He took the harder and more honorable path, and one that produced, in my opinion, the more honorable and best result.”
"OK … now tell me that there’s no media bias in support of Obama’s reelection.  Go ahead … I’m listening!"  More on this here.
Cleveland Plain Dealer: One of Five Arrested in Bridge Blowup Plot Signed 'Occupy' Group's Warehouse Lease  "As to the Cleveland Occupy group's worries about a "disaster," that would seem to depend on whether the establishment press outside of Cleveland cares enough to do follow-up reports. I'll bet they won't. But if this story were about someone active in the Tea Party who had gone rogue, it would already have been widely headlined nationwide."
Via Newsbusters
Made you look, didn't I?


ABC’s ‘GCB’ Carves Own Twisted Version of 10 CommandmentsControversial show escalates agenda of mocking Christians with attack on Bible.  "Such a selfish and conceited painting of biblical holy words is clearly meant to scorn Christian beliefs, despite liberals’ wild defense of the show. So ABC, when are you releasing that salacious version of the Koran?"


CBS Aghast at Ted Nugent's Profanity, But Honored Bill Maher by Reading His Op-Ed
"So CBS took umbrage at conservative Ted Nugent's profane outburst, but gave Maher a microphone to tell people to calm down after he had showered women with the worst of insults. It reveals a double standard toward outspoken conservatives and liberals; CBS made sure to emphasize that Nugent is not a moderate, and yet treated the profane Maher like the voice of reason."

A fiercely left-wing leader to strike fear into the hearts of France's rich (Updated)

The Independent (UK) "France will be waking up today to its first Socialist President for 17 years – and bracing for radical change. There are all kinds of reasons why one might fear a François Hollande presidency, especially if you are a prosperous French person.
"The 57-year-old Socialist has openly admitted that he "does not like the rich" and declared that "my real enemy is the world of finance". This means taxing the wealthy by up to 75 per cent, curtailing the activities of Paris as a centre for financial dealing, and ploughing millions into creating more civil service jobs."


Update: French election results have implications for US economy, foreign policy  "While any talks between the two leaders will likely to focus on diplomatic and economic relations, Obama is probably taking a lesson from the outcome of the French election.Obama, like Sarkozy, is campaigning for re-election amid a faltering economy, high unemployment and voter discontent over spending and cuts."

Thomas Lifson and Rick Moran: Europe's Morning After  

"In view of his promise to tax millionaires at 75%, the wealthy of France are already making plans to relocate, as French income taxes stop at the border (unlike American income taxes -- we are the exception among major nations). Thanks to the EU, French plutocrats can live anywhere in the union, with no visa.
"Hollande also plans on reducing unemployment the old fashioned way -- drastically increasing the number of government workers, thus expanding the welfare state even beyond the generous cradle to grave cocoon in which the French state lovingly wraps its citizens. He has made vague promises that he won't add to the debt to realize his economic goals, but it is very difficult to see how he can avoid it."   Anything here sound familiar?


Neal Boortz: France elects a socialist  ...."He wants the rich taxed at 75% … and the voters think this will fund all of their government entitlements for generations to come.  If it doesn’t, just raise taxes some more.
"Sound familiar?  Only if you’ve been paying attention." ....
We’ll stick with three distinct economic models.  Capitalism, or free enterprise; Socialism … and that third one....
  • Under that third economic system the means of production is privately owned,  but heavily controlled and regulated by government.  Government tells the businesses what and how much they can produce, what they can charge, who they must hire, what they must be paid … etc.  That type of economic system is called economic Fascism. 
"I’ll just leave it to you to figure out where our Dear Ruler comes down on all this."

Obama invites Hollande to White House  "In a telephone call, Obama "indicated that he looks forward to working closely with Mr Hollande and his government on a range of shared economic and security challenges," White House spokesman ."Jay Carney said in a statement.

President Obama called President-elect Francois Hollande of France to congratulate him after the results of the French election were announced today.  President Obama indicated that he looks forward to working closely with Mr. Hollande and his government on a range of shared economic and security challenges.  President Obama noted that he will welcome President-elect Hollande to Camp David for the G-8 Summit and to Chicago for the NATO Summit later this month, and proposed that they meet beforehand at the White House.  President Obama and President-elect Hollande each reaffirmed the important and enduring alliance between the people of the United States and France.
 An Uncommitted Socialist  "Hollande’s victory appears to be less an endorsement of him than a referendum on Sarkozy. The new president remains a broadly unknown, untested politician with no clear agenda. Based on Hollande’s campaign, French citizens understand only that he is no Sarkozy. It remains to be seen how he will govern and above all, how he will manage the looming sovereign-debt crisis."

The Very Short Life of Julia (Updated, 5/7/2012)

Hope 'n Change
For more on "Julia", read here.


Morning Bell: A Better Life for Julia  "There’s another vision — a conservative vision. The Heritage Foundation created its own version of the “Julia” cartoon and showed how individuals would benefit under conservative reforms like those in Heritage’s Saving the American Dream plan. Instead of growing government and increasing its involvement in our lives, conservative policies restrain government and give individuals more freedom to make their own choices and succeed on their own merits."
Click here to view the "Julia" slide show from Heritage.

Al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn a fan of 60 Minutes but said Fox News 'lacks neutrality' and CBS is 'close to being unbiased'

Guardian  "Osama bin Laden pondered the merits of US television news channels as he considered how to extract the best propaganda benefit from the tenth anniversary of 9/11 last year, and concluded that CBS was "close to being unbiased".
"But an American-born media adviser for al-Qaeda warned Bin Laden to beware of the broadcasters' "cunning methods" as he described Fox News as a channel in the "abyss" that should "die in anger", CNN as too close to the US government and MSNBC as questionable after it fired one of its most prominent presenters, Keith Olbermann."


Speaking of the press and whom they serve: Brokaw: White House Correspondents' dinner hurting the press  "He said the annual black-tie affair, which features Washington reporters and editors drinking, joking and partying with Hollywood stars and the city's top lawmakers -- including the president -- is contributing to the public's mistrust of the media.
" "If there’s ever an event that separates the press from the people they’re supposed to be serving, symbolically, it is that one." he said."

Watch this bullying of President Bush by the toady* Stephen Colbert in 2006:
*The term "toady" I get from the movie "A Christmas Story". The little nobody intimidated the other kids fearlessly as long as he was standing with the big bully behind him. Likewise, there was Colbert in a room full of media people whom he knew did not like President Bush - Colbert had seen their scornful questions at White House press conferences- and knew they would broadcast his every snarky remark worldwide with praiseful glee. As with the little toady in the movie, Colbert bought his fame cheaply. TD