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Saturday, June 20, 2009
RULE 5 SATURDAYIn compliance with Rule 5, the TCOTS Rule 5 Compliance Committee presents....
JULIE
LONDON:
Tempted...
Well...its that time again. Time for your old friend Bobby Bel to wish you all a good evenin'. We've
had a swingin' time today. Enjoyin' all the bloggin'. Drinkin' and thinkin'. Laughin' with a little tearin'
thrown in. Time for me to go back to my pad where there's a certain someone waitin' for me. Those are her pictures
up above and she looks even better in the misty moonlight by the fire on a bearskin rug. She's already made the Gimlets, so...so
long for now and as my old friend Dean used to say: 'Keep those card and letter comin'.' We'll be back on Monday.
I'll leave you with this little tune...
Lovely interlude, most romantic mood
And your attitude is right, dear
Sweetheart, you have me under a spell
Now my dream is real, that is why I feel
Such a strong appeal tonight
Somehow, all my reason takes flight, dear...
I'm in the mood for love
Simply because you're near me
Funny, but when you're near me
I'm in
the mood for love
Heaven is in your eyes
Bright as the stars we're
under
Oh, is it any wonder?
I'm in the mood for love
Why stop
to think of whether
This little dream might fade
We've put our hearts together
Now we are one, I'm not afraid
If there's a cloud above
If it should rain, we'll let it
But, for
tonight, forget it
I'm in the mood for love
Why stop to think of whether
This little dream might fade
We've put our hearts together
Now we are one, I'm not afraid
If there's a cloud above
If it should rain, we'll let it
But, for tonight, forget it
I'm in
the mood for love
One more thing: Make sure you check out Paco's RULE 5for this weekend; its a good one.
20 jun 09 @ 7:07 pm edt
STEYN OF THE WEEKENDFrom his latest appearence on the Hugh Hewitt Show:
HEWITT: The Washington Post, Glen Kessler wrote this morning, “The political unrest
in Iran presents the Obama administration with a dilemma – keep quiet to pursue a nuclear deal with the Ayatollah Khamenei,
the country’s supreme leader, or heed calls to respond more supportively to the protestors there and risk alienating
the Shiite cleric. President Obama and his advisors have struggled to strike the right tone, carefully calibrating positive
message about the protest in an effort to avoid giving the government in Tehran an excuse to portray the demonstrators as
pro-American.” There have been no positive messages. It is a complete abandonment of this effort.
STEYN:
No, you know, the interesting thing is that this is the death of Obama’s big speech to the Muslim world in Cairo. You
remember during the campaign when he gave his big speech on racism and on race, which was supposed to be the greatest thing
since Henry V at Agincourt, the greatest address ever, and that was like dead and inoperative within a few weeks. The same
thing has happened to the Cairo speech. In a sense, they concluded, I think the regime in Tehran concluded from the speech
that in effect, they had carte blanche to do what they want, because Obama was so desperate to schmooze them on the nuclear
issue. Now they’re going to go nuclear anyway. This idea that somehow there is this fine calibration that he has to
just get the particular poison balance on the high wire act just right, and he’ll achieve all his goals, this is inside
the Beltway mumbo-jumbo. In Tehran, they’re doing what they want for internal and regional considerations. And the idea
that this has anything to do with Obama getting a nuclear deal is pathetic and irrelevant.
Please take the time to click here and read the full transcript.
20 jun 09 @ 6:05 pm edt
GET OUT OF MY LIFE, WHY DON'T YA BABESuccinctly, the Editors at The Washington Times lay out the straight forward case
against the approval of the nomination to the SCOTUS of Sonia Sotomayor [pronounced: sot-oh-mayer (rhymes
with: Dulcinea)]. Here are two of the arguments from the indictment:
-Property rights.
Judge Sotomayor ruled in Didden v. Village of Port Chester that a town can, without a public hearing, seize private property
(for a fee) from an unwilling seller and use it for the same purpose the seller intended. In this case, the force of law was
used to block a CVS and replace it with a Walgreens.
-Jailbird voting. Against hundreds of years of tradition,
Judge Sotomayor ruled in Hayden v. Pataki that currently imprisoned felons have a right to vote if a disproportionate number
of them is black or Latino.
Please take the time to click here and read the whole indictment. [tip of the fedora to Quin Hillyer]
Thomas Sowell [the Right's Don Cornelius (look it up)]] provides us with another reason why she should not be approved:
Attempts to claim that Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s words were isolated remarks
— a slip of the tongue “taken out of context” — have now been discredited by further information showing
that she has repeatedly expressed the same ideas, in virtually the same words, at other times and in other contexts.
Moreover, her deeds — including years of participation in group identity politics — are perfectly consistent
with her words. So too was her vote on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to summarily dismiss the appeal of white firefighters
who did not get the promotions they had earned by passing a required test, because not enough minority firefighters passed
to provide racial “diversity.”
The Supreme Court of the United States found that appeal worth hearing,
even if Judge Sotomayor did not.
The warm and genial image of Sonia Sotomayor presented on television, during President
Obama’s introduction and afterwards, is in sharp contrast with what attorneys who have appeared before her in court
have said.
A poll of such attorneys showed them rating her worse than other judges in her treatment of those who
appeared before her. A tape of Judge Sotomayor’s abusive behavior in court backed up the attorneys’ picture. It
is also consistent with someone in payback mode.
It seems she has an awfully big chip on her shoulder.
If I were a Senator, I would ask one question and one question only: Mzzz. Dulcinea Sotomayor, are
now or have you ever been friends with this man?:
[look it up]
20 jun 09 @ 6:00 pm edt
...AND THE WORLD WILL BE A BETTER PLACEIn the late 1960's and early 1970's, the Flower Power People were the outsiders
railing and throwing dung at the gates of the walled city of The Establishment. Now they and their apostles are
in control of the city. Over at The American Spectator, Jay Homnick surveys the results [this is worth
quoting from at length]:
...The Weather Underground is not even partly cloudy;
it blows hot air down Pennsylvania Avenue. Our foreign policy consists of Kumbaya recitals and Eighth Step ("Made a list
of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all") exercises. Out with the arrogance (read:
Republicans), in with the apologies. Uncle Sam is no longer the scowling deacon who snitches to your mom; he is the permissive
uncle who slips you a twenty and your first cigarette.
...
In the Sixties and Seventies, to meddle was
the highest crime against humanity. America was meddling in Vietnam. The FBI was meddling in political associations. The establishment
was meddling in your bedroom. The CIA was meddling in South America. And ultimately, most guiltily, parents were meddling
with their college student kids, trying to make them kneel to The Man and lead hollow hypocritical sellout lives like theirs.
Mysteriously, Castro was not meddling in either Cuba or Angola, he was aiding indigenous populations to realize their
legitimate aspirations. Eventually the leftist ideology predominated among the youth of that time, breeding a hypocrisy that
mirrored the one they rejected. Except their parents were huffy, puffy and stuffy, but would lay their lives down for the
oppressed of the world. These kids talked a good game but often covered for the atrocities of leftist regimes.
Forward
to 2009 and rock-star Barack Obama announces the end of the era of heavy meddle. If we meddle, he explains patiently, we will
be giving the bad guys what they want, a scapegoat. "There is no better way for the hardliners to beat back the reformers
than by saying the United States is encouraging their protest." So now we have two reasons not to meddle. First of all,
it makes us look like bullies. Secondly, it lets the bad guys be worse to the good guys because they can say that they are
doing it to resist the meddlers.
This is a truly corrupt approach. We stand with the good people to give them strength.
By definition that is meddling, and so what? The bad guys need no excuses to be bad. They do it all the time, with or without
us. Who cares if they use our meddling as an excuse? It is merely one of the myriad excuses bad people employ promiscuously.
The good guys are the ones who need backing to stand their ground, and they cannot count on the Sixties people. There is no
medal for people who are afraid to meddle.
We conclude with the words of a long-time friend of this column, Argentinian
politician Claudia Monteverdi, the former Miss Latin America. In her e-mail yesterday she put it pungently: "Tell Barack
Obama there are moments when a man has to give the Che Guevara t-shirt off his back."
That lady's statement
says it all—can't top it.
Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Homnick's full article.
20 jun 09 @ 5:30 pm edt
THE QUOTE OF THE WEEK......from one Gerald Walpin:
Anybody who's heard me speaking more than I'm used to speaking on radio and TV
in recent days, obviously under great pressure from what happened, would clearly know that I know what I'm saying and what
I'm doing and I'm not incoherent. There's nothing confusing about malfeasance, and there's nothing confusing about
what appears to be the fact that they terminated me because the White House wanted to protect people who proclaim they are
friends of the White House.
20 jun 09 @ 5:13 pm edt
IG-GATE UPDATE: Mobbed-Up EditionAs promised, I've updated the IG-Gate part of the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS
Section of the WWU-AM Page. Ten new links have been added. Here are highlights from three of them...
1) The Editors of Investor's Business Daily:
Walpin was probably getting too close to the waste, fraud and abuse that's been found
rampant in the stimulus program. The administration, which has expanded AmeriCorps, no doubt feared a too-strict accounting
of where the money was being spent. The AmeriCorps board wants to fire a Bush appointee investigating an Obama contributor
misusing AmeriCorps funds. Hmmmm.
2) Robert Stacy McCain spent Thursday doing what real newpapermen do:
nosing around the scenes of action and talking to people, on and off the record. On Friday, he filed a report over at Pajamas Media:
[Senator Charles] Grassley is asking questions, a team of Senate investigators is poring
over documents in the case, and where the investigation proceeds now “depends on what dominoes fall next,” explained
the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Already, the FBI is looking into chargesthat Sacramento, Calif., Mayor Kevin Johnson deleted e-mails relevant to an investigation
by Walpin, whose dismissal appears to have violated a law passed last year (and co-sponsored by then-Sen. Barack Obama) to
protect inspectors general from political retribution. Meanwhile, Grassley has expanded his own probe to include questions
of whether the administration is undermining the independence of other government watchdogs.
Beyond the legal and
political ramifications, Republicans in Washington acknowledge that the potential scandal could aid their policy battle against
the effort by the White House and congressional Democrats to push sweeping new proposals on health care, energy and financial
regulation.
3) Over at The Sundries Shack, Jimme Bise comments:
Some folks are likening this scandal to the Clinton’s Travelgate problems. I was talking to Stacy the other day and he brought up the comparison. I’m not quite
so sure it’s apt. As I told him, one of the things that saved the Clintons’ bacon during the many scandals of his eight yearswas the singular loyalty of his friends and underlings. I can’t imagine that anyone
inside the Obama White House is going to take a legal bullet for him. Seriously, can you imagine Rahm Emanuel going to prison
to spare Barack Obama some serious legal woes? The man may inspire worship, but he as heck hasn’t inspired the kind
of loyalty that Bill and Hillary Clinton enjoyed.
I don't know. I think they both may be right.
The Emanuel types will do a Sammy The Bull, but there are certainly some true-believing Lefties in there who will keep their
mouths shut and do their time to protect this thing of O's.
Please take the time to check out all of the links
provided over at UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS.
20 jun 09 @ 5:09 pm edt
IRAN IVAnother day dawns and the same things happen: protesters protest and are attacked
by brutal regime thugs in the service of the real Satan, and our cool and detached Fearless Leader remains cool and detached.
My previous three postings of links to reports on and analyses of the situation may be found by clicking here [correction here], here, and here.
If you want to keep up with what's going on in Iran, the following bloggers and organizations are constantly
updating, with some offering spot-on analysis and reporting:
-Gateway Pundit
-Voice Of America's Middle East News Service [tip of the fedora to Jonah Goldberg]
-Maydar's TwitPic from Iran [tip of the fedora to Michelle Malkin]
-IranTracker at AEI
-The Fox News Channelis providing expert coverage
along with airing spot-on analysis by the likes of Mike Baker and Charles Krauthammer.
-There's excellant and ongoing updating by the folks at Hot Air. From one of the updates:
As I write this, Iranian twitterers are reporting
use of water cannons, teargas, gunshots, and even some sort of burning agent being dropped on the crowds by helicopters. There’s still no confirmation as far as
I know that a bomb really did go off at Khomeini’s shrine, but Reutersis now reporting that Mousavi supporters have set fire to a building being used by Ahmadinejad
supporters. And now, suddenly, Mousavi is making some sort of statement where he says he’s prepared for martyrdom. Sounds like the gloves are finally all the way off.
Now for some commentary...
1) Speaking of Mr. Krauthammer and spot-on analysis: from his syndicated column of Friday instant:
Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among
its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators
are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.
And what do they hear from
the president of the United States? Silence. Then, worse. Three days in, the president makes clear his policy: continued "dialogue"
with their clerical masters.
Dialogue with a regime that is breaking heads, shooting demonstrators, expelling journalists,
arresting activists. Engagement with -- which inevitably confers legitimacy upon -- leaders elected in a process that begins
as a sham (only four handpicked candidates permitted out of 476) and ends in overt rigging.
Then, after treating
this popular revolution as an inconvenience to the real business of Obama-Khamanei negotiations, the president speaks favorably
of "some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns
about the election."
Where to begin? "Supreme Leader"? Note the abject solicitousness with which
the American president confers this honorific on a clerical dictator who, even as his minions attack demonstrators, offers
to examine some returns in some electoral districts -- a farcical fix that will do nothing to alter the fraudulence of the
election.
Moreover, this incipient revolution is no longer about the election. Obama totally misses the point.
The election allowed the political space and provided the spark for the eruption of anti-regime fervor that has been simmering
for years and awaiting its moment. But people aren't dying in the street because they want a recount of hanging chads in suburban
Isfahan. They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding
goons that today attack the demonstrators.
This started out about election fraud. But like all revolutions, it
has far outgrown its origins. What's at stake now is the very legitimacy of this regime -- and the future of the entire Middle
East.
I think our glorious Dali Bama hasn't missed the point; He knows the situation is no longer about
the election itself. You have to understand that it is a pain-in-the-butt UNWELCOME DISTRACTION for Him. These
ignorant protesters are interfering with the implementation of His GRAND MASTER PLAN: how...dare..they!. After
all, He is the CHOSEN ONE, the demi-god with THE ANSWER. If He could, O-Rameses The Great would swat the protestors
like He so gloriously swatted that fly.
2) Mark Steyn from the conclusion of his weekly syndicated column of today:
The mullahs stole this election on a grander scale than ever before primarily for reasons
of internal security and regional strategy. But Obama’s [Cairo] speech told them that, in the “post-American world,”
they could do so with impunity. Blaming his “agents” for the protests is merely a bonus: Offered the world’s
biggest carrot, Khamenei took it and used it as a stick.
He won’t be the last to read Obama this way.
Khamenei and his minions have read Barack The Unready correctly. So have, I strongly suspect, the
Russians, Syrians, North Koreans, Red Chinese, Hamas, etc..
Some more spot-on Steyn:
“You've seen in Iran,” explained President Obama, “some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader
that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election . . . ”
“Supreme Leader”? I thought that was official house style for Barack Obama at Newsweek and MSNBC.
But no. It’s also the title held by Ayatollah Khamenei for the last couple of decades. If it sounds odd from the lips
of an American president, that’s because none has ever been as deferential in observing the Islamic republic’s
dictatorial protocol. Like President Obama’s deep, ostentatious bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, it signals a fresh
start in our relations with the Muslim world, “mutually respectful” and unilaterally fawning.
And it signals we have the multiculturalist of multiculturalists in The White House. Only a loon would think Him a
closet Muslim; He's something far more dangerous: a naive narcissist.
3) In his latest column, Victor Davis Hanson takes on The Anointed One's three justifications for not taking more positive
actions. First, Mr. Hanson lists them:
1. Given the historical record of U.S.
intervention in Iran, we do not wish either to perpetuate that shameful record, or to hang on the necks of the dissidents
the smelly albatross of U.S. support.
2. We don’t know which side will emerge triumphant. Supporting losers
in the street will only antagonize the Ahmadinejad regime and render Obama’s ongoing diplomatic overtures null and void.
3. There is not much difference anyway between the agendas of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and those of his challengers, led
by Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh. No matter who wins, Iran will still have an overtly anti-American government bent on acquiring
nuclear weapons. Why then incur further hostility for a response that would bring no advantage anyway?
VDH
then goes on to tear each one apart and expose their foolishness. Here's what he writes on number two:
Voicing careful and wise support for the challenge to Ahmadinejad’s thuggery can influence
events. That’s why the European Union is well ahead of us in its condemnation of the Iranian election fraud and subsequent
crackdown.
Ahmadinejad is going to blame the U.S. whatever it does. He rightly sized up the new administration
and realized there is now an American government that will apologize for the CIA’s actions in 1953, but not ask Iran
to apologize for its deplorable record in Iraq from 2003 to 2009. So it is a one-way street with Iran, and it’s better
to be damned for voicing criticism than for being afraid to voice criticism.
The Iranian theocrats are realists par excellence; they do not give a damn about ideals or morality,
and will deal with us in the future on their perception of their own self-interest: whether or not we “meddle”
now, if they find it useful to talk in the future, they will; if they find it of no value to talk in the future, they won’t.
As I wrote in my last Iran posting:
Damned if you do, damned if you don't: might
as well do considering who and what America is and stands for.
Barack Hussein Obama, you are a disgrace.
My next sentence at this point should be: And you should be ashamed of yourself. But, sir, it has been quite obvious
for quite sometime that you have no shame. If you were a gentleman and not a thug, I would, at this moment, be
awaiting a visit from your second. Ain't gonna happen.
20 jun 09 @ 3:30 pm edt
PAGING BILL PAXTONThe whirlwind that has been raging since 20 January has turned into an F3 tornado. Iran, North Korea, Fascism on the March in America, IG-Gate, etc....its hard not to get lifted off the ground and
blown away by the rampaging storm.
I will be updating the IG-Gate links over at UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS
on the WWU-AM Page, but first I will be preparing and publishing a posting on the more important situation in Iran.
[Later, of course, RULE 5!]
20 jun 09 @ 2:46 pm edt
AM I SLIPPING INTO THE TWIGHT ZONE...Apologizes for not doing work here yesterday: the all-day conference I attended
ending up taking longer than I thought it would and the traffic on the way home was awful. Well...Onward Christendom
Soldiers...
20 jun 09 @ 2:39 pm edt
Thursday, June 18, 2009
SIMPLE MANRecently over at the Greenroom, the astute and sagacious [can
I suck up, or can I suckup] Robert Stacy McCain offered up some solid advice for conservative intellectuals [oh, that word]
on How to Think About Liberalism (If You Must). At one point is this towering missive [I can't help
myself], RSM takes on one Bill Kristol:
...in 2009, a storm of denunciation pours
down on the head of any conservative who insists that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama are liberals and that, as
liberals always do, they are leading us down the road to disaster. And it is not merely Democrats and MSM types who denounce
stubborn conservatives for saying this. Many Republicans will gladly join in on the Consensus Chorus, i.e., Bill Kristol:
Presuming ahead of time that Obama
will fail to exercise leadership, and cataloguing this episode pre-emptively as another in a list of Obama failures, would
be a mistake. . . . [W]e should hope Obama does the right thing, and urge and pressure him to do so–because then the
United States will be doing the right thing, and the United States, and the world, will benefit.
Errr, actually, no. Kristol may mean to say that it is a dangerous thing
— and certainly, as a matter of rhetoric, it is dangerous — for conservatives to proclaim that liberals like Obama
are acting in bad faith. We cannot know another’s motives beyond what they themselves say on that subject, and if Obama
says that Policy X is good for America, then we must assume for the sake of argument that Obama actually believesin
Policy X. Ergo, the “Obama-Is-a-Secret-Muslim” and “Democrats-Hate-America” arguments are non-starters
as matters of persuasive political rhetoric, especially when the MSM will heap scorn on anyone making such arguments.
HOW TO PAVE THE ROAD TO HELL
Kristol
is wrong, however, to caution conservatives not to assume as inevitable, and publicly predict, the failure of Obama’s
policies. If Obama is a liberal (and he is), then he will pursue liberal policies, and those policies will fail. You can set
your watch by it.
It is one thing to assume (at least, for the sake of argument) that a liberal like Obama desires
what is good for America. It is another thing to assume that a liberal actually knows what is good for America,
or that, knowing what is good, he will actually pursue the good competently and persistently. The history of liberalism disproves
any such assumption.
We may give liberals credit for their good intentions – how else shall they
pave the road to hell? — but we can never credit liberals with good sense.
If they had any sense,
they wouldn’t be liberals, would they?
Nothing is to be feared in predicting that (a) liberals will act like
liberals, and (b) the result will be disastrous. Kristol, however, is an intellectual, and it is the nature of the intellectual
beast that he must concern himself above all with maintaining his influence. If you’re going to be an un-influential
intellectual, you might as well drive a truck.
The whole point of seeking a career as a “conservative intellectual”
is to exercise influence in Washington, and Kristol risks losing influence for the duration of the Obama administration if
he makes a point of saying that everything Obama does is wrong. As in economics, you see, those who transact business in the
“marketplace of ideas” respond to incentives. So Bill Kristol flatters Obama with the hope that he will
“do the right thing” (whatever Kristol believes “the right thing” to be) and further supposes that
there is some utility in conservatives urging that the liberal president do “the right thing.”
Errr,
actually, no. If the liberal president listens to Bill Kristol, it is only because whatever policy
Kristol urges is in agreement with liberalism. And being a conservative means that, insofar as Obama does what Kristol considers
to be “the right thing,” then it is actually the wrong thing to do!
The Leftist sees through
the flattering and takes advantage of it by using the conservative for his own ends. If these intellectuals in question
are going to be the face of the conservative movement [oh, that word], they have an obligation to the rest of us not to get
squishy and wet in their criticisms of the Left. Americans admire the John Wayne and Gary Cooper types, not the Alan
Aldas and metrosexual types. Mr. Kristol, move away from the manicurist.
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.
18 jun 09 @ 8:19 pm edt
IG-GATE @ WWU-AMI just posted three new links: the latest from Byron York, the latest from Pundette,
and one by Moe Lane.
18 jun 09 @ 7:47 pm edt
IG-GATE [Updated]Robert Stacy McCain was kind enough to post/link the following this morning:
The Camp of the Saints has some good stuff on IG-Gate...
Thanks
RSM.
I was not aware of this linkage, so I have not updated the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS Section
of the WWU-AM like the posting the link brought you to indicates I would be doing. I had planned to do so later this afternoon
but: I am updating starting now.
UPDATE @ 1421hrs:
Updates completed.
18 jun 09 @ 1:32 pm edt
IT OCCURS TO ME......that I've quoted from and linked to four items by Warner Todd Huston today.
I think I should just go ahead and declare today...
WARNER TODD HUSTON DAY @ TCOTS
[Damn...the man is on a roll; puts me to shame.]
18 jun 09 @ 11:46 am edt
EXPOSING THE LIESWarner Todd Huston has been doing some great reporting and analysis on the
lies the Administration and its dupes and fellow travellers have been broadcasting regarding the plans for 'reform' of the
American health care system. Two of the latest examples...
1) From Monday over at NewsBusters, we learned:
Naturally, President Obama wants people to think his "townhall meetings"
are legitimately open to just any American to attend to ask him the tough questions. The June 11 meeting on Healthcare, of
course, was supposed to feature spontaneous questions for the president from the audience about a takeover of nearly 20% of
the nation's economy with his healthcare plans. But a closer look at this townhall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, might disabuse
anyone of the notion that spontaneous questions really were taken from the audience.
One of Obama's first questions
from the audience wasn't from a mere concerned citizen, but from a former Democratic Party candidate for Congress that wants
a socialist, single payer system to be implemented raising the suspicion that the administration knew exactly who was going
to ask questions and what they were going to ask.
2) From this morning over at Red State:
But it looks like a new tactic might be coming from those on the left that want
Obamacare to pass. In The New York Times, David Leonhardt tried to calm fears of rationingby saying that, whether we know it or not, we already have rationing. So, the theory seems
to go, since we already have what he loosely describes as rationing already, why worry if we get more of it with government
healthcare?
But the main problem with Leonhardt’s article is that it obscures the fact that the reasonwe
already experience some of what he describes as rationing is because of government interference. Worse, he also obscures the
fact that the sort of rationing we now have can often be alleviated by the current ability of choice in healthcare. Unfortunately
for his sanguine assumptions that moregovernment rationing isn’t a big deal, he forgets to mention that the
choices we now have that can help us will be summarily eliminated by Obamacare and there will be nowhere to go to get away
from government restrictions on our healthcare choices once passed. Far from rationing being no big deal, it will grow apace
with the cost overruns and waste that government healthcare will incur.
Keep up the great work Mr. Huston.
And remember folks: we are literally in a fight for our lives.
NOW NOW NOW, I'M GONNA TEACH YOU
18 jun 09 @ 11:21 am edt
RESCUING JOHN ADAMS'S REPUTATION......from the lies and abuses of naive fools:
In his earth-moving and
glorious speech in Cairo, the Divine Obamacus said the following:
In signing the
Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote: "The United States has in itself no character of enmity
against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."
At the time, that struck me not something the
great and wise Mr. Adams [I was into Adams before being into Adams was cool] would have said and I became determined
to research the veracity of its provenance. However, I dropped the ball on this one, but, thankfully, Richard Adams,
over at No Left Turns, picked it up and ran with it:
As a close
student of the founding era, I was surprised to find that I did not recall Adams saying that. That Adams was not President
until 1797 tipped me off that something was askew....
And it was.
Please take the time to click here and read of what he found. [tip of the fedora to Jonah Goldberg]
Now seems a good a time as any to republish this quote from John
Quincy Adams:
In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of
the lineage of Hagar (mohammed), the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy
of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation
and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine
of one omnipotent god; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle.
Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to
the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned
the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy;
and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE
OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE...Between these two religions,
thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant...While the
merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon the
earth, and good will towards men.
18 jun 09 @ 11:03 am edt
IRAN IIII apologize for not providing an Iran update yesterday. I had an important
letter to compose and send. Onward and upward...
I've been gliding through the ether on a Persian rug made
of pantywaists [sorry Greg Gutfeld; sorry Mr. Cameron] in search of insights on Iran...
1) From the AP, Ali Akbar Dareini reporting, we learn:
TEHRAN, Iran – Irandirectly accused the United States of
meddling in the deepening crisis over a disputed presidential election and broadened its media clampdown Wednesday to include
blogs and news Web sites. But protesters took to the streets in growing defiance of the country's Islamic rulers.
...
Authorities rounded up perceived dissidents and tried to further muzzle Web sites and other networks
used by Mousavi's backers to share information and send out details of Iran's crisis after foreign journalists were banned
from reporting in the streets.
Officials also stepped up claims that foreign hands have been behind the unrest.
An Iranian statement blamed Washington for "intolerable" interference in the showdown over allegations of
vote-rigging and fraud. The report, on state-run Press TV, cited no evidence.
It said the government summoned the
Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain about American interference. The two countries severed
diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
2) In light of the above quoted report, Michael Ledeen comments [worth quoting in full]:
There's a useful lesson here for President Obama and those
who think they can somehow be a little bit pregnant in a brothel: You're going to be accused of meddling anyway, since out
there in the real world you are believed to be the leader of the forces of freedom and democracy. So stop pretending to be
a sweet innocent, and get in there and fight for people who are dying in the name of our values, and who want to be part of
our world.
Hear, hear! Enough with this 'The U.S. Doesn't Want to be Seen As Meddling' squishiness.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't: might as well do considering who and what America is and stands for.
3)
Over at The Corner, Seth Leibsohn is spot-on:
Organic protests of reform rise up too infrequently in tyrannies and someone needs
to show these students and these protesters that someone is on their side, that someone gives a damn about them. Our
administration's talk of continuing to press for open dialogue with the leaders of Iran was not and is not appropriate right now.
As Vaclav Havel said yesterday, "Expressions of solidarity with those who are defending human rights, with students
and others, are important." Yes they are, and to reassert respect — that's the word the president used, "respect"
— for Iran's sovereignty at a time of a stolen and fraudulent election, with brutality on the streets being committed
against those demonstrating against the fraudulent election, in a regime that is the lead sponsor of terror in the Middle
East, that thwarts weapons inspections as it attempts to nuclearize itself, and speaks of a world without Israel or America
. . . well, respect for its sovereignty it the last thing the U.S. should be standing for.
The U.S. can stand with
democratic reformers or with brutal thugs in any given country. It can give hope or take it. It cannot do both. To paraphrase
John F. Kennedy: In times of great moral crisis, we should not be maintaining our neutrality. Diplomacy is one thing, freedom
is another — and for all of us who have wanted non-military inspired freedom to take root in Iran, that moment may be
upon us (I emphasize the word "may") and standing by our principle of neutrality;and respect for that which we hope
to end is the opposite of what we should be doing. Freedom has always had its limits, but so too should diplomacy.
In fact, the last group that should be allowed to have any influence on our response to these events should be the weenies in the State Department.
4) Speaking of State Department weenies: Warner Todd Huston comments on their claim that they encouraged Twitter to keep their system up for the sake of the Iranian
protesters:
It all sounds like the incredibly hip cats at Foggy Bottom, being all plugged into
the Internet tubes and all, were right on top of the situation, eh? Reading those Tweets and Twits and stuff was of top national
importance, they claimed. Why, maybe even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself is a Twit!
It seems that many
Old Media outlets were hot to give the State Dept. credit, too.
Not so fast. Unfortunately for the State Dept.,
Twitter says the claim is not really true. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said, “…it’s important to note
that the State Department does not have access to our decision making process.” Stone told reporters that the State
Dept. did not have anything to do with its decision to skip the down time.
That’s two different stories,
here.
So why did Obama’s State Department try to claim credit for something it probably had no role in? Is
it because the State Department realized it was out of the loop, without assets on the ground, completely irrelevant in one
of the most important foreign policy stories of the day?
Or is Twitter just trying to reinforce that it isn’t
controlled by the U.S. government? Already one half-wit at the DailyKos was whipping up fear that Twitter is controlled by Washington. Maybe Twitter wanted to nip
such talk in the bud? (H/T Mary Katharine Ham of the Weekly Standard Blog)
In any case, I find it hard to believe that the laggards at State had much to
do with Twitter’s decision. It may have lately come to the realization of how integral Twitter was to the flow of information,
but it doesn’t seem likely that State was so on top of the situation that its entreaties factored much into Twitter’s
decision.
If I were a betting man, I would put my money on the folks at Twitter.
5) In another posting, Mr. Leibsohn reminds us of how a U.S. President should act when dealing with these Iranian primitives:
Reagan spoke of the Iranians as “barbarians” in 1980 after he won the election,
and his people encouraged the Carter administration to let the Iranians know Reagan was unpredictable. The Iranians saw that
and so did our own news analysts who, the day the hostages came home, the day Reagan was inaugurated, wrote such things as
“Reagan was an unknown quantity and they would rather deal with Carter than Reagan.”
How about we bring
back the words Reagan used: Barbarians. How about we also do something, something, to make the Iranian government just a little
nervous by standing with those who are standing for the crumbling of a bizarrely repressive regime. Seems to me that kind
of “meddling” is not a negative but rather a moral imperative right now.
I miss the RayGun.
6) Over at The Washington Post, Robert Kagan thinks Tiberius Obamacus has a big dilemma and another [sigh!]
UNWELCOME DISTRACTION:
The turmoilin Iran since last week's election has confused the foreign policy debate here in the United
States in interesting ways. Supporters of President Obama, who until very recently had railed against the Bush administration's
"freedom agenda" and who insisted on a new "realism," have suddenly found themselves rooting for freedom
and democracy in Iran. And in their desire to attribute all good things to the work of President Obama, they have even suggested
that the ferment in Iran is due to Obama's public appeals to Iranians and Muslims.
If so, this will be one of those
great ironies of history. For, in fact, Obama never meant to spark political upheaval in Iran, much less encourage the Iranian
people to take to the streets. That they are doing so is not good news for the president but, rather, an unwelcome complication
in his strategy of engaging and seeking rapprochement with the Iranian government on nuclear issues.
...
...Whatever his personal sympathies may be, if he is intent on sticking to his original strategy, then he can have no interest
in helping the opposition. His strategy toward Iran places him objectively on the side of the government's efforts to return
to normalcy as quickly as possible, not in league with the opposition's efforts to prolong the crisis.
It's not
that Obama preferred a victory by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He probably would have been happy to do business with Mir Hossein Mousavi,
even if there was little reason to believe Mousavi would have pursued a different approach to the nuclear issue. But once
Mousavi lost, however fairly or unfairly, Obama objectively had no use for him or his followers. If Obama appears to lend
support to the Iranian opposition in any way, he will appear hostile to the regime, which is precisely what he hoped to avoid.
Obama's policy now requires getting past the election controversies quickly so that he can soon begin negotiations
with the reelected Ahmadinejad government. This will be difficult as long as opposition protests continue and the government
appears to be either unsettled or too brutal to do business with. What Obama needs is a rapid return to peace and quiet in
Iran, not continued ferment. His goal must be to deflate the opposition, not to encourage it. And that, by and large, is what
he has been doing.
And when Don Obamleone has no use for you, you'd better watch out...
'Where's
Pavi?'
'Oh Pavi, you won't see him no more'.
7) Rich Lowry has some fun speculating how the Dali Bama would have dealt with several other crises in times past. Here's one:
On the creation of the Berlin Wall: "Any time a barrier divides
people we get worried, and perhaps even chagrined. We hope all Germans can work this out amicably, and agree on construction
standards and building materials going forward. We, as Americans, stand ready to observe closely."
8)
The JammieWearingFool has posted a comment on the Dali Bama's statements and the fact that the Iranian protesters are issuing
their protests and writing most of their signs in English. This is dead solid perfect:
They might speak English, but they're speaking
in a tongue Obama doesn't understand. Or care to, to his eternal shame.
9) Paco thinks our Fearless Leader is channelling ZaSu Pitts:
For the uninitiated, ZaSu Pitts was best known for her comic movie roles in the 1930’s;
she specialized in portraying a constantly flustered worrier, who typically responded to each new crisis with a plaintive
cry of “Oh, dear!” Our President has put me in mind of Ms. Pitts with his nervous handwringing and tepid observations
in connection with the violence in Iran. “Oh, dear!” he seems to whine. “This situation could seriously
undermine my ability to charm the mullahs out of their nukes.”
Well, I think it highly unlikely that he was
going to succeed in that, anyway, especially given the intransigence of the Iranian theocracy. So he might want to consider
taking a different tack: condemning the government’s crackdown on dissent and unequivocally expressing his support for
those people in Iran who are desperate for genuine democracy. He could do that much without in any way threatening to physically
intervene. Sometimes, as President Reagan demonstrated during the Polish crisis, a bold statement of principle is all that
is needed to give hope to the oppressed, and to start a crack running through the weakened façade of a tyrannical government.
Once again: I miss the RayGun.
ZaSu Pitts is mostly remembered these days for a dramatic role: that of
the money-hoarding wife who won't let her husband share her lottery winnings and who won't even spend any of it in Eric Von
Stroheim's movie Greed. Having just written that, it seems to me, that the He is, indeed, emulating her.
10) The ever perspective and wise Victor Davis Hanson:
...The United States practically ordered the Shah out of Iran after working behind
the scenes to undermine him. We went on the record in various ways to bolster demonstrations in the Ukraine, Chile, Serbia,
Poland, and elsewhere. No country has done more to meddle in the affairs of others in order not to bolster, but to destroy
democracy than has Iran. Just ask the Lebanese and Iraqis.
One can sympathize with worry not to undermine the resistance
by being tied to it, or being concerned about nuclear weapons, or trying to figure the odds of who will win, but all that
said, it's starting to get a little shameful for the professed humanitarian Obama to be seen so nakedly uninterested in the
hundreds of thousands in the streets of Tehran both voicing values similar to our own, and ridiculing a government that for
30 years has serially killed Americans, promoted worldwide terror, and violated international agreements.
We are
now well below the Ford administration's 1975 snubbing of Solzhenitsyn.
A 'little' shameful? Hang
down your head O-Bama; hang down your head and cry....
11) We'll end with a quote from another posting
by Michael Ledeen where he publishes a message he received from someone in an Iranian hospital and then comments [this is worth quoting in full]:
I am a medical student. There was chaos last night at the trauma
section in one of our main hospitals. Although by decree, all riot-related injuries were supposed to be sent to military hospitals,
all other hospitals were filled to the rim. Last night, nine people died at our hospital and another 28 had gunshot wounds.
All hospital employees were crying till dawn. They (government) removed the dead bodies on back of trucks, before we were
even able to get their names or other information. What can you even say to the people who don't even respect the dead. No
one was allowed to speak to the wounded or get any information from them. This morning the faculty and the students protested
by gathering at the lobby of the hospital where they were confronted by plain cloths anti-riot militia, who in turn closed
off the hospital and imprisoned the staff. The extent of injuries are so grave, that despite being one of the most staffed
emergency rooms, they've asked everyone to stay and help—I'm sure it will even be worst tonight.
What can anyone say in face of all these atrocities? What can you say to the family of the
13 year old boy who died from gunshots and whose dead body then disappeared?
This issue is not about cheating(election) anymore. This is not about stealing votes anymore. The issue is about
a vast injustice inflected on the people.
[Ledeen]: The president
says he doesn't want to "meddle." Aside from the fact that he unhesitatingly meddles in Israel, how can any American
remain aloof from this sort of thing?
18 jun 09 @ 9:48 am edt
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
THE BIG IG [Updated at bottom]Inspector General Gerald Walpin was fired by The White House. Mr. Walpin
believed he was fired for political reasons: that he had ruled against a close friend of the Obamas, Kevin Johnson.
He spoke publicly about his firing. I was shocked to find out that Don Obamleone and his Capos are going after the man
[read last sentence with the sarcasm dripping from your lips]. From Jake Tapper we learn:
In a letter to Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, the
Chairman and Ranking Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Norm Eisen, the Special
Counsel to the President, outlined a number of reasons why President Obama fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin.
...
In the letter, Eisen paints a less-than-flattering picture of Walpin, whose controversial tenure as Inspector
General of the Corporation for National and Community Service ended last week with President Obama taking the extraordinary
measure of firing him.
Eisen charged that at a May 20, 2009
board meeting Walpin "was confused, disoriented, unable to answer questions and exhibited other behavior that led the
Board to question his capacity to serve."
Eisen writes
that the President decided to take the step after learning that the Acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of California,
Lawrence Brown, "a career prosecutor who was appointed to his post during the Bush Administrator, had filed a complaint
about Mr. Walpin's conduct with the oversight body for Inspectors General, including for failing to disclose exculpatory evidence."
The Obama administration "further learned that Mr. Walpin had been
absent from the Corporation's headquarters, insisting upon working from his home in New York over the objections of the Corporation's
Board; that he had exhibited a lack of candor in providing material information to decision makers; and that he had engaged
in other troubling and inappropriate conduct. Mr. Walpin had become unduly disruptive to agency operations, impairing his
effectiveness and, for the reasons stated above, losing the confidence of the Board."
As to the 'dementia' charge, Pundette is spot-on:
What could
be easier for an administration without scruples than to brand Gerald Walpin with dementia and use that as an excuse for summarily
(and illegally, btw) firing him. He has attested that he received a phone call telling him to resign or be fired, and that he had
an hour to decide which. He got a follow-up call 45 minutes later and opted for being fired. Hear his interview with Laura Ingraham on June 15 here. He doesn't sound vague or confused in the least.
There's no way anyone can effectively
defend himself against this kind of charge.
Paging Ray Donovan. I've seen Mr. Walpin's interview with
Glenn Beck and I agree with Pundette. He is a soft-spoken and articulate gentleman. I like the last line of her
posting:
Are we supposed to believe our lying eyes or the Obama administration?
That applies to everything they do. Please take the time to click here and read Pundette's full posting which also contains some good links.
As to U.S. Attorney Brown and his complaint, the editors of The Washington Times write:
The White House seems to think the U.S. attorney's complaint makes Mr. Walpin look
bad and thus excuses the firing.
One major problem: the U.S. attorney's complaint has more holes in it than a 10-year-old
sock.
The complaint claims that the inspector general repeatedly failed to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney's office
and improperly used press releases to try the case against Mayor Johnson through the media. Mr. Johnson is a political ally
of Mr. Obama's and reportedly a personal friend of first lady Michelle Obama. In an 18-page response co-signed by five members
of the inspector-general staff, Mr. Walpin made mincemeat of Mr. Brown's complaint.
Please take the time to click here and read the evidence.
In a great posting over at The American Spectator, newspaperman [and gentleman] Quin Hillyer comments on the media reaction
to this story. After providing links to The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, and The
Wall Street Journal, who are actually covering this story, he writes:
Here's
the thing: There is no reason, none whatsoever, for CNN and MSNBC, along with CBS and The NY Times, not to be putting
this on the front page. An independent inspector general embarrassed some close allies and/or fundraisers of the president,
so the president fired him without stating a cause. This is, on its face, a scandal. It is worse than Travelgate because it
involves an official protecting the public fisc against waste and corruption. It is worse than the US Attorney "scandal"
under Bush because, unlike US Attorneys, IGs are NOT political appointees who can be fired at will -- and because the quid
pro quo, or rather dismissal pro quo, here is far more direct than it (allegedly) was with regard to the dismissed USAs.
At the very least, the intellectually honest (usually) left-leaning editorialists at the Washington Postshould
be yelling (in print) about this abuse of power by Obama. WHERE ARE THE WATCHDOGS of the establishment media? Oh, that's right:
They are no longer watchdogs but lapdogs, and particularly slobbering ones at that, waiting for Obama's order for them to
fetch his slippers while they hope to be thrown a bone for their slavish devotion to him.....
I am not surprised
that this Administration is acting like this. For quite some time now I have compared them to the Bolsheviks in the
how they deal with their enemies and they have done nothing to disabuse me of the comparison's worth. However, I must
admit that I still am appalled at how brazen and bold they are. Wow. [Don't worry, I'll get over it, after all,
I am THE CynicalSOBcon.]
I posted a link to one of Byron York's reports on this situation on Monday over
in the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS Section of the WWU-AM Page. After I publish this posting, I will be going over there and posting further links from Mr. York and
others. I will keep updating as I find information I think useful.
UPDATE of 18 June 2009: Robert Stacy McCain was kind enough to post/link the following
this morning:
The Camp of the Saints has some good stuff on IG-Gate...
Thanks RSM.
I was not aware of this linkage, so I have not updated the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS
Section of the WWU-AM like this posting indicates I would be doing. I had planned to do so later this afternoon but:
I am updating starting now.
Thanks for your indulgence.
UPDATE of 18 June 2009 @ 1421hrs: Latest Updates Completed.
HOPE IN A HOPELESS WORLD*Regarding the states...
When you read stories like the two Warner Todd Huston reports in a recent posting over at Red State, for a moment—just a very short moment of indignation and anger which you get over quickly as you recover
your reason—you feel like 'calling down curses from heaven'** on the states. Here's one of them:
And now we meander over eastward a few states to the Buckeye State, the gateway to the west,
the state with the Queen City home of the Cincinnati Reds. Yeah, over by dere as they say in Chi-Town.
You see,
the Buckeyes have their own little problem with budget shortfalls. Specifically in the toddlin’ town of Toledo, Ohio.
This is the town where Carty Finkbeiner holds court as Mayor. Not to be outdone by King Daley, the Big Fink has himself alighted
on an inventive way to raise some much needed cash.
His administration has decided to whip out the parking ticket book and go a huntin.’
And what did they find? Not surprisingly, they found all sorts of illegally parked vehicles, that’s what. Why these
scofflaws have been parking on gravel or other unpaved surfaces, don’t you know. That’s a big no-no, you see.
So, the Finkster’s Division of Streets, Bridges and Harbor has started ticketing these evil law breakers for
parking… in their own driveways. That’s right, Finkelweener is here to tell you monstrous homeowners (and renters)
that if you don’t spend thousands of dollars to pave your driveway, YOU will be ticketed for illegal parking…
in your own driveway… on your own property.
That’ll learn ya.
You see it all across
the United States; its like Leftist thinking and s**t—it's everywhere. Small and petty abuses and tyrannies perpetrated
by soulless bureaucrats and elected power-hoarders.
The abuses of power being perpetrated at the state level are
as bad as those being instigated at the national level. Governments at all levels have gotten out of hand. And
we have only ourselves to blame.
There is a glimmer of hope [not Obama-style hope, but the real kind] on the horizon
as Quin Hillyer reports in the June issue of The American Spectator:
The
good news is that even before anybody dreamed of the Tea Parties, a number of conservative grassroots organizations, almost
completely divorced from Washington/New York direction, were mobilizing in the far-flung towns and cyberspace wikis of this
great nation. Candidate recruitment and training, media and Internet entrepreneurial efforts, intellectual stimulation and
policy innovation, all are getting jolts of energy and talent from new organizations. Even better, many of those organizations
were well positioned to build directly on the Tea Party momentum while working to create the next generation of conservative
political infrastructure. Indeed, one such organization, American Majority, almost immediately posted a new website called,
yes, AfterTheTeaParty.com. “Run for local office,” says one sub-link at the site. “Be an activist,”
says another. “Support Freedom!” says a third.
American Majority’s main objective is to recruit
and train candidates for local and state offices such as town councils, school boards, county commissions, and state legislators—or,
if people just don’t want to run for office, to at least train them to be effective activists. “You have to move
from protesting to becoming ‘implementers,’” said American Majority President Ned Ryun. “We are saying
to people: We will empower you. If you want to be involved, we will give you the tools.”
Ryun continued:
“We’re trying to stay very much on the cutting edge, to teach things like: How do you use Twitter, how do you
use Facebook, Plurk, and Ning? How do you use social networking tools in campaigns or in building coalitions or in building
communities of like-minded citizens? We’re really trying to stay on the cutting edge—and trying to professionalize
as much as possible.”
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS, OF COURSE, offer candidate training among their options—including
the venerable Leadership Institute, which in its training of potential candidates, campaign managers, youth leaders, student
journalists, campus organizers, and others remains one of conservatism’s greatest resources.
But what American
Majority does is to focus specifically at the grassroots, at the local level—and locates full-time staff in those local
areas to build relationships, actively search for political talent, and convince activists that they may have a calling in
local public office. In short, rather than waiting for potential leaders to self-select, American Majority goes out into the
local communities and finds those leaders—and then teaches them not only how to run and win campaigns, but how to navigate
the politics and policies of their new offices after they win.
...
“Our political system is dysfunctional,”
said Eric O’Keefe, chairman of the Chicago-based Sam Adams Alliance. “Congress is unrepresentative; government
is out of control and the political parties are part of the system, both of them. So I am working on supporting independent
infrastructure so that citizens can be heard and be effective and support mission- based, principled organizations.”
Perhaps the best known of the Alliance’s projects is “Ballotpedia,” a wiki that keeps tabs on ballot
initiatives across the country. In the four days immediately before last year’s elections, Ballotpedia received some
5 million page views as people tried to follow the progress of initiatives on gay marriage, crime, tax hikes, and other subjects.
Newer and less well known—but already with more than a million page views each—are Sunshine Review, a wiki hotline
for government accountability and transparency, and Judgepedia, which already features articles on each of the nation’s
338 state Supreme Court justices and that by the end of the year will feature every state appeals court judge in the country.
(By early may it already contained more than 12,000 total entries.) Also, by the end of the summer, Judgepedia expects to
feature an article on every federal judge from the time of George Washington up to the present. In short, it’s a great
way for voters to keep tabs on these officials whose jobs are all too often a bit mysterious to the general public.
O’Keefe says that like American Majority, the Sam Adams group is “close allies” with yet another key player
in grassroots conservative revival, the conservative state policy think tanks that now exist in all 50 states. (Think of state-level
Heritage Foundations or American Enterprise Institutes.) They will surely play a key role in helping Tea Partiers focus and
direct their complaints about excessive, invasive government.
I know that most of us conservatives just
want to live our lives in peace and be left alone to enjoy our families and our friends. Life is tragic enough that
we just want to eke out and pursue as much happiness as possible. But the government at all levels won't leave
us alone, it wants to re-engineer us. We have no choice but to fight just like those who dropped their plows, picked
up their muskets, and gathered on the Green at Lexington.
Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Hillyer's full report.
*Great song by the band Widespread Panic.
**From the longer George Orwell quote: 'This age
makes me so sick that sometimes I am almost impelled to stop at a corner and start calling down curses from Heaven.'
17 jun 09 @ 11:07 am edt
WHITHER STATE SOVEREIGNTY?Having been subjected to constant deceptions from this Administration—especially
regarding their motives—since 20 January, I am very, shall we say, skeptical about the following. From The
Washington Post, David Cho, Brady Dennis, Karl Vick reporting:
The
Obama administration has turned back pleas for emergency aid from one of the biggest remaining threats to the economy -- the
state of California.
Top state officials have gone hat in hand to the administration, armed with dire warnings
of a fast-approaching "fiscal meltdown" caused by a budget shortfall. Concern has grown inside the White House in
recent weeks as California's fiscal condition has worsened, leading to high-level administration meetings. But federal officials
are worried that a bailout of California would set off a cascade of demands from other states.
However,
the door was not closed:
After a series of meetings, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner,
top White House economists Lawrence Summers and Christina Romer, and other senior officials have decided that California could
hold on a little longer and should get its budget in order rather than rely on a federal bailout.
These policymakers
continue to watch the situation closely and do not rule out helping the state if its condition significantly deteriorates,
a senior administration official said. But in that case, federal help would carry conditions to protect taxpayers and make
similar requests for aid unattractive to other states, the official said. The official did not detail those conditions.
Over at The Corner, John Pitney comments:
...Might California become another GM? Might the feds condition a bailout on passage
of another state tax increase? It’s hard to say, but this situation is not looking good.
Might not
the Administration, at some point in the near future, 'reluctantly' announce that they will bailout California and also, at
the same time, say: 'We don't want to run California'? Would you be surprised if they then did? Might not this
be the beginning of the end of sovereignty for the states and the end of the beginning of the state's evolution into regional
administrative arms of the national government?
The sad thing is, its within the realm of possibility these days.
Please click here to read the full report in The Post.
17 jun 09 @ 10:55 am edt
EN-SIGN, RE-SIGNWe learned late yesterday that Republican Senator John Ensign had admitted an
adulterous affair with one of his staffers and the female staffer in questions' husband may have tried to blackmail the Senator
from Nevada.
In a spot-on editorial over at NTC News, Robert Stacy McCain commented:
Ensign had called Republican colleague Sen. Larry Craig a "disgrace" after Craig's
2007 airport restroom arrest.
If Craig was a "disgrace," what is Ensign?
Good question.
A few words come to mind, but I will not list them here to spare the ladies.
Senator Ensign should resign—its
that simple...
-He is a social and fiscal conservative
-We conservatives have enough troubles
-He will be held up to endless ridicule by the Left for his hypocrisy
-He will be a drag on our efforts
to re-establish our reputation with the public
-He's damaged goods
The Senator should resign and go
to a think tank somewhere and hide for a few years. And hang his head in well-deserved shame.
Please take the time to click here and read RSM's full editorial.
Also, please check out this good posting: The JammieWearingFool contasts the way Senator Ensign is being treated versus the way Representative Patrick
'Patches' Kennedy is.
17 jun 09 @ 10:29 am edt
REGRETS, I'VE HAD A FEW...In my immediate posting below about the plans of ABC to turn
over their whole network for a day to The White House so the Administration can shrill for socializing our health
care, I ended by writing:
All I can say is: I'm not surprised at all. Hey...I've
got an idea: to break things up during the day, ABC could have Letterman do some jokes about cancer patients and underage
teenage hookers.
The last sentence should have read: 'conservative cancer patients'. I regret the
error and apologize if any Leftist cancer patients out there took offense. Please understand that my intent was not
to offend Leftist cancer patients: I was aiming for dead Leftist cancer patients. But I now understand
that perception matters, and many Leftist cancer patients who are still alive took offense. I also want to apologize
to any underage teenage hookers out there who just now took offense that I implied that they were necrophiliacs who enjoy
having sex with dead Leftist cancer patients. Please understand that my intent was not to offend underage teenage hookers:
I was aiming at dead underage teenage hookers. But, once again, I see that perception matters, and many living underage
teenage hookers took offense. As for offending the perceptions of the dead of both groups, that's between me and my
Ghost Whisperer and, for some reason I haven't figured out yet, Al Sharpton.
17 jun 09 @ 9:59 am edt
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
THAT'S HOW EASY LOVE CAN BEAs Drudge reported this morning:
ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE
Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET
On the night of June
24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials
to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!
Highlights on the agenda:
ABCNEWS anchor
Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.
The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room,
exclude opposing voices on the debate.
The Director of Communications at the White House Office of Health Reform is Linda Douglass, who worked as a reporter
for ABC News from 1998-2006.
Many bloggers on the Right are outraged, as you might expect [and rightfully
so]. For some very good links to them, check out these aggregators:
1) Robert Stacy McCain at The Other McCain, who also comments on the RNC's letter to ABC:
RNC
chief of staff Ken McKay sends a letter to ABC News, gets a lame, snarky response.
A suggestion for Mr. McKay: How about you kick whoever's ass needs to be kicked in order to get an actual live blog
on the RNC Web site? It hasn't been updated in 32 days.
Personnel is policy, and this business of assigning important communications operations to clueless
do-nothing losers has got to stop.
2) NTC News, thanks to Jimmie, is right on top of things.
3) Speaking of Jimmie, he's got some good thoughts up over at his site, The Sundries Shack. A highlight:
Do you remember when President Bush was pushing for Social Security
reform a few years back? Imagine what might have happened had Fox News announced it was going to devote every one of its news
shows to a "conversation" about social security reform and that it would be broadcasting from inside the Whote House
all day. Imagine the outrage from the MSM and the left if Fox has shut out the Democrats entirely yet promised to be the very
paragons of journalistic virtue.
The left would have screamed to high Heaven and they would have been exactly right to do so. There's a reason we
won't hear much from the left on this and it has to do with what Stacy says in the update to this post. There's an awful lot
of message-coordinating going on and we rarely get to see any of it. The only sign we have that there's a concerted push happening
is when the pundits and MSM all line up sudenly and for no good reason. Well, they're lining up on health care already. ABC's
Day of Propaganda is only the most visible indication that the marching orders have been given. You will see more. I guarantee
it.
Its what they call a 'dead certainty'.
4)
Pundette, along with some others, is up for a little boycottin':
Bookworm Room and Melissa Cloutier are up for a boycott. We need a list of ABC sponsors, particularly
sponsors of the vapid GMA and World News Tonight. I've looked on that internets thingy but haven't found the info.
Anyone?
All I can say is: I'm not surprised at all. Hey...I've got an idea: to break things up during
the day, ABC could have Letterman do some jokes about cancer patients and underage teenage hookers.
A FELLOW TRAVELLER IN OUR MIDST?The fellows over at Powerline have been looking into this issue,
asked some good questions, and now have an answer: Rep Ellison and the Muslim American Society are
liars.
As John Hinderaker reports:
We've written several times about
Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison's hajj to Mecca, most recently here. A spokesman for Ellison, the first Muslim Congressman, first claimed that he paid for the
pilgrimage himself. Later it was reported that the Muslim American Society paid for the trip, which MAS spokesman Mahdi Bray
heatedly denied, describing the report as a "myth" and "urban legend" that couldn't possibly be true because
"that would be a breach of congressional ethics." Bray's denial, however, quietly became inoperative.
A
few days ago members of Congress filed their annual disclosure forms, listing travel payments and reimbursements by private
entities. Ellison's form put to rest any lingering question about who paid for his two-week trip to Saudi Arabia....
So, as we reported, the Muslim American Society of Minnesota paid for Ellison's two-week pilgrimage/vacation. Is that a
bad thing? It depends on what you think of MAS, which was founded as the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization
that spawned all of the leading Sunni terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, Hamas and others.
Perhaps our
first Muslim Representative in the Congress should have to answer for this? Nope, that would be discrimination.
Viva the Soft Jihad!
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting and see a scan of the page from the dislosure form.
16 jun 09 @ 2:53 pm edt
WWU-AM: HEALTH CAREJust a reminder that I've created a special section in the JUST THE FACTS,
MAM Section of the WWU-AM Page for links to background information and analysis of the various health care plans been circulated and proposed.
I've been updating it nearly every day and it contains links to Keith Hennessey's excellent analysis as well.
16 jun 09 @ 2:42 pm edt
V-A C-A T-I-O-N IN THE SUMMER SUN!From The London Daily Mail, Sarah Titterton and the Mail
Foreign Service reporting, we learn:
They look like ordinary tourists as they stroll
along the seafront on the British territory of Bermuda, but these four men are far from regular sunseekers for they have spent
the last seven years locked up in Guantanamo Bay.
The former terror suspects are Uighurs - members of China's Muslim
Turkic-speaking minority - and hail from a rugged province in the far west of the country.
They were detained by
the Americans, who eventually determined they were not a threat to the United States. But because no country volunteered to
take them and it was feared they would be detained and tortured if they were returned to China, the men were left in limbo.
Now they have been given a chance by officials in the millionaire's playground - an island paradise that doubles as
one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
And already they have dreams of opening the first Uighur restaurant.
...
He and his companions have traded drab prison jumpsuits for comfortable cotton pants and knit shirts, and razor wire-encircled
jail compounds for beach cottages, where they are staying at U.S. taxpayers' expense.
They hope to quickly find jobs in Bermuda - one of the world's wealthiest places because of its financial and insurance
sector - and eventually start families.
The four Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) also have immediate priorities, such as learning to drive, scuba dive and
bowl, said Glenn Brangman, a former military official who is helping reintroduce them to the world outside prison.
Please take the time to click here and read the full report and see more pictures [the pictures above are from The
London Daily Mail]. [tip of the fedora to John Hinderaker]
IRAN III've been cruising through the ether on a ship made of squishes [sorry Greg Gutfeld;
sorry RINOS] in search of insightful punditry on Persia...
1) The Capo Di Tutti Capi of Iranian experts, Michael Ledeen has up a brilliant analysis over at Pajamas Media. Two highlights:
Does Mousavi even want to change the system?
I think he does, and in any event, I think that’s the wrong question. He is not a revolutionary leader, he is
a leader who has been made into a revolutionary by a movement that grew up around him. The real revolutionary is his
wife, Zahra Rahnavard. And the real question, the key question in all of this, is: why did Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei permit her to become such a charismatic figure? How could he have made such a colossal blunder?
It should have been obvious that the very existence of such a woman threatened the dark heart of the Islamic Republic, based
as it is on the disgusting misogyny of its founder, the Ayatollah Khomeini.
I was told months ago that Khamenei
and Mousavi had made a deal. Mousavi would run, and win, and then slowly introduce greater freedom. I didn’t
believe it at the time, but it has seemed more and more plausible. When somebody at the Interior Ministry called Mousavi
on election night to tell him to prepare a victory statement, that was part of the deal. But by then, the mullahs had
seen their doom, and used the only weapons at their disposal: lies and violence. Some have asked why Khamenei
used such grossly implausible numbers to “reelect” Ahmadinezhad, but that bespeaks ignorance of the mullahs:
there is no lie that will shame them. No, the real question is why Zahra Rahnavard was given a free hand, and the real
answer is that the mullahs, with Khamenei in the lead, made a blunder.
In any event, all of that is irrelevant
now. The only thing that matters is winning and losing. Whatever plans Mousavi had for a gradual transformation
of the Islamic Republic, they have been overtaken by events; the issue now is the survival of the system. Mousavi
has called for a general strike on Tuesday. That is the right strategy, since he must demonstrate that the overwhelming
majority of Iranians want an end to the regime. And the dissidents must show that they are not afraid of the thugs.
Mousavi has said that they must use flowers, not guns, since he must aim at the disintegration of the armed killers, not at
winning a gunfight.
And [emphasis mine]...
But the key element is the
people. They are only just beginning to understand the reality of their situation. Virtually none of them imagined
that they would be in a revolutionary confrontation with the regime just two days after the electoral circus, and few of them
can realize, so soon, that they can actually change the world. I think the Mousavis now understand it (they know that
they are either going to win or be destroyed). It remains to be seen if they can instruct and inspire the movement.
Much will depend on their ability to communicate. The regime has been waging a cyberwar against the dissidents,
shutting down websites, cell phones, Facebook, and the like. As most people have learned, the basic communiations tool
is Twitter, which somehow continues to function. Bigtime Kudos to Twitter, by the way, for postponing its planned maintenance
so that the Iranians can continue to Tweet. Would that Google were so solicitous of freedom.
We don’t
know who’s going to win. The Iranian people know that they’re on their own; they aren’t
going to get any help from us, or the United Nations, or the Europeans. But paradoxically, this lack of support may
strengthen their will. There is no cavalry on the horizon. If they are going to prevail, they and their unlikely
leaders will have to gut it out by themselves. God be with them.
I would hope we all are
praying for them. Of course, for The White House, this is an unwelcome distraction.
2) Speaking of unwelcome
distractions: Abe Greenwald is rightly disturbed by the Dali Bama's public reaction to the situation:
Barack Obama has weighed in on the protests in Iran. He told reporters at the White House, “It would be wrong for
me to be silent on what we’ve seen on the television the last few days,” and so declared, “I am deeply troubled
by the violence I’ve been seeing on TV.”
“The violence.” That free-floating phenomenon
that seems to exist, for Obama, as something quite apart from human volition. Like a spontaneous state of affairs that is
not only disconnected from national fanaticism or abusive governance, but in which there is scarcely a designation between
the assailant and the assaulted.
Is it too much to say, “I call on the leadership of Iran to refrain from
visiting violence upon that country’s citizens”? Apparently so. Obama declined from criticizing the regime because
“sometimes, the United States can be a handy political football.” Sure, but sometimes the United States can be
an extraordinary beacon for those fighting for liberty — starting with the French Revolution and leading up to the Iranian
student who said yesterday, “Is [Obama] going to accept this result? Because if he does we are doomed.”
What does that student mean? He’s not expecting the U.S. to send troops to Persia where they’ll make officials
count ballots at gunpoint; he’s hoping that America is really what it says it is — an ongoing revolution built
on the very idea of freedom and consensual government. If it’s not, and it’s just another well-off behemoth that
can’t be bothered to oppose the mullahs, then what hope is there for Iran itself?
Certainly not the
hope the Filipinos felt when President Reagan supported them in their overthrow of Marcos. I shall now state the obvious:
Tiberius Obamacus is no Ronald Reagan—not even close.
3) Over at Politico, the ever-insightful and wise John Bolton:
...what was stunning was that the Western media fell for the whole charade, although
it was par for reporters whose political bias frequently obscures reality, whether in Iran or America. It was also par for
Obama’s style of governance, which views speech making as a relaxing, convenient substitute for presidential action.
The media’s endlessly incorrect narrative about struggles between “moderates” and “hard-liners”
within the Islamic Revolution of 1979 will doubtless continue, because abandoning it now would be admitting the intellectual
poverty of three decades of Western reporting. It would have been easier if outsiders had from the outset understood the debate
between the regime’s moderates and hard-liners this way: Hard-liners like Ahmadinejad want to continue Iran’s
nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and boast about “wiping Israel off the map.” By contrast, the moderates
want to continue Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs but remain silent, thus more effectively deluding many
willing Westerners.
Make no mistake, as the post-election demonstrations have demonstrated, there is enormous opposition
to Iran’s existing government structure, and indeed to the entire Islamic Revolution of 1979. Young people (those under
30 constitute approximately 70 percent of the total population) are unhappy and know they could have a different life if freed
from harsh clerical rule. Economic grievances are massive, after 30 years of theologians mismanaging the economy. And ethnic
discontent (only about 50 percent of the population is Persian) is widespread.
But giving effect to this discontent
was never in the cards in the June 12 election, which was intended to bolster the Islamic Revolution, not to undercut it.
Outsiders, including Obama, conflated the seething national discontent with the sham election process and simply misunderstood
what was actually happening. Such dramatic misperception of political reality inside Iran, does not, needless to say, bode
well for overall U.S. policy toward Iran’s nuclear and terrorist threats.
In fact, with careful outside support,
the post-election outrage in Iran, with time, could grow sufficiently to reverse the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and replace
it with a system of representative government. What may be the most positive outcome from what the defeated Mousavi called
this “dangerous charade” is that Iranians — and Westerners — will now realize there can be no true
democracy as long as the Islamic Revolution remains in power.
I wish I could share Mr. Bolton's optimism;
I can't. The Left has refused time and time agin to see the reality of the world [the Cold War, the threat from Islam,
etc]; why should it start now. I fear they won't have their come-to-Jesus moment until its too late amongst nuclear
or biological ruins. And then, true to form, they will overreact.
4) Also over at Politico, Ben Smith has a quickie posting headlined Twitter postpones maintenance:
A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter.
In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT
America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight's planned maintenance
has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran).
Bravo. Obviously, no Google-weenies
work there.
5) Mark Steyn:
It will take us a while to figure out why the enforcers
of a long exhausted Islamic revolution behaved as they did, but it's clear that many of the assumptions made by the Foggy
Bottom crowd were completely false — not least the supposed differences between the mullahs and Ahmadinejad, whom they
were reported to despise for everything from his nuclear bloviating to his allegedly low standards of personal hygiene. Our
concerns are largely irrelevant: Obama? They don't care about his speeches. The nukes? They'll happen regardless, with wide
support. This election was stolen for reasons of internal survival and long-term regional strategy by a regime confident enough
to snub not just a U.S. government promoting impotence as moral virtue but those allies in Europe who regularly jet in to
offer cooing paeans to the vibracy of Iranian democracy.
So I doubt we'll see a Kostunica scenario play out. Indeed, given Iran's collapsed demographics and other structural
defects, we seem on the brink not of popular revolution but of a malign mutation of the Islamic republic into something even
more virulent and destabilizing.
Now that thinking's more in line with my nature.
6) Former diplomat [oh, that word!] Charles Crawford makes a very good point over at his very good blog:
If we aren't careful, we'll end up prissily, non-judgmentally 'not taking sides' between
Freedom and Tyranny or between Truth and Lies.
And if you say you don't take sides between those things, you're
in fact taking sides.
In favour of Lies and Tyranny.
7) Finally...a picture from Iran that speaks
volumes:
[copyright the AP/VahidSalemi]
Please click here to see more high resolution pictures.
[tip of the fedora to Joseph Lawler and Philip Klein over at AmSpecBlog]
16 jun 09 @ 9:50 am edt
IRAN: CORRECTION
16 jun 09 @ 8:54 am edt
Monday, June 15, 2009
YOU'RE IN SUSPENSIONThis past Saturday, I posted a definition for the term The Big Lie
in the TERMS Section of this Page [located: lower right-hand column, POINT 9].
Last week, Robert Stacy McCain provided us with a great example of one in a posting entitled: Pot, Meet Kettle.
Please take the time to click here and see for yourself.
15 jun 09 @ 8:33 pm edt
WWU-AMPosted seven new items over at WWU-AM today.
IRAN
15 jun 09 @ 7:39 pm edt
WHAT SO PROUDLY WE USED TO HAILI was going to write an entry in the QUO VADIS—Comments On The Culture Section
of this site on this awful phenomenon, but I just haven't gotten around to yet: the disrespectful singing of our National
Anthem. However, Laura, over at Pursuing Holiness, has and she picked one of the tougher examples to
comment on. But, she pulls it off with class:
I clicked through from
this John Hawkins tweet to see just what was so chilling about “7 year old autistic girl nails the national anthem.” It didn’t give me chills. It makes me tired. The mush-mouthed,
over-ornamented style of singing the national anthem that this child is cheered for – and which has become the standard
– is emblematic of what’s wrong with this country. Style – and poor style, at that – over substance.
As everyone knows, it’s a difficult song to sing. You need range and power to really pull it off.
I think it was Whitney Houston who first popularized tripling the notes that were in the original song and making the performance
a showcase for her singing talent, rather than a remembrance of an historic event and one of the traditions that binds us
together as Americans.
...
If the words aren’t that comprehensible (as they frequently aren’t;
and that’s if the singer even remembers them), well, the important thing is she got the notes right.
That’s America today. It’s not this child’s fault; she lived up to the standards that were set for
her, and since she is autistic, did so against tremendous odds. The fault is with the adults; that we have allowed the purpose of singing the national
anthem to be perverted from its original intent; as an expression of our love of country.
She concludes
with this comment:
So the purpose of singing the anthem is to glorify the singer
and the behavior of the audience is irrelevant. Postmodern patriotism at its finest.
This is the only
point I disagree with. There's not an atom of patriotism associated with these performances. I would rephrase
it: postmodern narcissism at its finest.
Please take the time to click here and read her full posting which also contains an embed of the performance by the young
girl.
Oh-oh say can you see me...
15 jun 09 @ 7:14 pm edt
THE DON ADAMS PRESIDENCYOver at the Greenroom, Doug Powers has put together a near-comprehensive
list that completes the phrase Obama Actually Expects Us to Believe... Here are several highlights:
…that forcing our way of life on people from other countries is wrong, but
the first thing that should be done with captured “man caused disaster” suspects should be to shove U.S. constitutional
dogma down their throats via reading them Miranda rights.
…that he recited his wedding vows without a teleprompter.
…that
some of the greatest advances in the history of civilization have come from areas of the world where they still stone women to death for the crime of
being raped, have a high infant mortality and poverty rates, don’t allow women to have any rights, wipe their asses
with their bare hands and hang gay people.
…that one of his prime duties of the president is to defend Islam against negative stereotypes wherever they appear — especially from greedy, oppressive, racist, capitalist pig,
white conservatives.
…that what makes America great is that anybody, regardless of race or economic background,
can rise to a position to dismantle what makes America great.
Please take the time to click here and read the full list.
15 jun 09 @ 6:55 pm edt
UNSUNG HEROPundette has done us all a service by posting the transcript and video of a short
speech Rep. Michele Bachmann gave on 09 June in the Congress. She is a special target of calumnies from the Left and,
after reading the full speech, you'll see why. A highlight:
We need to call
this for what this is, my colleagues. We need to call this for what this is. Call it out. The American people need to get
outraged and figure out that it could be them next. No business is safe when you see the administration appoint czars--car
czars, wage czars--there's over 20 czars that have been appointed. And what do those czars do? They bypass the Congress. We
are the people's elected representatives; we have been bypassed.
We now have an imperial presidency where the President has appointed various czars reporting
directly to him. And now he is reaching into the confines of private businesses and overnight rendering them virtually worthless--unless,
unless they have a special tug, a political tie to a local Democrat Congressman. Is that what we've come to? And I yield back.
Palin/Bachmann 2012?
Please take the time to click here and read the full speech along with Pundette's commentary.
15 jun 09 @ 2:43 pm edt
CAN YOU DIG IT COMRADE?In my immediate posting below, I wrote:
[The
State Department weenies] cheered on the Dali Bama in his levelling of the way we treat all nations, friend or foe.
AWR Hawkins covers this aspect of the man he calls The Great Leveller in a recent article published over
at Pajamas Media, but he also looks at his domestic pursuit of it:
Barack
Obama ran for president on a promise to raise taxes on everyone who makes $250,000 or more a year. His running mate defended
the tax hike by saying that "people who are well-off have a patriotic duty to pay higher taxes." Under the guise
of "[spreading] the wealth around," Obama acts as if his goal is to lift the poor above poverty so they too can
enjoy the American dream. But in reality, his plan is to push the rich down closer to the poverty line, so that the equality
Americans enjoy can be one of dependence on an intrusive, but increasingly necessary, federal government.
This is Obama's way of leveling the playing field. Instead of removing the myriad
of government regulations that hinder the entrepreneurial spirit in this country, he will use tax hikes and redistribution
schemes to break the will of the ambitious and energetic, forcing everyone to accept a life devoid of opulence or ease. It
seems the rich have become so only off the sweat of the poor. Or to use Obama's own words: "The strong too often dominate
the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the
face of poverty and injustice."
In April 2008, Michelle
Obama explained how her husband's goal of taxing the rich into paying their fair share was going to work: "Most Americans
don't want much. They don't want the whole pie. There are some who do, but most Americans feel blessed just being able to
thrive a little bit. ... [Yet], in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone
is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."
On June 7, 2009, the Great Leveler proved his wife's explanation correct when he said he "wants
Congress to consider taxing the wealthy instead of workers to pay for a health care overhaul." He also urged Congress
to further limit "all tax deductions for Americans in the highest tax brackets." So that those making the most will
also be paying the most, and those working the least can be promised a windfall.
I only disagree with Mr. Hawkins about the name for our Perfumed Prince-In-Chief. A more accurate
descriptive would be: The True Leveller. From Wikipedia:
The Diggers were an English group of agrarian communists, begun by Gerrard Winstanley as True Levellers in 1649, who became known as "Diggers"
due to their activities.
Their original name came from their belief in economic equality based upon a specific
passage in the Book of Acts. The Diggers tried to reform (by "levelling" real property) the existing social order with an agrarian lifestyle based on their ideas for the creation of small egalitarian rural communities....
Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Hawkins's full article.
IN THE TIME OF THE WEENIEOver at Red State, Erick Erickson has up a very spot-on and succinct
posting commenting on the latest ill-treatment of our closest ally Great Britain by Barack The Unready. A highlight:
Because you are neither the President of the United States nor the Secretary of State
of the United States, you could be forgiven for thinking that reaching out to Bermuda’s Premier would be an appropriate
way to deal with the Uighurs.
The President of the United States and Secretary of State, however, should know or
or have advisors who know that Bermuda is “a territory under the sovereignty of the UK, which is responsible for foreign
and security policy.” In other words, the Brits are, yet again, angry with Obama for ignoring them.
The first thought that comes to mind: 'The Obamatrons
can't be that stupid not to know that it was required for them to clear this first with 10 Downing Street?' However,
it is possible. The Administration has shown an appalling ignorance of the real world and history time and time
again since 20 January.
The next thought that permeates my skull: 'Wait just a doggone minute: the State Department
would have handled this, so one of the career pragmatists there would have at least known the right way to proceed?
I mean forget that Hillary Rodham is an ignoramus; her advisers are all long-time foreign policy wonks. They're experts
on all the nitty and the gritty, the ins and outs.' They are, although I prefer to describe them with the term 'State
Department weenies'.
This is the point where one's thoughts turn dark. There is no chance the weenies did
not know the protocol so, therefore, one can only conclude that they either kept Mzzz. Rodham in the dark or they encouraged
her to break with tradition and handle things as she did. The weenies have long thought the special relationship with
Great Britain is 'no longer operative'. They cheered on the Dali Bama in his levelling of the way we treat all nations,
friend or foe. Under the Fearless Leader perhaps they feel they can continue carrying out the stealth undermining of
every Administration since at least Truman's in the open because this President agrees with them. The weenies, who have
long advocated exactly the approach to the world that this President does, need no longer toil in the shadows. Their
time has finally come.
God help us.
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.
15 jun 09 @ 2:13 pm edt
SPEAKING OF SMITTY......in a posting this past Saturday, he responded to the Lefties argument 'The
government can too run the health care system! Look how well they run the military!':
...As a service member, let me elaborate on points Even More Insidious than the ones 'Zo raises about the military
and health care. - The military screens out the unfit. This would be like practicing
exposure of imperfect infants.
- The UCMJ makes it perfectly legal to control what you eat, how much you take exercise, take random
urinalysis samples in case you had excessive fun last weekend, and so forth.
- The
vast majority of people in military medicine are ousted after 30 years. VA medicine is more a commode than commodious example
for Stewart to employ for his argument.
My personal tastes run to the dirt
simple. I can tell you that the authoritarian system of the military in general, and military medicine in particular, will
suit many people fine. Those 300 pound couch potato dudes are going to have an NCO calmly explain to them to put down the
wii controller and fall in for a wee bit of exercise. We'll all get our American Idol on as we go on a formation run for some
jodies. We'll have a blast. Maybe not Jane Fonda and Joan Baez, but the rest of us. Great team building.
So here is the point: people scale as effectively as politicians deliver on campaign promises. The reason military
organizations and military medicine work to the degree they do is that they are grossly authoritarian systems. You may think
you will, but you will quickly hate it when Nutrition is not a Private Matter.
Quite.
Yesterday Smitty went on a bit of rant against Bill
Maher specifically and Leftists in general who are having second thoughts about voting for The Messiah:
Listen, ladies and gentlemen of the Left: vote thug, expect mugging. Hmm.
I think I just came up with my Tea Party sign.
Yes, Left, you're in character for lacking introspection, for projecting
your shortcomings and fears upon your opponents, for ignoring history and the Constitution, for attempting to bring to pass
a Utopian fantasy. [Belvedere: Oh those crazy immanentizers!]
Next time, vote for for a common sense implant.
Right on,
brother, right on. But, I wonder: if they have their come-to-Jesus moment in a few years—after health care has
been socialized—and want the CS implant, will they be po'd when they're put on a 30 month waiting list???
Please take the time to click here and read his first posting and here for the second.
15 jun 09 @ 11:36 am edt
GOTTA WORK LIKE A SLAVE ALL DAYI'm a little slow coming out of the post this morning—Blue Monday and all
of that—but its time to get moving...
Before I do: Several tips of the fedora to Smitty [and RSM] over at
The Other McCain for the mentions in the Rule 5 Sunday round-up and the Rule 2 Reach-Arounds on Saturday. It will be worth your time to go check both of them out [the Rule 5 selection is especially good
this week].
15 jun 09 @ 11:01 am edt
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And it's only one fight in the battle, and we have to keep fighting.'
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'Bob Belvedere may have the best compilationof IG-Gate information.'
—Robert Stacy McCain
'Robert Belvedere at The Camp
of the Saints appears to be maintaining the definitive index of all things PIG-gate...at TCOTS. ...This is an excellent resource.
We thank you, sir.'
—Smitty 'More great commentary and juicy
links on l'affaire IG from Camp of the Saints..'
—Paco
Captain Ohab:
'From hell's
heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned Fox News.'
I may be reached at
Robert.Belvedere AT gmail DOT com
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Behind the ‘Not One Red Cent’ Rebellion
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T E R M S
Let us make precise and clear-cut the terms we should be using.
Aristotle wrote that A is A; you may also call it B, but
it always remains A. A thing is what it is and, to say it is something else, is to deny reality. There is a lot of denial
of reality going around these days.
As John Adams wrote: 'Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes,
our inclinations, the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence'.
POINT 1: There is no "War in Iraq"
or "War in Afghanistan". Like the Pacific and Europe in World War II, Iraq and Afghanistan are
just parts of a larger war. Unlike them, they are not separate from each other. Therefore,
they are part of the Middle East Theatre of Operations [METO] as the Pacific was the PTO and Europe the ETO.
POINT 2: Many on the Left and some on the Right want to "end
the War". There are only two ways to end a war: (1) by achieving Victory or (2) by being Defeated.
A pullout, before Victory is achieved, is Defeat. They want Defeat. Pullout may
be the best policy―I am not arguing that here―but, leaving without achieving our objective is Defeat.
POINT 3: We are engaged in a War Against Islam.
The term is more correct than "War against Islamo-Fascism" or "War On Terror".
Islam has been at war with all non-Muslims since the
time of its founder, Muhammad [his name be cursed]. Like the Hundred Years' War, there have been periods
of peace in this long conflict, but the Muslim has never stopped believing that he is at war with all non-Muslims.
He can't: Allah commands that all of the world be conquered in his name and he must submit, in all things, to the
will of Allah [the word Islam means "submission", sometimes rendered as "surrender"]. Any
periods of peace we in the West have enjoyed have only occurred after we have dealt them such a devastating blow that they
have not been able to wage their jihad and then have pursued polices that have kept them subjugated. This
began to fade in the latter half of the 20th Century as we forgot the dangers posed by this militant religion and
as they regrouped under new and committed leaders.
If you
doubt that Islam is at war with all non-Muslims, keep in mind this:
Islamic apologists
often point out that Islam is not a monolith and that there are differences of opinion among the different Islamic schools
of thought. That is true, but, while there are differences, there are also common elements. Just as Orthodox, Roman Catholic,
and Protestant Christians differ on many aspects of Christianity, still they accept important common elements. So it is with
Islam. One of the common elements to all Islamic schools of thought is jihad, understood as the obligation of the Ummah to
conquer and subdue the world in the name of Allah and rule it under Sharia law. The four Sunni Madhhabs (schools of fiqh [Islamic
religious jurisprudence]) -- Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali -- all agree that there is a collective obligation on
Muslims to make war on the rest of the world. Furthermore, even the schools of thought outside Sunni orthodoxy, including
Sufism and the Jafari (Shia) school, agree on the necessity of jihad. When it comes to matters of jihad, the different schools
disagree on such questions as whether infidels must first be asked to convert to Islam before hostilities may begin (Osama
bin Laden asked America to convert before Al-Qaeda’s attacks); how plunder should be distributed among victorious jihadists;
whether a long-term Fabian strategy against dar al-harb is preferable to an all-out frontal attack; etc. [Source: Gregory M. Davis, Islam 101, section
4g, found at http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/]
They have been at war with us for
centuries and we, therefore, have been at war with them. We are engaged in a War Against Islam whether
we want to say so or not. In an interview with a Pakistani TV network on 23 July 2008, Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid,
Al-Qaeda's No. 3 man and top commander in Afghanistan, has this to say: “Islam does not distinguish between the
American people and the American government, since both are in a state of war with Islam”. [Source: http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD200008]
POINT 4: The term "Islamo-Fascism" seems
to have been created by Leftists. Since (1) they wrongly place fascism on the Right, (2) they believe [rightly]
Muslims want to establish a theocratic regime on Earth, and (3) anything political that has any connection with religion is
bad and emanates out of rightwing thinking, the term makes sense to them. Therefore, the term is nothing
but a way to associate Islam with the right-wing. Muslims believe in a totalitarian way of governing; in
submission [that word] to an all-powerful Islamic leader or leaders.
POINT 5: As to the term "War On Terror",
it is just plain silly: how can you wage war on a thing?
POINT 6: What is fascism? It is when a government
allows private property to exist, but controls and manages the use and disposal of property in all its forms. Citizens
retain all of the burdens and responsibilities associated with property ownership, but are not allowed to control and shape
its use.
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied
bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone
liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism
and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through
direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally
private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their
property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a
few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance
of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled
the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
[Source: Sheldon Richman, The Concise Encylcopedia Of Economics,
Liberty Fund, found at http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html]
On the political spectrum, therefore, it is located between modern liberalism
and socialism.
POINT 7: What is socialism? It is when a government
allows no private property to exist, and controls and manages the use and disposal of property in all its forms.
Citizens are not allowed to control their lives and are subject to the whims of bureaucrats and officials. If they
retain freedoms and liberties, they do so at the discretion of them. On the political spectrum, therefore, it
is the next logical stage after fascism; some would argue that it lies between fascism and communism.
POINT 8: What is pragmatism? It is a tool used by Leftists,
or those operating under the influence of Leftist logic, to achieve Utopian ends—heaven on earth through social, political,
cultural, and spiritual engineering. It is merely a tool of ideology, part of the means to an end.
POINT 9:The Big Lie - When confronted with truths that reflect
unpleasantly on them, the Leftists deflect it buy claiming over-an-over ad nauseum that these truths apply to and are products
of the Right. This practice is known as The Big Lie. It has been successfully practiced by the
Left since, at the very least, the French Revolution. Thus, we have the now-widespread belief that the Nazis and the
Black Shirts of Italy were right-wingers when the reality-the truth-is they were both people of the Left. I suspect
the violent objections from the Left to conservatives use of the term 'fascist' arise from the fact that they have spent well
over seventy years trying to convince the world of The Big Lie that it is not and never has been a Leftist
ideology.
How does one practice this distortion truth and why is it effective? In a report issued during
World War II by the OSS, the author provided an explanation for all practitioners by describing how Hitler practiced it:
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault
or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame;
concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than
a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
By repeating
their lies over and over, the Left creates a false reality that supplements the real world. In this false reality, the
lie is the truth, the truth is the lie. A is not A. [But we know that A must always be A.]
The Left
also practices a variation of The Big Lie that I like to call The Big Deception which involves
a Big Deflection away from the reality of the situation. None of their policies or actions can survive
direct questioning, so the Leftists must turn the tables on the questioners and make it seem as though the inquisitors have
bad or evil intentions. Overtime and after constant and unrelenting hectoring, the Left's way of thinking triumphs.
They successfully infect enough people so that this diseased mode of thinking becomes chronic, deep-rooted, instinctual. If
the Devil's greatest triumph was that he convinced people he did not exist, the Left's greatest triumph has been to convince
people that the Leftist way of thinking is normal. It is not. It is a perversion of reason and a horribly mutant
form of logic. It is antithetical to human life. Nothing but decay and destruction are left [pun intended] in it's wake.
What They're Saying
About
BOB BELVEDERE &
The Camp Of The Saints... 'Sir Bob of Belvedere'
—Smitty—
'So many good things at Camp of the Saints that you need to just click and keep scrolling.'
—Paco—
'Go, read it, fine stuff over there!'
—GatorDoug—
''Belvederus Maximus'
—Smitty—
'You are contributing to a noble yet futile cause -- the butchification of metrosexuals.
TCOTS
roolz!'
—Red—
'[H]e takes retro dame blogging to a new, narrative noir level.'
—Smitty—
'Staunch Rule 5 aficionado Bob Belvedere, is shameless indeed (I have so much respect for this man)!'
—The Classic Liberal—
'Who knew he was such a fan of the undead?'
—Smitty—
'We need fighters, and I suspect Beck will fight 'til ev'ry foe is vanquished.
Bob Belvedere gets it. Phyllis Chesler gets it.
We defend truth and
liberty against lies and tyranny. Every eye is upon us and we are surrounded by enemies as numerous as the grains of sand
on the shore. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer.
WOLVERINES!'
—Stacy McCain—
'Bob Belvedere, you're a nasty piece of work.'
—Anonymous—
'you charming rogue'
—Robert—
'The sad decay of Bob Belvedere into a Rule 5 junkie saddens us all.'
—Smitty—
'Belvedere went slightly crazy on us.'
—Smitty—
'And thank you, Dr. Belvedere, for setting me straight on Rule 5! I tell ya, that Belvedere Dude
is Funny!'
—Irish Cicero—
'Kevin Binversie is not nearly so shameless a blogwhore as Troglopundit . . .
but then again, nobody really is. OK, maybe Bob Belvedere, as if anyone could compete with Bob.'
—Stacy McCain—
'Lord Fatheringay von Whoopsie of the Dung Heap Hooter'
—Anon. —
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