Vocal Minority

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (11/11/09)

On President Hope&Change:

November 11, 2009 | American Spectator
The Man Who Despises America
By Mark Hyman

When people who voted for Obama in 2008—including registered Democrats—start speaking in normal conversational voices at dinner parties, neighborhood gatherings and PTA meetings that the over-inflated ego from Chicago has it “in for America,” then it’s clear most reasonable people have reached the same conclusion.

The central conviction of Obama’s ideology is that America is guilty of limitless moral failures and is the chief architect of the world’s ills. Obama has boundless enmity for America, its key institutions, and its longtime allies. …

November 11, 2009 | American Thinker
Obama’s Post-American World
By Monte Kuligowski

… Mr. Obama needs a weak America to facilitate his view of global multiculturalism. No country is better than any other. So-called evil regimes are really dispossessed nations that need to be understood and brought to the table. Once at the table, we will see that our mutual interests make self interests innocuous. Old views of American exceptionalism are simply worn out.

The President is a creature of postmodern, post-Christian thinking. He is a new kind of leftist. Barack Hussein Obama is essentially a global Marxist. On a global scale, the proletariat consists of the poor nations of the world that have been oppressed by powerful, greedy, self-interested countries. The United States is the prime example of the global bourgeoisie. The evil, capitalistic country, still high on religious opium represents all that is wrong with the world. …

Mr. Obama was photographed during the 2008 campaign carrying the book, "The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria. A guy running to be president of the country that saved Europe and the world from Nazism and communism and provided stability to the world ever since was reading about a post-American world. …

On the Ft. Hood massacre:

November 11, 2009 | American Thinker
Victims, Villains and Heroes
By Ben Voth

… For NPR and related ‘journalistic’ outlets, Nidal is a “victim” of the trauma associated with war. Though he had never been deployed, as a psychologist he witnessed the trauma of combat soldiers and the burdens of war and found that ‘too much to bear.’ Consequently, because of America’s ‘warmongering character’, psychologist soldier Nidal Hisan ‘snapped’ and fired more than 100 rounds at Fort Hood killing a dozen American soldiers and wounding dozens more.

The careful consideration of Nidal’s victimage stands in sharp contrast to the treatment of American soldiers at Haditha denounced as cold blooded killers by a member of the United States Congress. A U.S. Senator was willing to refer to American soldier interrogators at Guantanomo as comparable to Pol Pot and Hitler.

What American soldiers are not allowed to be is heroes. The moral consequence of this propaganda war fought by “journalists” is the increased deaths of our soldiers at home and abroad. With attacks on our bases here at home and hundreds of attacks overseas, the world has been conditioned to believe that American soldiers do not enter the world to protect the innocent but to kill them. …

11/11/2009 | Human Events
The Phantom Backlash
by Robert Spencer

… Did armed bands of furious Islamophobes throw molotov cocktails at mosques? Did ferocious white supremacists maul fragile little girls in hijabs on their way to school? Did angry bigots spit at pious imams quietly going about their business?

No. [Do they ever?]

Had there been any report—any report at all—of any innocent, random Muslim being attacked in a “backlash” after the Fort Hood jihad?

Nope. Not one. [Do they ever?] Americans are decent people. Americans believe people are innocent until proven guilty. But Ibrahim Hooper and his fellow thugs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) need to be able to claim that hate crimes are being committed so that they can claim victim status for Muslims and deflect attention away from such small matters as the jihad at Fort Hood. And, naturally, the clueless and/or complicit mainstream media in their hip pocket.

And so we witness the strange phenomenon of stories of Muslims fearing a backlash soaring and the numbering of actual incidents of backlash remaining at zero. In the AP story, all that followed the announcement of an “immediate” anti-Muslim backlash were various stories about mosques and Muslims asking for special police protection, and the like. So in reality, the story should have been headlined, “Muslims claim victim status in wake of Fort Hood jihad attack.” …

On man-made global warming climate change:

Nov 7, 2009 | Newsweek [to its credit]
Everyone Out of the Water! Damn the pesky models! Full speed ahead.
George F. Will

In last week’s NEWSWEEK, the cover story was a hymn to “The Thinking Man’s Thinking Man.” Beneath the story’s headline (“The Evolution of an Eco-Prophet”) was this subhead: “Al Gore’s views on climate change are advancing as rapidly as the phenomenon itself.” Which was rather rude because, if true, his views have not advanced for 11 years.

There is much debate about the reasons for, and the importance of, the fact that global warming has not increased for that long. What we know is that computer models did not predict this. Which matters, a lot, because we are incessantly exhorted to wager trillions of dollars and diminished freedom on the proposition that computer models are correctly projecting catastrophic global warming. On Nov. 2, The Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey Ball reported some inconvenient data. Soon after the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—it shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Thinking Man’s Thinking Man—reported that global warming is “unequivocal,” there came evidence that the planet’s temperature is beginning to cool. “That,” Ball writes, “has led to one point of agreement: The models are imperfect.” …

On government-run health (s)care:

Nov. 11, 2009 | Town Hall
The U.S. House of Presumptuous Meddlers
By John Stossel

I’m embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice.

It’s a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience.

The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by “experts” means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many tradeoffs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs.

Nov. 11, 2009 | Jewish World Review
Constitutional Contempt
By Walter Williams

At Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Oct. 29th press conference, a CNS News reporter asked, “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Speaker Pelosi responded, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” The reporter said, “Yes, yes, I am.” Not responding further, Pelosi shook her head and took a question from another reporter. Later on, Pelosi’s press spokesman Nadeam Elshami told CNSNews.com about its question regarding constitutional authority mandating that individual Americans buy health insurance. “You can put this on the record. That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.” …

Speaker Pelosi’s constitutional contempt, perhaps ignorance, is representative of the majority of members of both the House and the Senate. Their comfort in that ignorance and constitutional contempt, and how readily they articulate it, should be worrisome for every single American. It’s not a matter of whether you are for or against Congress’ health care proposals. It’s not a matter of whether you’re liberal or conservative, black or white, male or female, Democrat or Republican or member of any other group. It’s a matter of whether we are going to remain a relatively free people or permit the insidious encroachment on our liberties to continue. …

Have a blessed day!

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (11/5/09)

My favorite articles of the day …

On Election 2009:

November 4, 2009 | Human Events
Election 2009: Change I can believe in!
By Ann Coulter

… At 49 percent for Republican Chris Christie versus 44 percent for Corzine, the election wasn't even close enough to be stolen by ACORN. (Although Corzine did extremely well among underaged Salvadoran prostitutes living in government housing.)

… Just two days before the election, Obama was at a rally in New Jersey assuring voters that Corzine was "one of the best partners I have in the White House. We work together. … Jon Corzine helped get this done."

Except the problem is that voting for Obama a year ago was a fashion statement, much like it was once a fad to buy Beanie Babies, pet rocks and Cabbage Patch Kids. But instead of ending up with a ridiculous dust-collector at the bottom of your closet, the Obama fad leaves you with higher taxes, a reduced retirement fund, no job and a one-year wait for an MRI. …

On the Economy:

November 5, 2009 | Front Page Mag
Economic Myths and Irrelevancy
by Walter Williams

[Johns Hopkins Professor Steve] Hanke says that the most repeated statement about the cause of the U.S. Great Depression is that it was caused by the October 1929 stock market crash. How could that be? By April 1930, the stock market had recovered to its pre-crash level. What is not taught in history books is the Great Depression was caused by a massive government failure. The most important part of that failure were the actions by the Federal Reserve Bank that led to the contraction of the money supply by 25 percent. Then, the name of saving jobs, Congress enacted the Smoot-Hawley Act in June 1930, which increased U.S. tariffs by more than 50 percent. Other nations retaliated and world trade collapsed. U.S. unemployment rose from 8 percent in 1930 to 25 percent in 1933. In 1932, the Herbert Hoover administration and a Democratic Congress imposed the largest tax increase in U.S. history, raising the top tax rate on income from 25 percent to 63 percent. The Roosevelt administration followed these destructive policies with New Deal legislation that massively regulated the economy and extended the Great Depression to after World War II.

Have today’s politicians and their economic advisers learned anything from yesteryear’s policy that turned what would have been a short, sharp downturn in the economy into a 16-year affair? The answer is very little.

On Society and Culture:

November 5, 2009 | Political Mavens
The Child Society 
By William Katz

… Today we have a society that seems incredibly juvenile. The man in the White House appears, at times, to be more a college student than a mature adult, more a student government president than a real one. Compare him to Reagan. Or, if you prefer a more age-similar comparison, to Kennedy.

The juvenile society poses serious dangers for our future. The childlike mind does not process information the way the adult mind does. It does not assume adult responsibilities. It is easily manipulated. Children, and those who act like children, accept restrictions that no free adult ever would.

Our schools, and our colleges and universities, have played a key role in developing and nurturing the kid culture. We have a young generation that does not believe it has any responsibility for national defense. Like children, its members simply choose not to play that game. Our entertainment industry, even some parts of our “serious” culture, project images and values that flash “young” and “carefree” rather than “responsible.” And our journalism…not much need be said about that. When NBC News can employ kid/adults like Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, what can one say? Compare please to Huntley and Brinkley and Edward R. Murrow.

We are paying a price for the kid culture. We are paying it in lower standards, lower incentives to excel, and in an acceptance of a loss of fundamental freedoms. A society that will turn its health-care system, and one sixth of its economy, over to the federal government is not a society of thinking adults. It is more like a class of children that follows the teacher to the school assembly to listen to a speech on self-esteem by a principal who likes to be called by his first name.

On Political Philosophy:

November 05, 2009
Obamerika
By Greg Lewis

… Since their publication, [Erich Fromm’s] The Authoritarian Personality and [Theodor Adorno’s] Man For Himself have provided the foundation for those on the left referring to anyone whose political beliefs were even minimally right of center as “Nazis,” a practice which persists to this day. The twisted, self-fulfilling logic of the left on this topic is perhaps best illustrated in a post by one Peter Mehlman, a contributor to the Huffington Post (and former co-executive producer of Seinfeld), who asserted that former President George W. Bush was actually worse than Hitler, because “[y]ou could argue that even the world’s fascist dictators at least meant well. They honestly thought they were doing good things for their countries by suppressing blacks / eliminating Jews / eradicating free enterprise / repressing individual thought / killing off rivals / invading neighbors, etc.”

Unfortunately, it is the current administration that exemplifies Mehlman’s “reasoning.” Obama and his cohorts eschew all authority, from the Bible to the U.S. Constitution, that they themselves do not generate. This translates to “any moral or legal principle that does not support the Obama administration’s political agenda or the idea that its leaders should have power over every area of our lives.” Through sweeping stimulus, health care, cap-and-trade, and net neutrality legislation, the current administration is attempting to commandeer the authority to dictate everything from executive pay to what end-of-life treatments are available to its citizens, from what we listen to on our radios and watch on our television sets to what opinions we can share on the internet and what cars we can drive. …

On the Strange, Mysterious, and Frightening:
(with visual aids)

November 5, 2009 | Mediaite
Playing Hooky: Olbermann Catches World Series Instead Of Hosting Show
by Steve Krakauer

… Keith Olbermann went to see Game 6 of the World Series, watching the Yankees close it out, instead of hosting his 8pmET MSNBC show Countdown last night – the day after the first elections of the Obama administration. We know this because he wrote all about it on his MLB blog. There’s photo evidence he was hanging out…with a Fox News host! …

 

That’s Sean Hannity, right? Definitely. The guy who makes somewhat frequent appearances on Olbermann’s “Worst Persons” list, and was the “Best Person” two weeks ago – but, as you can imagine, not for anything positive. We looked it up: Hannity’s show was new, but was pre-taped (it’s normally live at 9pmET). So, Hannity and Olbermann – getting “along perfectly,” taking photos of each other. Cute, or the sign of the apocalypse? We report, you decide.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Have a blessed day!

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (11/3/09)

My favorite articles of the day …

On today’s closely-followed elections:

November 3, 2009 | USA Today
Don’t bury GOP yet: Prophecies of party’s demise this election are way overdone.
By Jonah Goldberg

After Obama’s presidential election, a cottage industry of punditry sprang up to forge a new conventional wisdom. It goes something like this: The Republican Party has been discredited by the Bush presidency, congressional scandals and overspending. Worse, it is “out of touch” due to the stranglehold of knuckle-dragging, troglodytic, Bible-thumping, gun-nuts and greedy capitalists. Confronted with the divine light of Obama, these hissing conservatives must scurry to the shadows like vampires fearful of the burning rays of the sun. The only chance for Republican survival is to embrace moderation, compromise and, in some cases, what Barry Goldwater called “me-too Republicanism.” Whatever the merits of this advice, two things are now quite clear.

First, most conservatives and Republicans have next to no desire to follow it. And, second, it looks like they’re right not to.

The Virginia contest alone shows that much of this talk about “moderates” vs. “extremists” or “pragmatists” vs. “ideologues” within the GOP was nonsense.

McDonnell is socially and economically very conservative, but he has dominated the race by focusing on mainstream issues such as transportation, taxes and the economy. Meanwhile, Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have been working overtime to recast the Democrats as big spenders more committed to an ideological agenda than setting the country right. As a result, independents — the same voters who delivered the election for Obama — are now flocking to the Republicans. McDonnell beats Democrat Creigh Deedsamong independents by 2-1.

The best illustration of the conservative comeback is the special election for the 23rd congressional district in New York (a district Obama carried in 2008). Before last Saturday, the race was being cast a “civil war” on the right because many conservatives were supporting not the Republican nominee, Dierdre Scozzafava, but Doug Hoffman, a Republican who switched to theConservative Party ticket when he failed to get the nomination. Scozzafava is a very liberal, pro-choice Republican, the sort of candidate the conventional wisdom says the right must embrace to stay relevant. Hoffman is a mainstream conservative. On Saturday, Scozzafava dropped out of the race because Hoffman was crushing her in the polls. Most tellingly, it was Hoffman’s support among independents that gave him the advantage.

There’s more than one way to read all of this. Independents might just want to be a counterweight to the Democratic Party’s lurch to the left. Corzine and Deeds might just be lousy candidates in a bad economy.

All of that’s true. But it’s also true that the GOP is not much interested in becoming a Democrat-lite party, and it seems voters don’t want it to, either.

On government-run health (s)care:

November 3, 2009 | Real Clear Politics
The “Costs” of Medical Care
By Thomas Sowell

… There is a fundamental difference between reducing costs and simply shifting costs around, like a pea in a shell game at a carnival. Costs are not reduced simply because you pay less at a doctor’s office and more in taxes—or more in insurance premiums, or more in higher prices for other goods and services that you buy, because the government has put the costs on businesses that pass those costs on to you.

Costs are not reduced simply because you don’t pay them. It would undoubtedly be cheaper for me to do without the medications that keep me alive and more vigorous in my old age than people of a similar age were in generations past.

Letting old people die would undoubtedly be cheaper than keeping them alive—but that does not mean that the costs have gone down. It just means that we refuse to pay the costs. Instead, we pay the consequences. There is no free lunch.

Providing free lunches to people who go to hospital emergency rooms is one of the reasons for the current high costs of medical care for others. Politicians mandating what insurance companies must cover is another free lunch that leads to higher premiums for medical insurance—and fewer people who can afford it.

Despite all the demonizing of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies or doctors for what they charge, the fundamental costs of goods and services are the costs of producing them.

If highly paid chief executives of insurance companies or pharmaceutical companies agreed to work free of charge, it would make very little difference in the cost of insurance or medications. If doctors’ incomes were cut in half, that would not lower the cost of producing doctors through years of expensive training in medical schools and hospitals, nor the overhead costs of running doctors’ offices.

What it would do is reduce the number of very able people who are willing to take on the high costs of a medical education when the return on that investment is greatly reduced and the aggravations of dealing with government bureaucrats are added to the burdens of the work. …

Jewish World Review | Nov. 3, 2009
A Society that Venerates Lawyers More than Doctors
By Dennis Prager

… Nothing better illustrates the reorientation — indeed, the transformation — of values that will take place if the Democrats’ health care legislation is passed. Thanks to trial lawyer/Democratic influence, for decades, we have been moving in the direction of litigation-based society. But with a Democratic health care bill, the movement will accelerate exponentially.

Much of our money, our innovation, our creativity and our ingenuity will gravitate from medicine to law. …

No rational person argues that society doesn’t need law or lawyers, or that all lawyers, even trial lawyers, do no good. That is certainly not what is being argued here.

But it does say something about a society when those who sue physicians and hospitals make as much or more money than those who heal disease. It says something about a society when it glorifies and rewards those who litigate while it demonizes and punishes those who produce the drugs and devices that keep its citizens alive and well.

This is part of the upside-down world the left is bequeathing to us and our children in the name of health care “reform.”

On the Leftocracy’s continued pile-up on Rush Limbaugh:

American Thinker | November 02, 2009
The Vilification of Rush
By Kenneth L. Hutcherson

[NB: Ken “Hutch” Hutcherson is a former NFL player, a pastor, and an African-American. - ETR]

... The Minority Thought Pattern is aimed at destroying America, at rending the very fabric that makes America great. The Minority Thought Pattern denies the greatness, honor, bravery, courage, humility, and sacrifice that has brought us the power to be the greatest nation that has ever existed. The Minority Thought Pattern has a mission to undermine and redefine every characteristic of America, maintaining that it is a nation based on greed, cowardice, selfishness, and a lack of genuine humility. The Minority Thought Pattern is the reason for all the apologies to the rest of the world for how bad American is, coming even from our top leader. …

This is extremely personal to me. It’s about a friend. When I look at Rush, I don’t see a white man; I see a friend. I don’t see a talk show host (a very famous talk show host); I see a friend, and friendship overrides color and political stances. I don’t see a controversial figure, but a man whose heart and thoughts I know, and a man who is not a racist.

I believe with all my heart that minorities, especially African-Americans, will never be free until they stop allowing people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to insist they adopt the mentality of victims. Likewise, they will not be free until they take the next bold step: start thanking God for America, and stop condemning the white male.

It is time for America to reject the Minority Thought Pattern and the hateful campaign against Rush Limbaugh.

On Obama’s dithering in Afghanistan and photo-op at Dover AFB:

American Thinker | November 01, 2009
O isn’t dithering on Afghanistan! It’s a Harvard Law Seminar!
By James Lewis

… Why would Obama be any better informed than the rest of the Left? He’s swallowed the Party Line for decades. He never has an original thought when it comes to liberalism; he memorized it when he was a kid, and by gum, it’s still exactly the same as it was decades ago. So he must have gulped down the whole peacenik delusion wholesale. And now a Divine Providence with a highly developed sense of irony has made him Commander in Chief.

After all, what does a Chicago pol have to really know about national security? Nothing. Chicago pols don’t even know about school security on the South Side. If they did, the schools would be much more peaceful. In New York City, it took Rudy Giuliani to clean up crime because generations of liberal mayors couldn’t figure it out. If they can’t run safe schools, what can they know about keeping peace on a global scale? When Obama and Bill Ayers got together on that Chicago inner-city program for fixing schools and buying votes, the best he came up with was a “jazz curriculum.” That’s the Dixiecrat solution for African-American education. It is disrespectful to parents and children of any race. …

George W. Bush accepted six years of foaming rage from the yapping Left with good grace. I think he could shrug it off because he understood what was important and what was merely self-serving. The Bush family has a record of solid values. Dad still jumps out of airplanes at 85. George W. Bush used to visit privately with wounded soldiers and their families, and go to see the dead coming home. Real tears are private. Bill Clinton had Hollywood photo ops in Normandy. …

On the latest from the “Religion of Peace”:

November 02, 2009 | World Net Daily
‘Everyone hates Jews,’ declares Islamic cleric
By Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM – Trees, animals and non-Jewish athletes despise Jews, declared an Egyptian cleric on his country’s television network.

“People hate (Jews). They don’t like them. We are not talking only about people. [The same goes] even for trees and animals,” stated Egyptian cleric Amin Al-Ansari on a program two weeks ago that aired on Egypt’s Al-Rahma satellite network. …

“The proof is that the Prophet Muhammad said that when Judgment Day draws near, the final war between the Muslims and the Jews will take place. The Prophet said that the Muslims would kill the Jews. ‘Judgment Day will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them,’“ declared Al-Ansari.

He added, citing from a hadith, a collection of the sayings of Muhammad: “The Muslims will kill the Jews. Be patient. All the trees and all the stones will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him – except for the Gharqad tree.’ Only one kind of tree will not call [the Muslims]. It is the Gharqad tree.”

On man-made global warming climate change:

November 3, 2009 | U.K. Telegraph
Al Gore could become world's first carbon billionaire

Al Gore, the former US vice president, could become the world's first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies.

On liberal media bias:

November 3, 2009 | NewsBusters
USA Today Defines Sycophantic Media in Front Page Homage to Obamas
By Brent Baker

… USA Today’s Mimi Hall and Maria Puente gushed in a front page story on Tuesday marking a year since President Obama’s election, “With cultural ‘flair,’ Obamas updating first family’s image.” The two reporters began by describing Barack and Michelle Obama as just like any other hip couple:

He carries a smartphone on his hip, goes out for burgers and plays pickup hoops. She goes to their daughters’ soccer games, works in the garden and loves listening to her iPod. Together, they host poets, artists and musicians at their house and invite neighborhood kids to drop by.

The journalistic duo soon featured this glowing assessment: “‘The Obamas’ White House is the most open for cultural and intellectual activities since the Kennedy administration,’ says Douglas Brinkley, author and presidential historian at Rice University in Houston. ‘It’s not simply a matter of doing events of statecraft and cultural gravitas. They have a great flair for American pop culture.’”

November 02, 2009 | TimesWatch
‘The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York.’
By Clay Waters

Though he’s predicting Democrats will prevail in the end, former theatre critic turned over-dramatic liberal columnist Frank Rich sounded even more skittish than usual in his pre-election column in the Sunday Week in Review, “The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York.”

Barack Obama’s most devilish political move since the 2008 campaign was to appoint a Republican congressman from upstate New York as secretary of the Army. This week’s election to fill that vacant seat has set off nothing less than a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war. No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond.

Have a blessed day!

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (10/13/09)

I have to say I am so glad this issue is being tackled: With the news of El Rushbo’s contemplating buying the St. Louis Rams, liberal “reporters” in the sports world and in general are bursting with the latest attacks by reviving a number of made-up bigoted comments that no one can actually prove was uttered by Rush at any time. But because these unattributable quotes have been repeated by the leftocracy over and over again—I’ve seen them online; they’re even on Rush’s Wikipedia page!—they’ve been accepted as truth.

Even if Rush ends up not buying the Rams, I hope some light is shed on the shameless smears the left has been conducting for years, including those leftists who are supposed to be professional journalists in search of truth, rather than in search of pushing their liberal agenda.

Here’s Jeffrey Lord at American Spectator discussing the issue:

Who Is Libeling Rush Limbaugh?
10.13.09

Rush Limbaugh hit back today on this racist business, put out there by leftists so blinded by racial issues that they will fight the colorblind America vision of conservatives with everything they have. They are claiming Rush said the following. Anyone who listens to Rush on a regular basis knows this is simply nuts, decidedly not Rush but the left-wing Rush stereotype. Here's the quote:

"Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one, the streets were safer after dark."

Liberals masquerading as "sports reporters" and "journalists" have been out there repeating this kind of garbage in the last few days. The goal: to keep Rush from buying an ownership stake in the St. Louis Rams.

Next, Debra Saunders at JWR (and elsewhere) asks the unaskable question:

Oct. 13, 2009
What Happened to Global Warming?

"What happened to global warming?" read the headline — on BBC News on Oct. 9, no less. Consider it a cataclysmic event: Mainstream news organizations have begun reporting on scientific research that suggests that global warming may not be caused by man and may not be as dire and eminent as alarmists suggest.

Indeed, as the BBC's climate correspondent Paul Hudson reported, the warmest year recorded globally "was not in 2008 or 2007, but 1998." It's true, he continued, "For the last 11 years, we have not observed any increase in global temperatures." […]

Over the years, global warming alarmists have sought to stifle debate by arguing that there was no debate. They bullied dissenters and ex-communicated non-believers from their panels. In the name of science, disciples made it a virtue to not recognize the existence of scientists such as MIT's Richard Lindzen and Colorado State University's William Gray.

For a long time, that approach worked. But after 11 years without record temperatures that had the seas spilling over the Statue of Liberty's toes, they are going to have to change tactics.

They're going to have to rely on real data, not failed models, scare stories and the Big Lie that everyone who counts agrees with them.

Next, Dennis Prager adds his two shekels to the Obama Nobel “Peace” Prize:

Oct. 13, 2009
Why President Obama Was Awarded the Nobel Prize

[The Oslo Committee] may be moral idiots, but they are not stupid: I believe that they had two clear aims.

One is to undercut American exceptionalism — the notion that America has a superior moral value system to that of the "world" (specifically the United Nations and the European Union) and America's willing to use its unique power, alone when necessary, in accordance with that value system. The other is to promote an essentially pacifist agenda.

[…] 4. "Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts."

Meaning: As the pacifist bumper sticker puts it: "War is not the answer."

Oslo's approach echoes what the British government under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed vis a vis Adolf Hitler. But had Hitler been confronted instead of "dialogued" with, perhaps tens of millions of innocent men and women's lives would have been spared and the Holocaust averted. Europeans tend to believe that evil regimes will act responsibly because of dialogue, not threats of force.

5. "The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations."

Meaning: We believe that a world in which no country possesses nuclear weapons will be a safer world. We believe that even though the technology to make nuclear weapons will still exist, no terrorist organization, nor any other bad people, will make such weapons.

The existence and deterrent power of nuclear weapons have probably saved as many lives as have antibiotics. As David Von Drehle writes in this week's Time Magazine, "If the Nobel committee wants someday to honor the force that has done the most over the past 60 years to end industrial-scale war, they will award a peace prize to the bomb."

6. "Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting."

Meaning: To our delight, unlike the previous president, this one believes in global warming and in changing the American economy to combat it.

The "climate change" scare has become the most effective vehicle for compelling a transformation of Western economies along the lines that left-wing environmentalists have urged for decades.

7. "Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened."

This, unfortunately, has no meaning; it is nonsense. Under Barack Obama, the United States has not been the friend of democrats around the world. America has responded weakly to the democratic movement in Iran, ended the funding of the largest pro-Iranian human rights groups in America, pressured democratic Israel, made overtures to Hugo Chavez while denying American ally and pro-democratic Colombia a free trade agreement, abandoned Honduran anti-Chavez democrats, and has obsequiously deferred to Vladimir Putin.

8. "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."

Meaning: Only very rarely does the European left have such a kindred spirit in the American presidency.

9. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

Meaning: With Barack Obama, we in Europe finally have an opportunity to end American exceptionalism.

The Oslo committee's view is, tragically, true. Thanks to Barack Obama, America is for the first time is aligning its values with those of "the majority of the world's population." If you think the world's population has had better values than America, that it has made societies that are more open, free, and tolerant than American society, and that it has fought for others' liberty more than America has, you should be delighted.

Finally, here’s some entertainment-gossip news. Ree Hines at MSNBC.com (yes, that MSNBC) interviews actor Jamie Foxx about the Roman Polanski story [h/t Hot Air]. According to the piece, Foxx was quoted by Parade Magazine saying:

“If it had been my daughter who was barely a teenager—my daughter is 15—Roman Polanski would be missing … period.”

Yeah, if it were my daughter, Polanski would’ve needed to park himself on a different planet, not continent.

Have a blessed day!

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (10/1/09)

First, at National Review Online, Victor Davis Hanson gives it to us straight on the current lethal state of international affairs:

October 1, 2009
Three Dangerous Stooges

Last week, three dictators — from Iran, Libya, and Venezuela — delivered lunatic hate-speeches at the General Assembly of the United Nations. Why do these anti-Semitic dictators feel so free to damn America from downtown New York? Why do their abettors spurn our requests for help? And why do creepy regimes plot to get nukes, and fund terrorists? Easy. They do not fear, much less listen to, an indebted and energy-hungry America that either needs their cash or oil — or both.

Next, at American Thinker, Randall Hoven has all you need to know about ObamaCare, but were terrified to ask:

October 01, 2009
Nothing for Everyone

Just about all of us want some kind of health care reform. But different people want different things from that reform. One trouble with crafting legislation that would make some people happy is that it would make other people unhappy. But the proposals put forth so far by Democrats, and supported by President Obama, have the unique gift of satisfying virtually no one. ObamaCare, inasmuch as there is such a thing, is bound to disappoint you, no matter what you'd like to see in health care reform.

Next, David Horowitz at Front Page Mag castigates the mainstream media for being so busy fear-mongering about predicted right-wing violence that they’ve failed to report about all the actual left-wing violence that has been taking place:

Serious Fascists in America

There are serious fascists in America. But they’re on the political Left.

I wrote yesterday about Glenn Beck’s feature on the violent demonstration by leftists in Pittsburgh (which was covered up by the New York Times and the rest of the left-wing media.) He also reported on the bombing of a radio tower in the State of Washington by the Earth Liberation Front — a left-wing terrorist organization — which went equally unreported. Instead we are treated to a rash of hand-wringings by liberals like Tom Friedman who talk about incitements that could lead to the assassination of President Obama.

Pete Wehner has an excellent blog on this hypocrisy, recalling that a film was actually made by leftists portraying the assassination of President Bush among many other incitements against him by leftists with no — absolutely no — complaints by Friedman and the NY Times. In fact the whole Democratic Party leadership accused Bush of lying to get us into a war and killing young Americans in the process.

Also recommended: Peter Wehner’s Commentary post, which is cited in the above article.

Finally, the Weekly Standard has published the eulogy William Kristol delivered for his father last week:

Irving Kristol, 1920-2009
10/05/2009, Volume 015, Issue 03

In 1994, my father wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal titled "Life Without Father." It dealt with the subject of the family and poverty and welfare--with my father drawing for his argument, as he so often did, on a combination of social science, common sense, history, and personal experience. In the course of the article, my father briefly discussed his father, Joseph Kristol--who, he wrote, "was thought by all our relatives and his fellow workers to be wise, and fair, and good. I thought so too."

So have Liz and I always thought about our father. To us, he was wise, and fair, and good. I honestly don't think it ever occurred to us that we could have had a better father. So as we enter the rest of our life--a life without our father--we are overwhelmed not by a sense of loss or grief, though of course we feel both, but by a sense of gratitude: Having Irving Kristol as our dad was our great good fortune.

Have a blessed day!

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (9/25/09)

A lot going on today. First, Richard Baehr reviews Norman Podhoretz’s new book Why Are Jews Liberals? in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Chosen People, Choosing Left
In the presidential election, Barack Obama won 78% of the Jewish vote.

It will be dangerous to the Jewish future, Mr. Podhoretz says, for Jews to continue down the path of reflexively supporting not just Democrats but also the party’s liberal wing. Unlike every other ethnic or religious group, he notes, Jews do not become more conservative as their income and wealth rise. The reason for such steady liberalism, it is often claimed, is that Jews care about those who are marginalized in America, as Jews themselves were once marginalized both here and in other countries.

But Mr. Podhoretz maintains that Jews are voting against their own interests. Jews advanced in America in the mid-20th century when the meritocracy took hold, individual effort and achievement were rewarded, and group quotas, which limited Jewish educational opportunity and economic advancement, were eliminated. How odd, then, to see Jews aligned with the party that embraces identity politics, affirmative action and quota-driven policies. Democrats also favor higher taxes and more government regulation, neither of which tends to produce the sort of economic expansion that benefits everyone, including the marginalized.

Also recommended on this topic: Book review by David Forsmark at Front Page Mag.

Next, Brian O’Connell at American Spectator has a nice article about the Obama administration’s curious non-interest in winning the war in Afghanistan. After all, O’Connell reminds us, Afghanistan was the war all the Democrats screamed we should have been focusing more on, but that evil Bush distracted us by invading Iraq …

So Much for the Good War
9.25.09

The Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress are caught in a political quagmire with respect to the war in Afghanistan. The Washington Post reported on Monday that General Stanley McChrystal has asked Secretary Gates for additional forces to combat the Taliban-led insurgency. Yet, the Democrats in Congress are publicly raising doubts and even urging for a lighter footprint in a conflict that the president has called—in implicit contrast with Iraq—a “war of necessity.”

Next, Joel Mowbray at Big Government has the latest score between ACORN exposer James O’Keefe vs. a bitter, vindictive Obama-protecting mainstream media:

James O’Keefe 3, Big Media 0

As soon as James O’Keefe’s explosive video footage was unveiled two weeks ago — shaking ACORN to its core — various leftists and their allies in the mainstream media have fixated on a singular mission: smearing the messenger. O’Keefe was not just targeted by MSM backbenchers, but the Big Three: New York Times, Washington Post, and the Associated Press. The results weren’t even close. It was a lopsided victory for O’Keefe, as all three titans of media issued corrections on damning allegations.

Finally, Jamie Glazov at Front Page Mag’s “Newsreal” blog comments on an exchange between Larry King and his guest, libertarian Larry Elder. Apparently the white Jewish liberal King was offended that black libertarian Elder was not up in arms about alleged “racism” against Barack Obama.

Larry King’s Owed Apology to Larry Elder 
2009 SEPTEMBER 25

King asks Elder, with an accusatory tone, why he’s not “angry” about racism, the premise being, of course, that King is a better human being because he is angry and Elder is not a good human being because he supposedly isn’t angry.

Elder answers: 

“Larry, do you want me to be angry? My father does not know who his father was. He grew up in the south. He got kicked out of the house by his mom. He grew up in Jim Crow south. This is now 2009. We have a black president. We’ve had back-to-back black secretaries of state. I’m grateful that I live in America. And right now, it’s about hard work, accountability and not blaming other people. I’m not going to go there where I don’t see racism. You’re not going to make me.” 

There’s something grotesque about Larry King taking the moral high ground with an African-American and telling him that he needs to start getting angry about racism, as if Elder himself doesn’t have his own personal experience with racism and hasn’t dealt with its hurt in his own soul in his own personal way. The key issue Elder is discussing, among other things, is what humans must do to better themselves (i.e. take personal responsibility) and to better the society in which they live under potentially adverse circumstances.

Have a blessed day!

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (9/24/09)

Jennifer Rubin wrote this article at Pajamas Media the day before President Hope&Change threw his own country and our ally Israel under the world bus. But it’s all relevant:

Obama’s Cardinal Errors
Four fundamental mistakes have drained the president's early momentum.

September 22, 2009

As Walter Russell Mead put it:

… It all looked so easy last winter when a cocky administration and a hyperbolic press talked about a new Lincoln and a new FDR in the White House. Nine months later, the president has more irons in the fire than trophies on the wall.

The Democrats are disunited worried about 2010. Abroad, the foreigners don’t seem to be listening: not Netanyahu, not Libya, not Iran — even tiny Honduras blew off Obama’s demand that it reinstate an ousted president. Less than a year into his presidency, his enemies at home and abroad think he’s weak and on the way down.

The president could turn this around by focusing on job creation, ceasing to snarl at critics, adopting a more centrist approach on domestic and foreign policy, and finding some areas of common agreement to pass through Congress (e.g., real education reform). But so long as Obama and his spinners remain convinced the real issue is not enough him or the mean conservatives or racism, there is little chance of that.

Next, at Front Page Mag, Jacob Laksin gives his take on Obama’s U.N. speech:

UN-Inspired
Thursday, September 24, 2009

“I am not naïve,” President Obama insisted yesterday, as he delivered his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly. And, indeed, some components of his remarks—including his call for sterner action to halt Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs—were reasonable enough. But nothing more corroded the seriousness of the president’s appeal for a new era of global security and cooperation than the fact that it was addressed to a body that, whatever the high-minded principles of its founding, has long been an obstacle to both. […]

Obama successfully avoided an embarrassing photo op with Qadaffi, but his enthusiastic support for an organization that welcomes the likes of the Libyan dictator nonetheless spoke volumes. Never mind that the UN has repeatedly failed to prevent human rights abuses. Never mind that it has empowered regimes that kill, torture, and oppress their populations with impunity. Despite this history, Obama still seems to believe that the UN remains a force for good in the world. There’s a word to describe people who hold such astoundingly credulous beliefs. And the president is not going to like it.

Also recommended re: Obama’s U.N. speech: Obama’s Time Warp: The U.S. Is Still the Bad Guy by Michael Barone at Townhall.

For the scholar in you, here’s a piece by economics professor Edmund Phelps on capitalism and morality [h/t Joseph Lawler at American Spectator]:

Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation
Edmund Phelps

When the word morality comes up in connection with economics, income distribution and financial stability are usually the issues. Is it moral for rich countries to use such a high proportion of the world’s resources or for investment bankers to earn large bonuses? And is it moral for financial markets to experiment with volatile derivatives that increase the potential for panics?

Across the political spectrum, the voices in the debate presume a homo economicus who is focused on maximizing consumption while taking prudent risks. And these voices presume that the economy in which this maximization takes place is a mechanical sort of system. But real human beings bear little resemblance to this ideal type. Any discussion of economics and morality must begin instead with real human beings who are not only acquisitive and risk averse but also inquisitive and adventurous and who sometimes feel the need to take a plunge, to leap into the unknown. Furthermore, in a healthy economy, each participant has to reckon on a future about which knowledge is imperfect, owing to the ventures being undertaken by the others.

Finally, Sarah Palin was in the news yesterday for a speech she gave in Hong Kong. Oh, you didn’t know about it? Or you knew about it but don’t know any of the content therein? That’s the Obamedia for ya! Here’s a review by Rich Lowry at National Review Online’s “The Corner” blog. If the content of the speech and Palin’s delivery of it was as good as Lowry describes, it’s no wonder the Obamedia isn’t doing much to tout it:

Palin’s Hong Kong Speech
September 24, 2009

The first thing we can say about Sarah Palin’s speech is that it is exactly the kind of address she should be giving. It’s plain-spoken and not exactly ground-breaking, but it’s substantive and the kind of thing that is absolutely essential to adding some heft to her political portfolio. She describes her approach as “common sense conservatism,” and it lives up to its billing, falling firmly within the mainstream of conservative thought. […]

Palin is an authentic, powerful voice of the populist right and in the speech she implicitly connects its call for limited government and sensible fiscal policy with America’s role as a world power. Palin can play a very important role in channeling the inchoate populist anger out there in a responsible direction, which makes it all the more important that she engage on the issues in a serious way and avoid rhetorical over-kill. The speech, judging from what we've seen of it so far, is a big step in the right direction.

How ironic it is that the person who managed to get elected president was at the U.N. trashing his own country while the person who could have been VP was across the globe celebrating it.

Sometimes the world goes topsy-turvy …

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (9/22/09)

A little over a month ago, I posted an important and informative Listen & Learn of Steve Malzberg discussing the aptly labelled death panels, which was stealthily slipped into the Stimulus bill back in the spring.

Here’s a Reflections magazine article by Malzberg following up on that story.

Obama’s Death Panels
September 2009 Vol. I, No. 8

When Mr. Obama is then asked how we should deal with it, more of Mr. Obama the radical is exposed. “Well I think there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists.” (Can you say death panel?) “And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place,” he says. In sum, who is worth treating? Who is worth saving? Who shall live and who shall die?

“It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels,” says Mr. Obama. (We can’t let the people have a say in this, they will be too emotional and want to help their parents and grandparents and spouses as much as possible.) “And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.” Can you say death panel?

Speaking of health (s)care, here’s Dick Morris and Eileen McGann at NewsMax discuss the latest:

Young, Uninsured Turning Against Obamacare
Monday, September 21, 2009

The elderly were the first group to turn against President Barack Obama’s healthcare proposals, alienated by the plans to cut $500 billion cut from Medicare. The young and the uninsured may be the next to jump ship — out of worry over the huge premiums they’d have to pay.

Requiring everyone to buy insurance will impose a massive tax on all who now are uninsured. The Congressional Budget Office projects that it would force the middle-income uninsured to pay on average more than 15 percent of their income.

The poor will still have Medicaid. But for those earning more, the required premiums will be worse than any tax increase. For example, CBO estimates that when the program is fully implemented — by 2016 — an individual earning $32,400 a year would have to pay $4,100 in premiums before getting any subsidy. With deductibles and co-payments, he’d have to shell out $5,600 a year, or 17.3 percent of his income. A family of four, making $80,000 a year, would have to pay about $10,500 in premiums alone — with deductibles and co-payments, up to $15,000 or just under 20 percent of income.

Next, at American Spectator, author Dan Flynn takes on cryin’ lyin’ Nancy Pelosi, who had the chutzpah to compare Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” comment to President Hope&Change. Flynn argues, correctly, that the violence Wilson’s “rhetoric” reminded her of in the 1970’s was the violence of the left, who, as her reliable base, Pelosi has ignored and dismissed for three decades.

Still Lying 9.22.09

… The Bay Area was indeed a mecca of political violence during the 1970s. But the violence exclusively came from people whose outlook more closely resembled Nancy Pelosi’s, not Joe Wilson’s. In almost every case, the bombings and murders came from people or groups explicitly committed to violence, and not from peaceful protesters or from the right, à la the tea party or town meeting participants. […]

Compounding the outrageousness of Pelosi’s insinuation is that she projects the “frightening” rhetoric that fueled “a climate in which violence took place” in the Bay Area during the 1970s upon the very people at whom that rhetoric was initially targeted. Rather than condemn the violence of such groups as Weatherman and the Black Panthers, liberal Democrats instead assimilated them into their ranks.

Next, Andrew Klavan at Pajamas Media discusses these week’s biggest story essentially ignored by the mainstream media (last week it was ACORN, the week before the 9-12 D.C. Tea Party, and the week before that Van Jones):

September 21st, 2009
All Your Art Are Belong To Us

There is so very much to be disgusted by here that it’s hard to know what to gag on first. The NEA is the largest single funder of art in the country. They give away tens of millions of bucks in grants to artists and art organizations. Although the NEA wasn’t actually offering to give money to artists in return for their services to the all-powerful state, their very presence on the line creates the implied offer of access and favor. This in and of itself is deeply corrupt and potentially corrupting to artists in a difficult economy desperate for any means of support.

Oh, but that’s not the half of it. Go here and take a look at the legislation that authorized and created the NEA in the first place, its founding document as it were. Read its original principles and mission: how the arts are for all Americans, how the NEA is there to nurture freedom of thought, imagination and inquiry. In fact, just for fun, see if you can find a single proposition in this document that the NEA did not violate, corrupt and/or betray in the course of this phone call.

Then there’s the arrogance. Michael Skolnick, political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, says he’s speaking at the behest of the White House and the NEA when he tells the assembled artists, “You are the thought leaders. You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or promote a piece of art, or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be into; and what’s cool and what’s not cool.”

Finally, here’s the latest at Real Clear Politics from the always thought-provoking and inspiring Thomas Sowell:

September 22, 2009
The Underdogs

… [N]obody told me that I couldn’t make it because I was poor and black, or that I ought to hate white people today because of what some other white people did to my ancestors in some other time.

Nobody sugar-coated the facts of racial discrimination. But Professor Sterling Brown of Howard University, who wrote with eloquent bitterness about racism, nevertheless said to me when I prepared to transfer to Harvard: “Don’t come back here and tell me you didn’t make it ‘cause white folks were mean.”

He burned my bridges behind me, the way they used to do with armies going into battle, so that they had no place to retreat to, and so had to fight to win.

One of the problems with trying to help underdogs, especially with government programs, is that they and everyone else start to think of them as underdogs, focusing on their problems rather than their opportunities. Thinking of themselves as underdogs can also dissipate their energies in resentments of others, rather than spending that energy making the most of their own possibilities.

Have a blessed day!

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (9/21/09)

Matthew Vadum at American Spectator continues his yeoman’s work in covering the ACORN scandal:

ACORN’S Useful Idiots
9.21.09

… ACORN does not have “a history of honorable service to the dispossessed and impoverished.”

This is a common misconception on the left where the group is viewed as having roughly the same moral rectitude as the late Mother Teresa. It is thought of as unassailable because it is believed to be doing good. The fact that it is so regularly attacked by conservatives and Republicans causes the left to cheer even louder for ACORN.

But the evidence shows that ACORN does not mean well, and that any good the group may happen to do for people is purely incidental.

Next, former Asst. Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey has this American Thinker piece on the current administration’s un-American engagement in dissent suppression:

September 21, 2009
Suppressing Dissent is Un-American

The major outlets for both information and dissent today are talk radio and the internet. Mark Lloyd, the Federal Communications Commission’s new “Diversity Czar” is a disciple of “Rules for Radicals” Saul Alinski and an admirer of Hugo Chavez. Lloyd describes freedom of speech and the press as a “distraction”. He proposes whipping private radio companies into line by threats to their license renewal or by taxing them so heavily that they would be driven out of existence.

If that doesn’t worry you, consider Senate Bill 773 which would permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector non-governmental computer networks during a so-called cyber security emergency, however that may be defined.

Dissent is not un-American, but trying to intimidate and, squelch free speech is. As the editor of the Morning Journal wrote in an August 9 column, “You had better keep a close eye on this White House. Because the Obama White House apparently has its eyes and ears out on the streets watching, listening and ready to ‘flag’ anyone who doesn’t sing their tune.”

Next, Evan Coyne Maloney at Big Government analyzes the rules defining Obama’s “post-racial” America:

ACORN, Kanye West and the Hierarchy of Multiculturalism

To understand the mindset of the politically correct, there are a few rules of racial relations that you need to know. These rules establish the Hierarchy of Multiculturalism:

1. If a person is a member of a group guilty of past racial oppression, that person has no moral standing in relation to anyone in any group that’s ever been a victim of that oppression.
2. A member of an oppressor group is always assumed to be guilty in relation to a member of a victim group.
3. An oppressor can only avoid presumed guilt by making a display of his or her sympathy for the oppressed.
4. Members of victim groups can lose their moral standing by expressing a preference for individual rights as opposed to group rights.
5. Advocating on behalf of a victim makes one almost as unassailable as being that victim.
6. Coming to the defense of an oppressor is even more repugnant than being that oppressor.

This thinking is so common these days that many prominent liberals–from New York Times columniststo former presidents–believe that criticism of President Obama can only be motivated by racial bigotry.

Finally, in a half-joking, half-serious piece, Brian Darling at Human Events thanks President Obama:

Thank You, President Obama
09/21/2009

I love President Barack Obama. No kidding. I love the guy. Barack Obama is the best community organizer of conservatives since Ronald Reagan.

Not even conservative icon Sarah Palin, had she been elected Vice President, could have put together hundreds of town hall meetings with conservatives turning out and decrying the socialist aspects of the liberal health care bills.

Have a blessed day.

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (9/16/09)

It’s one week after S.C. Congressman Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” during President Hope&Change’s health (s)care pitch. David Limbaugh at NewsMax doesn’t buy the Dems’ outrage for a second and calls them on their own well-documented hypocrisy:

Memo to Dems: Spare Us the Phony ‘Lie’ Outrage
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

While Democratic leaders are wagging their fingers at the Republican Party’s alleged descent into incivility over Wilson’s unplanned, indignant outburst, they have a very short memory about their own party-wide monopoly on incivility, as they savaged Bush throughout his presidency. I researched and wrote a 400-plus-page book documenting the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of these hypocritical scolds in 2006, in case you need a refresher course.

Unlike Wilson, these offending Democrats have never apologized for their outrages. Did Rep. John Murtha apologize for prejudging and slandering our battlefield Marines who were later vindicated? Did Sen. Harry Reid ever apologize for calling Bush a liar? Al Gore? John Kerry? Has suspected tax evader Rep. Charles Rangel apologized for his conduct while devising new ways to confiscate even higher taxes from honest, hardworking Americans who actually pay their taxes?

Did Sen. Dick Durbin retract the substance of his remarks in comparing Gitmo to the gulag? Did House leader Nancy Pelosi repent for defaming the CIA?

There’s plenty more where that came from.

Speaking of government-run health (s)care, Jerome Corsi (author of Obama Nation and Unfit for Command) has a scoop at WND about Congress’ plan to push an immigration bill that will unequivocally make illegals eligible for government-run health care:

‘Obama to make illegals eligible for health care’ 
Upcoming immigration bill seen as ‘backdoor’ to bring millions into plan

September 15, 2009

The Obama administration intends to “backdoor” illegal immigrants into its proposed health-care plan by passing an immigration reform bill that would give legal status to as many as 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the U.S., charged Radio America talk-radio host Rodger Hedgecock today in Washington, D.C.

Calling comprehensive immigration reform the Obama administration’s “second act,” Hedgecock said illegal immigrants initially would be excluded from the healthcare plan but would have access to it once comprehensive immigration reform is passed by Congress.

On a still related note, Armstrong Williams at the Washington Times discusses the current race-baiting, which he regards as a sign of pure desparation on the part of the Dems:

The ‘race-chasers’ strike again
Wednesday, September 16, 2009

It’s the oldest play in the book: Ignore the message; attack the messenger. Drop an “-ism” and watch his or her opponents scatter. What next? Is every criticism of the president now subject to a racial filter? Are we to ask every opponent of the president, “Is there hatred in your heart when you say that?”

If so, then maybe the health care debate is increasingly about race—just in a way that no one is talking about. If the rousing fact of an American black president gives Democrats license to deliberately confuse every contested issue by merely labeling and dismissing their critics as racists, then the national debate will be short-circuited—because of racism. Who could have thought that racial issues would become worse—not better—with Barack Hussein Obama as our president?

Finally, at Townhall Michael Medved outlines the many ways left and right differ and concludes that’s it all boils down to attitude toward America:

The Real Political Divide: Attitudes Toward America
Wednesday, September 16, 2009

[L]iberals and conservatives differ dramatically and profoundly. This is not to say that all liberals hate America, or that all conservatives glorify their country unreservedly. But in questions of emphasis the contrast couldnt be more clear: the left stresses Americas failures, shortcomings, hypocrisies, and embarrassments while the right trumpets the nations achievements, blessings, and distinctive advantages. Nothing enrages liberals more than the conservative tendency for jingoistic flag-waving and super-patriotism; nothing bothers conservatives more than the liberal habit of blaming America first and concentrating on historic guilt and present problems.

Have a blessed day!

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (9/14/09)

I once got flack from a liberal friend for calling Maureen Dowd “Moron Dowd.” She’s right. I take it back. If this is best and most intelligent analysis Maureen Dowd can do, then she makes a moron look like Albert freaking Einstein.

Over the weekend Ms. Dowd released a disgusting NY Times editorial accusing S.C. Congressman Joe “You lie!” Wilson of racism. (Yes, folks, this is the pinnacle of liberal intellect: just call your ideological opponent a racist. No serious analytical thought necessary.) 

In response to this piece of trash editorial by a piece of trash human being, here is a piece by Damian Thompson of the U.K. Telegraph (which apparently does the news that American mainstream media won’t do) and by Ruben Navarette at Pajamas Media. Good for them. 

Ain’t that the truth!

Next, speaking of racism, Star Parker at Townhall observes: Some Blacks Now Have Doubts About Obama

Next, Kyle Smith at Front Page covers the continuing virtual non-coverage by the mainstream media of radical resigned czar Van Jones: Van Jones: Unfit for Print

Finally, Clarice Feldman and Rosslyn Smith discuss the transformative event that was the 9-12 D.C. Tea Party.

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (9/8/09)

First, this piece by Brian T. Schwartz at Pajamas Media is sure to rustle some liberal feathers:

Health Care Is Not a Privilege … Nor Is It a Right
September 8, 2009

… Health care is not a right. Rights are freedoms of action, not entitlements to what others produce. A “right” to health care violates the rights of those who produce it.

“Health care” consists of diagnoses and treatments by highly-trained medical professionals. It involves sophisticated products, instruments, and tests designed and developed at great investment, effort, and cost by scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. That is, people produce health care.

Nor is medical care a privilege. A privilege is something authority figures permit us to do at their discretion. No one considers auto repair to be a right, but it’s absurd to consider it “a privilege.” No one grants you the “privilege” of having money to repair your car. Rather, if you want to own a functioning car, you must take responsibility to finance its repair by earning wealth. The same goes for medical treatment. As Mark Twain said, “the world owes you nothing” — adults must take responsibility to finance medical treatment they want. People who choose to become parents are also responsible for paying for their children’s medical treatment.

There’s no right to health care, just as there’s no right to happiness. But the pursuit of happiness is a right. Similarly, everyone has the right to pursue medical treatment through voluntary exchange with those who produce it. We also have the right to protect ourselves against medical expenses as we see fit. Low-premium catastrophic insurance is just one option. Others include more costly comprehensive health plans, paying a retainer at a cash-only clinic, or obtaining membership in a health care co-op or health care sharing ministry. Yet when politicians seek to guarantee health care as a right, they decide what qualifies as appropriate medical treatment. Whether you get the treatment you want depends on the discretion of authorities. That is, health care becomes a privilege. […]

Second, on the theme of the president addressing the nation’s schoolchildren, Byron York at the Washington Examiner reminds us [h/t Malkin]:

When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
09/08/09

The controversy over President Obama’s speech to the nation’s schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush’s speech—they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.

Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’”

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush’s appearance. […]

Next, the brilliant Thomas Sowell at Real Clear Politics expresses his thoughts on Obama umpteenth speech on government-run health (s)care, which takes place tomorrow:

What Obama Says vs. What He Does
September 8, 2009

… No doubt millions of people will be listening to the words of President Barack Obama Wednesday night when he makes a televised address to a joint session of Congress on his medical care plans. But, if they think that the words he says are what matters, they can be led into something much worse than being swindled out of their money.

One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation’s medical care before the August recess—for a program that would not take effect until 2013!

Whatever President Obama is, he is not stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the legislation goes into effect for years—more specifically, until the year after the next Presidential election? […]

Gregory Gethard at Front Page discusses the resignation of Van Jones, the “Red” Czar:

The Fall of the Red Czar
Tuesday, September 08, 2009

No thanks to the establishment media and Congressional Democrats, the Obama administration’s “green jobs czar” Van Jones is out of a job.

Jones resigned this weekend in the wake of revelations, initially ignored by the press, that he has a long record as a political radical, a background that includes his association with the so-called “Truther” conspiracy theorists who claim that the September 11 attacks were an inside job by the U.S. government.

Now that Jones has stepped down, the media has rallied to his defense, depicting Jones as the victim of a “vicious smear campaign” by foes of his environmental politics – a charge echoed by the administration’s Democratic allies. The less palatable truth is that Jones is a racial provocateur and opportunist who tried to capitalize on the administration’s sympathy for the “green” agenda to bring his own brand of socialist and black radical politics to national prominence.

Although apparently missed by the Obama administration’s screeners, Jones’ intention to use environmentalism as a way to push his socialist agenda can clearly be seen in his remarks at the “PowerShift ‘09” youth conference in Washington. Described as an attempt to bring together young people united in support of climate change and other green policies, PowerShift ’09 quickly became a forum for Jones to push his radical views on a captive audience. […]

And finally, Jay Nordlinger at NRO is on liberal hypocrisy watch with more on imagined right-wing hate vs. actual left-wing hate:

When protest is uncool, &c.
September 8, 2009

They say that “hate” is rearing its head, and that President Obama and the Democrats are the victims of it. Let me make a couple of predictions: I predict that the chairman of the Republican National Committee will never say, “I hate the Democrats and everything they stand for. This [politics, basically] is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.” Howard Dean said that about the GOP: “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for. . . .” I predict that an editor of a conservative magazine will never write a piece called “The Case for Obama Hatred,” beginning, “I hate President Barack Obama.” A New Republic editor did this, about Bush. And there is increasing worry about assassination: that someone will take a shot, not just at the president, but at the first black president, which would be extra-catastrophic for the country. A few protesters have carried signs urging violence against Obama, or smacking of violence. Let me make some more predictions: I predict that a network talk-show host will not show a video of President Obama giving a speech and put the following words on the screen: “SNIPERS WANTED.” Craig Kilborn of CBS did that to George W. Bush. […]

For many more examples, see my post from last week here.

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (9/3/09)

First, a little news, then commentary. This morning CBS News’ NYC affilate gives us the latest scoop on Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY). Turns out he not only engaged in tax evasion; he paid off members of the ethics committee investigating him! You just can’t make this stuff up.

Sep 3, 2009 6:01 am US/Eastern

Rangel-ing: Charlie Pays ‘Angels’ In Ethics Probe
Harlem Congressman Gave Campaign Contributions To 3 Dems On Ethics Committee Charged With Investigating Him

CBS 2 HD has learned of more alleged back-door dealings and political power peddling by Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel. The reigning member of Congress’ top tax committee is apparently "wrangling" other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles.

Not sure why this is only local news and not national. Could it be because he doesn’t have an “R” after his name? Hard to tell, but it would certainly explain why a no-name Senator from Idaho made national news for playing footsie in an airport men’s room …

Next, on the government-run health (s)care front, here’s a heartwarming report. The U.K. Telegraph exposes how terminally ill patients in Britain are being taken care of (in more ways than one):

Sentenced to death on the NHS
Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned.

By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Published: 10:00PM BST 02 Sep 2009

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

Lovely. Can’t wait for that to happen here. Hope and change, my easily dupable friends. Hope and change.

Speaking of health (s)care, Stuart Schwartz at American Thinker writes about how wittwe Sawah Pawin is wusswing poow Zeke Emanuew’s feathews:

Sarah Palin vs. Dr. Death
September 02, 2009

Ezekiel Emanuel is upset. The president’s health care czar sees the growing resistance to his vision, to his brave new world of government-run “communitarian“ health care in which politicians and bureaucrats control one-sixth of the economy and 100% of our bodies. He doesn’t quite understand how it all came apart on him, but he does know who started the unraveling: Sarah Palin.

Where does she get off attacking him? Sarah Palin, it seems forever Sarah Palin. And he wonders, as have so many others, what it takes to put a stake through her heart? People should listen to him, not Sarah Palin. He is the philosopher king of Democrat health care. And he went to Harvard, you know.

Finally, a piece at Townhall by a 20-something who suggests we need to take a lesson from our ‘60s forebears and launch another youthful uprising agaisnt “the man”:

Youth and the “Anti Establishment” Movement
September 2, 2009

An immense government and vast bureaucracy with unprecedented power, the likes of which this country has never seen. A powerful elite in a distant capital making decisions that infringe on our liberties and freedoms with a “we know best” attitude. Encroachment into our lives by “the man” lies around every corner. And, roughly 40 appointed “czars” in this administration, with their tentacles in the cars we drive, the banks we trust, the energy we consume, and most recently that very private aspect of our lives, our health. Yes, I think we can appropriately call this administration “the man.” […]

The main stream media has characterized the “anti-establishment” movement of today not by its message or agenda like its predecessors, but by the supposed “backward” segment of America who are the driving force behind it. Town hall-ers and those showing up at tea parties are defamed as a rural, loony, and a most likely racist segment of American society.

In a situation teeming with irony, the liberal media exercises its own political profiling on those that outwardly oppose the policies of this President and his administration. […]

What greater moment does our nation’s youth need to challenge the “establishment” than right now? Unlike any other generation, we are one whose basic liberties, freedoms, and future are poised to be infringed upon by a few in Washington who think they know best.

Cue the Bob Dylan song. “‘Cuz the times, they are a-changin’ …”

At the Washington Times:

Beaming Obama into your kid’s head
The president expands his cult into the classroom

During the speech, students are to engage in a busy-work nightmare, writing down key concepts from the speech, trying to capture direct quotations, and afterward matching them up to key words “to increase retention and deepen their understanding of an important aspect of the speech.”

This is troubling in light of Mr. Obama’s history of radical activism in schools. This week, Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center revealed details of Mr. Obama’s tenure as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in the 1990s, where he forged a close partnership with self-described small “c” communist Bill Ayers. Under Mr. Obama’s leadership, the group funneled $100 million to left-wing activists to promote a radical political agenda under the guise of education reform.

Radicals always have viewed children as wards of the state to be shaped into shock troops to advance their revolutionary agendas. It is an idea of ancient provenance. Plato said that “children must attend school, whether their parents like it or not; for they belong to the state more than to their parents.” Every radical leader of the 20th century put indoctrinating children at the top of his agenda. So when someone with Mr. Obama’s background reaches directly into every school in America, parents are rightly concerned.

The planned speech reinforces the lurking creepiness factor around the cult of personality being erected for this president. The White House is billing the speech as “historic,” and perhaps they even believe it. But there is no reason for this federal intrusion into family and community affairs. It’s not the president’s job to be a surrogate parent, teacher or principal for America’s children. He would better serve our kids by not bankrupting the country they will inherit.

And finally, Laura Hollis at Townhall says:

Don’t Call Them Progressives
September 02, 2009

It is always easy to point out the flaws in liberal ideology so big you could drive a truck through them. But recent events keenly expose the utter absurdity of referring to liberals as “progressives.” The policies they advance, the behavior they display in support of them, and their inevitable consequences are taking this country backward, not forward, as these same policies have every time they have reared their ugly heads throughout human history. If liberals want a new moniker, they should be called regressives.

Bubbling up within last week’s media paean to Teddy Kennedy was a running theme of the regressive: if your death advances the party line, you’re expendable. Teddy Kennedy left poor Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in his sinking car 40 years ago. But she is collateral damage; just “a controversial footnote in a dynasty’’; a necessary casualty of the larger worldwide struggle for the proletariat. Huffington Post blogger Melissa Lafsky even went so far as to surmise that Kopechne might have thought her death was “worth it” for Ted Kennedy’s “life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.”

Well, gee, given the 100 million other people who died in the fruitless pursuit of contemporary collectivist dystopias, what’s one more? I’d call this Stalinesque, but even Stalin was more tempered. He reportedly said, “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” Apparently, today’s regressive does not even view the single death as a tragedy, at least if it is a stepping stone to the greater good.

Amen, sister.

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (8/1/09)

From Joseph Phillips at Breitbart’s Big Hollywood section: The Real Myth of Healthcare
NB: Phillips is an African-American and a Hollywood actor who is no fan of Obama or ObamaCare. A refreshing read!

Michelle Malkin: The Beslan Attack: 5 Years Later

Fox25 (Boston’s Fox affiliate): Kennedy relative flips off crowd

Times of India: Hamas leader denies Nazi genocide of Jews

FROM PAUL KENGOR AT AMERICAN THINKER: KENNEDY AND THE KGB

From Dennis Prager at FrontPage (and elsewhere): How To Make a Country of Small People: Five reasons why strong governments create weak citizens

Articles of Note: Rise of the Climate Deniers (Roy Spencer)

Roy Spencer, Ph.D. is a climatologist, former NASA scientist, and author of the 2008 book Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies That Hurt the Poor. The reason you might not have seen him on appear on any of the mainstream news channels is because unlike the usual blowhards, Spencer is an actual climate scientist who — Gaia forbid! — rejects the man-made global warming climate change hoax.

This posting from Spencer’s website is a must-read. Well, start reading it, then.

Those who promote the theory that mankind is responsible for global warming have been working for the past 20 years on a revisionist climate history. A history where climate was always in a harmonious state of balance until mankind came along and upset that balance.

The natural climate cycle deniers have tried their best to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age from climate data records by constructing the uncritically acclaimed and infamous “hockey stick” of global temperature variations (or non-variations) over the last one- to two-thousand years.

Before being largely discredited by a National Academies review panel, this ‘poster child’ for global warming was heralded as proof of the static nature of the climate system, and that only humans had the power to alter it.

While the panel was careful to point out that the hockey stick might be correct, they said that the only thing science could say for sure is that it has been warmer lately than anytime in the last 400 years. Since most of those 400 years was during the Little Ice Age, I would say this is a good thing. It’s like saying this summer has been warmer than any period since…last fall.

These deniers claim that the Medieval Warm Period was only a regional phenomenon, restricted to Europe. Same for the Little Ice Age. Yet when a killer heat wave occurred in France in 2003, they hypocritically insisted that this event had global significance, caused by anthropogenic ‘global’ warming.

The strong warming that occurred up until 1940 is similarly a thorn in the side of the natural climate cycle deniers, since atmospheric carbon dioxide increases from fossil fuel burning before 1940 were too meager to have caused it. So, the ‘experts’ are now actively working on reducing the magnitude of that event by readjusting some ship measurements of ocean temperatures from that era.

Yet, they would never dream of readjusting the more recent thermometer record, which clearly has localized urban heat island effects that have not yet been removed (e.g., see here and here). As Dick Lindzen of MIT has pointed out, it is highly improbable that every adjustment the climate revisionists ever make to the data should always just happen to be in the direction of agreeing with the climate models.

Of course, global warming has indeed occurred…just as global cooling has occurred before, too. While the global warming ‘alarmists’ claim we ‘skeptics’ have our heads stuck in the sand about the coming climate catastrophe, they don’t realize their heads are stuck in the sand about natural climate variability. Their repeated referrals to skeptic’s beliefs as “denying global warming” is evidence of either their dishonesty, or their stupidity.

The climate modelers’ predictions of the coming global warming Armageddon is of a theoretical event in the distant future, created by mathematical climate models, and promoted by scientists and politicians who have nothing to lose since it will be decades before they are proved wrong. They profess the utmost confidence in these theoretical predictions, yet close their eyes and ears to the natural rhythms exhibited by nature, both in the living and non-living realms, in the present, and in the previously recorded past.

They readily admit that cycles exist in weather, but can not (or will not) entertain the possibility that cycles might occur in climate, too. Every change the natural cycle deniers see in nature is inevitably traced to some evil deed done by humans. They predictably prognosticate such things as, “If this trend continues, the Earth will be in serious trouble”. To them behavior of nature is simple, static, always in-balance – if not sacred…in a quasi-scientific sort of way, of course.

They can not conceive of nature changing all by itself, even though evidence of that change is all around us. Like the more activist environmentalists, their romantic view of a peaceful, serene natural world ignores the stark reality that most animals on the Earth are perpetually locked in a life-or-death struggle for existence. The balances that form in nature are not harmonious, but unsteady and contentious stalemates — like the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, humans are doing just what the other animals are doing: modifying and consuming their surroundings in order to thrive. The deniers curiously assert that all other forms of life on the planet have the ‘right’ to do this – except humans.

And when the natural cycle deniers demand changes in energy policy, most of them never imagine that they might personally be inconvenienced by those policies. Like Al Gore, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Leonardo DiCaprio, they scornfully look down upon the rest of humanity for using up the natural resources that they want for themselves.

And the few who freely choose to live such a life then want to deny others the freedom to choose, by either regulating or legislating everyone else’s behavior to conform to their own behavior.

The natural climate cycle deniers’ supposedly impartial science is funded by government research dollars that would mostly dry up if the fears of manmade global warming were to evaporate. With contempt they point at the few million dollars that Exxon-Mobil spent years ago to support a few scientists who maintained a healthy skepticism about the science, while the scientific establishment continues to spent tens of billions of your tax dollars.

So, who has the vested financial interest here?

Even the IPCC in its latest (2007) report admits that most of the warming in the last 50 years might be natural in origin — although they consider it very unlikely, with (in their minds) less than 10% probability. So, where is the 10% of the global warming research budget to study that possibility? It doesn’t exist, because — as a few politicians like to remind us — “the science is settled”.

The natural climate cycle deniers claim to own the moral high ground, because they are saving future generations from the ravages of (theoretical) anthropogenic climate change. A couple of them have called for trials and even executions of scientists who happen to remain skeptical of humanity being guilty of causing climate change.

Yet the energy policies they advocate are killing living, breathing poor people around the world, today. Those who are barely surviving in poverty are being pushed over the edge by rising corn prices (because of ethanol production), and decimated economies from increasing regulation and taxation of carbon based fuels in countries governed by self-righteous elites.

But the tide is turning. As the climate system stubbornly refuses to warm as much as 95% of the climate models say it should be warming, the public is turning skeptical as well. Only time will tell whether our future is one of warming, or of cooling. But if the following average of 18 proxies for global temperatures over the last 2,000 years is any indication, it is unlikely that global temperatures will remain constant for very long.

The above graph [at original post] shows an average of 18 non-tree ring proxies of temperature from 12 locations around the Northern Hemisphere, published by Craig Loehle in 2007, and later revised in 2008, clearly showing that natural climate variability happens with features that coincide with known events in human history.

As Australian geologist Bob Carter has been emphasizing, we shouldn’t be worrying about manmade climate change. We should instead fear that which we know occurs: natural climate change. Unfortunately, it is the natural climate cycle deniers who are now in control of the money, the advertising, the news reporting, and the politicians.