Vocal Minority

Liberal Media Bias: MRC's Notable Quotables of 2009 Are Here!

They gushed like lovestruck schoolgirls over an unaccomplished, incompetent, and immature new president.

They downplayed said president’s motley crew of tax-cheating White House appointments and communism-endorsing czars.

They perpetuated his flawed conception of the United States as—that is, until he fixes it—an arrogant, racist, imperialist, wealth-stealing, pollution-spewing, Islam-oppressing, terrorist-torturing, saber-rattling threat to world security.

They covered his every trip abroad as if a rock star’s world tour.

They bolstered the administration’s image by unquestioningly parroting their excuses for their failed, disastrous policies.

They dutifully cheerled for every piece of legislation coming out of the Democrat White House and Congress, expressing virtually no concern their constitutionality, legality, or popularity with the American people.

They explained away opposition to said legislation by Republicans and the general public as bitter partisanship, talk-radio-fomented anger, militia-initiated anti-government hatred, and good ol’ fashioned American racism.

They treated Tea Parties and town halls as disturbing uprisings of perpetually angry, white supremicist, gun-toting militia types merely having a temper tantrum after losing an election to a black man.

With blatant disregard for fact-checking, source verification, journalistic professionalism and objectivity, they painted Sarah Palin as an intolerant, extremist, moronic country bumpkin.

With blatant disregard for fact-checking, source verification, journalistic professionalism and objectivity, they painted Rush Limbaugh as a woman-hating, violence-inciting racist.

They fixated on the scandals or indiscretions of conservative/Republican politician no matter how miniscule.

They downplayed the scandals or indiscretions of liberal/Democrat politician no matter how enormous.

They treated the infrequent crimes of conservatives/Christians as an indication of some dangerous pattern inherent in conservativism/Christianity.

They minimized the recurrent crimes of radical Islamists by warning us against the temptation of treating them as an indication of some dangerous pattern inherent in radical Islam.

They covered the deaths of famous conservatives/Republicans in a “Ding-dong the Wicked Witch is dead” sort of way.

They covered the deaths of famous liberals/Democrats in a “The heavens are weeping for this devastating loss to mankind” sort of way.

They helped perpetuate the man-made global warming climate change hoax by ignoring, dismissing, or criticizing opposing scientists and their data.

They helped perpetuate said hoax by ignoring or downplaying the leaked emails revealing the deliberate manipulation and deletion of inconvenient data.

Who are they? They are ABCNBCCBSCNNMSNBCPBSNPR, a.k.a. the mainstream media.

The year 2009 was sure busy for these protectors of Truth. For that reason, I am thankful to the Media Research Center and their 48 judges for selecting the most outrageous media quotes of 2009. Below are my personal favorites from this 18-page compilation. As was the case last year, my favorites don’t include statements made by commentators like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Joy Behar, and Rachel Maddow. As revolting as their statements are, I feel MRC does a slight disservice by conflating opinion-makers with news anchors or reporters. There are ample examples of pervasive left-wing bias offered this year by the Katie Courics, Bob Schieffers, Jack Caffertys, and Andrea Mitchells of the media world.

The Coronation of the Messiah Award for Fawning Inaugural Coverage

“What a day it was. It may take days or years to really absorb the significance of what happened to America today....When he [Barack Obama] finally emerged, he seemed, even in this throng, so solitary, somber, perhaps already feeling the weight of the world, even before he was transformed into the leader of the free world....The mass flickering of cell phone cameras on the Mall seemed like stars shining back at him.”
— NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on the January 20 Nightly News.

Master of His Domain Award for Obama Puffery

“The legislative achievements have been stupendous — the $789 billion stimulus bill, the budget plan that is still being hammered out (and may, ultimately, include the next landmark safety-net program, universal health insurance). There has also been a cascade of new policies to address the financial crisis — massive interventions in the housing and credit markets, a market-based plan to buy the toxic assets that many banks have on their books, a plan to bail out the auto industry and a strict new regulatory regime proposed for Wall Street. Obama has also completely overhauled foreign policy, from Cuba to Afghanistan. ‘In a way, Obama’s 100 days is even more dramatic than Roosevelt’s,’ says Elaine Kamarck of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. ‘Roosevelt only had to deal with a domestic crisis. Obama has had to overhaul foreign policy as well, including two wars. And that’s really the secret of why this has seemed so spectacular.’”
— Time’s Joe Klein in the magazine’s May 4 cover story on Barack Obama’s first 100 days as President.

“It didn’t take long for Barack Obama — for all his youth and inexperience — to get acclimated to his new role as the calming leader of a country in crisis....Rookie jitters? Far from it....For the past three months, Obama has spoken in firm, yet soothing tones. Sometimes he has used a just-folks approach to identify with economically struggling citizens. He has displayed wonkish tendencies, too, appearing much like the college instructor he once was while discussing the intricacies of the economic collapse. He has engaged in witty banter, teasing lawmakers, staffers, journalists and citizens alike. He has struck a statesmanlike stance, calling for a renewed partnership between the United States and its allies....”
— AP Washington correspondent Liz Sidoti in an April 25 dispatch, “Obama quickly, confidently adapts to presidency.”

The Crush Rush Award for Loathing Limbaugh

“Limbaugh’s perceived racist diatribes are too many to name but here’s a sampling: He once declared that [words on screen] ‘Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark,’ said Limbaugh.”
— CNN’s Rick Sanchez promoting a made-up quote on the 3pm ET hour of Newsroom, October 12.

Damn Those Conservatives Award

Host Dylan Ratigan: “Some Republicans and conservatives celebrating Obama’s failed attempt to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. Down with Chicago! Contessa Brewer has the latest.”
News anchor Contessa Brewer: “Can you imagine this, that some people actually went as far as to cheer?”
Ratigan: “Sure. I mean, there are people that are actually trying to derail health care in order to take down Obama, even if it means half the country dies.”

— Exchange on MSNBC’s 9am ET Morning Meeting, October 5.

The Poison Tea Pot Award for Smearing the Anti-Obama Rabble

“You know, … this is a party for Obama bashers. I have to say that this is not entirely representative of everybody in America....It’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network, Fox. And since I can’t really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing, I’ll toss it back to you.”
— Correspondent Susan Roesgen during live coverage of the tea party protests, CNN Newsroom, April 15.

“They’ve waved signs likening President Obama to Hitler and the devil; raised questions about whether he was really born in this country; falsely accused him of planning to set up death panels; decried his speech to students as indoctrination; and called him everything from a ‘fascist’ to a ‘socialist’ to a ‘communist.’ ...And all that was before Mr. Obama’s speech was interrupted by a representative who once fought to keep the Confederate flag waving over the South Carolina state house. Add it all up, and some prominent Obama supporters are now saying that it paints a picture of an opposition driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President.”
— ABC’s Dan Harris on World News, September 15.

Spread the Wealth Award for Socialist Sermonizing

“Why not just nationalize the banks?...People are angry. There’s so much taxpayer money going into the banks. Why shouldn’t the government — why shouldn’t you just fire the executives who wrecked these banks in the first place and tanked the world’s financial system in the process?”
— ABC’s Terry Moran interviewing President Obama for Nightline, February 10.

“In Britain, a government takeover of a bank last year helped to temporarily calm fears in the financial markets there. Nationalization may have a psychological impact as well, and Uncle Sam wrapping his arms around failing banks in this country might provide a big dose of confidence for the American consumer.”
— Katie Couric on the February 19 CBS Evening News, talking about the Obama administration possibly taking over American banks.

Long Live Camelot Award for Lionizing Ted Kennedy

“Mary Jo wasn’t a right-wing talking point or a negative campaign slogan....We don’t know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she’d have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history....[One wonders what] Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted’s death, and what she’d have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded. Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.”
— Discover magazine deputy web editor Melissa Lafsky, who formerly worked on the New York Times’s Freakonomics blog, writing at the Huffington Post, August 27.

“America mourns the lion of the Senate....There is, of course, no royal family in this country. The Kennedys, perhaps, the closest we’ve ever had....For nearly half a century in the Senate, Ted Kennedy spoke for people who had no voice — the poor and the disabled, children and the elderly.”
— Anchor Katie Couric kicking off the August 26 CBS Evening News.

The Half-Baked Alaska Award for Pummeling Palin

CNN’s Jack Cafferty: “Here’s the question: ‘Would you rather listen to a speech by Sarah Palin or a speech by Newt Gingrich?’ Go to CNN — or would you rather just stick needles in your eyes? [Over loud laughter off-camera from a man other than Cafferty, presumably Blitzer] Go to CNN.com/CaffertyFile and you can post a comment on my blog. I forgot about the third option.”
Anchor Wolf Blitzer: “What do you think, Jack? You want to listen to Palin or Gingrich deliver a speech?”
Cafferty: “I’m not interested in listening to either one of them.”

— Exchange on CNN’s The Situation Room, June 9, talking about Palin and Gingrich’s appearance at a Republican fundraiser the previous evening.

“She’s been an astronaut and a rock star. Pop icons Beyonce and Shakira. She’s won American Idol too. She’s even run for President twice. [Over footage of Sarah Palin] Some would argue she also ran for Vice President in 2008.”
— ABC’s David Wright in a retrospective marking the 50th anniversary of Barbie for Nightline, February 16.

“She’s a joke. I mean, I just can’t take her seriously....The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it’ll never happen. Republican primary voters just are not going to elect a talk show host.”
— New York Times columnist David Brooks talking about Sarah Palin on ABC’s This Week, November 15.

The Un-Fairness Doctrine Award for Slamming Media Conservatives

“Let me be precise here: Fox News peddles a fair amount of hateful crap. Some of it borders on sedition. Much of it is flat out untrue. But I don’t understand why the White House would give such poisonous helium balloons as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity the opportunity for still greater spasms of selfinflation by declaring war on Fox....The best antidote to their garbage is elegant, intelligent governance.”
— Time’s Joe Klein on the magazine’s “Swampland” blog, October 23.

“[Robert] Novak titled his 2007 memoir, The Prince of Darkness, and he was indeed a very dark force in cable TV news contributing mightily to the toxic culture of confrontation, belligerence and polarization that so defines cable TV and American political discourse today. There is no way to be nice about his impact on cable TV during its formative years....I am talking about Novak’s sneering TV persona and the role it played in reaching back to the dark political style of the 1950s Richard Nixon — and leading us to the polarized, angry space that cable TV and the conversation of American politics now inhabits.”
— Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik August 18 on his “Z on TV” blog, two hours after news broke of Novak’s passing.

“Was there a tone in this country that was actually started with the election of our first black president that is bringing the crazies out of the woodwork, and are they being motivated to move by right-wing pronouncements, like he’s dangerous, he’s a socialist, he’s a Muslim, and he isn’t even a U.S. citizen? This is what we hear on some TV and radio outlets, which, by the way, according to our Constitution, they are entitled to what they believe and even propagate.”
— CNN Newsroom anchor Rick Sanchez setting up a segment suggesting “hateful talk” can be blamed for the Holocaust museum shooting, June 11.

Let Us Fluff Your Pillow Award for Obsequious Obama Interviews

“You’re so confident, Mr. President, and so focused. Is your confidence ever shaken? Do you ever wake up and say, ‘Damn, this is hard. Damn, I’m not going to get the things done I want to get done, and it’s just too politicized to really get accomplished the big things I want to accomplish’?”
— CBS’s Katie Couric in an exchange with Obama shown on The Early Show, July 22.

“It seems to me that there is a sort of meanness that’s settled over our political dialogue. It started this summer at these town hall meetings....President Carter is now saying that he thinks it’s racial. Nancy Pelosi says it could be dangerous. What do you think it’s all about?”
— CBS’s Bob Schieffer to President Obama on Face the Nation, September 20.

“House Speaker Pelosi worried about the opposition, the tone of it, perhaps leading to violence as it did in the ’70s. There’s more recent examples of anti-government violence — occurring even in the mid-’90s. Do you worry about that?”
— David Gregory to Obama on NBC’s Meet the Press, September 20.

Barry’s Big Brain Award for Journalists Bedazzled by Obama’s Brilliance

“I like to say that, in some ways, Barack Obama is the first President since George Washington to be taking a step down into the Oval Office. I mean, from visionary leader of a giant movement, now he’s got an executive position that he has to perform in, in a way.”
— ABC Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran to Media Bistro’s Steve Krakauer in a February 20 “Morning Media Menu” podcast.

The Audacity of Dopes Award for Wackiest Analysis of the Year

“We have an FBI, and we’re not prejudiced against somebody who’s worked at the FBI. It’s an honorable place to work. And the KGB, I think, was an honorable place to work. It gave people in the former Soviet Union, a communist country, an opportunity to do something important and worthwhile.”
— CNN founder Ted Turner on Meet the Press, November 30, 2008.

“Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.”
— New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in a September 9 column, “Our One Party Democracy.”

The Obamagasm Award for Seeing Coolness In Everything Obama Does

Correspondent John Harwood: “He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him....He swatted his hand and he said, ‘I got the sucker.’ He threw it onto the ground. It was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment.”...
MSNBC anchor David Shuster: “Amazing...An amazing interview....It never fails — great weather, rainbows, incredible speeches, and three-point basket. A fly and he nails it. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.”

— Exchange on MSNBC after Harwood’s CNBC interview with President Obama concluded, June 16.

“Between workouts during his Hawaii vacation this week, he was photographed looking like the paradigm of a new kind of presidential fitness, one geared less toward preventing heart attacks than winning swimsuit competitions. The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.”
— Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow in a December 25, 2008 front-page story about Obama’s vacation fitness regimen.

Michelle, the Media Belle Award

Correspondent Dawna Friesen: “Her husband is, of course, the big star of the show, but this is Michelle Obama’s first foray on to the global stage as First Lady. And you can bet that her every move, her every fashion decision will be dissected and analyzed, especially when the couple go to meet the Queen. But she’s got a lot of good will on her side. … Ask the British about Michelle Obama, and you’ll hear a lot of what you hear in the States.”
Woman on the street: “Oh, I think she’s really cool. She’s got a lot of really good styles. It makes a change from politicians’ wives to look good.”
Man on the street: “She looks supportive and that’s what a man needs in life.”
Second man: “I have been totally stunned at the awesome nature of Michelle Obama.”...
Friesen: “Then there’s those arms, the envy of a lot of British women....”
— NBC’s Today, March 31.

“In 1961, when Jacqueline Kennedy came to Europe, she enchanted even the crustiest of world leaders, and she’s remained a tough act to follow for every First Lady since. But Michelle Obama looks more than equal to the task of impressing and delighting even the grandest of them....To be honest, most Europeans were going to like whoever replaced President Bush. But there’s no doubt Michelle and her husband have an extra je ne sais quoi.”
— CBS’s Elizabeth Palmer on The Early Show, March 31.

Media Hero Award

“I’m honored to be joined today by the Godfather of Green, the King of Conservation: Former Vice President Al Gore.”
— Katie Couric opening her November 2 “@KatieCouric” CBSNews.com webcast.

“The Thinking Man’s Thinking Man: Al Gore’s New Plan for the Planet.”
— Cover of the November 9 Newsweek.

“This woman has a life story that you couldn’t make up! I mean, you know, she’s born in the public projects, in the shadow of Yankee Stadium, a single-parent household, she goes to a Catholic school, she gets scholarships to the best schools in the country, Princeton and Yale, she overcomes all that while dealing with diabetes all her life, and she is Hispanic....This was the political advisor’s dream candidate.”
— CBS’s Bob Schieffer during live coverage of Obama’s selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, May 26.

Not enough for you? Then visit my post on MRC's 2008 Notable Quotables here.

Ten People/Things from 2009 That Need to Fade Away

On this glorious brisk Christmas morning, Loud Lion so graciously pounded this installment of the (quasi-)Weekly Roar. (He kind of had to; we’re at the sitting at the same table right across from each other.)

What I want this Holiday Season

‘Tis the season to make lists, lists of the best, lists of the worst, lists of lists.

Speaking of which, I happen to be reading my local newspaper, the New York Daily News, and they had a list of the years worst parents, and in this list was the liberals’ newest and favorite punching bag, Sarah Palin.

Now, how did Sarah Palin get this wonderful distinction along side such upstanding parental units like, “Balloon Dad”, “OctoMom” and John & Kate? Well, it seems in an interview Levi Johnston said he “overheard” Sarah Palin call her Downs Syndrome child Trig, her retarded baby. Firstly, anyone who has watches Sarah Palin with her children, or read her book could tell that this is absurd. Anyone with a sense of a brain can tell that Levi Johnston is a publicity hound, looking for an extension of his 15 minutes of fame.

Well, my list of the year is people who need to fade away. So, congrats Mr. Johnston, you like your child’s grandmother, are on a List for 2009.

Second on my list, and number one in my heart is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. What can we say that can convey my utter contempt for a woman who is so willing to strip citizens of their freedom that she is willing to throw the nation under the bus?

Third, because they go hand in hand, is Senator Harry Reid. A nation that loudly screams that they do not want government control health care, yet he pushes it through anyway.

Fourth would be President Obama. When over 40% of people polled say they would rather have President George W. Bush back as president over President Obama, well, you know that I am not the only one who has Barry on their list.

Fifth, is the not-so-distinguished Senator from Minnesota. The rules of the Senate are that you have 10 minutes to speak, and that you are allowed additional time if asked for and granted by the President of the Senate. Well, Stuart Smalley was President Pro Tem one day while Senator Lieberman was speaking on the floor. His 10 minutes were up, and Stuart informed him of this, and as right, Senator Lieberman asked for additional time to finish up. Stewie refused him.

In the history of the United States a Senator has never been refused extra time to finish … NEVER.

Sixth would be television personalities of MSNBC. I could list them and make them #6 through #10 and list plenty of reasons why they need to go away. But you know what? Why give them the satisfaction of listing the reasons and continuing to talk about them? So, just like their ratings show, we will just ignore them.

Seventh would be John and Kate, just because they are on every bad thing of 2009 list.

Eighth is Albert Gore, Jr. His refusal to admit that maybe Global Warming might not be what he has been screaming about shows his limited vision of the world we all live in. Admitting that pushing the Global Warming and carbon offest is beneficial to his bottom line would go far in peoples view on Fat Albert and his pushing a radical view.

Ninth, is the Yankees … cause everyone except Yankee fans hates the Yankees.

Tenth is 2009, because we could list many, many, many reasons why 2009 sucked.

Here is to the end of 2009 and the bright hopeful future of 2010. May you and your family experience all the joy and prosperity needed to weather the upcoming liberal storms.

Why I Left Liberalism #19 - They Create America's Problems: Detroit ('Nuf Said)

Back in October I wrote a post about the Obama administration having thousands of poor (mostly black) Detroiters line up for what they thought was “Obama money,” to prevent them from becoming or staying homeless. In reality, officials were only handing out applications for the funding, which they ran out of! It was a scene right out of the former Soviet Union: People standing in line for several hours for a pair of government-issue galoshes, only to find when they finally made it to the front that they ran out of their size. (And these are the same people who are soon going to be in charge of your health care.)

For more about the city with the nation’s lowest graduation rate, as well as the highest crime and unemployment rate, see Steven Crowder’s latest PJTV video:

Points made my Crowder during the clip:

Detroit, as Crowder describes it, is the “poster boy for leftist policies at work.” Every single mayor since 1962 has been a liberal Democrat and Detroit has seen millions upon millions of funding for implementing every failed social and welfare policy in the Democrat playbook.

Detroit schools get $11,100 per student (national average: $9,600), yet a student here has a bigger chance of ending up in prison than graduating high school. The Detroit murder rate is 5 times the national average and 70% of murders go completely unsolved.

Coincidentally, Walter E. Williams has this piece out today on the criminally disastrous state of Detroit schools:

Black Education
Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Detroit’s (predominantly black) public schools are the worst in the nation and it takes some doing to be worse than Washington, D.C. Only 3 percent of Detroit’s fourth-graders scored proficient on the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, sometimes called “The Nation’s Report Card.” Twenty-eight percent scored basic and 69 percent below basic. “Below basic” is the NAEP category when students are unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level. It’s the same story for Detroit’s eighth-graders. Four percent scored proficient, 18 percent basic and 77 percent below basic.

Michael Casserly, executive director of the D.C.-based Council on Great City Schools, in an article appearing in Crain’s Detroit Business, (12/8/09) titled, “Detroit’s Public Schools Post Worst Scores on Record in National Assessment,” said, “There is no jurisdiction of any kind, at any level, at any time in the 30-year history of NAEP that has ever registered such low numbers.” The academic performance of black students in other large cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles is not much better than Detroit and Washington. [All run by liberal Democrats for decades, by the way. Coincidence? – ETR]

What’s to be done about this tragic state of black education? The education establishment and politicians tell us that we need to spend more for higher teacher pay and smaller class size. The fact of business is higher teacher salaries and smaller class sizes mean little or nothing in terms of academic achievement. Washington, D.C., for example spends over $15,000 per student, has class sizes smaller than the nation’s average, and with an average annual salary of $61,195, its teachers are the most highly paid in the nation.

What about role models? Standard psychobabble asserts a positive relationship between the race of teachers and administrators and student performance. That’s nonsense. Black academic performance is the worst in the very cities where large percentages of teachers and administrators are black, and often the school superintendent is black, the mayor is black, most of the city council is black and very often the chief of police is black.

Black people have accepted hare-brained ideas that have made large percentages of black youngsters virtually useless in an increasingly technological economy. This destruction will continue until the day comes when black people are willing to turn their backs on liberals and the education establishment’s agenda and confront issues that are both embarrassing and uncomfortable. To a lesser extent, this also applies to whites because the educational performance of many white kids is nothing to write home about; it’s just not the disaster that black education is.

Many black students are alien and hostile to the education process. They have parents with little interest in their education. These students not only sabotage the education process, but make schools unsafe as well. These students should not be permitted to destroy the education chances of others. They should be removed or those students who want to learn should be provided with a mechanism to go to another school.

Another issue deemed too delicate to discuss is the overall quality of people teaching our children. Students who have chosen education as their major have the lowest SAT scores of any other major. Students who have an education degree earn lower scores than any other major on graduate school admission tests such as the GRE, MCAT or LSAT. Schools of education, either graduate or undergraduate, represent the academic slums of most any university. They are home to the least able students and professors. Schools of education should be shut down. …

How’s that hope & change workin’ out for ya?

Here’s some more fun facts about the Motor City: 

Unemployment is at 28%, nearly two and a half times the national rate. So what does Obama do? Make Michigan’s failed liberal Democrat governor Jennifer Granholm his economics advisor! It’s like the blind leading the blind. By the way, Obama, whom 57% of Michiganeh’s voted for, currently has a 44% approval rate. Granholm, who was elected in 2006 also with 57% of the vote, is down to a 29% approval rating.

How’s that hope & change workin’ out for ya?

The auto industry? We know how that’s going. Obama and his clueless politburo now run the company from Washington. And because the UAW hardly budged during negotiations, Government Motors is forced to pay workers an average of $74/hour in salary and benefits (compared to $26 in the private sector) and give seven (!) weeks of paid vacation each year. A UAW worker doesn’t ever get technically “fired,” but instead goes to a “job bank” where they don’t work but still get paid almost full salary. 

And people wonder why GM was collapsing. It’s still collapsing, but now it’s on our dime. But if Obama gets his way with all his policies, the entire country will look like Detroit.

How’s that hope & change workin’ out for ya?

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (12/22/09)

On the cult of personality that is President Golden Calf:

Commentary Magazine | December 21, 2009
A Political Earthquake
RICK RICHMAN

… In January, George W. Bush left office with a “Strongly Disapprove” rating of … 43 percent. It took Bush eight years to achieve that level of strong disapproval, despite how the mainstream media pummeled him for years. Obama has reached that level in 11 months, despite a media that for months could not use his name in a sentence without also adding “Lincoln” and “FDR.”

To appreciate the magnitude of Obama’s ratings fall, consider that after his first full day in office, his presidential index was positive 30. Today’s index of negative 17 reflects a swing of 47 points in less than a year.

A commenter at the Huffington Post today observes that Obama has “accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center.” The president has also unified the Republican party and created a tea-party movement that in some polls is more popular than both the Democratic and Republican parties. …

On government-run health (s)care:

American Spectator | December 21, 2009
Obama Doesn’t Care
By Andrew Cline

Obama’s damn-the-details, just-pass-anything approach has lost the support of the nation. Americans would rather Washington slow down and do health care reform right than pass some half-baked scheme.

But Obama doesn’t care. He insists on passing something—anything—before the 2010 elections, when he might lose the votes he needs to pass a plan that grants Washington enormous new powers and lays the groundwork for a single-payer system.

Republicans ought to be pointing out the dangers in rushing legislation into law. They can start with the story of last week’s spending bill. As Fox News has reported, the bill was supposed to allow Amtrak passengers to carry guns on the trains, as long as the guns were locked in a box. But that section was incorrectly worded. The law, which Obama signed last week, requires gun-carrying passengers to be locked in a box for the duration of their trip. (Yes, you read that right.)

There are 2,074 pages in Harry Reid’s health care bill. What surprises await? There’s no telling. The Democrats want to pass it within five days. Could you finish a 2,074 page bill, written by lawyers, in five days, and understand it? Can your senator?

This bill will entirely remake a sixth of the U.S. economy. It will, as Obama said last week, “touch the lives of nearly every American.” The consequences of getting it wrong are tremendous. And yet the president says, don’t worry about the details, just pass it. Comforting, isn’t it?

Pajamas Media | December 22, 2009
Arbitrary Power, Dictatorship, and Health Care
Is the essence of dictatorship — and its institutional foundations — now being built into federal law?
by John David Lewis

… Officials may gather whatever taxpayer information they decide is necessary. “The secretary shall collect such data as may be required to establish premiums and payment rates for the public health insurance option and for other purposes under this subtitle” (Sec. 321). Section 412 requires employers to submit “such information as the commissioner may require” to multiple federal agencies.

The bill institutionalizes such coercions by establishing over one hundred new commissioners, boards, committees, and programs, each with its own area of control. (For a list, see here.)

America is not a dictatorship. These bills are available for us to read, and we are able to discuss them openly, to agree or to disagree, and to speak and write about them in forums both public and private. But we will not be free to escape either the regulations which a faceless bureaucracy will write in order to enforce its edicts, or the decisions made by such bureaucrats over our lives.

If you are an employer, you will not escape punishment if a bureaucrat decides that your health plan is not “acceptable” and that you must be fined for your failure to meet his decision. If you are an individual who does not want to purchase full-coverage health insurance, but would rather buy catastrophic insurance that covers hospitalization only, your decision will not be “acceptable” and you may face a government audit and a new tax.

Do you have a serious disease? Does your doctor wish to readmit you to the hospital? A bureaucrat will decide whether or not you get treatment, based on a statistical analysis of the number of such readmissions by the bureaucrats: “excess readmissions shall not include readmissions for an applicable condition for which there are fewer than a minimum number (as determined by the secretary) of discharges for such applicable condition for the applicable period and such hospital” (Sec. 1151).

The scope of power here extends to the very definitions of terms within the law. This leaves the meaning of the law fluid and subject to the will of the bureaucrats. Section 1151 continues: “The term ‘applicable condition’ means, subject to subparagraph (B), a condition or procedure selected by the secretary among conditions and procedures for which (i) readmissions (as defined in subparagraph (E)) that represent conditions or procedures that are high volume or high expenditures under this title (or other criteria specified by the secretary).” …

On “post-racial” America:

American Thinker | December 21, 2009
Libs Scold Black Conservatives
By Lloyd Marcus

While in the supermarket checkout line, I saw Rev. Al Sharpton, the poster child of the “America Sucks for Blacks” campaign, on the cover of Ebony magazine. Gag me.

I searched the internet. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have never been featured on the cover of Ebony. Think about that. Before the election of Obama, the two most powerful blacks in America (Rice was the also most powerful woman in the world) have never graced the cover of black America’s most prestigious magazine. Why? Because most black media outlets wish to keep the “blacks need liberals to achieve” thing alive. Rice and Thomas achieved their phenomenal success the old-fashioned way: They earned it.

Sharpton on the cover of Ebony magazine is typical of liberal black media’s betrayal. They have been feeding their people spin and untruths for years, all of which is designed to keep blacks on the government dependency plantation and voting for Democrats.

Imagine how empowering it would be for blacks if Ebony featured a self-made black conservative on its cover. When I say “self-made”, I do not mean without any assistance. No man is an island, and all who succeed had help along the way. I am talking about achieving through education, hard work, and doing the right things—as opposed to the demeaning liberal path to success, which is lowered standards, playing the victim card, and affirmative action.

Frustratingly, entrenched false paradigms are difficult to break. The Republican party was founded partly to end slavery. Historically and today, Republicans have proven themselves to be far greater friends to blacks than the democrats. And yet most blacks believe that Republicans are racists. Despite numerous mega-rich blacks and America electing a black president, most blacks mindlessly embrace the liberal lie that America has not changed much since the 1950s. Compassionately, I want to grab black America by the collar and slap it while yelling, “Wake up...snap out of it!” …

On political correctness and speech suppression:

Human Events | December 22, 2009
Politically Correct in ‘09
by Ted Nugent

Of the many self-inflicted problems that face our country, none is as dangerous to the survival of our nation as the curse of political correctness.

Political correctness is a cancer that many Americans, government institutions, businesses and even many individual citizens have willfully embraced and now serve as hosts who intentionally spread this horrible disease.

Let me be clear: political correctness is a form of cowardice that leads to brain damage. It concerns itself with feeling good instead of thinking clearly and actually doing good. It masks the truth because the truth is too uncomfortable for the intellectually and spiritually weak in our society. To others, political correctness serves as a useful smokescreen. Political correctness is ultimately about stepping on the throat of common sense and strangling the life out of it. Logic be damned. …

Until America returns to a policy of bold, unabashed truth, logic, honesty and common sense, the rest of our financial and social problems will continue to escalate. It is impossible to truly fix a problem by “feeling good” about fixing it. Only idiots go hunting with a “feel good” arrow in their quiver. I hunt with razor sharp arrows and I actually kill animals and then I eat them. If you have a problem with that you are stoned on weird and hopelessly addicted to denial.

On … I don’t know what:

Big Government | December 22, 2009
Obama: A Republican Plant?
by Bob Parks

Many of us had no idea the Republican Party had it in them, but to devise and implement such a plan was ingenious. Think about it; party leadership acting totally inept while a charismatic young Democrat presidential candidate captures the imagination of the normally lethargic youth vote, captures the senior vote, women, and even sends a thrill up the leg of the media.

And within a few short months after attaining the presidency, he conducts himself in a manner (personally and in office) that had not only invigorated his political opponents, but has them so energized they take to the streets and even march on The Capitol (more than once). One would have to conclude Barack Hussein Obama is either the most politically clueless president ever, or… is really a stealth Republican destroying the Democrat Party from within.

Is Barack Obama a Republican plant? …

Barack Obama is no accidental gift to the Republican Party. While he bows to every foreign leader possible, he’s really taking a bow for the GOP that secretly installed him as president to do what no Republican could ever get away with. Republicans owe a sincere debt to Mr. Obama who sacrificed many years of his life to prepare for the total (and willing) destruction of the Democrat Party.

And the best is yet to come.

Damn!

Liberal Fascism: Supermajority Will Be Required to Amend Death Panel Regulations

If this disgrace called a government-run health (s)care bill is so wonderful and necessary, why do Harry Reid and the Democrats need to violate multiple sections of the U.S. Constitution; hold closed-door meetings prohibiting Congressional Republicans, the media, and the American people, from knowing what’s going on; and violate over 200 years of several precedents in order to pass it?

Because when you’re a fascist liberal/Democrat, nothing gets in your way of amassing the power you crave.

All that needs to be said is explained by Erick Erickson at RedState:

We Are No Longer a Nation of Laws. Senate Sets Up Requirement for Super-Majority to Ever Repeal Obamacare
The Senate Democrats declare a super-majority of senators will be needed to overrule any regulation imposed by the Death Panels
Posted by Erick Erickson
Monday, December 21st at 10:15PM EST

If ever the people of the United States rise up and fight over passage of Obamacare, Harry Reid must be remembered as the man who sacrificed the dignity of his office for a few pieces of silver. The rules of fair play that have kept the basic integrity of the Republic alive have died with Harry Reid. Reid has slipped in a provision into the health care legislation prohibiting future Congresses from changing any regulations imposed on Americans by the Independent Medicare [note: originally referred to as “medical”] Advisory Boards, which are commonly called the “Death Panels.”

It was Reid leading the Democrats who ignored 200 years of Senate precedents to rule that Senator Sanders could withdraw his amendment while it was being read.

It was Reid leading the Democrats who has determined again and again over the past few days that hundreds of years of accumulated Senate parliamentary rulings have no bearing on the health care vote.

On December 21, 2009, however, Harry Reid sold out the Republic in toto.

Upon examination of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment to the health care legislation, Senators discovered section 3403. That section changes the rules of the United States Senate.

To change the rules of the United States Senate, there must be sixty-seven votes.

Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment requires that “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” The good news is that this only applies to one section of the Obamacare legislation. The bad news is that it applies to regulations imposed on doctors and patients by the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards a/k/a the Death Panels.

Section 3403 of Senator Reid’s legislation also states, “Notwithstanding rule XV of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a committee amendment described in subparagraph (A) may include matter not within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Finance if that matter is relevant to a proposal contained in the bill submitted under subsection (c)(3).” In short, it sets up a rule to ignore another Senate rule.

Senator Jim DeMint confronted the Democrats over Reid’s language. In the past, the Senate Parliamentarian has repeatedly determined that any legislation that also changes the internal standing rules of the Senate must have a two-thirds vote to pass because to change Senate rules, a two-thirds vote is required. Today, the Senate President, acting on the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian, ruled that these rules changes are actually just procedural changes and, despite what the actual words of the legislation say, are not rules changes. Therefore, a two-thirds vote is not needed in contravention to longstanding Senate precedent.

How is that constitutional? It is just like the filibuster. Only 51 votes are needed to pass the amendments, but internally, the Senate is deciding that it will not consider certain business. The Supreme Court is quite clear that it won’t meddle with the internal operations of the House and Senate. To get around the prohibition on considering amendments to that particular subsection of the health care legislation, the Senate must get two-thirds of the Senate to agree to waive the rule. In other words, it will take a super-majority of the people the citizens of our Republican elected to overrule a regulation imposed by a group of faceless bureaucrats and bean counters. ...

Jeez. And these liberal fascists used to say it was the Bush administration that was shredding the Constitution? It was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who were fascists?You’ve got to be kidding me.

Let me tell my liberal/Democrat friends who loooove this government-run health (s)care idea something:

When your government sentences you to death because some nameless faceless bureaucrat in Washington D.C. decides you’re not worth saving, don’t you dare complain.

When you are dying of an illness that you could have survived were your doctor not hogtied by an unaccountable bureaucracy deciding what tests s/he can do and at what age, don’t you dare complain.

When your children (and if you survive that long, your grandchildren) are working their asses off just to cover the thousands of dollars in yearly health (s)care taxes or face prison, when they are unable to scrape up enough to pay their mortgage and other bills and when they are unable to put their children through college because the federal government is holding a regulatory gun to their heads … you better be able to look them straight in eye and tell them that you voted to cause all this to happen.

And when these things happen to me and my own children, I will be holding you personally responsible.

You voted for change?

You got it.

More here at the American Thinker.

Liberal Stupid-Ass Comment: Harry Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse Equate ObamaCare Opponents to Racists and Nazis

Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn’t quite right. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.

— Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), December 7, 2009

“Voting ‘no’ and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it. It was clear the three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”

— Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), December 21, 2009

Yup. This is how Democrats debate an issue: When your opponents disagree with you, call them racists and/or Nazis.

So in the mind of idiots like Harry Reid, those who filibuster (or threaten to do so) are akin to those who didn’t want slavery to end, women to vote, and minorities to have civil rights? Harry Reid, either himself ignorant of history or hoping the American people are, apparently doesn’t know that the persons who filibustered the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964 were Democrats. One of them—Robert Byrd (D-WV) sits in the Senate to this day! Who prevented slavery from being stopped? Democrats! By why let historical record get in the way of your selfish political agenda?

Reid also doesn’t know that the Senate is not supposed to move fast on legislation. James Madison conceived of it as an anchor, acting to slow government down. But Harry Reid probably never even heard of James Madison.

What about the filibuster of George W. Bush’s nomination of black female judge Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia? That was carried out by Democrats too. Guess those racist Democrat friends of Harry Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse just couldn’t stand having a black woman preside over a courtroom. And when Republican Bill Frist tried to stop Democrat filibustering on Bush’s judicial nominations, guess who was there to get on his smarmy little soapbox with his smarmy little voice? You guessed it:

Democrats are refusing to forgo filibusters and say they will fight any effort by Frist to act unilaterally to end them for judicial nominations. They warn that it could poison the well for bipartisan cooperation on other issues in the upcoming Congress.

“If they, for whatever reason, decide to do this, it's not only wrong, they will rue the day they did it, because we will do whatever we can do to strike back,” incoming Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said last week. “I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up.”

But the most disgusting thing about comparing slavery, civil rights, and women’s suffrage to this health (s)care bill is that they are in fact incomparable. As Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge explains on his blog:

[H]ealth care legislation is fundamentally different than slavery and civil rights. In the latter, we are dealing with negative rights. Health care—to the extent it is meaningful at all to talk about it in rights terms—is a positive right. Reid’s thus comparing apples and oranges. The crusades against slavery and for civil rights were about freedom. Obamacare is about mandates, expanded government, higher taxes, and larger deficits. “The men who wrote the Bill of Rights were not concerned that government might do too little for the people but that it might do too much to them.” Jackson v. City of Joliet, 715 F.2d 1200, 1203 (7th Cir. 1983) (Posner, C.J.). Me too. Sadly, it’s not a concern Senator Reid shares.

Finally, in 1919 nearly twice as many Senate Republicans (36) voted for women’s suffrage than did Democrats (20) and over twice as many Democrats (17) opposed it than Republicans (8). 

So Harry Reid is either a dimwit or a libeling mud-slinger.

Whitehouse’s libelous comment is just as bad. Does it ever occur to this power-hungry ideologue that Senate Republicans—and a vast majority of the American people—simply don’t want the federal government engaging in an unconstitutional, fascist, liberty-destroying, wealth-stealing, and life-threatening takeover of one sixth of the U.S. economy? I really don’t think it does.

Nope. In their sick liberal universe, all opponents of liberal Democrats are simply for drowning kittens and puppies, keeping women and minorities down, and having a temper tantrum that a black man is in the White House.

These are the mental midgets who will soon have your income and your very life in their unworthy hands.

A staunchly liberal friend denounced Michael Steele when he criticized President Hope&Change’s undeserved receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, calling Steele “shameful.” No. What Harry Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse said is shameful. Denounce this.

Liberal Fascism: Reid Buys All the Votes He Needs for Health (S)care Bill

After the liberty-killing, wealth-stealing health “care” bill passed in the House, people said it will die in the Senate. My thoughts were: I’ll believe it when I see it. And, unfortunately, I was right: In the wee hours of the morning, the Senate got closer to Doomsday. 

The Wall Street Journal editorialized Sunday:

Change Nobody Believes In
A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.

… The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that “reform” has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later.

***

• Health costs. From the outset, the White House’s core claim was that reform would reduce health costs for individuals and businesses, and they’re sticking to that story. “Anyone who says otherwise simply hasn’t read the bills,” Mr. Obama said over the weekend. This is so utterly disingenuous that we doubt the President really believes it.

The best and most rigorous cost analysis was recently released by the insurer WellPoint, which mined its actuarial data in various regional markets to model the Senate bill. WellPoint found that a healthy 25-year-old in Milwaukee buying coverage on the individual market will see his costs rise by 178%. A small business based in Richmond with eight employees in average health will see a 23% increase. Insurance costs for a 40-year-old family with two kids living in Indianapolis will pay 106% more. And on and on.

These increases are solely the result of ObamaCare—above and far beyond the status quo—because its strict restrictions on underwriting and risk-pooling would distort insurance markets. All but a handful of states have rejected regulations like “community rating” because they encourage younger and healthier buyers to wait until they need expensive care, increasing costs for everyone. Benefits and pricing will now be determined by politics.

As for the White House’s line about cutting costs by eliminating supposed “waste,” even Victor Fuchs, an eminent economist generally supportive of ObamaCare, warned last week that these political theories are overly simplistic. “The oft-heard promise ‘we will find out what works and what does not’ scarcely does justice to the complexity of medical practice,” the Stanford professor wrote.

• Steep declines in choice and quality. This is all of a piece with the hubris of an Administration that thinks it can substitute government planning for market forces in determining where the $33 trillion the U.S. will spend on medicine over the next decade should go.

This centralized system means above all fewer choices; what works for the political class must work for everyone. With formerly private insurers converted into public utilities, for instance, they’ll inevitably be banned from selling products like health savings accounts that encourage more cost-conscious decisions.

Unnoticed by the press corps, the Congressional Budget Office argued recently that the Senate bill would so “substantially reduce flexibility in terms of the types, prices, and number of private sellers of health insurance” that companies like WellPoint might need to “be considered part of the federal budget.” …

Read the rest here.

But the health (s)care bill was oh-so important and popular and uncontroversial, that it enjoyed bipartisan support, right? Of course not. Not a single Republican voted for it (Thank God for small favors) and a gaggle of Democrat Senators were so uncommitted that the loathsome Harry Reid had to buy them off (i.e., bribe them) — with our hard-earned tax dollars. President Hope&Change seemed unoffended by this; so much for ending business as usual in Washington:

Payoffs for states get Reid to 60
By: Chris Frates December 19, 2009 07:56 PM EST

Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” as the GOP is calling it, got all the attention Saturday, but other senators lined up for deals as Majority Leader Harry Reid corralled the last few votes for a health reform package.

Nelson’s might be the most blatant – a deal carved out for a single state, a permanent exemption from the state share of Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, meaning federal taxpayers have to kick in an additional $45 million in the first decade.

But another Democratic holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers, while denying it was a “sweetheart deal.” He was clearly more enthusiastic about a bill he said he couldn’t support just three days ago.

Nelson and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) carved out an exemption for non-profit insurers in their states from a hefty excise tax. Similar insurers in the other 48 states will pay the tax.

Vermont and Massachusetts were given additional Medicaid funding, another plus for Sanders and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Three states – Pennsylvania, New York and Florida – all won protections for their Medicare Advantage beneficiaries at a time when the program is facing cuts nationwide.

All of this came on top of a $300 million increase for Medicaid in Louisiana, designed to win the vote of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Under pressure from the White House to get a deal done by Christmas, Reid was unapologetic. He argued that, by definition, legislating means deal making and defended the special treatment for Nelson’s home state of Nebraska.

“You’ll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That’s what legislating is all about. It’s compromise," he said.

It was Nelson who proved that he who plays hardest to get, gets the most.

He forced Reid to redraft the bill’s restrictions on federal funding of abortion. And while most insiders were focused on that deal, Nelson was quietly ensuring that his state would never have to pay for the Medicaid expansion being written into the bill – an agreement that had been in the works for weeks. …

Here’s my favorite line from this Politico piece:

Republicans, meanwhile, expressed outrage at the wheeling and dealing, as if their party had never cut a legislative deal in its 150-year history.

Awww, what harm can a little editorializing in a news piece do? But the smarmy Frates misses the point: Sure Republicans have cut deals; that doesn’t make it right either to small-government conservatives like myself. And show me the last time Republicans paid off their buds with hundreds of millions of our dollars to push an unpopular bill through in the dead of night.

And now here come the unconstitutional amendments where these ignorant elitist fascists target capitalism and suppress the workings of the free market:

The amendment mandates that insurers spend no less than 80 percent of their premium revenues providing medical care. Currently, insurers spend about 70 percent of their premiums paying for health care. The bill also eliminates insurers’ ability to cap annual coverage amounts.

In brief remarks at the White House, President Barack Obama also highlighted some new provisions, including penalties for insurers who “arbitrarily jack up rates” and an immediate prohibition on insures’ ability to deny children coverage.

Obama, too, talked of the deals as just the cost of doing business in Washington.

“As with any legislation, compromise is part of the process,” Obama said. “But I’m pleased that recently added amendments have made this landmark bill even stronger.”

Obama, you’re an asshole, a lying, hypocritical, narcissistic asshole. Oh, sorry. Too mean-spirited? Too vitriolic? Tough. Go watch MSNBC or read the NY Times editorial pages. They’re just sooo civil and open-minded there.

Don’t ever let me hear a liberal/Democrat call conservatives/Republicans “fascist” again. This bill is fascism from beginning to end. It is liberal fascism. So much for the pro-abortion movement’s favorite slogan: Keep your hands off my body! This bill puts the federal government in charge of your body from top to bottom. And you fools think this is actually going to make health care better. Your nightmares are only just beginning.

Welcome to the future, suckers.

Time to Bring Out the "Nazi" Card?

[The latest contribution from guest blogger Loud Lion is an interesting and provocative one]

I know I have not written in a while, and while I want to, I really do, but the thing is, it’s all the same thing over and over again. The fears that some of us voiced during the presidential elections are coming true before our once great nation’s eyes.

The “socialist” label that we saw was being proudly worn by the Obama camp [Actually, during the campaign he strove to hide it and even mocked conservatives for trying to attach that label to him - ETR] is being placed on as many institutions as possible. The belief that the government is better at running private industry than someone whose goal is to make a profit is … well, socialistic. The feeling that a nameless governmental “death panel” will be able to determine over my parents’ doctors if they get that life-saving surgery or drug is actually Vulcan logical. [Interestingly, commentators on both sides of the aisle have compared President Golden Calf to the famous Star Trek character: e.g., here and here]

I am repeatedly drawn to the George Orwell book “Animal Farm” and the final phrase, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal then others.” The belief that this government is above it all, that only Obama can cure the worlds ills is beyond ludicrous, it is akin to the cult of personality of Nazi Germany. [On a related topic, see guest blogger benjaminTheDonkey's 5-part series on Obama and propaganda.]

Yes, I pulled out the Nazi card, and I stand by it. Look at the rise of Adolf Hitler (may his name be cursed for all time) and the rise of Barack Obama and you tell me that they are not similar. Look at the backing of both by insurance companies and press, and tell me the comparisons are not valid. And, the targeting of a group of people for no reason beyond they are a part of a people … Yes, I am saying that the comparison of Hitler’s original treatment of the Jews, gays, gypsies and Obama and Fox news, Tea Party members, and well, anyone willing to go against him (see the removal of Static Command HQ over Sen. Ben Nelson’s refusal to vote for Obama Care.)

 

It just makes me sick and, sadly, numb. Every day it is something new, yet still the same. Every day I learn of a new illegal, unconstitutional program coming from the wackadoodles in the White House or the Congress and I think, “Well, now people will realize the Emperor has no clothes. But, then I turn on the TV and I hear the exact opposite. I hear that we should pass a constitutional amendment forcing Obama Care through (good thing Chris Matthews is an idiot and has no idea that this would be impossible to passing Obama Care (ConLaw is not our goal today)).

Anyway, in this season of holidays—by the way, I am not the only Jew who loves the Christmas season, and has no problem calling it the Christmas season—let’s reflect on what we want out of our country, and how we can achieve it. Obama has been likened to John F. Kennedy, so lets use one of his greatest lines: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” and I am not talking about paying your taxes like Biden.

May you get everything you need this holiday season and a little of what you want.

Listen & Learn: Mark Levin Rallies the Troops - Us (12/15/09)

The greatest sports coaches no doubt have the most inspiring pep talks before an important tournament, the greatest military generals the most motivational speeches before sending his troops into battle.

This, my friends, is Mark Levin’s speech to us, the American people, as we prepare to take our country back from the tyrannical Left who now run Washington. It is passionate, it is heartfelt, and it is truthful. It is also—as a caller subsequently said it—a Reaganesque monologue that should be printed out and placed on every seat at the next RNC convention.

Bookmark this page, dear friends. Download it and send it to Americans just as concerned as you are about the direction Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are taking this country. Listen to this 10¾-minute pep talk again and again. 

The year 2010 must be the year we make comeback. I’ll be doing all I can to contribute, even traveling outside of my own state if need be. 

Who’s with me?

[Edited for commercials, long pauses, and other extraneous content]
 

 

Download levin2009-12-15_80kbps.mp3

Ways the Left Has Screwed Up My Country Today: Another $1.1 Trillion in Spending???

Notice how the Democrat Congress does its dirtiest work in the wee hours of the night or over the weekend - away from the attention of the pesky media and concerned citizens.

While half the country froze their tuchases off from all the global warming going on, the Senate passed a new spending bill 57-35. One thousand pages, $1.1 trillion dollars. Because indebting our children and grandchildren apparently isn't enough. Our great-grandchildren need to be born five-figures in the red as well.

"Out of control" doesn't even begin to describe this Congress.

Meanwhile, over the weekend a USA Today study was released showing that since the start of the recession (December 2007) the number of six-figure federal salaries jumped 46%.

Listen & Learn: El Rushbo on the Similarities Between AGW Hoax and ObamaCare (12/7/09)

Yesterday at the start of his show, Rush had a nice brief monologue about how any legislation stemming from the man-made global warming climate change hoax and ObamaCare are simply two manifestations of the same leftist strategy: they are both based on lies and cooked data, they unconstitutionally suppress individual liberty and expand the role, size, and power of government more than ever intended by the Founders, they will both undermine American prosperity and exceptionalism, they will both (possibly deliberately) bankrupt the nation, and more.

[Edited for long silences, commercial breaks, and extraneous talking]

(Download here)

11/5 Rally in D.C. - What's With All the Old White People?

We heard it from the left on 4/15, again on 9/12, and once again yesterday: All these tea parties and all the government-run health (s)care protests are just angry old white men showing their racism, racism, racism.

After all, what's with all the old white people?

Well, first off, if there were a lot of old people, it was most likely because (a) it was a Thursday and younger people work, (b) older people tend not to have young kids, who would have had school yesterday (unless you're from NJ like me, in which case your kid was probably off. It's a Jersey thing; you wouldn't understand), and (c) old people have the most at stake if ObamaCare / PelosiCare passes.

Why were they mostly white? Because blacks (a) make up 12-13% of the U.S. population, (b) Obama and the Congressional Democrats got over 90% of the black vote, and (c) not all blacks who are against government-run health (s)care were necessarily able to come to D.C. yesterday either because they lived too far away or because of all the reasons in the previous paragraph. 

But for those of you who couldn't help but notice all the old white people at yesterday's D.C. rally -- and you know who you are! -- these pictures are for you. A big thanks to Free Republic friends for allowing me to use their shots:

   

      

And in case these still shots don't satisfy you, refer to these video clips from the 9/12 D.C. Tea Party (here and here).

There. Happy now?

Now can all the Jeneane Garofalo's and everyone else on the left stop the smear that Tea Partiers and government-run health (s)care opponents are racists? Someone recently reminded me that spreading lies like that is called l'shon ha-ra "wicked tongue".

Quotes of Note

When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren’t they worried about the impact of what they’re doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse?

I think I know part of the answer. It is that they’ve never seen things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don’t have the habit of worry. They talk about their “concerns”—they’re big on that word. But they’re not really concerned. They think America is the goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps. She laid it in grandpa’s lap.

They don’t feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—”strongest nation in the world,” “indispensable nation,” “unipolar power,” “highest standard of living”—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.

We are governed at all levels by America’s luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they’re not optimists—they’re unimaginative. They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice.

— Peggy Noonan from her opinion piece “We’re Governed by Callous Children” in yesterday’s WSJ.

I love being a conservative. We conservatives are proud of our philosophy. Unlike our liberal friends, who are constantly looking for new words to conceal their true beliefs and are in a perpetual state of reinvention, we conservatives are unapologetic about our ideals. We are confident in our principles and energetic about openly advancing them. We believe in individual liberty, limited government, capitalism, the rule of law, faith, a color-blind society and national security. We support school choice, enterprise zones, tax cuts, welfare reform, faith-based initiatives, political speech, homeowner rights and the war on terrorism. And at our core we embrace and celebrate the most magnificent governing document ever ratified by any nation--the U.S. Constitution. Along with the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes our God-given natural right to be free, it is the foundation on which our government is built and has enabled us to flourish as a people.

This one also originates from the WSJ. It’s from an editorial El Rushbo wrote in October, 2005. Over the weekend, while stumping for Democrat Bill Owens in NY-23, Veep Biden declared, “I know what all these folks [= Republicans] are against. … But I don't know what they’re for.” In response, Rush pulled his piece out of the archives and read the above paragraph, which he assures is all Biden needs to know:

What makes this paragraph so brilliant is that it aptly defines not only what conservatives/Republicans are for, but also what liberals/Democrats are against.

Profiles in Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: Larry David [UPDATED 10/30]

Yesterday, true to fascist form, President Golden Calf signed into law a shameful speech-suppressing “Hate Crime” Bill. With the stroke of a pen, government apparatchiks elected and unelected can now decide according to their leftist politically-correct will that my life (a white heterosexual male) and the lives of my wife and two small children (also white) are not equal in the eyes of the law to that lives of, say, an ethnic minority or homosexual. It is a divisive identity-politics-obsessed leftist’s dream come true. Which is why Obama, his Democrat flunkies, and media sycophants, are all excited about it.

(But remember, it was Bush and company that was shredding the Constitution.)

What’s more, this civil-liberty-violating piece of legislation will no doubt allow government apparatchiks elected and unelected to decide according to their leftist politically-correct well whether what you say is punishable as a crime. Remember the Thought Police in Orwell’s 1984? Congratulations. In 2009 they came officially into being.

Of course, not all offensive speech or violence is going to fall under this bill, because, as I said, the list of real or perceived victims is short and finite. If you’re white, male, heterosexual, and/or Christian, forget being protected. By virtue of your mere existence, you are automatically a suspect, and not a victim.

Consider: The very day before the signing, HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” created by and starring Jewish uber-liberal Larry David, had a shameful and offensive scene. An entertainment website A.V. Club reviews the episode in question:

… there was the Jesus pee tear miracle, aka Larry David’s own personal Piss Christ. Is it believable that Larry pees like an out-of-control firehose on full blast because of some medicine he’s taking? Sure. Is it then believable that his errant urine would splash onto a picture of Jesus’ face that’s near the toilet in Maureen’s house? Sure, why not? Is it at all believable that Larry would see the pee tear of his own design on Jesus’ face and not wipe it off? Uh, no. No one would leave their host’s bathroom literally dripping with their own urine, if they could at all help it. But if Larry didn’t run out of Maureen’s house like spooked, neurotic deer, then Maureen and her mom never would have thought they’d witnessed a miracle—which was an important card in the unstable, unwieldy house of cards that lead up to Maureen’s rooftop lovehandle rescue. Still, Larry should have wiped it off. Anyone would have wiped it off.

But in the process of analyzing the “believability” of the episode, the commentator makes no judgment statement about the utter offensiveness of this. 

Can you imagine what the Anti-Defamation League (with whom I am normally in agreement, just for clarification) would do if a Christian comedian jokingly got pee on the Torah?

What if a comedian pissed (even accidentally) on a picture of Mohammed? Ask that Danish newspaper what the outcry would be.

You might be wondering why I, a Jew, am getting so worked up about the desecration of a picture of Jesus. It’s a matter of principle and common decency, that’s why. It’s also because if we expect the Christian community to rally behind us if a Jewish sacred item is desecrated, we should be expected to do the same. If we Kol Yisrael arevim zeh ba-zeh: We are all responsible for one another.

Over at Big Hollywood:

Larry David’s ‘Piss Christ’

An email received today:

“First let me state that I’ve been a fan of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” for many years and, even though Larry David is a liberal, I generally enjoy the writing and Larry’s antics. However, this time what I saw made me feel a little sick, extremely disappointed and a bit angry as well. I will never watch the show again as I have lost all respect and feelings of good will for Mr. David.

“Did you happen to see the episode to which I refer? Assuming you did not catch the episode, briefly stated: Larry pisses on the face of a painting of Jesus Christ, followed by mocking of Christians who believe the piss drop on the face of Jesus is a tear, thus they’ve witnessed a miracle. I wonder how many other viewers, Christian and non Christian, are similarly shocked and disgusted? Of course, the hypocrisy is that Mr. David would never exhibit such gross contempt for any other religion, especially Islam.

“Can you imagine the sh*t storm that would follow if David pissed on a painting of the prophet Muhammad? Of course, HBO, the complicit scum that they are, would not have allowed that to air.”

You see how the hypocritical, PC game is played?

Rush Limbaugh was fired years ago from ESPN for making a non-racist comment that was nevertheless deemed racist. Yet Larry David will not apologize, nor will he be expected to.

Just the other day ESPN commentator David Griese was made to apologize and was then suspended for joking that a Mexican NASCAR driver was out somewhere eating a taco. Yet Larry David will not apologize nor will he be expected to.

Currently, the father of a Connecticut 9/11 is battling his town. On a public memorial of his son they are refusing to inscribe the words “Murdered by Muslim Terrorists” for fear it could be offensive to Muslims. But I’m sure the suits at HBO had no problem allowing Larry David to splatter urine on a picture of Jesus on their T.V. channel, even though it could be offensive to Christians. (Indeed it is to many.)

I am informed Jerry Seinfeld appeared in this episode. Even though he had nothing to do with the urination scene, shame on him for being part of such an episode. And shame on that hateful and hypocritical Larry David. You make the rest of us Jews look bad.

UPDATE 10/30: Allahpundit at Hot Air has posted the scene in question from YouTube.

And the Anchoress ponders:

Forget Jewish, forget Muslim. If, let’s say, Kelsey Grammer had done precisely the same thing on his show, but using an image of, oh, let’s just say ferinstance, Barack Obama, do you think he’d still have a career?

Finally, Jamie Glazov at Front Page Mag’s Newsreal blog page opines:

Are producers of this show, or Larry David, or anyone else connected to it fearing for their lives right now? Are there Christian groups calling for the death of anyone in connection to this episode?

In comparison, let us say, to the Muhammad cartoons riots and death threats, what does this say about Islam and Christianity? Which faith is a Religion of Peace and which one is not?

Would the producers of this show have just as easily allowed a scene in which Larry David urinates on a Koran? He couldn’t urinate on a picture of Muhammad because we all know that making a representation of Muhammad gets you an immediate death sentence. So we have to settle for the Holy Book. But how much does anyone want to bet that this would never be allowed?

Question: Why in our culture is urinating on Jesus easily permitted but urinating on the Koran is simply unthinkable? What does this signify?

And why is it that the people who right now are rolling their eyes and saying that Christians should get a life because this is freedom of expression, the same ones who would be up in arms if Larry David had done the same thing to the Koran? They are the ones who blamed the artists of the Muhammad cartoons for provoking and upsetting Muslims. They are the ones who argue that, when it comes to the sensibilities of Muslims, free speech has limits. If Curb Your Enthusiasm had an episode in which Larry David urinated on a Koran, they would be on the front lines saying that this is Islamophobia and that we must be sensitive to the feelings of Muslims, etc. It would be deemed as hate speech. There would be lawsuits and the show would be cancelled and David’s career would be over.

HBO has come to the defense of the episode, saying that it is all about parody. Everyone needs to lighten up. So, if Larry David urinated on the Koran, would HBO tell everyone they need to lighten up because it is parody? What does it say that we know for a fact that the latter would simply never happen?

What meaning and lesson do we draw from this?

As discussed above, the lesson is simple: Some religious, racial, ethnic, and political groups can be ridiculed and offended with impunity; others cannot. The arbitrary rules are drawn up by a politically correct, purely result-oriented ilk who have apparently succeeded in imposing their twisted worldview onto the rest of us.

Listen & Learn: El Rushbo Says the Era of Reagan Will—And Must—Never Be Over

After playing a couple clips from Ronald Reagan’s aforementioned 1964 speech, Rush explains that Reagan’s message is timeless and necessary because it is the message of our founding. In the second half of the clip Rush explains how prophetic Reagan was. While doing so he reads Thomas Sowell's latest article, "Dismantling America," which reads in part:

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many “czars” appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another “czar” would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — that is, to create a situation where some newspapers’ survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called “experts” deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn’t know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government — people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America’s influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration’s enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama’s own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year — each bill more than a thousand pages long — too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question — and the biggest question for this generation.

Like I said yesterday, how prescient Reagan was, even during his presidency in the 80’s.

Rush2009-10-28