Vocal Minority

Fascinating Political Shift Last Night (Besides the NJ & VA Wins)

By guest blogger benjaminTheDonkey

Last night was an interesting evening indeed on the political front. As I’m sure most of you know by now, turnovers in New Jersey and Virginia seem to spell C-H-A-N-G-E in a way that conservatives can get behind it. But, being the communications-focused person that I am (did you catch my series on the messianic propaganda of Obama and Mao?), I really sat up and took notice of another interesting shift in the political winds that occurred last evening.

 

ABC aired the premier of it’s new series, “V”—a contemporary remake of the big 80s hit. For those of you that are unfamiliar, the premise is centered on the dramatic arrival of giant alien motherships hovering over the major cities of the world, and the subsequent smiling invitation from their attractive, humanoid leader to come together in peace and mutually beneficial relationship. So how is it political? If you haven’t seen it, I strongly encourage you to watch the premier when it debuts online on Saturday.

It has become a truism that TV and movies are ridiculously liberal in the outlook they portray and agenda they pursue. V, however, was shockingly blatant in its portrayal of a view that would resonate with anyone who has ever attended (or wanted to attend) a Tea Party event. The smiling, charming female leader of the Visitors (“Anna”) extends a benevolent olive branch of peace, offering to share technology and otherwise benefit the Earth’s population in exchange for some supplies. Many run enthusiastically into the arms of the alien visitors, wowed by how smoothly they come off and the shiny toys they have. However, many others hang back and explain that trust must be earned, and we need to be careful about what we get ourselves into. Who are these people? What do we know about them? Why are they working so hard to ingratiate themselves and engender such devotion? In a wonderful reversal on the norm, one of the heroes (4400’s Joel Gretsch) is a priest who bucks the tide of fawning acceptance and is the mouthpiece for the aforementioned conservative wisdom.

As the show progresses, the undercurrents come to the surface. Young people are recruited by pretty young visitors to join an “ambassador” program and evangelize for the aliens. They even get nifty little uniforms to wear (I can’t help but recall Rolf from The Sound of Music). At another point, Anna the leader invites a popular American news anchor to give her an exclusive interview, and then informs him just before it begins that he must not ask any questions that portray the Visitors in an unfavorable light. When he pushes back by saying that it’s his job as a journalist to ask questions wherever they lead, Anna threatens to cancel the interview. She reminds him in a Godfather-like manner that having exclusive access would boost his career in an immesurable way.

Connections with current events become even more blatant when the Visitors set up clinics around the world, offering treatment via their advanced technologies to help heal all of humanity’s sicknesses. The reporter comments, “You’re talking about universal healthcare?” It’s clear that the benefits the V’s offer are intended to encourage devotion and dependence. At one point, a human “V supporter” says something about how they’re just sharing a message of “Hope”. Our hero the priest raises questions about the “perfect timing” of the V’s arrival—at just the exact moment when we needed real help—when we were all positioned to be ready for a savior—and how the V’s are positioning themselves that way.

Things then go on to reveal some indications that all is not what it seems (I won’t spoil it), and the priest, along with a sharp FBI agent (Lost’s Elizabeth Mitchell) find themselves in the middle of some interesting plot twists. The episode ends with everything set up for some real intrigue and adventure going forward.

Even if you’re not a big SciFi fan, I encourage you, look past the packaging and check this show out. It is veeery interesting as political allegory. Does it propose new ideas, or stunning insights? No. But it presents (at least in the premiere) a modern-day fable that chews on issues of the day and comes down decidedly on the side of liberty and freedom. This, to me is stunning for a major production coming out of one of the big 3 networks.

Years ago, my wife and I learned that Hollywood goes with what sells, and when we support something we like, we are effectively voting to see more of it. If the first episode is any indication, I’d be more than happy to see more of V and its ilk.

Profiles in Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: Ted Danson

As often she does when she opens her mouth, Joy-less Behar shattered the myth that it’s liberal hosts and their liberal guests who corner the market on civility and intelligence. Yesterday she had help: actor/activist Ted Danson. They both traded jibes about how conservative Americans are easily brainwashed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the religious right because they’re not smart enough to form their own opinions.

This, of course, is in contrast to liberals like Joy Behar and Ted Danson who are sooo enlightened and sooo impervious to indoctrination that the fact they think exactly the same is just sheer coincidence! It’s also mere coincidence that virtually every liberal/Democrat—from the mainstream newsrooms to the pressrooms and even to the White House—is responding to Rush’s Fox News Sunday interview with Chris Wallace using the exact same talking points. These libs really know how to formulate their own opinion, let me tell you!

Danson admitted that people like El Rushbo and the religious right “really piss me off, to be honest,” followed immediately by the claim that the right is all about playing on people’s fear and anger. This is, by the way, the same Ted Danson who in 1988 declared “We only have ten years to save the oceans” (for those of you in Rio Linda, that would have made the point of no return 1998) and who co-founded and sits on the board of an ocean-focused envirowacko group.

Behar—remember: a liberal and therefore intelligent enough to formulate her own opinions—nodded approvingly to Danson’s statements and then punctuated them by calling conservatives like Rush “extremists.”

But remember, it’s conservative talk that’s coarsening the culture.

Both Danson and Behar then demonstrated their complete ignorance of the government-run health (s)care issue by blaming vocal opposition either on uneducated bumpkins who don’t know what’s good for them or on greedy parties seeking to thwart the “competition” that government-run program would allegedly foster.

Jeff Poor at NewsBusters has the story, with quotes and other painful details.

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.

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!

Speaking Truth to Liberal Power, Part 2: Another Response to Hollywood PSA

If you enjoyed the retort to the video holier-than-thou Hollywood blowhard video promoting ObamaCare, you'll really enjoy this one by Alfonzo Rachel at PJTV. Actress Victoria Jackson is in this one (Yay!)

Funny. And informative too!

Speaking Truth to Liberal Power: Response to Hollywood PSA

By now you've probably seen the public service announcement in which a gaggle of highly paid Hollywood actors (including Hiro from "Heroes". WTF???) tell you how important it is to support ObamaCare. It was produced by actor Will Ferrell and MoveOn.org. God help us all.

Now there's a video retort [h/t Michelle Malkin et al.]. Sorry, celebs. You're not the only ones to get access to studios and video cameras anymore. Regular people have them too.

That's what I call speaking truth to liberal power.

Liberal Hypocrisy: The Selective Outrage of the Class Warriors

In today’s political climate, the Tenth Commandment (Thou shall not covet) is adhered to just as wholeheartedly as the Tenth Amendment, i.e., not at all.

The bitter jealously of those wealthier than ourselves is so prevalent, and it all stems from the Democrats. Whether it’s Congress bashing Wall Street for their “greed,” President Hope&Change hinting about regulating private sector executive pay, or the lib media granting endless appearances to the capitalism-hating (but ultra-wealthy) Michael Moore, class warfare seems to be here to stay.

And it doesn’t seem to be only nameless, faceless people Americans have been trained like Pavlov’s dog to envy for the sin of having a higher income; just the other day a relative told me, completely casually, how another relative of his who had just passed his medical boards will soon be able to buy an expensive house and become a partner of a medical practice where he can start “ripping off” patients. The way some people just let it roll off the tongue is quite distressing.

But envy of the wealthy that the left has implanted into the modern American psyche is very selective. Notice you never see public outrage at the enormous earnings of Hollywood movie stars or musical artists, whose talents and contribution to society, in my humble opinion, isn’t worth a fraction of what they actually get. Difference is, as a proponent of liberty, I would never demand the government regulate someone’s income because they don’t deserve it.

But let’s face it: Hollywood actors and musical artists are filthy stinking rich. Why no outrage by Washington politicians, including our own president, or the leftist grievance group de jour? Could it be because they’re mostly Democrats?

Producers and directors from L.A. to Manhattan are also filthy stinking rich. How come President Hope&Change hasn’t instigated a shouting riot of ACORN activists to camp out on any of their driveways? Could it be because they’re mostly Democrats?

Trial lawyers can also rack up quite a sum of money. Ask John Edwards, the king of frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits. Why doesn’t Obama or the Democrat Congress suggest regulating their pay? Could it be because they’re mostly Democrats? The trial lawyer lobby is after all, next to the teachers unions, the largest donor to the Democrat Party. Wouldn’t want to rustle any of those feathers and lose big donations, right?

And there there are those elitist snobs who “won life’s lottery” by being born into ridiculous wealth, like the Kennedys. And also those who just happened to marry not one but two extremely wealthy women, like John Kerry.

Noticing a pattern?

Should we add to this group another (in my opinion, undeservedly) wealthy American: The public television executive.

Winning the category for today’s most ignored news of the day is this survey discussed by Tim Graham at NewsBusters:

Former NPR C.E.O. Kenneth Stern, who departed in 2008, is atop the pubcasting list, receiving $1,319,541 as part of his four-year contract [= $329,000 per year]. Another former exec, PBS C.O.O. Wayne Godwin, who served from 2000 to 2008, was paid $398,063. Current PBS C.E.O. Paula Kerger, $534,500, up from $424,209 at end of fiscal 2007. [That’s a 26% increase!]

I am not a fan of NPR’s content, nor am I a proponent of the idea of public radio. In our successful free market system, there is no reason why tax-payer dollars have to be wasted so a station can spout left-wing, government-influenced drivel all day long. Get a real job, people! Compete in the real world and see how you do, Bill Bryson!

But back to the topic at hand: Not only is the income of public media execs pretty steep—some higher even than what the POTUS makes—but it’s taxpayer-funded. As Brian at the Snapped Shot blog says: 

Who could’ve possibly guess there was so much money in not-for-profit work?

But I don’t recall ever hearing a liberal/Democrat scream: “Do you know how many school books or school lunches you can buy on Kenneth Stern’s salary!?”

I haven’t heard any lefty anti-capitalist shout: “Paula Kerger gets richer while the poor get poorer!”

And we probably won’t be hearing these things any time soon ...

And Now for Something Completely Different ...

I nearly peed my pants watching this! [h/t Blue Lori] How appropos Whoopi Goldberg is singing lead.

Liberal Lie #2 - Conservative Media Preaches Hate (But Not Liberal Media): Barney Frank's Rush "Joke" on Leno

Remember all the rhetoric from the Washington and media leftocracy that the right is poisoning the airwaves and TV with “hate speech”? (In fact, Chris Matthews is so concerned about right-wing hate, he has preemptively laid blame at the feet of conservative radio if anything bad happens to Barack Obama.)

And remember not too long ago a certain Republican Congressman, Joe Wilson, was lambasted for purportedly creating an atmosphere of incivility within the hallowed halls of Congress?

Well, yesterday Jay Leno had the loathsome Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) on. During the conversation, this exchange took place:

LENO: If you had to have dinner with one of the following political conservatives, which one would you choose: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter?

FRANK: I guess of the three, I would take Rush Limbaugh because it would be very painful, and he would come with the painkillers, which he always has. [Applause]

Oh, how original, Bawney. How professional. A sitting Congressman on national television attacking a private citizen with whom he disagrees. (Remember: These are the people who keep claiming they’re all for open, honest debate. Puh-lease!)

Do you notice that the only thing the left does with regard to Rush Limbaugh is make fun of his prescription drug addiction? An addiction which, incidently, he beat five years ago? Prescription painkillers are reportedly a tough drug to kick. It was even once the focus of a story line involving Susan Lucci’s character on “All My Children.” (Yes, I’ve watched “All My Children,” a’ight? It’s my mother’s fault!)

Considering how drug abuse is so prevalent in elitist circles in Hollywood, Manhattan, and D.C., you’d think people would commend Rush for kicking the habit. But that would require liberals to actually exercise the compassion and civility they’re constantly telling us they have.

It’s loathsome to mock someone for a past addiction to begin with. To frame the lame jokes as if Rush is still addicted to the prescription drugs, is even more cruel. Liberal people I know personally (including clergy!) have done it, “entertainers” like Wanda Sykes have done it, and now a sitting Congressman on a national television show has done it.

Where is the media outrage for Barney Frank’s detestable and unfunny comment? There was none. Leno laughed. His brain-dead audience laughed. And no doubt media types who caught the show—the same people who would be having a Maureen-Dowd-sized conniption if the guest were a Republican and the target of the smear were a liberal—laughed as well.

Rush has a very thick skin and doesn’t let this stuff bother him, but personally I am so fed up with these drug jokes that I feel compelled just for the record to give you liberals/Democrats out there a lesson on civility you desperately need:

• To make fun of a person’s prescription drug addiction is neither civil, compassionate, nor funny.
• To make fun of a person’s prescription drug addiction—several years after he’s already overcome it—is neither civil, compassionate, nor funny.
• For a sitting Congressman to make fun of a private citizen’s prescription drug addiction—several years after he’s already overcome it—is neither civil, compassionate, nor funny.
• For a TV show host and audience members to laugh at a sitting Congressman making fun of a private citizen’s prescription drug addiction—several years after he’s already overcome it—is neither civil, compassionate, nor funny.

But you “civil” and “compassionate” liberals won’t get it, will you. Is it that you don’t want to? Is it that you don’t really care to?

I’m just so fed up with the double standards and the hypocrisy. You’ve attacked decent, inspiring black conservatives like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice. Yet principled, albeit passionate, opposition to President Hope&Change’s destructive policies and you see angry mobs, Nazis, and racists as far as the eye can see.

You assassinated the character of Sarah Palin, a woman who represents the American dream and classical feminism in every sense—and go after her family as well. But the minute one supports the right of a baby to not be murdered in the womb, he is smeared as a neanderthal chauvenist who wants to keep women in the kitchen.

It is liberals who poison the airwaves and TV with hate speech, as illustrated on a daily basis on Air America and much of MSNBC.

It is liberals who engage in violence, from the Molotov-cocktail-throwing thugs at the anti-Bush rallies to anti-war protesters with signs telling soldiers to frag (i.e., shoot) their superior officers to left-wing radio hosts, authors, and movie directors fantasizing about the murder of George W. Bush. And, as Ann Coulter pointed out as a guest on yesterday’s Steve Malzberg show, the two biggest incidents of town hall violence (the black wheelchair-bound man and the bitten off pinky) were perpetrated by ObamaCare supporters, i.e., leftists, against their conservative opponents.

It is liberals who celebrate and excuse violence. Cop killers like Mumia Abu-Jamal, thug murderers like Che Guevera and Fidel Castro, and federal building bombers like Barack Obama’s longtime pal William “guilty as sin, free as a bird” Ayers are heroes of the left, not the right. Dictators like Saddam Hussein and terrorists like Omar Abdul-Rahman are enthusiastically defended in court by left-wing lawyers, not right.

In a nutshell, liberals, when you decry the “incivility” and “rage” of the right, you’re full of crap. You wrote the book on incivility and rage, and utilize that book every day with arrogant impunity.

And I for one will always be there to make sure you don’t forget it.

Liberal Hypocrisy: Michael Moore Ready to Cash In on New Capitalism-Bashing Film

Heeee’s baaaaaaack!

Just as he deceitfully misrepresented the Second Amendment and gun ownership in Bowling for Columbine; deceitfully misrepresented the Bush administration, the troops risking their lives in Iraq, and the United States overall in Fahrenheit 9/11; and deceitfully misrepresented the health care systems in the U.S., Cuba, and other countries in Sicko, the left’s favorite “documentarian” Michael Moore is about to deceitfully misrepresent capitalism and socialism in the film Capitalism: A Love Story.

Now, far be it from me to expect Moore not to exhibit any hypocrisy with this new film. (After all, the man blasted the eeevil Halliburton in F9/11, while all the time he owned Halliburton stock, yet denied it!).

For example, if capitalism is as evil as Moore would have us believe, where does he get off enjoying a million-dollar luxury apartment in Manhattan and a million-dollar beachfront house in Michigan?

If capitalism is as evil as Moore would have us believe, where does he get off sending his child to an expensive private school rather then enroll her in a public school like those who have apparently suffered under capitalism and can’t afford it?

If capitalism is as evil as Moore would have us believe, where does he get off charging colleges upwards of $40,000 for a two-hour lecture? ($20,000/an hour? Not bad considering the U.S. is such an evil capitalist country.)

But all these fun facts go all the way back to 2005. How’s Michael Moore been faring under the oppressive capitalist system he so despises lately? Yesterday at Forbes, Elisabeth Eaves wrote about how he has been celebrating the film’s upcoming release:

The bars were sponsored by liquor companies, the kitchen by Lufthansa. One room had marble walls, another, cashmere. Hundreds of guests plucked hors d’oeuvres from Plexiglas trays, but when I reached for a passing tray of pigs in blankets, the waitress tried to stop me. “These are for Michael,” she said.

That would be Michael Moore, filmmaker, who was enthroned nearby on a crowded sofa nibbling from a skewer, which did seem less in harmony with his everyman sneakers and populist persona than a sausage wrapped in fried bread. The Monday night party in Manhattan, which spread over two luxurious penthouse suites, was sponsored by Esquire and tricked out with the magazine’s advertisers’ products. The guests were there to celebrate Moore’s latest movie, which had just had its New York premier uptown.

Capitalism, A Love Story, takes aim at nothing less than the whole capitalist system. It uses all the trademark Mooreisms familiar from earlier works like Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11: Stakeouts, clever editing and innuendo, with the extra-wide filmmaker himself shambling up to corporate headquarters as a self-declared representative of the people. In voice over, he calls capitalism “a system of taking and giving, mostly taking,” and he interviews two priests who call it evil. He praises socialism, and near the end of the film concludes of capitalism that “we have to replace it with something, and that something is called democracy.” […]

Oh boy. Nothing exposes the sheer ignorance of Michael Moore and his Hollywood and Manhattanite liberati guests better than that statement. They can all use a lesson from the brilliant scholar Walter E. Williams (and I’d bet he wouldn’t even charge $40,000 for his tutorial!) At today’s Jewish World Review Williams explains:

If one ranked countries according to whether they were closer to the capitalistic end of the spectrum or the socialistic or communistic end, then ranked countries according to per capita GDP and finally rank countries according to Freedom House’s “Map of Freedom in the World,” he would find a pattern that is by no means a coincidence. The people in those countries closer to the capitalist end of the economic spectrum have far greater income and enjoy greater human rights protections than those toward the socialist and communist end. […]

… If you chose the United States, you’d find that according to the government surveys, the typical “poor” American has cable or satellite TV, two color TVs, and a DVD player or VCR. He has air conditioning, a car, a microwave, a refrigerator, a stove, and a clothes washer and dryer, and whether he has health insurance or not, he is able to obtain medical care when needed. Try to find that in Cuba, Russia, China or North Korea. If we buy into the nonsense of Moore’s priests, the world’s poor people are incredibly stupid. Whether fleeing legally or illegally, their destination country is likely to be closer to capitalism than their departure country.

Time and time again history shows that despots of the world deprive their citizenry of freedom and democracy first by seizing their ability to become financially self-reliant. This includes greater government control of an individual’s private property, which subsumes earned income (via taxation and regulation). Indeed, in his indispensible book Liberty and Tyranny Mark Levin writes:

In the civil society, private property and liberty are inseparable. The individual’s right to live freely and safely and pursue happiness includes the right to acquire and possess property, which represents the fruits of his own intellectual and/or physical labor. As the individual’s time on earth is finite, so, too, is his labor. The illegitimate denial or diminution of his private property enslaves him to another and denies him his liberty.

In other words, capitalism is freedom; freedom is capitalism. Michael Moore and his liberal eltist Hollywood and Manhattanite sycophants are the actual embodiment of that fact. Can they really be so lacking in self-awareness as not to see what is so blatantly clear?

I surmise Michael Moore’s new film will no doubt push the meme repeated by John Kerry and John Edwards and countless other liberal/Democrat demagogues that, due to the unfairness of America’s capitalist system “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Problem with that statement is that it erroneously assumes that the “rich” who got richer were the same pool of people and the “poor” who got poorer were also the same pool of people. But, precisely due to the capitalist system, millions of Americans classified as “poor,” in 5, 10, 15 years move upward to the rich or even “richer” category. Members of socialist or communist societies simply do not enjoy this sort of upward mobility.

That’s why millions of immigrants came to this country for over two centuries literally without two nickels to rub together, and within a decade or so can afford sending their children to college. It’s the capitalist system that allows that to happen.

The Forbes article continues:

The film tries to show that capitalism brought about the housing crisis, the recession, decaying cities and unemployment, and the bailout of financial firms at the expense of the middle class. At the end, Moore exhorts the audience to help him defeat the system, saying “please, speed it up.”

Again, complete ignorance of the facts. First of all, despite what the Michael Moores, Barney Franks, and Barack Obamas of this nation say, it was government regulation and intervention with the free market that caused the financial crisis. In the above-cited JWR article, Walter Williams continues:

Most of our country’s serious problems can be laid at the feet of Congress and the White House and not at capitalism. Take the financial crisis. One-third of the $15 trillion of mortgages in existence in 2008 are owned, or securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the Federal Housing and the Veterans Administration. Banks didn’t mind making risky loans and Wall Street buyers didn’t mind buying these repackaged loans because they assumed that they would be guaranteed by the federal government: read bailout by taxpayers. Under a capitalist system, financial institutions would not have been intimidated or encouraged into making risky loans and neither would they have been bailed out if they did so.

Second, it would blow a crater-sized hole in Moore’s whole theory to acknowledge that decaying cities and unemployment, and to some extent the housing crisis and recession, were not the result of capitalism, but rather the natural result of decades of oppressive tax hikes and stifling regulations courtesy of big-government, capitalism-hating leftist Democrats!

Don’t believe me? Consider these recent statistics [h/t Nanny State News]:

Top 10 American Cities With the Highest Poverty Rate by

Rank, City, State, and % People Below Poverty Level

1. Detroit, MI 32.5%
2. Buffalo, NY 29.9%
3. Cincinnati, OH 27.8%
4. Cleveland, OH 27.0%
5. Miami, FL 26.9%
5. St. Louis, MO 26.8%
7. El Paso, TX 26.4%
8. Milwaukee, WI 26.2%
9. Philadelphia, PA 25.1%
10. Newark, NJ 24.2%
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, August 2007)

History of City Mayors of those Top 10 Poorest Cities:

Detroit: Since 1962 every mayor of Detroit has been a liberal progressive democrat

Buffalo: Since 1962 every mayor of Buffalo has been a liberal progressive democrat

Cincinnati: Since 1962, there has been only 3 Republican Mayors, but 10 liberal progressive democrat Mayors the last one 30 years ago.

Cleveland: Since 1942, there have been 2 Republican Mayors but 9 liberal progressive democrat Mayors

Miami: Since 1957, there have been 1 Republican and 1 Independent Mayor and 10 liberal progressive democrat Mayors

St Louis: Since 1949 there has been nothing but liberal progressive democrat Mayors in St Louis. 9 to be exact.

El Paso: The last Republican Mayor of El Paso was 1889 Every one since has been a democrat then a liberal progressive democrat

Milwaukee: Since 1960, Milwaukee has had 4 Mayors, all liberal progressive democrat

Philadelphia: Since 1952 Philadelphia has had nothing but liberal progressive democrat mayors, all 9 of them.

Newark: Since 1953, Newark has had nothing but 5 liberal progressive democrat Mayors.

Bottom line: Every city torn apart by crime, poverty, and misery is the result of anti-capitalist Democrat governance.

Undoubtedly and unsurprisingly, Capitalism: A Love Story is going to make Michael Moore significantly wealthier than he is even now. But even more sadly is that, just as with his previous movies, viewers are going to exit the theater completely misinformed about the economic system which has made the country in which they reside the most prosperous and envied in human history. This will, of course, lead and grossly ignorant voters at the ballot box voting for equally ignorant Marxist-socialist demogogues (like our current president) who will continue to destroy our economy and then blame capitalism for it.

There’s a reason why El Rushbo often says that ignorance is our nation’s most expensive commodity.    

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.

Liberal Stupid-Ass Comment: "Basterds" Actor Eli Roth Equates Sarah Palin to Hitler.

Pop quiz:

(a) Guess who got was equated with Adolf Hitler last week?
(b) Guess who couldn’t care less?

Answers: (a) Sarah Palin, (b) neither the mainstream Obamedia nor Democrat political figures.

It happened last Wednesday during a Time Out New York interview with Quentin Tarantino, director of the new movie Inglourious Basterds, and actor Eli Roth. The offending and completely out-of-left-field comment was made by Roth, who said:

[T]he first time I showed Nation’s Pride to 300 Nazi extras, even though they were in character, my stomach turned. I looked at Quentin and was like, “Oh my god, what have I done? I’ve started the fourth Reich and they're going to make me their Sarah Palin.”

Get it? Hitler, leader of the Nazi party, started the Third Reich. Ergo, the leader of the Fourth Reich? Current-day Nazi leader Sarah Palin.

So where’s the outrage? I thought simply equating someone’s National-Socialist policies to Nazi Germany was verboten. You’re likely to get derided by Katie Couric, Nancy Pelosi, even President Hope&Change himself.

It’s now five days after this loathsome and offensive statement was made and I’ve just done a News search on Google. Guess how many stories were reported by the networks or any of the cable stations? (a) Zero (b) Between 0 and 5 (c) Between 6 and 10, or (d) More than 10?

Answer: (a) ZERO

Guess how many times Nancy Pelosi or some other holier-than-thou Dem politician chastised this celebrity for calling a politician with whom he disagrees a Nazi? (Because apparently San Fran Nan is very sensitive about those things!). Answer: also ZERO.

The only web “news” source I found that wasn’t a blog was the Washington Examiner, in which chief political correspondent Byron York brought it up. Elsewhere on the web you’ll only find reports that the interview took place, and possibly a transcript of the interview itself. But with regard to Roth’s utterly inappropriate and irrelevent statement, no editorializing at all.

So no discussion from the Katie Courics or Nancy Pelosis in our midst about angry Americans stirring up hatred against Sarah Palin.

That’s only reserved for people they support. Which would be Barack Obama.

Funny, because it’s Obama, not Sarah Palin, who demands blind allegience to the state—just like Hitler.

And it’s Barack Obama, not Sarah Palin, who supports the snuffing out of undesireable humans by aborting babies on one end, euthanizing the elderly on the other, and doing whichever applies to the weak, ill, or infirm—just like Hitler.

And it’s Barack Obama, not Sarah Palin, who has a vehement aversion to free market capitalism and has engaged in the hostile takeover of businesses of his choosing—just like Hitler.

So who’s the leader of the putative Fourth Reich again?

I don’t care, Eli Roth, if you’re a fellow Jew. No, wait, I take that back. I’m particularly offended because you’re a Jew and should know better. But you’re also a pompous elitist Hollywood lib. And when you’re a Hollywood lib calling Sarah Palin Hitler is as common as breathing. You not only owe Sarah Palin an apology, you could use a refresher course in history.

Eli Roth, you’re a schmuck, an insignificant nobody, a mental midget. But you’re loved in Hollywood and that’s all that matters to your worthless self. And you couldn’t pay me to see your hack acting in some movie. I’ve got way better things to spend my money on.

And to you politicians and media types: your hypocrisy and bias couldn’t be any more obvious.

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (7/9/09): M. Crowley, P. Ferrara, J. Perazzo

First, my girl Monica responds to Veep Biden’s genius statement about having misread how bad the economy was, leaving us to wonder who’s stupider, the economic-catastrophe-mongers or the American people?

Boy, Do They Think We’re Stupid
By Monica Crowley

On this weekend’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous,” Vice President Joe Biden said: “We misread how bad the economy was.”

He and Obama “misread” how bad the economy was?!

Pardon me, but weren’t they elected on the basis of their self-touted ability to manage the economy back to relative health? Didn’t they slam into Senator John McCain as inept on economic issues, as a man incapable of reading the economy and crafting appropriate policies to bring it back? Didn’t The Bama position himself as the Only One who could fix it? Didn’t he promise to deliver results, such as keeping unemployment to 8% if he were elected and his policies implemented?

And how.

And yet, here we are, at 9.5% unemployment and rising, home foreclosures at record levels and climbing, and multiple industries—including those which have received hundreds of billions of dollars in federal bailout money, from banks to the auto industry—in collapse and/or in bankrupcy.

The trillions of dollars The Bama and his socialist posse have already spent have accomplished absolutely nothing. In fact, all of this government intervention has made things worse.

The Biden says they “misread” how bad the economy was? You “misread” how many calories are in a Snickers bar. You don’t “misread” how bad the economy is, ESPECIALLY when you have spent almost an entire year telling us what a “catastrophe” the economy is, what an epic “crisis” we are in, and how it’s “the worst economic crisis than the Great Depression.”

From all of that apocalyptic rhetoric, it sure SEEMED like Team Bama read the economy just right. Unless, of course, they were trying to sow panic in order to get their massive spending plans through. But they wouldn’t do such a thing, would they??

Now The Biden says all of that over-the-top crisis rhetoric wasn’t ENOUGH. That the economy was WORSE even than that. Which means, of course, they are going to try to spend TRILLIONS MORE on payouts to their Democratic constituencies, disguised as additional “stimulus” spending.

They really think we’re buying this elaborate tap dance of lies and corruption. But then again, if it’s not stopped through our outrage and our own community organizing, then they have every reason to continue thinking it.

Next, Peter Ferrara at the American Spectator argues:

The Bush Doctrine Is Still Working
By Peter Ferrara on 7.8.09

A central theme of President Bush’s administration was to promote democracy in the Middle East. He argued that establishing a full fledged democracy in Iraq in the heart of the Middle East would have transforming effects throughout the Muslim World. Even though the promotion of human rights and democracy had been a central theme of liberal foreign policy for decades, the Left ridiculed Bush’s policy as hopelessly naïve. Even some on the right echoed this criticism.

But recent trends throughout the Middle East show that this policy is now producing a growing, very powerful effect in countering Islamic extremism and terrorism, just as Bush originally envisioned. The most recent example of this is the elections in Lebanon, where the pro-Western coalition in power there was reelected last month with a slightly increased majority over the Islamic extremist Hezbollah coalition, despite Iranian funding estimated in the billions for Hezbollah.

When the pro-Western coalition was first elected in Lebanon in 2005, it soon chased the Syrian army out of the country, ending the occupation started over 20 years ago during the Lebanese civil war. That was a huge victory for America and the West for which Bush received no credit. […]

Absent democracy, the roughly 10% of the public in Middle Eastern, Islamic countries willing to shoot their way into power in the name of Allah seems dominant. Actual elections reveal them to be fringe, extremist groups, greatly diminishing their power in favor of reasonable, secular leaders. As a result, the Bush doctrine of advancing democracy and human rights is now increasingly successful in combating terrorism and Islamic extremism.

Now we are seeing these same results in Iran. Where did the people of Iran get the idea that they were entitled to an honest election? They haven’t had an honest election there in over 50 years. Maybe it comes from watching their Shiite brothers voting in honest, free elections in neighboring Iraq. And maybe it comes as well from watching the same in neighboring Afghanistan, which had formerly been seen as hopelessly backward for centuries.

Iran’s recent sham election fiasco is the biggest victory of all for America and the West, again courtesy of the Bush doctrine of promoting democracy and human rights in the Middle East. All of a sudden, the Islamic theocracy in Iran has been discredited and exposed as illegitimate. Now that the ruling mullahs have had to turn to shooting their own people in the streets to stay in power, it is only a matter of time until their theocracy falls, and the popular will regains power. That result will be enormously beneficial for America, because Iran’s theocratic regime is the central power in the Middle East supporting and spreading Islamic radicalism, terrorism, and continued war against Israel and the West. Once Iran’s theocracy falls, and is replaced by a secular government, peace between Israel and the Palestinians will be possible and increasingly likely over time.

In this environment, the right policy for America would be to do what it can to promote regime change in Iran. Organizing an international gas embargo would greatly undermine the security forces by creating a shortage of fuel for their vehicles, as Iran has minimal refinery capacity and must import virtually all of its refined gasoline. International sanctions and isolation for the theocratic regime would also help. Covert financial and even military aid to the rebels may be desirable as well

But President Obama is committed to the opposite course. He is committed to still negotiating with the mullah dictators to get a deal to stop Iran’s nuclear program. There is zero chance any such negotiations will succeed. The mullahs have already said they are not interested in the materialist incentives of aid and trade packages, or concerned about the materialist harm of sanctions. They are committed to their extremist religious views, which call for wiping Israel off the face of the earth, as they have put it (Holocaust 2.0). President Bush actually carried on diplomatic negotiations with Iran for years regarding its nuclear weapons program through a European coalition and in other forums, and all this did was enable the Iranians to buy time to develop their nuclear weapons.

All Obama’s negotiations will achieve is provide legitimacy to the mullah dictators as the real government of Iran, which will delay their fall for years. This reveals the fundamental weakness of Obama’s foreign policy. It is weak on the traditional liberal theme of democracy and human rights. Obama’s foreign policy is more like Nixon’sRealpolitik in its willingness to negotiate and deal with reigning dictators, from Iran to Russia to China to Venezuela, and around the world.

The Honduras Fiasco

Indeed, while Obama did not want to “meddle” in Iran for fear of offending the mullahs, whom he intends to sweet talk out of their nuclear weapons, he was quick to meddle in Honduras as soon as the people acted to defend their democracy from a rogue president, Manuel Zelaya, allied with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Despite what you have heard from the Democrat party-controlled press, there has been no military coup in Honduras. It is still ruled today by a civilian government, not the military, and free elections are still scheduled for November for a new president and government. […]

Obama’s Nuclear Disarmament

Even worse for America, however, is President Obama’s American nuclear disarmament policy, which he is pursuing this week in Russia through a nuclear deal with the Putin dictatorship. In his foreign policy speech in Prague earlier this year, Obama called for worldwide nuclear disarmament, suggesting that American nuclear weapons are no more acceptable than Iranian nukes, and that the rest of the world would agree to give up its nuclear weapons if America would give up its own. This is an extreme left policy.

North Korea responded soon thereafter with nuclear tests and the firing of new missiles. While Obama responded with bluff and bluster about real consequences, nothing much happened. Meanwhile, Obama’s budget, passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress, substantially cuts funding for missile defense. When Japan suggested North Korea would fire missiles at Hawaii on the Fourth of July, the Obama Administration rushed available missile defense assets to the islands. But the action seemed hollow given Obama’s long range funding plans for missile defense.

Now President Obama has agreed with the Russians to complete a deal that would cut U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals by another third, reducing America’s nuclear warheads down to 1500. It is not clear how we can be sure that Russia will comply with its side of the bargain.

But this arms control initiative reveals how badly Obama’s thinking is frozen deeply in the past, analogously to his unreconstructed Keynesian economic policies from the 1930s. We no longer live in a bipolar world, with America and Russia the only relevant nuclear superpowers. China is now a more powerful threat than Russia with its own nuclear arsenal, and India, Pakistan, North Korea, and soon apparently Iran also pose nuclear dangers. A nuclear deal with Russia alone is not remotely adequate to protect America, even if we could be sure of Russian compliance. Indeed, if we don’t successfully counter North Korea and Iran, and President Obama does not seem to be up to that, nuclear proliferation will spread to Japan, South Korea, and throughout the Middle East. In the face of these threats, cutting our own nuclear arsenal down to 1500 warheads, or even less as Obama ultimately advocates, may leave America vulnerable, particularly to attacks aimed at taking out our nuclear arsenal. Joining that policy with cutting missile defense and halting further development of Reagan’s SDI initiative reflects a blinkered commitment to hopeless left-wing ideology and could not be more reckless and risky for America’s national defense. […]

While Bush’s foreign policy doctrine of promoting democracy and human rights in the Middle East is still working to produce huge victories for America and the West, Obama’s foreign policy doctrine of negotiating deals with the world’s dictators, combined with his flower power nuclear disarmament philosophy, may be the gravest threat America faces today.

Finally, at Front Page Mag’s Newsreal blog, John Perazzo has some critical words for Al Sharpton, who delivered an abominable race-baiting eulogy at Michael Jackson’s funeral yesterday and then continued his bloviating later that evening on Larry King Live:

Al Sharpton: A Lifelong Racist Eulogizes Michael Jackson

The late Michael Jackson, Al Sharpton told CNN’s Larry King last night, “expanded,” on “a cultural level,” the work that “[Martin Luther] King and Jackie Robinson and others had done” to elevate the status of blacks in American society. “Michael made people comfortable with each other,” said Sharpton, asserting that, thanks in part to the pop icon’s influence, Americans at large eventually “grew up to be able to be more comfortable making political and other moves that they may not have made without that cultural comfort.”

Sharpton’s remarks to King were an extension of the eulogy he had delivered earlier yesterday at the L.A. Staples Center, where he proclaimed that Jackson had “broke[n] down the color curtain” and “brought blacks and whites and Asians and Latinos together” – thereby setting the stage for the day when Americans would be “comfortable” enough “to vote for a person of color to be the President of the United States.”

Yes, Al Sharpton chose to turn his eulogy for Michael Jackson into a monologue about race. No surprise there. For Sharpton, everything, however grand or trivial, is ultimately about race.

He is, after all, the same Al Sharpton who, in the late Eighties, knowingly abetted a 15-year-old black girl in falsely charging that a mysterious gang of white racists had abducted and gang-raped her; according to ex-Sharpton aide Perry McKinnon, Sharpton did this specifically for the purpose of cultivating an atmosphere of racial division that could help him advance what he called his “movement.”

Yes, we are talking about the same Al Sharpton who, a few years after that, helped foment some of the ugliest anti-Semitic riots in living memory when he falsely depicted a Brooklyn, New York car accident (which had killed a 7-year old black child) as a racially tinged homicide perpetrated by a Hasidic Jew.

He is the same Al Sharpton who orchestrated a grotesque 1995 boycott against a Jewish-owned clothing shop in Harlem, New York, where a throng of black picketers — under the watchful, approving eye of Sharpton – shrieked, entirely without cause, that a cabal of “greedy Jew bastards” and white “crackers” had been mistreating them. This crusade, too, ended badly, when one of the protesters eventually shot four whites in the clothing shop and then set the building on fire — killing seven people.

And who could forget the skillful manner in which Sharpton has repeatedly turned handsome profits by using threats of racially charged boycotts and negative-publicity campaigns to shake down a host of corporate CEOs eager to avoid controversy.

Indeed, he is the same Al Sharpton who once lavished an audience of students and professors at New Jersey’s Kean College with references to “crackers” and “Greek homos” who, from a historical perspective, were still “in the caves [of Europe] while we [black Africans] was building empires” and developing “philosophy and astrology and mathematics.”

By inviting this vile bigot to speak at yesterday’s memorial service, Michael Jackson’s family demonstrated that for whatever gifts and talents they may possess, good judgment is not among them.

The same can be said of Larry King, who, in tortured syntax, concluded his interview with Sharpton by fawning: “There wasn’t anyone there [at the memorial service] today who could not say that you were anything but brilliant.”

My Wife Killed Michael Jackson ...

... or so she thinks. When Farrah Fawcett was announced to have passed away Thursday morning, the "feel" I got from the media was that it was sad, but expected. When my wife called me during her lunch hour, Fawcett's death came up, and she wondered who was going to be next. "Things happen in threes" is one of her many superstitions! Ed McMahon passed away a few days prior, and now Farrah Fawcett.

By saying this, my wife stirred the fates for their third victim.

Sure enough, a mere few hours later came the tragic news of Michael Jackson's collapse and subsequent death. When my wife came home from work not too long after the news was announced, we both stared at each other in disbelief.

"You," I said, "are a jinx!" "I know!" she replied. "You killed Michael Jackson." "I know!" she lamented.

In all seriousness, though, despite Jackson's legal and image troubles later in his career, his indelible mark on the world of pop music and dance will never be replaced.

At the L.A. Times arts blog "Culture Warrior," contributor Lewis Segal addresses Jackson's death, as well as a dancing talent so unique, he surmises it must have been encoded in his DNA.

Why Michael Jackson danced like no one else
10:56 AM, June 26, 2009

The way people move is as unique as their DNA—indeed, it is their DNA in action, living proof of their singularity. But most dancers have to give it up to become professionals, to lose themselves in the style of a school, a choreographer, a company, an image of unanimity.

Not Michael Jackson. It was his supreme achievement as a dancer to remain indomitably himself and, in the process of entertaining us, to offer a vision of expanded human potential. What's more, long before excesses and obsessions claimed him, he helped turn MTV into DTV, making television the place where dance films set to new music inspired a generation with their creative power and originality.

Best seen in his music videos (where his vocals are pre-recorded so he doesn't have to wear a mike), the components of his personal style are easier to list than duplicate. Start with isolation: Each move alone as if in a close-up, sudden and incredibly sharp. Weightlessness: The sense of freedom from gravity and a body with no mass or muscles, just pure torque. Transformation of the mundane: shadow-boxing and other familiar moves drawn from athletics and pop dance renewed and heightened through a spectacular sense of flow and delirious speed.

Like the brilliantly calibrated gliding steps that formed his signature moonwalk, Jackson's nervy, high-velocity turns seemed to operate in zero gravity, and his finest dance performances gave the illusion of being a momentary impulse, almost accidental in their perfect balances and other evidence of faultless technical control. If his high-pitched vocal sound simulated perpetual adolescence, the way he moved kept him super-stylized and ageless—a lover, a monster, a streetwise idealist at home in many cultures and a smooth criminal too. [...]

R.I.P. Farrah too.

Why do people think Jon Liebowitz a.k.a. Jon Stewart is funny? He’s not funny. He’s crude and tasteless. People keep telling me how funny he is and how I should watch the “Daily Show.” Why? So I can watch him say things like this?

Jon Stewart: Fox Newsers Are ‘Extremists’ Who View the World Through ‘Sh*t-Colored Glasses’
Tim Graham | June 8, 2009 - 14:14 ET

Alex Leo at The Huffington Post was delighted that Jon Stewart mocked Fox News “crazypants coverage” of President Obama’s opus in Cairo. Stewart said of the speech: ”How will it play with the extremists?” and then showed a Fox News Alert logo and a set of Fox clips.

Then Stewart just let the hate flow, mocking Fox’s Gretchen Carlson with these words: “What a torture it must be for such pretty people to have to see such ugly things. That’s what happens when you view the world and apparently hear the world through ”sh*t-colored glasses.” (Complete with bleep.) Who hears with glasses?

In the snippet Comedy Central plucked out, Carlson was pointing out that it might be considered odd to pander to Middle Eastern countries where America is unpopular. Stewart thought it was obvious that you need to “woo” dictatorial Middle Eastern regimes as Obama is seeking to do.

You know it’s getting weird when Bush-era liberal cynics start bashing people for being “cynical.” That’s apparently out of style now, as Stewart lamented Fox: ”Wow, you guys are so cynical!”

What followed was thoroughly unfunny, unless you begin with the assumption that you cannot believe people do not see that Barack Obama is not just a gift to Americans, but a gift the whole world should treasure. The editing is quick and dirty, and Fox anchors and conservatives from Michelle Malkin to Jonah Goldberg are sliced into pieces and mocked as crazy.

It gets especially weird when Stewart sets Fox up like a straw man as opponents of diplomacy. “You’re the network that most vociferously and enthusiasticallly supported our attempts to reform a region through military action. But where you draw the line is conversation. Maybe you don’t mind engaging the Middle East. It’s Obama’s methodology. Perhaps if his words carried more pop.” Stewart showed a video imagining the Cairo crowd being bombed with words like “tolerance” and “respect.”

Tolerance and respect? Bold words coming from a man who during one show last fall told Sarah Palin, “F*ck you!”

Bold words coming from a person who dismissed Mark Levin’s book “Liberty and Tyranny” as a diatribe from an angry conservative who’s just pissed off that a Democrat is in the White House, saying “It’s supposed to taste like a sh*t sandwich.” Except if he actually read the book, which he most likely didn’t, he would have know Levin wrote the lion’s share of the book before Obama was even elected.

Jon Stewart Liebowitz, you are as clueless as that president you worship. Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg have had hangnails with more intelligence and class than you will ever have. You are also ignorant, hateful, and intolerant of anybody who doesn’t think exactly the same as you and your not very enlightened audience.

Just like a liberal.

Look in the mirror, Liebowitz. There you’ll discover the real extremist in this scenario.

Profiles in Liberal Ignorance, Hate, and Intolerance: Jon Stewart

Why do people think Jon Liebowitz a.k.a. Jon Stewart is funny? He’s not funny. He’s crude and tasteless. People keep telling me how funny he is and how I should watch the “Daily Show.” Why? So I can watch him say things like this?

Jon Stewart: Fox Newsers Are ‘Extremists’ Who View the World Through ‘Sh*t-Colored Glasses’
Tim Graham | June 8, 2009 - 14:14 ET

Alex Leo at The Huffington Post was delighted that Jon Stewart mocked Fox News “crazypants coverage” of President Obama’s opus in Cairo. Stewart said of the speech: ”How will it play with the extremists?” and then showed a Fox News Alert logo and a set of Fox clips.

Then Stewart just let the hate flow, mocking Fox’s Gretchen Carlson with these words: “What a torture it must be for such pretty people to have to see such ugly things. That’s what happens when you view the world and apparently hear the world through ”sh*t-colored glasses.” (Complete with bleep.) Who hears with glasses?

In the snippet Comedy Central plucked out, Carlson was pointing out that it might be considered odd to pander to Middle Eastern countries where America is unpopular. Stewart thought it was obvious that you need to “woo” dictatorial Middle Eastern regimes as Obama is seeking to do.

You know it’s getting weird when Bush-era liberal cynics start bashing people for being “cynical.” That’s apparently out of style now, as Stewart lamented Fox: ”Wow, you guys are so cynical!”

What followed was thoroughly unfunny, unless you begin with the assumption that you cannot believe people do not see that Barack Obama is not just a gift to Americans, but a gift the whole world should treasure. The editing is quick and dirty, and Fox anchors and conservatives from Michelle Malkin to Jonah Goldberg are sliced into pieces and mocked as crazy.

It gets especially weird when Stewart sets Fox up like a straw man as opponents of diplomacy. “You’re the network that most vociferously and enthusiasticallly supported our attempts to reform a region through military action. But where you draw the line is conversation. Maybe you don’t mind engaging the Middle East. It’s Obama’s methodology. Perhaps if his words carried more pop.” Stewart showed a video imagining the Cairo crowd being bombed with words like “tolerance” and “respect.”

Tolerance and respect? Bold words coming from a man who during one show last fall told Sarah Palin, “F*ck you!”

Bold words coming from a person who dismissed Mark Levin’s book “Liberty and Tyranny” as a diatribe from an angry conservative who’s just pissed off that a Democrat is in the White House, saying “It’s supposed to taste like a sh*t sandwich.” Except if he actually read the book, which he most likely didn’t, he would have know Levin wrote the lion’s share of the book before Obama was even elected.

Jon Stewart Liebowitz, you are as clueless as that president you worship. Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg have had hangnails with more intelligence and class than you will ever have. You are also ignorant, hateful, and intolerant of anybody who doesn’t think exactly the same as you and your not very enlightened audience.

Just like a liberal.

Look in the mirror, Liebowitz. There you’ll discover the real extremist in this scenario.