Vocal Minority

Liberal Media Bias: AP Fact-Checks Sarah Palin's Book. What About Al Gore's?

In a few days Sarah Palin’s much-anticipated Going Rogue hits the stores. But this morning Ms. Palin is already meeting some criticism for allegedly false statements. Before the book is even released, a gaggle of Associated Press—yes, Associated Press!—writers took it upon themselves to embark on a fact-checking mission:

FACT CHECK: Palin's book goes rogue on some facts
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Sarah Palin's new book reprises familiar claims from the 2008 presidential campaign that haven't become any truer over time.

Ignoring substantial parts of her record if not the facts, she depicts herself as a frugal traveler on the taxpayer's dime, a reformer without ties to powerful interests and a politician roguishly indifferent to high ambition.

Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too. She criticizes President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush — a package she seemed to support at the time.

In Palin’s 400+ page memoir Calvin Woodward and his team of assistants found only a handful of questionable statements. This would hardly be a news story were the author of the book not the leftocracy’s the most hated and feared woman.

Now, in theory I have no problem with a news outlet parsing a popular new book and addressing misstatements, exaggerations, and falsehoods. If an author is gilting the lily, they should be called on it.

What I do have a problem with is the apparent enthusiasm with which a news source went after this book. You’d be hard pressed to find the mainstream media so ambitiously fact-check the publication of a liberal/Democrat public figure.

In 2003, Hillary Clinton’s Living History memoir came out. Taxpayer-funded NPR granted her no less than four interviews. In one of them, NPR did not fail to note that Hillary “criticizes the Bush administration for a ‘power grab on so many fronts’ which she calls an attempt to implement a ‘very radical, right-wing agenda.’” (This would be the same NPR which seems not to have a problem with the Obama administration grabbing power on so many friends in order to implement a very radical, left-wing agenda.)

Interestingly, one of the most critical reviews of Hillary’s book came from Maureen Dowd at the NY Times. But Dowd’s complaints were not with any questionable statements, but merely with her writing style and content. No matter. Hillary was vindicated in 2004 when Clyde Haberman skewered Dick Morris in the Times’ review of Rewriting History. The Washington Post was also not very kind with Morris’ 300+ page retort to Hillary’s fantasy memoir.

You have to go across the pond to London’s Independent to find an article questioning the veracity of Living History.

It was actually Bill Clinton’s My Life memoir from June, 2004, that got more criticism by the press, e.g., USA Today. But that didn’t stop the media from ooh-ing and aah-ing over the sales records Clinton was breaking, and it certainly didn’t stop Clinton from being applauded on all the news shows, from Oprah to 60 Minutes. 

The headline on CBS News’ Politics page on June 14, 2004 blared “The Return Of The Comeback Kid” and declared: “Bill Clinton is back.” Instead of critiquing the nearly 1000-page tome, the Chief Political Writer David Paul Kuhn wondered how much Clinton’s book was going to hurt George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

Again, when Dick Morris and Eileen McGann hit back in December, 2004, with Because He Could, the mainstream media circled the wagons. Chris Suellentrop in the Washington Post mocked the 270-page attempt to set the record straight as an “extended blog entry with a dust jacket.”

And what of the pièce de resistance, the opus d’opus, the king of all books which are loads of B.S. from front cover to back cover: An Inconvenient Truth by Albert Gore, Jr. Five years after the release of this deceptive piece of propaganda and its accompanying movie, the mainstream media is still enamored with Al Gore and his cause.

But the inconvenient truth is there are more lies in one chapter of An Inconvenient Truth than in Sarah Palin’s whole book. This is handily demonstrated, for instance, by Marlo Lewis, Jr. at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, whose monograph A Skeptic’s Guide to AIT meticulously deconstruct’s Gore’s book page by fallacious page.

If the Associated Press or any mainstream news outlet were anywhere near as ambitious at fact-checking An Inconvenient Truth as they are Going Rogue, Al Gore would be a humiliated has-been and the campaign to fight man-made global warming climate change would be at the top of every list of humanity’s greatest scams.

Get ready for some more Gore-lovin' from the mainstream media; the thinking man's thinking man has a new man-made global warming climate change book out this month. You think Calvin Woodward and the gang at the Associated Press are going to be fact-checking this or any of Gore's books? Sure, and pigs will be flying out of my skinny white butt.

Like I said, in theory I have no problem with—and even welcome—the media conducting a principled analysis on a public figure’s memoir.

But the selective fact-checking crusades are just a little too transparent.

Liberal Lie #2 - Conservative Media Preaches Hate (But Not Liberal Media): Left Disappointed Glenn Beck Didn't Die From Appendicitis

Let’s see … what happened today? The sun rose, my kids drove me crazy, and … the media Left wished death on a conservative talk-show host and then mourned when their wish didn’t come true. Ben Johnson at Front Page’s Newsreal blog has the disgusting details (see links to sources therein):

Glenn Beck Nearly Dies and the Left Cheers

For those who missed it, Glenn Beck left his radio program early yesterday, saying he felt ill. Filling in on his TV show, Judge Andrew Napolitano announced Beck has a case of appendicitis. The Left reacted with its usual reaction: glee and bloodlust. A few of left-wing headlines shout:

“Glenn Beck Sadly Escapes Death After His Appendix Conveniently Fails Him”;

“Glenn Beck’s Heroic Appendix Attempts To Kill Him“

The latter story reads:

Glenn Beck suffered an appendicitis attack on-air today.

It was during his radio program, so sadly there is no video of Glenn clutching his abdomen, vomiting, and finally collapsing in pain.

Beck is expected to make a full recovery, after his appendix was removed at “an undisclosed hospital.”

“Glenn Beck’s Appendix Makes A Break For It“:

This morning, during his radio show, Glenn Beck suffered a mutiny staged by the only internal organ he has that exhibits any signs of intelligence…

And the caring folks at Democratic Underground wrote such sentiments as:

“I hope he f-cking dies“;
“Pain, Infection, Life Support…First“;
“May he soon be at peace…Very soon“; and
Numerous variants of “I hope it burst.”

It’s par for the course for the politcal hacks who alternately lecture conservatives about the all-important virtue of civility, lie about conservative incivility, and dream of the day they can bring back duels.

Gee, in light of this expression of hatred being spread on the airways and on the web is going to prompt any statements by President Hope&Change’s Chairman-Mao-loving Communications Director Anita Dunn or his Chávez-loving Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd or even President Hope&Change himself.

And maybe pigs will fly out of my skinny white butt.

I’m so tired of this lie that it’s conservatives who spew hate on the airwaves. Because it’s not conservatives; it’s liberals. And they do it with impunity because the so-called watchdogs of fake hate speech actually loooove real hate speech—just as long as it’s aimed at conservatives.

And this Glenn Beck thing this is just the latest in a neverending list of examples.

Liberal Hypocrisy: Oakland's Socialist Democrat Mayor Owes 3 Years in Back Taxes [UPDATED]

In the “jaw-dropper of the day” category, another prominent leftist Democrat has been caught owing taxes:

Mayor Dellums, wife owe $239K in back taxes
San Francisco Chronicle | November 5, 2009

(11-03) 15:20 PST OAKLAND -- Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and his wife failed to pay more than $239,000 in taxes over a three-year period and have had a lien slapped on their property by the Internal Revenue Service, public records show.

Dellums, 73, and his wife, Cynthia, 55, who acts as his unpaid adviser, are named in an IRS lien filed with the Alameda County recorder's office Oct. 14. A lien naming Ron Dellums was also filed Oct. 22 in Washington, D.C., where he lived for more than 30 years as a member of Congress and a lobbyist.

The Alameda County lien says the couple failed to pay $124,198 in federal income taxes in 2005, $66,554 in 2006 and $48,246 in 2007, the year Dellums took office as mayor.

The tax lien was imposed on all the couple's personal property, meaning they cannot pocket proceeds from any transactions without first paying off the IRS.

The Dellumses own a house in the Foxhall Crescent neighborhood of Washington, which was assessed at $1.4 million in 2007, public records show. They rent a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home with 3,200 square feet on Skyline Boulevard in the Oakland hills.

Yeah yeah yeah, another Democrat politician didn’t pay all his taxes. But Dellums isn’t your typical “the rich aren’t paying their fair share!” Democrat. He was among the luminaries of the 60’s New Left and was the first traveled in April to Cuba to meet with their hero Fidel Castro.

Now that’s its been discovered that Dellums has owed taxes for three years, let’s see what the good mayor has been up to since taking office in January 2007:

Oakland audit finds millions misspent in payroll fund
Oakland Tribune, Nov 30, 2007 | by Kamika Dunlap

OAKLAND — The first citywide performance audit released Thursday identifies more than $3 million in city funds that were improperly paid out or violated city rules around spending.

The report, which investigates the city’s payroll system and compensation practices, raises strong concern about the spending of taxpayer dollars. …

The main findings from the audit include:

-The city pays an average of $1.5 million every year in management leave awards, with a significant number of the awards exceeding collective bargaining agreement provisions or city rules.

-During the three-year period, city employees sold back at least $3 million more in leave than they should have been allowed to, including $2.5 million in vacation leave.

-Bonuses and recognition awards totaled $388,000 over the three-year period, with auditors saying that little criteria existed for such payments.

-$700,000 per year was spent on car allowances for roughly 238 city employees. …

I guess the mayor couldn’t be reached for comment?

Ron Dellums Living Large While Oakland Budget Bleeds
June 15, 2008 / Updated: August 20, 2008

OAKLAND, Calif. -- A 2-month investigation into the expenses of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has found a pattern of what appears to be extravagant spending at taxpayer expense, even as the mayor suggests shutting down City Hall for a dozen days and raising taxes.

The expenses include stays at 5-star hotels in Washington D.C. such as the Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton, on his many travels away from Oakland, although Dellums owns a luxurious home in the nearby exclusive enclave of Georgetown. The data obtained though the California Public Records Act also shows expensive meals, limousine services and even hundreds of dollars in flowers – all at taxpayer expense.

Oakland is facing a $14.5 million deficit in the next financial year. Dellums is calling for furloughing city workers for 12 days in the next 12 months – all without pay – and severely cutting back already stretched city services.

He is also recommending a $12 million tax hike to deal with the city’s notorious crime problem that has many Oakland residents in an uproar.

Oh I get it; Dellums and city employees throw Oakland citizens’ tax dollars around like rice at a wedding. And then when they realize the city is facing a deficit their solution is to ... raise taxes! But Dellums clearly never thought he should be responsible to pay his own taxes. It’s so fun to be a socialist.

So it looks like Dellum has been a busy beaver. It’s no surprise thing he’s been running Oakland, which was already in dire straits, deeper into the ground. That’s what liberal/Democrat political figures do: turn their cities into complete crap.

It’s also no surprise that a Castro-adoring socialist/Communist lives in a $1.4 million house in D.C. and and 3,200 square foot home in Oakland Hills. (Although, it’s pretty bitchin’ he has a wife almost 20 years his junior. Go Ronnie! Go Ronnie!)

And now it turns out this garden-variety leftist owes six figures in back taxes.

Remember: One set of rules for them, another set of rules for the rest of us. Isn’t socialism great?

P.S. Anyone heard from Charlie Rangel lately?

UPDATE 11:30 AM: Here’s a Liberal Media Bias addendum to this story. Lachlan Markay at NewsBusters noticed that in the SF Chronicle article (the one I link to on top) does not mention Dellums’ party affiliation. This is in stark contrast to the Chron’s coverage of an Orange County Republican politician caught up in an adultery scandal, in which case his party affiliation is sprinkled throughtout the article from top to bottom.

Nope, no liberal media bias here!

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.

Liberal Hypocrisy: GOP Accused of Attacks, Incivility w.r.t. Obama's Nobel "Peace" Prize

“Shameful.”

This is how a close liberal/Democrat friend described RNC chair Michael Steele’s reaction to President Golden Calf’s selection as this year’s Nobel “Peace” Prize winner. This friend isn’t the only one to be offended. The leftocracy from TV to the blogosphere is calling Steele’s statements hateful and an “attack.”

My friend wanted to know, How dare Steele rain on the parade of a sitting president like this? This friend then declared that the level of incivility of the political climate today is worse than it’s ever been.

It’s amazing how many liberals/Democrats have selective amnesia. It’s like to them the George W. Bush years never existed. To remind my friend, who was clearly suffering from this amnesia, I asked, “You don’t think the treatment of Bush by Democrats was as bad if not worse? (I was being diplomatic. Democrats’ treatment of Bush was nowhere equally bad, but light years worse than Republicans’ treatment of Obama). My friend responded in the negative: Obama’s treatment by the right is bar-none the worst treatment of a sitting U.S. president ever.

How does one continue a political conversation with someone so far removed from reality?

One doesn’t. After a few more moments of back-and-forth, we were on to other, non-political, topics.

Oh, what was it that Steele said:

The real question Americans are asking is, “What has President Obama actually accomplished?” It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights. One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.

This is the brutal, hateful “attack” on Obama that has the leftocracy peeing their pants? Boy, they’ve got thinner skin than I thought.

First of all, Steele is 1000% correct. First, even liberal columnists and commentators are asking, “What has Obama done so far to deserve the NPP. He was in office less than two weeks when the February 1 nomination deadline passed! Second, Steele is also correct in pointing out that Obama’s record with the American people is dismal. I guess in Liberalese, “telling the truth” = “attack”—unless the target is a conservative/Republican, in which case “attack” = “fair game.”

Because let’s look back at some Bush accomplishments:

When Saddam was captured like a rat in a hole in Tikrit, Iraq in December, 2003, prominent Democrats’ responses were lukewarm and platitudinous. DNC chair Howard Dean congratulated the military, but could not bring himself to congratulate the president. He gave Bush no credit in this important achievement.

Remember 2005, when Iraqis came by the millions, at the risk of being wasted by a gunman or suicide bomber, to vote in the first free elections in half a century? Again, Bush’s leadership was criticized, dismissed, or ignored completely. With every election from then on were the Democrat choruses of “But we haven’t found Osama bin Laden!” “Where are the WMD’s?” “But Bush hasn’t made us any safer. Instead, he’s creating more terrorists!”

Incivility indeed.

My Day Standing in a "Sea of White People"

There I stood, hundreds of people surrounding me. Chanting. Singing. Listening to the passionate words of our leader and then uttering responses in unison. People came with their children, with their parents. They stayed all day. 

As I looked around at the crowd, it was immediately noticeable that we were all white. No blacks. No Hispanics. No Asians or Indians. It was a sea of white people.

How un-inclusive! How closed-minded! How intolerant we must have been!

What was this entirely white crowd of hundreds I’ve just described? A local RNC gathering? An “angry mob” Tea Party? An NRA convention?

Because that’s how liberals/Democrats view us, right? DNC Chair Howard Dean alone—paragon of civility, open-mindedness, tolerance, and compassion—has said this of the GOP for years, e.g.:

Republicans are “a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It’s pretty much a white Christian party … The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. … We’re more welcoming to different folks, because that’s the type of people we are. But that’s not enough. We do have to deliver on things: jobs and housing and business opportunities.”
—June, 2005 

“If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the Republican Party [chuckle] because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hard-working people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups.”
—August, 2008

“You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here.”
—Addressing the Black National Caucus, February, 2005

That last one’s my favorite. Interestingly, it’s Dean who exposes his own racism when he suggests that hotel staff would be comprised primarily of blacks. In addition, who the hell really thinks that the hotel staff at Democrat events don’t include minorities??? But why let a good jab at Republicans get ruined by some inconvenient facts? (Hey, it’s never stopped Democrats before.)

Or how about this one from Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s black presidential campaign manager in 2000: We’re never gonna let those “white boys win.” (Did anyone tell her that Al Gore is also white?)

And now, ever since the start of the Obama presidency, MSNBC talk show hosts, New York Times editorialists, and even former Democrat presidents have declared that Tea Parties and anti-ObamaCare town halls are simply the stamping grounds of white Republican racists.

This issue has been irking me for months, but this morning was the straw that broke the camel’s back: I turned on my local PBS station so my son could watch a cartoon. Instead, the black host of some talk show was interviewing the author of a recent Republican-bashing book. From the onset of the interview the (white) author referred to Tea Partiers with the sexual slur “tea-baggers” and described the Tea Parties as a sea of white.

So, according to many liberals/Democrats in Washington, Hollywood, the universities, TV, and even my own living room at family gatherings—Republicans are a monolithic white party because we are not friendly or welcoming to “different folks” and don’t offer them “opportunities.”

Let’s split this into two parts: (1) The premise and (2) the reasoning for this premise.

First, the premise that Republicans are a “monolithic party” who “behave the same” and “look the same.” (Imagine if someone said this about a predominantly black group: “They behave the same and look the same!” Isn’t it nice being a liberal Democrat? You get to have all the double standards your little bleeding heart desires.)

Dean is technically right that most Republicans are white. But even though the lion’s share of American blacks vote Democrat, there are plenty of proud conservative Republican- (or Libertarian-) voting blacks. Those who are well-known in big circles, such as Larry Elder, Kevin Jackson, Star Parker, Angela McGlowan, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, Bob Parks, etc., etc., will never get the prominent media attention and respect they deserve. Black conservative/Republican public figures like former Secretary of State Condi Rice, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and RNC Chair Michael Steele will be forever smeared, tarnished, and dismissed by the elite leftocracy. Such people—like Sarah Palin because of her gender—are an inconvenient truth and must be quashed.

In fact, it is so important for liberals/Democrats to depict the GOP as a “whites only!” party that they have whitewashed (pardon the pun) black participants from Tea Parties and other primarily conservative events. Most of the Tea Party footage and photos from the mainstream media will show you no one but Whitey as far as the eye can see. If this is the case, how did my guest blogger benjaminTheDonkey, in his video footage of the 9/12 D.C. Tea Party, come across several non-whites? Are amateurs with video cameras merely doing the job the mainstream media just won’t do anymore?

Apparently.

Now let’s consider the reasoning offered by Howard Dean and others as to why the GOP is primarily white (and Christian), namely, that we are not friendly or welcoming to “different folks” and don’t offer them “opportunities.” Perhaps the only vicious and politically-motivated lie bigger than this is that man is causing catastrophic global warming.

The inconvenient truth is it’s the Republican Party that gives more opportunity to hard-working people, regardless of color or ethnicity. When Democrat demagogues like Dean say “opportunity,” they mean handouts and entitlements. Democrats, having learned long ago they can buy votes with other people’s money (i.e., yours) in this way. And those who are not hard-working know which party offers these handouts and entitlements.

I am not saying that blacks and other minorities are not hardworking; what I am saying is that for several decades now the Democrats have brainwashed minorities into thinking they don’t need to work hard (e.g., by getting the most out of their educational opportunities) or take personal responsibility (e.g., by refraining from criminal activity and not having babies out of wedlock). Why be responsible to your family and your fellow citizens when the “friendly” and “welcoming” Democrat Party give a safety net that they insist you’re entitled to?

What the Democrats have done to minority populace in this country for the sole purpose of buying their votes is nothing less than criminal.

 

Thousands in Detroit line up for apply for stimulus money, October 6, 2009
Your Democrat electorate—diverse and dependent, just the way Howard Dean, Barack Obama, and the rest of the Democrat leadership like them

I don’t have the data accessible, but I would wager that most minorities who switch parties during their lives go from Democrat to Republican. That’s at least the case with the black conservative/Republicans I follow, as well as female and Jewish conservatives/Republicans.

Democrats have had a great con game going on for decades. They promise minorites the world—with other people’s money, of course—offering handout after handout and entitlement after entitlement. The result is a permanent underclass of slaves (yes, you read that right; I said “slaves”), of government-dependent minorities who hold out their hand for promises both fulfilled and broken, all in exchange for the simple act of voting Democrat. Because Republicans (ideally at least) refuse to buy the votes of minorities by promising them handouts and entitlements that no one deserves simply by existing, Democrat demagogues use that to convince minorities that Republicans aren’t friendly, welcoming, and “don’t care” about them.

And since Republicans are the party of personal responsibility and individual freedom regardless of your race, gender, or ethnicity, they don’t need to buy votes (ideally at least). Most minorities who switch parties realize this; that’s why they swtich. They don’t want to be condescended to and treated like children and told essentially, “Do whatever you want. We got your back. We’ll protect you from that unfriendly, unwelcoming White Party.”

The GOP is neither unfriendly nor unwelcoming to minorities. They simply don’t—again, ideally!—buy their votes with demeaning handouts, expedient entitlements, empty promises, and spreading lies and fear of the other party.

Minorities who have always been Republican or who have left the “Democrat plantation” as many conservative blacks call it, realize this.

Diversity to liberals is only skin deep. That’s really all they care about. They pat themselves on the back about how “diverse” they are, but it’s a sham. A university faculty packed with whites and blacks, gays and straights, men and women, Hispanics and Asians who all think, believe, and vote the same way is not diverse. Neither is a newsroom or TV studio. If there isn’t diversity of thought and ideas, all you get is a bag of M&M’s: They may be different colors but it doesn’t matter; when you close your eyes, they all taste the same.

OK, you’ve waited long enough. What exactly was the white-only, chanting, singing gathering of hundreds I described up top?

(Hit your Pg Dn key for the answer)

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High Holy Day services at my (left-leaning) synagogue.

Not too many non-white Jews around, has anyone noticed? All those white people. Must be Republicans!

Liberal Anti-Semitism: Hope, Change, and Those Zionist Nazis

The Left has going completely apoplectic about right-wing “hate speech.” You should see what they’ve been saying about El Rushbo, Mark Levin, and the other hosts, especially since Obama’s ego took an Olympic-sized crash in Copenhagen.

Guess they’ve been too busy to notice the real hate speech, anti-Semitic speech to be exact, that has been taking place … right on President Obama’s own website “Organizing for America.” Gateway Pundit documents comments, articles, and pictures likening Israel to Nazis and concentration camp children to Palestinian children. References to Israel as the “Zionist enterprise” have appeared since the summer. Now it’s October …

Yes, that sound of chirping crickets you hear is the mainstream media.

Yeah yeah, I know, Obama-worshping Jewish liberals/Democrats. You’re going to say that Obama can’t be responsible for the things that get posted on his website’s community blog.

First of all, B.S. If the man can have someone monitor private citizens who spread “lies” about his draconian health (s)care plan, he can certainly have someone filter hate speech posted to his website. It’s not hard to do. It’s not an issue of ability; it’s an issue of desire.

Second, turn the tables around and tell me if this kind of crap was posted on a website associated with the Bush administration, you’d give W a pass.

Yeah, I thought so.

Looks like the next logical question is: What did Obama know and when did he know it?

Liberal Hypocrisy: Paul Krugman Accuses GOP of Unprincipled Spiteful Opposition to Obama

Rarely does such an example appear that so brilliantly illustrates why Projection is one of the two official defense mechanisms of the Democrat Party (the other is Denial). The other day, NY Times editorialist (and, somehow, Economics Nobel Prize laureate) penned a piece accusing Republicans of automatically opposing any policy, action, or statement made by President Obama simply out of spite. He even suggested they do so even at the expense of the good of the country. The piece starts:

The Politics of Spite
October 5, 2009

If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it whether or not it’s good for America.

I almost fell out of my chair. Is this rich or is this rich?

First, let’s tackle the problem that exists in the present tense: Barack Obama’s policies—economic and otherwise—are disastrous for this republic on every historical and empirical scale. Only in the liberal bubble in which knee-jerk Marxist-socialists like Paul Krugman reside could such a blatant fact be so elusive. And only in such a liberal bubble could Krugman see Republicans’ opposition to Obama’s policy as playing politics. If Krugman sees nothing principled in Republican opposition to Obama’s economic plans, maybe he should return that Nobel Prize in economics.

But now let’s leave the present tense and analyze Krugman fourth-dimensionally. Here’s a liberal Democrat New York Times writer accusing Republicans of opposing the president simply because he’s from the other party. Only someone who has lived on a deserted island from 2000 to the present would not be aware that this is exactly what Democrats did to George W. Bush.

Legitimacy of Bush’s election: Liberals/Democrats rejected just because it was Bush.

Tax cuts: Liberals/Democrats opposed just because it was Bush.

Social Security reform: Liberals/Democrats opposed just because it was Bush.

Initial response to 9/11: When they weren’t milking the My Pet Goat angle, Liberals/Democrats supported Bush for about a week, when the country was united and he was getting like a 90% approval rating. But the second it became politically expedient, Liberals/Democrats opposed just because it was Bush.

War in Afghanistan: Liberals/Democrats opposed just because it was Bush. Yes, there were those who claimed to support Afghanistan, insisting it was necessary and legitimate but Iraq distracted us from it have now been exposed as liars. This includes Obama himself, who has shown virtually no interest in Afghanistan, even as troops are being killed at a rate higher than any time since the U.S. went in there in 2001. The lib media? Couldn’t care less about Iraq, Afghanistan, or dead troops.

War in Iraq: Need I even say it?

Patriot Act: Liberals/Democrats opposed just because it was Bush.

No Child Left Behind: Liberals/Democrats opposed just because it was Bush, except for Ted Kennedy who worked with him on it. On all other issues, Kennedy was front and center in bashing Bush. (Even righties were against NCLB; it was just a bad, albeit well-intentioned, piece of legislation.)

Spiteful opposition of Bush at the expense of the security and prosperity of the country: Hmm, let’s see …

• leaking classified information on the front page of the NY Times on several occasions
• propping up anyone who would undermine the war effort, from Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame to Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore to every author (even former administration members) who penned an anti-Bush book
• focusing on every military setback and “scandal” (e.g., Abu Ghraib, Club G’tmo, Haditha) and ignoring/dismissing/mocking every advancement (e.g., capture and ultimate execution of Saddam Hussein, several Iraqi elections)
• calling Bush (and Cheney) a liar who either planned or allowed 9/11 to happen in order to invade Iraq for a number of nefarious reasons
• bashing the troops, calling them stupid, uneducated, and even cold-blooded murderers

And so forth and so on.

Maybe someone can make the case Paul Krugman just wasn’t following what was going on during the Bush years and simply didn’t know that if George W. Bush said it, libs/Dems refuted it; if Bush proposed it, libs/Dems opposed it; if Bush believed it, libs/Dems rejected it.

But that case would not hold water. Because obviously Krugman knew about the Bash Bush at Any Cost contingent; he was part it. Consider these editorials:

Reckonings; Jerking The Other Knee   January 21, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column sees incoming Bush administration reflecting knee-jerk conservatism …

Reckonings; Et Tu, Alan?   January 28, 2001
Op-Ed column by Paul Krugman says Alan Greenspan’s most recent testimony before Senate Budget Committee was evasive and often inconsistent; says Greenspan was out of bounds when he voiced his favor for tax cuts over spending increases; says it is not Federal Reserve’s business to support tax cut over spending for government program; says it is disburbing that man who is usually clear thinker tied himself in intellectual knots to find way to say exactly what Pres Bush wants to hear.

Reckonings; Smog and Mirrors   January 31, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column contends that Pres Bush is trying to dispel doubts about his legitimacy when he blames pollution controls for California energy crisis and uses crisis to argue for opening Arctic tundra to oil drilling; asserts that that by winning series of striking victories against moderates Bush hopes he can create an ‘illusion of a mandate’ that the election did not give him.

Reckonings; Guns And Bitterness   February 4, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says Pres Bush is betraying campaign promises on Medicare and military spending in name of tax cuts; recalls that military personnel overwhelmingly supported Bush, believing they had understanding that he would quickly expand defense spending; adds that Bush administration refuses to rule out raiding Medicare funds to support tax cut

Reckonings; Bums and Rushes   February 7, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column on Pres Bush’s call for immediate, even retroactive, tax cuts as ‘bum’s rush’ that would run skeptics out of town before they can make their case; warns of tactic that Bush’s people clearly like, as when they use California’s electricity crisis to ‘hustle through’ weakening of environmental protections

Reckonings; Slicing The Salami   February 11, 2001
Paul Krugman column explains that selling of Pres Bush’s tax cut relies heavily on ‘salami’ tactic of slicing away opposition bit at a time; analyzes ‘whole salami’ of three basic federal taxes on individuals

Reckonings; Doing the Wrong Thing   February 14, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column scores Federal Reserve Chmn Alan Greenspan’s failure to try to curb tax-cutting frenzy he helped inspire

Reckonings; Fowl Play   February 21, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column suggests that George W Bush, who likes to bestow nicknames, call himself Chicken Little, for running around saying ‘The sky is falling! Hurry up and pass my tax cut!’; points out that economic data do not support such gloomy views, except for consumer confidence, which seems to be plunging in direct relation to dire headlines

Reckonings; Debt and Taxes   February 28, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says Pres George W Bush’s tax cut is irresponsible; says federal government is running large budget surpluses right now, but most of that comes from Social Security and Medicare, which must run surpluses now, while baby boomers are still paying into them, if we are to avoid either sharp tax increase or sharp benefits cuts when boomers retire; says Bush’s proposal to divert part of Social Security taxes into new personal acccounts for younger workers would further reduc...

Reckonings; Bashing the Boomers   March 7, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says middle-income baby boomers will be among victims of Pres George W Bush’s budget and tax plan since he intends to ‘raid’ the funds that were supposed to support boomers’ retirement; says Social Security and Medicare were expected to accumulate almost $3 trillion in reserves over next decade, and Bush proposes to divert about $1 trillion into other uses; holds that without those reserves, Medicare will be in trouble in next decade and Social Security a bit later, bu...

Reckonings; The Money Pit   March 18, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column warns that Pres Bush’s so-called trillion-dollar tax cut is more likely to cost a lot more, and is likely to become a $2.5 trillion tax cut; holds estimates have exploded because original estimates were dishonest

Reckonings; The Hostage Economy   March 28, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says George W Bush’s tax cut plan is virtually useless as short-run economic stimulus; says plan delays big tax cut far into future, putting hardly any money into hands of consumers this year and not much next year; says better approach is to implement one of short-term stimulus plans proposed by Democrats, and hope that Bush’s strategy of using slowdown to press Congress into passing tax cut mainly benefiting the rich will miss its window of opportunity

Reckonings; The Levitating Dollar   April 1, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column discusses why United States dollar is still rising, even as everthing else about American economy is down lately: manufacturing, production, overall growth, and stocks

Reckonings; The Class Warrior   April 4, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column scores Pres Bush’s push to pass his tax cut quickly with minimal discussion; holds plan is even more tilted toward rich than previously thought because estate tax repeal would make it easier for rich to avoid income taxes

Reckonings; Two Untrue Things   April 8, 2001
Paul Krugman column says it is not enough to scale down Pres Bush’s tax plan because it is contrary to interests of great majority of Americans and has been sold under utterly false pretenses; rejects claim that there is enough money for cuts, and that cut is for ordinary families

Reckonings; Muddled in the Middle   April 11, 2001
Paul W Krugman Op-Ed column wonders what the heartland was thinking when it voted for George W Bush, who failed to tell them that promises to cut taxes and spending meant tax cuts for the urban elite and less money for farmers; points out that Bush’s budget punishes very people whose votes, as opposed to campaign contributions, put him in power; cites Montana, which is bigger recipient of federal money than New Jersey, and notes that nobody has found example of ‘family farm’ that actually has t...

Reckonings; The Farce Is With Us   May 6, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says two pages missing from House budget resolution only begin to suggest full dishonesty of Republican leadership as it pushes through huge tax cut before anyone has chance to look at details

Reckonings; The Unrefined Truth   May 9, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column disputes Vice Pres Dick Cheney’s intimation that high gas prices are result of shortage for which environmentalists are largely responsible; says conservation should be major element in our energy strategy, and that lack of conservation is large part of what we have been doing wrong; holds this year’s gasoline price spike has nothing to do with a shortage of crude oil and binding constraint right now is nation’s limited capacity to refine crude oil into gasoline; says ...

Reckonings; The Universal Elixir   May 16, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column examines campaign by Bush administration to sell huge tax-cut package; provides facetious schedule of progress of tax cut legislation in next few months

Reckonings; Burn, Baby, Burn   May 20, 2001
Who knew that Dick Cheney had such a sense of humor? He had us rolling in the aisles after the famous put-down in which he dismissed energy conservation as nothing more than a ‘‘sign of personal virtue.’’ But the joke got much better Thursday, with the release of the administration’s energy plan. Just for laughs, Mr. Cheney threw in a few mock conservation measures. Topping the list was a tax credit for -- get this -- people who purchase hybrid gas-electric cars.

Reckonings; The Big Lie   May 27, 2001
Paul Krugman column wonders whether new Democratic control of Senate will really make difference in efforts to fend off Pres Bush’s huge tax cut

Reckonings; Bad Heir Day   May 30, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says tax legislation passed by Congress and signed by Pres Bush is absurd, noting that one provision on estate taxes would create great temptation to kill off one’s parents before Jan 1, 2011, to save half one’s inheritance; says there are other ‘weird’ and ‘bizarre’ elements in tax plan, especially some provisions that are deferred well into the future; says that someday, responsible politicians will have to ‘untangle this mess’

Reckonings; Red Tide Rising   July 6, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says Senate moderates who voted for Bush administration tax cut were snookered into thinking that budget surpluses would continue; says nation will spend years paying for consequences of their gullibility; notes that only after Bush signed tax cut into law did White House officials admit that budget outlook is not rosy after all; says Congressional Budget Office’s projections next month will certainly mark revenues down; says from now on, prospect is for chronic budget...

Reckonings; Outside the Box   July 11, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column recalls Pres Bush’s solemn pledge that tax cuts would not be at expense of Social Security money, which would be kept in ‘lockbox’; reports that Bush takes some of his promises more seriously than others, pushing through big tax cuts for the rich and then discovering that lockbox is silly idea; quotes Mitch Daniels, director of Office of Management and Budget, saying, ‘box has nothing but promissory notes in it’

Reckonings; 2016 And All That   July 22, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column on draft report by commission on Social Security reform, appointed by Pres Bush; holds report is ‘sheer, mean-spirited nonsense’; deplores commission’s attempt to sow panic

Reckonings; Sins of Commission   July 25, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column scorns Pres Bush’s hand-picked commission for its ‘doublethink’ proposals on Social Security and for trying to have it both ways on how Social Security contribution dollars are used, or not used, by general treasury; debunks commission’s reasoning on trust fund

Reckonings; Rebate and Switch   July 29, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column mocks White House economist Lawrence Lindsey’s defense of Bush administration’s tax rebates

Reckonings; Feeling OPEC’s Pain   August 5, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column on Pres Bush’s expressions of sympathy for OPEC’s cause; suggests that his heart belongs to people, of whatever nationality, who sell oil

Reckonings; Nothing For Something   August 8, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column contends that Bush administration is not interested in realistic proposal for privatizing Social Security but intends to promote private accounts with false advertising and promise of something for nothing; says administration is equally uninterested in realistic assessment of current Social Security system, and instead will attempt to convince people that huge surpluses of today somehow make no contribution to system’s future solvency

Reckonings; Delusions of Prosperity   August 14, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column on outlook for US economy; says excessive confidence may be part of problem causing current economic slowdown; says instead of being victims of self-fulfilling pessimism, we may be suffering from self-defeating optimism; says driving force in slowdown is plunge in business investment and that recovery will take more than simply trying to restore confidence

Reckonings; Enron Goes Overboard   August 17, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column on Enron Corp’s failed effort to become broker for wholesale electricity as deregulation spreadsd across United States; says state and local governments, alerted by what happened in California, are now wary of electricity deregulation, leaving fewer oportunities for Enron; notes that Bush administration’s faith in absolutely unregulated markets is unshaken in spite of debacle in California when it deregulated its electricity market

Reckonings; Fabricating A Crisis   August 21, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column accuses Bush administration of fabricating crisis over Social Security reform by building on notion that system must be destroyed in order to save it; says only serious threat to Social Security comes from those want to panic Americans into junking system, when all it needs are minor repairs

Reckonings; Pants On Fire   August 24, 2001
Op-Ed column by Paul Krugman, in form of open letter to Mitch Daniels of Office of Management and Budget; says Daniels’ claim that budget surplus has vanished because of Congressional big spending is bogus; notes that International Monetary Fund’s recent report points out that Pres Bush’s $1.35 trillion tax cut will actually cost at least $2.5 trillion; says fact is that money that was supposed to be accumulated to pay retirement benefits will be used instead to provide big tax cuts to very, ve...

Reckonings; That Sinking Feeling   August 26, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column scores likelihood that Bush administration will raid Social Security surplus; fears any temporary raid on surplus would become permanent

Reckonings; Truth And Lies   August 28, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says Pres Bush broke promise not to raid Social Security surplus to finance government programs; charges that Bush continues to lie about effect of ‘ill-advised’ $1.6 billion tax cut in negating budget surplus

Reckonings; Hold Him To It   September 9, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says Pres Bush must be held to his promises to protect Social Security surplus

Reckonings; Paying the Price   September 16, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says terrorist attacks on New York and Washington are partly self-inflicted because nation has not been willing to pay price of protecting itself, particularly at its airports; says spirit of the times was against anything that looked like increase in government spending unless it was explicitly military

Reckonings; What to Do   September 19, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says best way to help US economy survive terrorist attacks is not with tax cut, but with large, temporary increase in government spending

Reckonings; A Bad Week   September 23, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column assesses economic consequences of terrorist attacks on America; holds it up to government to ensure that America’s sorrow and nervousness do not turn into economic disaster; urges acceleration of flow of government spending into economy

Reckonings; Not a Fuels Errand   September 26, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column reports that as Sept 11 shock fades some old refrains are being heard, from left and right, about ‘war for oil’; explains that oil is part of background to terrorist attacks, via Osama bin Laden’s hatred of US forces in Saudi Arabia; says there is no way for now to escape awkward realitiy that Mideast oil reserves are crucial to world economy

Reckonings; The Hitchhiker Syndrome   September 30, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column on political phenomenon of the ‘hitchhikers,’ people who want to use patriotic bandwagon spurred by terrorist attacks as vehicle to promote their favorite economic and tax policy proposals; contends most vocal hitchhikers are conservative pundits; finds that Bush administration has been pretty good at rejecting hitchhiker strategy

Reckonings; The Public Interest   October 10, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column scorns conservative resistance to federalizing airport security to protect Americans from terrorists; observes that Bush administration, after flirting with moderation in weeks following Sept 11 attack, seems to have returned to its conviction that hard right, which is relentless and bears grudges, must be deferred to even in times of national crisis

Reckonings; Ban the Bonds   October 24, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column opposes creation of new class of war bonds to support nation’s war on terrorism as well as corporate tax cuts being pushed by House Republicans with blessing of Pres Bush

Reckonings; The One-Eyed Man   October 31, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column notes House-approved bill to repeal alternative minimum tax would give big refunds to medium-sized companies in energy and mining businesses that tend to be based in or near Texas; cites overlap between these companies and companies that would have gotten large subsidies under Vice Pres Dick Cheney’s energy plan; notes most made large, one-sided donations to Republican Party in last election; cites error in his Oct 24 column on war bonds

Reckonings; Making Windows Transparent   November 4, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column cites difficulty of finding good solutions to Microsoft Corp’s antitrust violations; holds proposed settlement with Justice Department might do some good

Reckonings; A Cross of Dollars   November 7, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column on Argentina’s looming economic catastrophe blames old-time economic religion, with narrow-minded insistence on monetary rectitude at expense of every other consideration; explains that since last spring conservative economists have urged Argentina to preserve its dollar peg and default on old debt instead, which is what is happening now; hopes Argentina will not sacrifice economy and credit rating on altar of discredited monetary theology

Reckonings; Another Useful Crisis   November 11, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column assesses Senate Republicans’ economic stimulus package, backed by Bush administration; holds bill offers little stimulus, and is mainly designed to lock in permament tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy

Reckonings; Other People’s Money   November 14, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says budgetary cost of war on terrorism, abroad and at home, is relatively small change, probably less than $200 billion; says much of projected $2.7 trillion Social Security surplus was gone before Sept 11, swallowed by Pres Bush’s tax cut last spring, and administration’s allies in Congress are now striving energetically to give away the rest in tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy individuals, thinking they can get away with it by blaming terrorism for future...

Reckonings; The 55-Cent Solution   November 21, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column scores Pres Bush for backing plan that would give New York only $11 billion of $20 billion in aid promised after Sept 11 terrorist attacks; questions why planned aid cut has gotten little attention; urges New Yorkers to express outrage

Reckonings; An Alternate Reality   November 25, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says television news always shows Americans behaving well in wake of terrorist attacks, but some Web sites and business sections of quality newspapers reveal a different picture: Congress voting billions in ‘lump-sum transfers’ to airlines but not a penny for laid-off airline workers, House ‘stimulus’ package that contains almost nothing for the unemployed but $25 billion in retroactive corporate tax cuts and Bush administration pressing for opening of public lands to ...

Hitting The Trifecta   December 7, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column likens Pres Bush’s tax and budget plans to Enron, company that used cooked numbers to justify big giveaways at top and then let ordinary workers pay the price; recalls how Bush used projections of vast budget surpluses to push through huge tax cut earlier in year, and now tells us, through budget director Mitch Daniels, that entire budget, not just portion outside Social Security, will be in deficit through 2004

Eleven And Counting   December 14, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed article says Federal Reserve has cut interest rates 11 times this year, and has yet to see results; says Fed chairman Alan Greenspan is partly to blame for this; says sudden return of federal deficits have had impact on long-term interest rates, and it was Greenspan who testified before Congress in January on behalf of large tax cuts; says Greenspan should concede that he gave Congress bad advice

A No-Win Outcome   December 21, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column on why economic stimulus package failed in Congress; compares original version of bill with later one to prove that Republicans did not ‘give a lot’ to get bill passed, as they claim; says question American people should ask is why Bush administration, given deadlock in Congress, did not push for minimalist package that would have been better than no deal at all; says such a package would not have lived up to hopes of administration strategists, who thought they could ...

The Scrooge Syndrome   December 25, 2001
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says United States has become Scrooge of Western world, least generous rich nation on planet; notes that Americans typically come up with 10 percent as appropriate amount of federal budget that should be devoted to foreign aid, about 20 times what US currently spends; says government should put its weight, and its dollars, behind World Health Organization proposal to provide basic services and medicines to world’s poor, plan that would save millions of lives each year ...

Could’ve Been Worse   December 28, 2001
Paul Krugman column reviewing economic policy in United States and abroad holds 2001 could have been worse; notes United States economy, while falling into recession, did not fall off cliff; hails farcial end to commission that was supposed to offer detailed plan to privatize Social Security

America The Polarized   January 4, 2002
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says economic polarization--the sharply widening inequality of income and wealth--is most likely source of political polarization, prompting Republicans, but not Democrats, to move to right; says response to rising inequality has been drive to reduce taxes on rich, thanks to campaign finance, lobbying, and general power of money to shape political debate; disagrees with commentators who expect that current partisanship is temporary aberration

The Quiet Man   January 8, 2002
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who gave Bush administration aid in its push for large tax cut year ago, is strangely silent now, as analysts agree that federal budget will be in deficit for at least next several years; says sudden plunge back into deficit undoes Greenspan’s own handiwork, but if Greenspan says anything now against tax cut he would have to admit, at least tacitly, that he was wrong last year; says if he worries about his reputation, he sh...

Our Wretched States   January 11, 2002
Op-Ed column by Paul Krugman says current condition of states is shape of national things to come; notes National Governors Assn reports its members face combined budget shortfall of at least $40 billion; attributes this to mostly Republican governors who used questionable budget forecasts to justify tax cuts for affluent; notes Bush administration used same strategy at national level in 2001; says selective tax cuts in states were cleared with forecasts that made no allowance for contingencies...

Crony Capitalism, U.S.A.   January 15, 2002
Paul Krugman Op-Ed column says Bush administration fears, and press suspects, that latest revelations in Enron affair will raise lid on crony capitalism, American style; says administration, with its sense of entitlement, seems unconcerned by even most blatant conflicts of interest; says real questions about Enron’s relationship with administration involve what happened before energy trader went bankrupt; says that is when Kenneth Lay, Enron’s chief executive, allegedly told head of Federal Ene...

Listed above is every editorial Krugman wrote in the first year of Bush’s presidency in which Bush (or Cheney) is mentioned. In every one Krugman opposes Bush. Note the main themes:

Tax cuts: Both the 2001 and later 2003 tax cuts helped the economy and boosted tax revenue a lot, yet Krugman adamantly opposed them. All you get is the incessant typical Marxist-socialist "Bush favors the rich at the expense of the poor" claptrap. Notice too how Krugman criticizes Bush for trying to rush the legislation through Congress without adequate discussion or consideration. Sound familiar?

Social Security: Eight years after Krugman bashed Bush for proposing reform, Social Security is still in serious danger of going bankrupt. Krugman adamantly opposed it.

9/11: Krugman blames the Bush administration for what they didn’t do to protect us from the terrorist attacks. Those who know the rest of story know Krugman then spent the next seven years bashing the administration for what they were doing to prevent future terrorist attacks.

Here are some more highlights: Notice the small post-9/11 stimulus package Bush approved in November, 2001. Guess what? Krugman opposed it! Then he accused Bush and the Republicans of concocting a fake crisis in order to get it passed. You can’t make up more hypocritcal stuff than this!

I find it interesting that in Krugman’s May 30, 2001 piece he claimed repealing the estate tax would "create great temptation to kill off one’s parents before Jan 1, 2011." This is the same guy who in 2009 mocks conservatives/Republicans for arguing ObamaCare will lead to death panels and pulling the plug on grandma.

So, just from the first year of the Bush presidency—before Iraq, when libs/Dems really had stuff to bash Bush about—you were hard-pressed to find one editorial in which Paul Krugman did not oppose George W. Bush, even at the detriment of the nation’s prosperity and security. 

If that’s not unprincipled, politically-motivated, spiteful opposition, I don’t know what is.

Paul Krugman, you’re a class-A hypocrite. A Democrat hack with a word processor. And your constantly rebuked Marxist-socialist approach to economics sucks.

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!

Listen & Learn: El Rushbo Gets the Best Phone Call of His Career (9/30/09)

Listening to Rush’s show yesterday (September 30) was like a nightmare. With every infuriating story, I felt like a frog in slowly boiling water (with apologies to Glenn Beck). For two hours I listened just stunned at all the ways the Democrats nationwide were screwing this country up beyond recognition, throwing this Constitution of ours out the window, and stealing your freedom with every minute they meet.

The fascist Left is on the march, people. From state capitals to the U.S. Capitol and White House, the Democrat Party is in full-speed mode to steal your freedom in order to empower themselves and steal your money to enrich themselves.

Think I’m being hyperbolic? OK, for those of you who get your news from the miserably pathetic New York Times or one of the alphabet news channels, here’s what’s really been going on in this country:

First, Rush cites a WSJ report that the Bill Clinton library (and massage parlor) in Little Rock, Arkansas is getting $2.5 million in stimulus money. What the $&*#? This is not what stimulus money was supposed to be meant for! Clinton got who knows how many millions of dollars in donations, including from the Communist Chinese. What a waste of the American people’s tax dollars.

And if that’s not enough of a waste, consider this exclusive story from the Washington Times: The National Science Foundation, which has 1200 employees and gets $6 billion in tax-payer funding in 2008, is being investigated because its staff, including senior staff, have been spending their work hours surfing internet porn:

One foundation employee paid an unspecified sum last year after investigators found that during a three-week period in June 2008, the worker perused hundreds of pornographic Web sites during work hours. That employee received a 10-day suspension.

In an official notice of the decision, the foundation called the conduct “unprofessional and unacceptable,” but also noted the employee’s work history and lack of any previous disciplinary actions.

As for the unnamed “senior executive” who spent at least 331 days looking at pornography at work, investigators said his proclivity for pornography was common knowledge among several co-workers.

“At the same time, employees were generally reluctant to make any official report or complaint because the misconduct involved a senior staff member and employees feared that they would suffer in some form of complaining,” the investigators later wrote in a summary of the case.

Another employee in a different case was caught with hundreds of pictures, videos and even PowerPoint slide shows containing pornography. Asked by an investigator whether he had completed any government work on a day when a significant amount of pornography was downloaded, the employee responded, “Um, I can’t remember,” according to records.

The employee also said that friends sent him the pornographic files, that he never planned on viewing them and that he never got around to deleting the files, a claim one official later called “simply not believable.”

Suspended for 10 days, the employee unsuccessfully appealed the decision after arguing that it was too harsh. Other employees were terminated.

Another employee who stored nude images of herself on her computer told investigators she mistakenly had downloaded the pictures. She received counseling and was told to adhere to the foundation’s policies on computer use.

By the way, the NSF has gotten stimulus money too! And, being that one of its main jobs is to allocate college grant money, it has been reported that it gave an Oklahoma State University professor $1.1 million in stimulus money to “study Alaskan grandparents.”

But this is the government that keeps telling us they know how to spend your money better than you do.

Next, check out this blatant example of liberal/Democrat fascism run amok in Michigan:

RUSH: We’re all going to become slaves to the government in every aspect of our lives, and I want to give you an example. Irving Township, Michigan. The state of Michigan has told a Michigan mother that she’s running illegal day care by watching her neighbor’s kids before school. 

“Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood’s children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school. Regulators who oversee child care, however, don’t see it as charity. 

Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she’d be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers.

“‘I was freaked out. I was blown away,’ she said. ‘I got on the phone immediately, called my husband, then I called all the girls’—that is, the mothers whose kids she watches—‘every one of them.’” 

What do you bet this woman voted for Obama? Wild guess here. What do you bet she voted for Obama? 

“Snyder’s predicament has led to a debate in Michigan about whether a law that says no one may care for unrelated children in their home for more than four weeks each calendar year unless they are licensed day-care providers needs to be changed. It also has irked parents who say they depend on such friendly offers to help them balance work and family.” 

How do these people in Michigan think this thing ever got done in the first place? I don’t know about you growing up, but my mom and dad would park me at the friend’s house for sometimes a day and a half while they had to go do something. And vice-versa. And there was no thought anywhere that somebody was violating the stupid law about day care centers.

Can you believe the chutzpah of these power-hungry busy-body liberal Democrat bureaucrats? (How do I know they’re liberal Democrats?Two easy ways: One, this is Michigan and two: no conservative Republican office-holder would pull something so completely authoritarian.) When I was in grade school, my mother left me and my brother at a friend’s house for hours, and paid her, every weekday afternoon until she left work. And there were other kids over at the house too. If these liberal fascists were around then, our family friend would’ve been threatened by the state too.

But it only gets better. Yet another of President Hope&Change’s czars has been caught with a very sordid past. In a past job, Kevin Jennings not only had failed to report a sexual relationship between a 15-year-old boy and an adult male, but he helped encourage the affair!

Where was the mainstream media during all this? As of Rush’s broadcast yesterday, they were hardly anywhere. This Washington Times editorial nails it perfectly:

Sex scandal double standard: What if Kevin Jennings were a Republican?

When Republican Rep. Mark Foley was caught chasing congressional pages, he got exactly what was coming to him. In a blizzard of coverage (1,400 stories, according to Google news), Mr. Foley’s creepy behavior was examined from every possible angle. Nobody wanted to hear that the congressman’s stupid and objectionable behavior was confined to e-mails and text messages. His immediate resignation didn’t quiet the furor. When two years of investigations found no crime, the results got barely a peep.

Whether the press feeding frenzy around Mr. Foley’s disgrace was justified or not, the explosion of coverage was certainly understandable, even predictable. That reality is what makes coverage of Kevin Jennings, President Obama’s “safe school czar” something of a mystery.

Mr. Jennings brings all the sleaze of Mr. Foley. Sex and the underaged? Check. An older man? Check. Potential misbehavior by a government official? Check.

And the Jennings case brings a lot more: A “safe schools czar” who failed to report a statutory rape? An education leader who encouraged a 15-year-old student to be comfortable with sexual abuse? A federal official who ignored a law requiring him to report even the possibility of a crime? […]

All those facts aside, from the media’s perspective, the stories aren’t even remotely similar. Mr. Jennings hasn’t been hit with 1,400 stories or 140 or even 14. With the exception of Fox News, which discovered new audio-taped evidence in the case, Mr. Jennings’ story has been ignored. […]

There’s more on Jennings I’ll bet you didn’t know about. He’s a radical homosexual (not that there’s anything wrong with that) activist who founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which “makes schools safe for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.” Sounds reasonable, right? Sure, until you see what this description really entails. From World Net Daily:

According to the Americans for Truth website run by Peter LaBarbera, the incident involving the 15-year-old was just one among a series of egregious behaviors by Jennings.

Another incident was the “fistgate” scandal in which he led discussions at a seminar where “young teens were guided on how to perform dangerous homosexual perversions including ‘fisting,’“ the website said.

Yet another was Jennings’ address in a New York City church on March 20, 2000. He said:

“Twenty percent of people are hard-core fair-minded [pro-homosexual] people. Twenty percent are hard-core [anti-homosexual] bigots. We need to ignore the hard-core bigots, get more of the hard-core fair-minded people to speak up, and we’ll pull that 60 percent [of people in the middle] over to our side. That’s really what I think our strategy has to be. We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. We also have to quit — I’m trying to find a way to say this. I’m trying not to say, ‘[F—] ‘em!’ which is what I want to say, because I don’t care what they think! [audience laughter] Drop dead!”

Seriously, where the heck does Barack Obama find these cretins???

Now for not one, but two pièces de resistence. First, during Rush’s broadcast, the Hill’s Briefing Room blog reported that:

Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed a requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs.

Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits.

Grassley’s amendment was beaten back 10-13 on a party-line vote.

The bill, authored by committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would require applicants to verify their names, places of birth and Social Security numbers. In addition, legal immigrants would have to wait five years, as under current law, after obtaining citizenship or legal residency to access federal healthcare benefits such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program or receive tax credits or purchase insurance through the exchange created by the legislation.

But the would not require them to show a photo ID, such as a drivers license. Without that requirement, the bill “remains dearly lacking when it comes to identification,” Grassley said. “Frankly, I’m very perplexed as to why anyone would oppose this amendment,” he said.

In other words, Joe Wilson Was Right. There is absolutely no logical reason Democrats would have blocked this provision if they’re not planning for illegal aliens to sneak through the system and get government-run health care, paid for by us the taxpayers and benefiting the Democrat Party by buying illegal alien votes. (Illegal aliens can vote? Of course they can. What’s to stop them? Democrats have blocked photo I.D. requirements to vote also.)

Secondly, Rush cites a Human Events article spelling out how Democrats are going to sneak their fascist government-run health care on us by next week, namely, by sticking it in as an addendum to the also fascist bill H.R. 1586, which imposes taxes on people’s bonuses.

The following four-step scenario describes one way liberals plan to work the rules in their favor to get Obamacare through the Senate:

Step 1: The Senate Finance Committee must first approve the marked-up version of Sen. Max Baucus’ (D.-Mont.) conceptual framework. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) can say that two Senate Committees have passed a health care bill, which will allow him to take extraordinary steps to get the bill on the Senate floor.

During the mark-up last week, members had difficulty offering amendments and trying to make constructive changed because they lacked actual legislative text and Baucus made unilateral last minute changes. For example, the AP reported that “under pressure from fellow Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee decided to commit an additional $50 billion over a decade toward making insurance more affordable for working-class families.”

Step 2: Sen. Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which passed on a party-line vote in July.

Usually, a bill is voted out of committee, and then the Senate takes up the final product of the committee so that all 100 senators can have a hand in the process. With some help from the Obama administration, Reid will decide what aspects of the HELP and Finance Committee bills to keep.

Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy and is currently sitting on the Senate Legislative Calendar.

The move to proceed needs 60 votes to start debate. After the motion is approved, Sen. Reid will offer Obamacare as a complete substitute to the unrelated House-passed bill. This means that the entire healthcare reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.

Step 4: For this strategy to work, the proponents would need to hold together the liberal caucus of 58 Democrats (including Paul Kirk who was named last Thursday to replace Sen. Kennedy), and the two Independent senators (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont). These members will have to all hold hands and vote against any filibuster. Once the Senate takes up the bill, only a simple majority of members will be needed for passage. It’s possible one of the endangered moderate Democrats, such as Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), could vote to stop a filibuster then vote against Obamacare so as not to offend angry constituents.

Once the Senate passes a bill and sends it to the House, all the House would have to do is pass the bill without changes and President Obama will be presented with his health care reform measure. If this plan does not work, the Senate and House leadership may go back to considering using reconciliation to pass the legislation.

Adopting this secret plan will not strike most Americans as a transparent, bipartisan, effective way to change how millions of Americans get their health care.

After these two hours, I was boiling mad: Inexcusably misspent stimulus money, yet another Obama czar exposes as a radical leftist hell-bend on crushing traditional American values and traditions, moralistic busybody bureaucrats telling people what they can do in their own house, and megalomaniacal Congresspeople imposing draconian and unconstitutional laws on the American people against their will. Plus an Obama-worshiping mainstream media that ignores all of it. I could not bear listening to Rush’s next hour.

Then Twitter, Facebook, and Free Republic began to light up with news of a woman who had just called in to Rush’s show. It seems this woman—Susan from Glendale, California—was voicing the anger and frustration I and millions of listeners were experiencing. The result was one of the best phone calls Rush has ever received:

 

Rush2009-09-30_Part1

Rush2009-09-30_Part2

Thank you, Susan from Glendale. You are a ray of sunshine in the pitch-black abyss that is Obama-Reid-Pelosi’s America. 

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

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

October 1, 2009
Three Dangerous Stooges

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

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

October 01, 2009
Nothing for Everyone

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

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

Serious Fascists in America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a blessed day!

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 ...

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 (9/16/09)

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

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

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

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

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

There’s plenty more where that came from.

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

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

September 15, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a blessed day!