Vocal Minority

Liberal Fascism: Congress Will Soon Be in Charge of What You Can Earn

Somewhere in hell, Marx, Lenin, and Stalin are smiling.

The story below is worse than disturbing. Worse than depressing. It’s downright bone-chilling. Byron York has this piece in today’s D.C. Examiner [h/t Bizzy Blog]:

Beyond AIG: A bill to let Big Government set your salary
By Byron York | Chief Political Correspondent 3/31/09

… [I]n a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees—not just top executives—of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to “prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards,” according to the bill’s language. That includes regular pay, bonuses—everything—paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Pay for Performance Act??? You have got to be kidding me. This is more Orwellian than the “Fairness” Doctrine. When the heck has the federal government, at least since FDR, favored paying anybody according to their performance? The entire government education system, with the Democrat Party being beholden to the teachers’ union, is a hotbed of good pay regardless of performance!

I would say that the Democrats can’t really think that the American people are that stupid, but you know what? I think they really do think that. And you know what else? Given that the American people actually elected these pieces of excrement, I pretty much agree with that belief.

York continues:

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is “unreasonable” or “excessive.” And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate “the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates.”

The bill passed the Financial Services Committee last week, 38 to 22, on a nearly party-line vote. (All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans, with the exception of Reps. Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted against it.) …

Tom at the Bizzy Blog says:

Besides the utter outrageousness of the news itself, the story leads to the question of how the establishment media will handle it. Whitewash it? Minimize its significance? Ignore it? Given the fact that the news is over a week old, I vote for a continuation of Door Number Three. […]

Geez, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to extend Geithner’s reach to:

• Any company with a Small Business Administration loan.
• Any university with students who have borrowed money from the government to attend (i.e., almost every institution of higher learning in the US).
• Any company whose employees use government services (i.e., an interstate highway or a subsidized mass-transit ride) to get to work.

That is, it’s not a very far trip to controlling everyone’s earnings.

Well, at least the self-employed won’t be affected … Don’t count on that either. Tax Cheat Tim will probably want to control hourly rates and prices paid to vendors too.

BizzyBlog exit question: Is it OK to call them Socialists yet? (/sarc)

Oh no, Tom. This is worse than socialism. This is totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fascism all rolled into one.

I’d like to know where are all those “Bush=Hitler” liberals/Democrats who for eight years were filling the streets from NYC to San Fran denouncing the supposed trampling of the Constitution by the Bush administration?

Where are all my liberal/Democrat friends who trekked to D.C. to denounce President “Chimpy McHitlerburton” for not letting unlawful enemy combatants (or whatever the f**k you’re supposed to call them these days) at Club G’tmo get habeas corpus rights, a taxpayer-funded lawyer, and access to our civilian courts?

Where are all my liberal/Democrat friends who lashed out against the Patriot Act, which was supposedly eroding all of our civil liberties?

You’re nowhere, aren’t you? And it’s easy to see why, really. For one thing, your caterwauling over Bush’s “indiscretions” was all a farce; you just didn’t like Bush, so you bought into every leftist fantasy that every step he took was somehow unconstitutional or freedom-suppressing. Second, you love the fact that other Americans who you believe deserve it are getting their rights and their economic freedom trampled on by a power-hungry Democrat president and a power-hungry Democrat Congress. Admit it, dear liberals/Democrats. You love the idea of other Americans, private citizens who have not broken any law (not that I approve of their bonuses, but that is entirely beside the point) getting it up the ass by this completely out-of-control federal government. Because they deserve it, don’t they? Those evil rrrrrrrrrrrich people deserve it. You know I’m right.

For every one of you who crapped on Bush for eight years but have nothing to say about this unprecedented governmental power grab: Shame on you. Every single one of you.

When it’s your ass Dictator Obama and the dictatorial Democrat Congress come for, because they decide one day that you earn too much, don’t come crying to me. I’ll be in New Zealand.

How Do Liberals Lie About the Right? John Hawkins Counts the Ways

Wow. Just wow. The latest from dextro-blogger extraordinaire John Hawkins is amazing. Read it in full and learn. (See his original post for available source links):

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The Top Seven Techniques Liberals Use to Lie About Conservatives

Liberals spend much of their time trying to hide what they believe from the public while conservatives are perpetually frustrated by the fact that the American people don’t seem to understand what we really believe. Both problems spring from a single source: liberals lie incessantly. That’s not to say that there aren’t conservative liars or truthful liberals; there are, but for liberals, lying is the rule, not the exception.

There are two reasons why liberals lie much more than conservatives. First off, this is a center-right country and liberal beliefs are much more unpopular than conservative ones. If liberals told the truth about what they believe and want to do, the Democratic Party would practically be wiped out in much of the country.

Additionally, conservatives tend to think liberals are merely stupid or emotional, while liberals tend to view conservatives as evil—and liberals use that belief to justify lying about conservatives. After all, if you lie about someone who’s evil to keep them from doing bad things, couldn’t that be considered virtuous? You may disagree with that, but liberal politicians, bloggers, and journalists live by that rule. Any lie told about a conservative, even one that liberals know isn’t true, will be uncritically repeated ad nauseum by the Left until the point it becomes politically disadvantageous to do so.

So, in order to help fight the lies of the Left, here’s a guide to the most prevalent techniques that liberals use to mislead people about conservatives. If you’re listening to liberals talk about conservatives, you’re virtually guaranteed to hear at least one of these techniques used.

1) Question The Motivations: When liberals are losing an argument, they love to shift the discussion not to the facts at hand, but to the motivation of the person on the other side. That’s because it’s almost impossible to prove what someone’s motive may be for a particular action.

Thus, liberals can claim that Charles Pickering, a man who went toe-to-toe with the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan in the sixties, is actually a racist or that George Bush invaded Iraq to try to steal its oil.

From the liberal perspective, the more shameless the lies, the better because the target of the scandalous accusation and his defenders will often waste inordinate amounts of time and energy fighting ridiculous, unfounded allegations that a certain percentage of uninformed Americans will simply assume are true without evidence.

2) The Anonymous Smear: Want to launch an attack at a conservative, but don’t have a credible source handy? No problem. Just take a vicious critic or an unreliable source and make them “anonymous.”

CBS did it with Bill Burkett, who provided them with the fake “Bush was AWOL” documents during the 2004 campaign. Had they revealed who he was, the story would have been treated as not credible from day one.

If even that proves too troublesome, some members of the media (I strongly suspect Seymour Hersh is guilty of this) just make things up and attribute them to non-existent sources. Since their sources are anonymous, unless they make the mistake of including verifiable details like the New Republic’s Scott Beauchamp, it’s almost impossible to prove they’re lying.

3) The Teary Eyed Spokesman: One of the Left’s favorite tactics of late is to pick pathetic figures we’re supposed to feel sorry for as spokesmen. That way, if you try to respond to the lies of someone like Cindy Sheehan, you’re accused of picking on the mother of a dead soldier. If you try to respond to the lies of Max Cleland, you’re accused of picking on a crippled vet. At this point, I’m surprised they haven’t found a gaunt, stuttering orphan to serve as Obama’s Press Secretary. Worst-case scenario, he couldn’t do much worse than Robert Gibbs.

4) Rewriting History: The American public has a short memory and liberals count on that to get away with many of their most egregious lies. For example, that’s the factor liberals count on when they try to pretend that George Bush lied about WMDs to get us into Iraq. Lies of that sort usually seem to work until someone points out that Democrats, including our current Secretary of State, weresaying things like this before the war,

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.”—Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002

5) Everybody Knows: When liberals want to avoid a losing argument, they sometimes just refuse to have the argument at all and assure everyone that the matter has already been decided. Why, there’s no need for Al Gore to even debate global warming with people who could easily blow holes the size of the Grand Canyon in his arguments because he insists that there’s a non-existent “scientific consensus.”

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? As long as the Kerry campaign ignored them, most of the mainstream media did, too, but then the line of attack was immediately that the Swifties had already been “discredited.” Who discredited them? How did it happen? What made them less credible than Kerry, particularly since they made him change his story more than once? Whenever you hear liberals in some form or fashion insisting that the argument with conservatives on a particular issue is already over, it’s a good indication that they believe they’ll really get their clocks cleaned in a straight up debate.

6) The Ransom Note Method: One of the Left’s favorite tricks is to take something a conservative says completely out-of-context and to attack that comment, even if it’s obvious that they’re twisting the meaning of what was said. This is how the Left can accuse John McCain of wanting to fight for 100 years in Iraq or say Rush Limbaugh wants Barack Obama to fail even if it hurts the country.

This one is especially insidious because some conservatives foolishly blame other conservatives for having their words taken out of context. However, the reality is that if someone is determined to distort what you say, he can always find something to twist around. The people who deserve blame in that situation are not the people whose words were misrepresented; it’s the liars who have chosen to misrepresent what they said.

7) The Straw Man: If you can’t find a sin conservatives have committed to attack, then invent one. This is one of the most used arrows in the quiver of liberals who claim the Right wants to create a theocracy, kick senior citizens off of Social Security, or reward the rich at the expense of the middle class.

The Left uses this tactic against specific politicians as well. Remember during the 2004 campaign when the Left kept promising to fight a draft that Bush didn’t propose and didn’t support? How about all the attacks on Saxby Chambliss because he supposedly questioned the patriotism of crippled war vet Max Cleland? Except, of course, Saxby Chambliss never questioned Cleland’s patriotism.

Unlike liberals, conservatives believe most Americans share our values and so, if you want to know what we think, all you have to do is ask us and we will tell you.

Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

Brilliant and dead on. You can write a book documenting these tactics. In fact, some attempts have already been tried: Smear Tactics by Brad Miner, Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies by Gregg Jackson, Slander by Ann Coulter, Bankrupt by David Limbaugh, and Reckless Disregard by Robert "Buzz" Patterson. All highly recommended.

The Gig(awatt) Is Up on Climate Change ... or Is It? Earth Hour, U.N., etc.

There’s a lot of global warming climate change garbage going on, especially in light (haha, get it?) of the ludicrous Earth Hour Saturday night.

For one thing, don’t listen to the AP, who reports that, according to AGW activists, Saturday night’s Earth Hour was a huge success. They said around a billion people participated, but there’s no way to measure that. But of course the mainstream media would report this number without an ounce of skepticism.

Well, actually there is a way to measure something: compare the level of power usage during Earth Hour (8:30-9:30 PM) with the usage 24 hours later. Roger Sowell, a California attorney who specializes in scientific matters (he has a degree in chemical engineering) downloaded data from www.caiso.com, the California Independent System Operator, which is “in charge of receiving power from power generating plants, and distributing the power throughout the state grid to the various end users.” [h/t Watts Up With That] You’d figure that if the effects of Earth Hour would be detected anywhere, it would be in California.

The results? Well, as Sowell puts it at his law blog: “There was no apparent decrease in the power load throughout the state, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. No step changes, nothing, nada, zip, zilch.”

Second, Rick Moran at American Thinker responds to environ-mental-ists’ claims that (a) they actually accomplished something meaningful and that (b) those skeptics (like yours truly) who spent Earth Hour by using excessive amounts of electricity were “stupid” or “idiotic.” Indeed, Moran has their number:

… Global Warming deniers celebrated Earth Hour a little differently and probably had more fun with their participation given the circumstances. Many on the opposite side of AGW debate decided to turn every single light in their houses on for that hour. The response was declared to be ”stupid” by leading lights of the left.

“Stupid” as opposed to what? Believing that it makes one iota of difference to anyone, anywhere, anytime that turning off your lights for an hour does anything except make the participant feel a false sense of moral superiority not to mention an obnoxious piety about an issue that, despite claims to the contrary, is still open for scientific debate?

Pardon me but the very idea that Earth Hour will show anybody anything, prove anything to anybody, raise the consciousness of anyone who doesn’t already have their consciousness raised on the issue, change any minds, alter the science, frighten politicians, or “help save the planet” is idiotic and bespeaks a frightening ignorance that is more dangerous than global warming itself.

I have news for my buddies on the left; Earth Hour was “stupid” - an insult to common sense, a slap in the face to reason and logic, and a as far from “reality” as the “reality based community” has ever strayed. It was a pointless waste of time and effort and calling your opponent’s counter-protest” “stupid” was more revealing of your inner demons on this issue than you realize.

Of course, all protests are “stupid” unless liberals start them. They are the arbiters of what is worthy of protest and what isn’t. They are the judges as to whether a protest is legitimate or whether it is “stupid.” Hence, all protests not started by liberals are, by definition, illicit by nature. In fact, by trying to delegitimize protests not given the liberal seal of approval, and dismissing them as “stupid,” the left demonstrates its love of authoritarian tactics in dealing with its opponents.

The AGW deniers “protest” was actually a clever way to mock the event—something that flew so far over the heads of Earth Day supporters that it didn’t even muss their hair on the way by. And there was plenty to point a finger at and laugh. First and foremost, the schoolboy earnestness with which these events are planned and executed, accompanied as they are by grandiose claims of importance and significance. Is it stupidity or hubris that makes the left think that ordinary people care one whit what they think is important? Yes all sorts of government buildings and landmarks as well as “socially conscious” corporations dimmed their lights for Earth Hour but how many individual citizens in various countries did the same? Grandiose claims of a billion people participating cannot possibly be proved—which is why AGW advocates are using that number. It might not even be close to the truth but it sure sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

Using their logic, I can claim that 100 million Americans participated in the counter-protest mocking Earth Hour and I would have the exact same legitimacy in making that assumption as they have in saying that a billion people dimmed their lights at 8:30 on Saturday night. The only difference is I’m not an AGW proponent which means my estimate is automatically “illegitimate.”

Moran also argues that the purpose of Earth Hour, and of all AGW alarmism for that matter, is all about what many of us have already concluded: controlling people and stealing your money. Don’t believe it? Then ask yourself why President Golden Calf—and an entourage of 500; that’s a lot of airplane travel!—are traveling this week to the U.K. for a U.N. climate change meeting that will involve the U.N. “reordering” and overseeing all of the world’s economies.

It seems the UN has got it in its head that it can run the economies of the entire planet. The same folks who ran the Oil For Food program for Saddam and ended up stealing more money than in any other caper in human history are proposing to “reorder” the economies of the world and save us all from rising temperatures.

This 16 page note that will be distributed at the climate change conference in Bonn next week and will form the basis for action when the “Copenhagen Accords” replace the Kyoto treaty in 2012 is the most draconian, sovereignty-destroying, illiberal plan ever devised by the UN. Every nightmare the right has ever had about the UN will come to pass if even part of this plan is adopted.

Now, it is not likely much of this plan will actually be adopted. The idea of the UN dictating to the United States, or any other industrial democracy, which economic policies they are to follow, from which new power plants they will permit to taking the power to impose tariffs away from our Congress, is ludicrous.

But it is instructive as to what the AGW crowd thinks they can get away with in the future. The plan calls for a reduction by the US of 20-40% of its emissions by 2020 and 90% by 2050—an impossible goal that would destroy our economy. That result is secondary to the idea that the United Nations would have the power to regulate our energy consumption, our energy industries, and all industries that produce anything by burning fossil fuels.

As I said, a mad plan that has no chance of being ratified by the Senate—today. What the future will bring is anyone’s guess. A few more years of hysteria over AGW and it is foreseeable that people will be willing to give up anything in order that the United Nations save them. And the longer this economic crisis continues, the more likely people will be willing to give up their sovereignty. Like President Obama relying on the crisis to pass his left wing agenda items that have nothing to do with economic recovery but everything to do with “reordering” America, the world body will seek to use a crisis that they themselves manufacture in order to grab control of the world’s economy. And they will be cheered on by the very people who believe any protest not deemed by them as legitimate is by definition, invalid.

Bob Ellis, who runs the Dakota Voice website [h/t Climate Change Fraud], also reaches this conclusion:

Alan Caruba’s latest column provides some simple bullet-point truths about the religion of global warming which demonstrate that adherents to this religion are believing in something as silly as ancient astrology:

Here are a few things you need to keep in mind about carbon dioxide:

– CO2 is not a “pollutant.” It is a trace gas necessary for all life of Earth because it is essential to the growth of all vegetation.

– Without CO2 all vegetation—grasses, forests, jungles, crops such as wheat, corn and rice—dies. Then herbivores die. Then you die.

– The CO2 produced by human industry or activity is a miniscule fraction of a percentage of greenhouse gases. It constitutes a mere 0.038% of the atmosphere.

– The oceans emit 96.5% of all greenhouse gases, holding and releasing CO2 as it has down through the millennia of Earth’s existence.

– In past millennia, CO2 levels were often much higher than the present.

– CO2 levels rise hundreds of years after temperature rise on planet Earth.

– The Sun is the primary source of warmth on Earth. Rising CO2 is an effect of global warming, not a cause.

– Both global warming and cooling are natural phenomenon over which humans have no control.

– The Earth is not currently warming. It has been cooling for a decade and likely to continue for at least another twenty years or longer. If a new Ice Age is triggered, it will last at least 10,000 years.

– Polar ice is now at record levels and still growing.

Obviously this reality doesn’t match up with the flames of hysteria being fanned by Al Gore and the UN. The science is simply not on their side.

So why this massive campaign of unscientific lies? Well, it’s not hard to figure out, when you understand the great motivation of power-hungry big-government socialists.

And Caruba spells it out:

The EPA proposal is not about science. It is about power and it is about money. As the Wall Street Journal noted, “The administration has proposed a cap-and-trade system that could raise $646 billion by 2019 through government auctions of emission allowances.”

Folks, don’t fall for more socialist lies aimed to remove more of the money you earned from yourpocket to make even bigger government which aims to rob you of more of your God-given liberties.

More and more Americans are waking up to the fact that the fantasy of anthropogenic global warming is a load of hot air. […]

Oh, one more thing about the way the left is pushing global warming climate change: I said above it’s about controlling people—their lifestyles and their economic decisions. But it’s all about controlling our speech and thoughts, like most everything espoused by the left. (Just ask actress Angie Harmon, who was called “racist” for daring to disagree with President Golden Calf’s policies, or ask Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was called “homophobic” by the insufferable Barney Frank (D-MA)). In the above cited AT article by Rick Moran, he concludes:

This streak of leftist authoritarianism manifests itself most noticeably in the debate over AGW. Stifling debate by threatening to try as criminals people who disagree with them, declaring an end to the scientific method by saying that the debate about AGW is “over,” spreading lies about skeptics by positing the notion that they are all being paid by oil and coal companies, attempting to ruin the careers of scientists who disagree with them, and seeking to censor scientific studies that challenge AGW orthodoxy—all point to a desire by AGW advocates to control minds by not allowing any dissent.

The fact that these tactics are generally supported by liberals is indicative of their own doubts about the efficacy of climate change and their desire to close their own minds to any information that would cause them to doubt, or otherwise alter their perception about the debate over AGW. This makes leftists not only authoritarians but stupid ones at that—a very dangerous combination that the United Nations appears to be counting on in order to make their plan a reality.

Personally, I am agnostic on the issue. Free people deciding freely to reduce CO2 levels while the jury is still out on climate change is fine with me. We should rely on the scientific method, one of the crowning glories of the western world: observation, hypothesis, predictions, experimentation.

To date, the authoritarian left has prevented this from dominating the global warming discussion. Perhaps it is due to so many of their observations proving to be wrong, or their hypotheses not panning out, or their experiments blowing up in their faces, or their predictions not coming true.

In that case, it is understandable why the left has taken to doing everything in their power to stifle free speech and debate over global warming.

Wrapping this all up, here’s what Rush said yesterday about Earth Hour and its implications: :

It depresses me to see so many people behave like sheep, mindless, moldable sheep, lemmings, under a misguided premise. “Well, Rush, what’s wrong? If they feel good doing it, what’s wrong?” It’s because of where it leads, because of where it will lead them, and where it will lead our country. Folks, if you’re new to this program, let me give you an umbrella to try to help you understand everything that happens for the most part or every point that’s made, every story we focus on, one of the things that I value most is my personal liberty and freedom, enshrined by our founding documents, Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. And with someone like Obama and his pals running the United States, it is our individual liberty and freedom that is under assault. We say capitalism’s under assault, the private sector is under assault. Well, it’s liberty. It’s all about freedom. It’s about having the ability to do whatever you want to do, the best you can do it to be the best you can be, to work in your own self-interest, which is not selfishness. And so if you listen to this program and you are new to it, and you listen to me review the Obama takeover of the GM plant, understand it has nothing to do with a personal animus against Obama.

It’s about the fact that 62 million Americans fear, by virtue of those who voted against Obama, we love and we fear the loss of our liberty, the loss of our freedom. We fear a government tyranny. We fear any form of a dictatorship. We fear the notion that government has all the answers and will do everything necessary to solve every problem for individuals. It scares us. So all of the things that happen to be highlighted on this program and all of the comments, criticism aimed at the Obama administration, for those of you new to the program, understand, we’re all about trying to persuade people here not to give up their freedom, not to give up their liberty, not to give up their pursuit of happiness, and that’s why I cringe when I see so many people mindlessly, blamelessly, turn off the lights for a meaningless, symbolic act that will change nothing other than empower the people who want to usurp our freedom and liberty.

Hear hear.

Article of Note: Take the Limbaugh Challenge (A. Klavan)

I’ve had this idea for years, I swear. But columnist Andrew Klavan at the L.A. Times—Yes, L.A. Times!—beat me to it by putting it in writing [h/t Doug Ross @ Journal]:

Take the Limbaugh Challenge
Liberals who hate Rush Limbaugh—why don’t you actually listen to his show before bashing him?
By Andrew Klavan
March 29, 2009

If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration’s recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That’s the likelihood; here’s the certainty: You’ve never listened to Rush Limbaugh.

Oh no, you haven’t. Whenever I interrupt a liberal’s anti-Limbaugh rant to point out that the ranter has never actually listened to the man, he always says the same thing: “I’ve heard him!”

By lifting some typically Rushian piece of outrageous hilarity completely out of context, the distortion gang knows full well it can get you to widen your eyes and open your mouth in the universal sign of Liberal Outrage. Your scrawny chest swelling with a warm sense of completely unearned righteousness, you will turn to your second spouse and say, “I’m not a liberal, I’m a moderate, and I’m tolerant of a wide range of differing views—but this goes too far!”

There is more untruthfulness in that statement than in a speech by President Obama. Even the commas are self-deceiving. You’re not a moderate or you wouldn’t be reading this newspaper. You’re not tolerant of a wide range of views; you are tolerant of a narrow spectrum of variations on your views. And, whatever you claim, you still haven’t listened to Rush Limbaugh.

Which leads to a question: Why not? I mean, come on, the guy’s one of the figures of the age. Aren’t you even curious? I listen to all your guys: NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, The Times, the New York Times, the New Yorker—I check out the whole left-wing hallelujah chorus. Why are you afraid to spend a couple of hours listening to Limbaugh’s show and seriously considering if and why you disagree with him?

Let me guess at your answer. You don’t need to listen to him. You’ve heard enough to know he’s a) racist, b) hateful, c) stupid, d) merely an outrageous entertainer not to be taken seriously or e) all of the above.

Now let me tell you the real answer: You’re a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You’re terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do.

I listen to Limbaugh every chance I get, and I have never heard the man utter a single racist, hateful or stupid word. Do I always agree with him? Of course not. I’m a conservative; I think for myself. But Limbaugh, by turns insightful, satiric, raucously funny and wise, is one of the best voices talking about first principles and policy in the country today.

Therefore, I am throwing down my gauntlet at your quivering liberal feet. I hereby issue my challenge—the Limbaugh Challenge: Listen to the show. Not for five minutes but for several hours: an hour a day for several days. Consider what he has to say—the real policy material under the jokes and teasing bluster. Do what your intellectual keepers do not want you to do and keep an open mind. Ask yourself: What’s he getting at? Why does he say the things he says? Why do so many people of goodwill—like that nice Mr. Klavan—agree with him? [I’ve gotten that too: You’re a Republican??? But you’re such a nice/good/decent person!]

The mainstream media (a.k.a. the Matrix) don’t want you to listen to Limbaugh because they’re afraid he’ll wake you up and set you free of their worldview. You don’t want to listen to him because you’re afraid of the same thing.

Don’t believe me? Well, then, gird your loins. Gather your courage. Accept the Limbaugh Challenge. See what happens.

I dare you.

Me too!

I’ve had liberal friends tell me, “Oh, I’ve listened to Rush Limbaugh.” “And?” “He was so mean-spirited and hateful and angry.”

They probably listened to him the same way Klavan described it: 15-second clips out of context and accompanied by the editorial analysis of a Olbermann-type leftist.

So, any of you liberals/Democrats out there have the stomach to listen to Rush for at least a week Actually, Rush once said you need to listen a good 4-6 weeks to realy understand what makes his show tick. But I’ll give you a week. Fifteen hours. Any takers?

Liberal Hypocrisy: Spotlight On From ... Al Gore

Yes, I saw all the suggestions from the media and all the invitations from my many Facebook friends: Go dark for “Earth Hour,” which took place from 8:30 - 9:30 Saturday night.

Yet, here was “Earth Hour” in my household: The kids were in bed, their nightlights illuminated, CD players playing a light classical mix I burned from iTunes, and humidifiers blaring. My wife was catching up on some ice skating on TV, with all the bedroom lights on. And I was recording music in my basement home studio. Now, I’ll bet that equipment uses a lot of electricity. So, for those of you who sat in the dark for an hour on Saturday so that I could crank the Marshall amp up to “11” uninhibited, thank you!

Now, for you diehard environmentalists, don’t expend all of your righteous indignation just on me. You’ll need to reserve a little bit of it for your hero, Albert Gore, Jr. Turns out the “P.R. person for the planet” didn’t participate in Earth Hour either:

March 29, 2009

Al Gore ignores ‘Earth Hour’
Driveway to Nashville mansion flooded with electricity

Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” may have inspired many to participate in yesterday’s “Earth Hour” by switching off their lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., but maybe the former vice president didn’t get the memo.

Drew Johnson, the president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, decided to drive by Gore’s mansion in Nashville at 8:48 p.m. and records that floodlights were on illuminating the driveway leading up to the main quarter.

“I pulled up to Al’s house, located in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville, at 8:48 p.m. – right in the middle of Earth Hour,” he wrote on his blog. “I found that the main spotlights that usually illuminate his 9,000 square foot mansion were dark, but several of the lights inside the house were on.”

He added: “The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion. I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees.”

Earth Hour was deemed a huge success by its organizers, the World Wildlife Fund. The group estimated that 1 billion worldwide took part.

From an Antarctic research base and the Great Pyramids of Egypt, from the Colosseum in Rome to the Empire State building in New York, illuminated patches of the globe went dark last night to highlight what the group believes is a man-made threat of climate change. Time zone by time zone, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries dimmed nonessential lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., according to organizers.

WWF called the event, which began in Australia in 2007 and grew last year to 400 cities worldwide, “the world’s first-ever global vote about the future of our planet.”

The United Nations’ top climate official, Yvo de Boer, called the event a clear sign that the world wants negotiators seeking a climate change agreement to set an ambitious course to fight global warming.

The event was initiated with hopes of impacting talks in Bonn this week to craft a deal to control emissions of the heat-trapping gases supposedly responsible for “global warming.” The talks are due to culminate in Copenhagen this December.

“Earth Hour was probably the largest public demonstration on climate change ever,” de Boer told delegates from 175 nations. “Its aim was to tell every government representative to seal a deal in Copenhagen. The world’s concerned citizens have given the negotiations an additional and very clear mandate.”

Contributor “Kleinheider” at the Nashville Post’s politics blog reports this morning that the Gores, apparently not appreciating the negative light … um, shone upon them, released this statement to the Nashville Post:

The Gores honored Earth Hour by shutting off the lights at their residence. The heating and air conditioning were turned off as well [Well, why would they both be on to begin with?]. But more importantly, the Gores live in a Gold LEED certified home, powered by geothermal power. They have undergone renovations to put solar panels on the roof and participate in all of the renewable power programs offered by their local utility. They aren’t perfect, no family is, but they do their best, year-round to try to make a difference at home and across the country to make a difference on the climate crisis.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Using 20 times more energy than the average American household is really trying. (If they weren’t trying, it would have been more like 50 times, right?)

Gimme a break!

Asked if this meant that the Gore’s were asserting that Drew Johnson was mistaken about seeing lights on at the residence, Kreider responded, “Correct.”

Yet, Johnson stands by his story of seeing bluish moniter/TV lights from inside the Gore mansion, and even provides time-stamped photos of his illuminated driveway.

By the way, Kleinheider reminds us that Johnson is the same guy who exposed Gore’s excessive energy use at his home back in 2007. The following comes from a posting from Johnson’s Facebook page [reprinted in full at Yid With Lid] (Course language warning):

If you’re unfamiliar, Earth Hour is where socialists and patchouli-dabbing tree-hugging hippies unite to dismiss electricity, fossil fuels and the modern conveniences that allow for historically unrivaled prosperity, longevity, health and quality of life throughout the world.

Thankfully, most of the Kool-Aid drinking ballsacks that participated in Earth Hour undoubtedly spent the hour on their couch or on their porch reflecting how solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, short and generally shitty life would be without electricity.

Better get yourself another name and address pronto, Mr. Johnson. Hell hath no fury like a megalomaniacal leftist whose hypocrisy has been publicly exposed.

Liberal Hypocrisy: PETA Killed 21,000+ Adoptable Pets Since 1998

Is PETA just another left-wing activist group that actually does the opposite of what they purport to do? This report by The Center for Consumer Freedom seems to think so: [h/t Drudge]

March 25, 2009
PETA Killed 95 Percent of Adoptable Pets in its Care During 2008
Hypocritical Animal Rights Group’s 2008 Disclosures Bring Pet Death Toll To 21,339

WASHINGTON DC – Today the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) published documents online showing that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) killed 95 percent of the adoptable pets in its care during 2008. Despite years of public outrage over its euthanasia program, the animal rights group kills an average of 5.8 pets every day at its Norfolk, VA headquarters.

According to public records from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, PETA killed 2,124 pets last year and placed only seven in adoptive homes. Since 1998, a total of 21,339 dogs and cats have died at the hands of PETA workers.

Despite having a $32 million budget, PETA does not operate an adoption shelter. PETA employees make no discernible effort to find homes for the thousands of pets they kill every year. Last year, the Center for Consumer Freedom petitioned Virginia’s State Veterinarian to reclassify PETA as a slaughterhouse.

CCF Research Director David Martosko said: “PETA hasn’t slowed down its hypocritical killing machine one bit, but it keeps browbeating the rest of society with a phony ‘animal rights’ message. What about the rights of the thousands of dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens that die in PETA’s headquarters building?”

Martosko added: “Since killing pets is A-OK with PETA, why should anyone listen to their demands about eating meat, using lab rats for medical research, or taking children to the circus?”

CCF obtained PETA’s “Animal Record” filings since 1998 from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Members of the public can see these documents at PetaKillsAnimals.com.

In addition to exposing PETA’s hypocritical record of killing defenseless animals, the Center for Consumer Freedom has publicized the animal rights group’s ties to violent activists, and shed light on its aggressive message-marketing to children.

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers, working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.

For media comment, contact our media department at 202-463-7112 ext. 115

Any comments?

Article of Note: Obama's False Choice (M. Steyn)

I love Mark Steyn. LOVE him. Here’s why [h/t Proof Positive]:

Obama’s False Choice
A “chaotic and unforgiving capitalism” is exactly what we need right now.
By Mark Steyn

Writing in the Chicago Tribune last week, President Obama fell back on one of his favorite rhetorical tics: “But I also know,” he wrote, “that we need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy. That is a false choice that will not serve our people or any people.”

Really? For the moment, it’s a “false choice” mainly in the sense that he’s not offering it: “a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism” is not on the menu, which leaves “an oppressive government-run economy” as pretty much the only game in town. How oppressive is yet to be determined: To be sure, the official position remains that only “the richest five percent” will have taxes increased. But you’ll be surprised at the percentage of Americans who wind up in the richest five percent. This year federal government spending will rise to 28.5 per cent of GDP, the highest level ever, with the exception of the peak of the Second World War. The 44th president is proposing to add more to the national debt than the first 43 presidents combined, doubling it in the next six years, and tripling it within the decade. But to talk about it in percentages of this and trillions of that misses the point. It’s not about bookkeeping, it’s about government annexation of the economy, and thus of life: government supervision, government regulation, government control. No matter how small your small business is — plumbing, hairdressing, maple sugaring — the state will be burdening you with more permits, more paperwork, more bureaucracy.

And don’t plan on moving. Ahead of this week’s G20 summit in London, Timothy Geithner, America’s beloved Toxic Asset, called for “global regulation.” “Our hope,” said Toxic Tim, “is that we can work with Europe on a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight . . . ”

“Global oversight:” Hmm. There’s a phrase to savor.

“We can’t,” he continued, “allow institutions to cherry pick among competing regulators and ship risk to where it faces the lowest standards and weakest constraints . . . ”

Just as a matter of interest, why not? If you don’t want to be subject to the punitive “oversight” of economically illiterate, demagogic legislators-for-life like Barney Frank, why shouldn’t you be “allowed” to move your business to some jurisdiction with a lighter regulatory touch?

Borders give you choices. Your town has a crummy grade school? Move ten miles north and there’s a better one. Sick of Massachusetts taxes? Move to New Hampshire, as thousands do. To modify the abortionists’ bumper sticker: “I’m Pro-Choice And I Vote With My Feet.” That’s part of the self-correcting dynamism of capitalism: For example, Bono, the global do-gooder who was last in Washington to play at the Obama inauguration, recently moved much of his business from Ireland to the Netherlands, in order to pay less tax. And good for him. To be sure, he’s always calling on governments to give more money to Africa and whatnot, but it’s heartening to know that, when it comes to his wallet as opposed to yours, Bono — like Secretary Geithner — has no desire to toss any more of his money into the great sucking maw of the government treasury than the absolute minimum he can get away with. I’m with Bono and Tim: They can spend their money more effectively than hack bureaucrats can. We should do as they do, not as they say.

If you listen to the principal spokesmen for U.S. economic policy — Obama and Geithner — they grow daily ever more explicitly hostile to the private sector and ever more comfortable with the language of micro-managed government-approved capitalism — which, of course, isn’t capitalism at all. They’ll have an easier time getting away with it in a world of “global oversight” where there’s nowhere to move to. Unfortunately, even then it won’t work. Think about it: It takes extraordinary skill to create and manage a billion-dollar company; there are very few human beings on the planet who can do it. Now look at Obama and Geithner, the two men currently “managing” more money than any individuals in human history: not billions, but trillions.

Notwithstanding the Treasury secretary’s protestations that the Yes/No prompt buttons of Turbo Tax were too complex for a simple soul such as himself, it’s no reflection on the hapless Geithner that he’s unable to fix the planet. When the Bolsheviks chose to introduce Russians to the blessings of a “command economy” 90 years ago, they were dealing with a relatively simple agricultural society largely contained within national borders. Obama and Geithner are trying to do it with a sophisticated global economy in which North American consumers, European bankers, Asian suppliers, Saudi investors, and Chinese debt-holders are more tangled than an octopuses’ orgy. Even with “global oversight” — with the Toxic Tims of Germany, Argentina, and India all agreeing on how to fix the game — it can’t be done.

Barack Obama, even when he’s not yukking it up on 60 Minutes, barely disguises his indifference to economic matters. He is not an economist, a political philosopher, a geopolitical strategist. He is the president as social engineer, the Community-Organizer-in-Chief. His plan to reduce tax deductions for charitable giving, for example, is not intended primarily to raise revenue, but to advance government as the distributor of largesse and diminish alternative sources of societal organization, such as civic groups. Likewise, his big plans for socialized health care, a green economy, universal college education: They’re about extending the reach of the state.

Unfortunately, all of it costs money he doesn’t have. So he has to borrow it, in your name. Where does the world’s hyperpower go to borrow more dough than anyone’s ever borrowed in human history? More to the point, given that, partly at the behest of Obama and Geithner, almost every other western government is ramping up national debt to cover massive bank bailouts and other phony-baloney “stimuli,” is there enough money out there to buy up the debt that’s already been run up? Last week, at the official British Treasury auction, investors failed to buy the full complement of so-called “gilt-edged” 40-year bonds. Two such auctions have already failed in Germany. The U.S. Treasury, facing similar investor reluctance to snap up $34 billion of five-year notes, was forced to increase the interest it will pay on them. The Chinese and the Saudis have long taken the view that it’s to their advantage to own as much of the western world as they can snaffle up, but it’s unclear whether even they have pockets deep enough for what America and the many Bailoutistans of Europe are proposing to spend.

In their first two months, Obama and Geithner have done nothing but vaporize your wealth, and your children’s future. What began as an economic crisis is now principally a political usurpation. And, to return to the president’s “false choice,” that “chaotic and unforgiving capitalism” is exactly what we need right now. It’s the quickest, cheapest, fairest, most-efficient route to economic stabilization and renewal. A regimented and eternally forgiving global command economy with no moral hazard will destroy us all.

Article of Note: Obama Weaking America Deliberately? (A. Hill)

Looks like I’m not the only one to suspect that President Golden Calf is deliberately compromising our nation’s strength, stability, and prosperity. From Austin Hill at Townhall [h/t Stop the ACLU]:

Sunday, March 29, 2009
Will A Weaker America Be A More "Just" America?
by Austin Hill

President Barack Obama has no intention of helping to grow the United States economy. On the contrary, he is doing everything a President can do to weaken it.

I know that sounds harsh. Maybe it seems outrageously “partisan.” Maybe it just seems outrageous.

But after roughly ten weeks, Obama has consistently proposed ideas and plans (and in one case signing legislation) that will weaken the U.S. economy, not strengthen it. To attempt to view this man through the lenses of American prosperity, and to evaluate him with the same assumptions with which the behavior of other modern-day Presidents has been evaluated—that growing the U.S. economy is a good and noble and necessary thing—simply makes no sense.

Yet to assess this very different President with a very different set of assumptions in mind—that American prosperity itself is a problem to be remedied, or that the U.S. has become an economic superpower at the expense of other nations—only then does his economic behavior appear rational. And it is now clear that President Obama’s objective is to weaken the U.S. […]

Obama repeatedly reminds Americans of the tragedy that he faces, having “inherited” a $1.3 trillion deficit from the former President, yet he spent more than half that amount with the so-called “stimulus” bill during his first six weeks as President, and has now proposed a federal budget that spends $3.6 trillion more. He campaigned on a promise to take money away from “rich” Americans and re-distribute it to people who he deemed were deserving of it, yet there is no more wealth in government coffers for President Obama to re-distribute. He is now proposing to spend the wealth of future generations of Americans—wealth that has yet to be created—while confidently asserting along the way that he is reducing the federal deficit, not expanding it.

President Obama also campaigned on a promise to repair relationships between the U.S. and the rest of the world, relationships that he claimed President Bush had so horribly damaged. Yet on his economic proposals, alone, foreign governments are reacting with shock and horror to our new President.

China, the largest holder of U.S. federal debt, has expressed concern over America’s growing inability to pay its bills, and has suggested that it may be time to switch to a new global currency, and to abandon the American dollar. And Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, addressing the European Union last week, described Obama’s approach to the current economic crisis as “a way to hell” and predicted bad things for America’s economic future (could it be that this man who once lived under Communist rule knows something about the problems of ‘big government?”).

If we are to take seriously the many promises that Obama made as a candidate, it is not far-fetched to think that his efforts to weaken the U.S. economy are quite intentional.

For two years, Senator Obama campaigned across the country preaching the economics of “getting even”—a "strategy" to make conditions more "fair" for the less fortunate by punishing successful individuals and organizations. By every indication, he is now applying that same ‘strategy” to the United States, as it relates to the rest of the world, making the world a more “fair” and “just” playing field by weakening the strongest player on the field.

After a few short weeks, it is now apparent what President Obama is doing. Will the Democratic Congress allow the President to fulfill his dreams?

Don’t see why not. They want to see America knocked down a couple dozen notches in the world “community” just like President Golden Calf does.

Welcome to the future, suckers.

Rushing Ever Higher in the Ratings

Did you ever notice that liberals/Democrats—including our very own president whom Rush has personally invited to debate—never confront Rush on the issues? Instead, they do what liberals/Democrats do best: ad hominem attacks and character assassination. He’s “a big fat idiot” (Al Franken), a terrorist (Joy Behar), a drug addict, a racist, etc., etc., and that’s all you need to know about Rush Limbaugh. But the truth of the matter is that Rush is influential, he’s effective, and he’s correct about most everything. And that’s why he has been the target of ridicule, criticism, and scorn.

The Democrats are scared of Rush Limbaugh. Big time. 

Even President Golden Calf has singled Rush out as public enemy #1, having actually warned his opponents in the GOP that they better not listen to him. And there have lately been polls reported by the mainstream media—with whom the Obama administration has been having no contact, right? Wink wink, nudge nudge—about Rush’s approval ratings! That’s right, folks. The MSM is conducting polls on the popularity of a talk show host, a private citizen … because he is a threat to the party with which virtually all of them affiliate and to the president whom they have abdicated all journalistic integrity, objectivity, and professionalism to endorse.

Last week CBS News reported that Rush had a 19% favorability rating. What CBS conveniently left out however, Brent Baker at NewsBusters filled us in on: In the PDF of the complete poll results that CBS at least linked at the bottom of the report, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had an 18% approval rating. Given that this is within the margin of error, the most prominent Democat in Congress and the second human in line for the presidency has basically the same approval rate as Rush, but CBS buries that information in a PDF that not everyone will take the time to link to. (And my liberal/Democrat friends keep telling me it’s Fox News that lies and distorts the news!)

Well, the joke’s on them. The Radio Equalizer site has the following latest ratings from various talk radio markets [h/t I Hate the Media]: Turns out Rush’s numbers are skyrocketing, especially in heavily Democrat areas like Detroit, San Fran, and D.C.:

In New York City, WABC has experienced huge gains during Rush’s noon- 3pm timeslot: from 4.6 to 6.7 overall (12 and older) share, good for first place overall in the nation’s largest market. Rush’s Big Apple listenership is now estimated at 693,000.

In the second-largest market, Los Angeles, KFI-AM has surged into the number one position (all listeners 12 and older) from 9am to noon, with 618,000 listeners, a 4.6 to 6.0 audience share increase over three months and an even bigger males 35-64 (4.6 to 6.3) move, to take first place there as well.

Chicago, saw another huge move, with Rush affiliate WLS also taking first place during his timeslot (12 and older), from 5.2 share to 6.9 and a total local listenership of 396,700 in the third-largest market.

KSFO / San Francisco saw similar results, despite the extreme-left bent of the Bay Area: 4.7 to 6.0 share, now ranking second overall and with men aged 35-64. Total audience: 346,000.

In Dallas - Fort Worth, 4.8 to 6.4 men 35-64 and fourth overall (12+), 3.5 to 4.5. Cumulative audience: 250,000.

Houston’s results were truly blockbuster: 6.0 to 9.8 overall, ranking number one with a bullet and audience of 382,300. Men 35-64: number one again, from 8.6 to 12.2 over three months. Adults 25-54: first place, 4.6 to 8.7. Women 25-54: 3.7 to 8.3 again good for a top ranking.

DC’s WMAL also saw Rush-related growth: 4.1 to 6.7, good for third overall and an audience of 155,300. Men 35-64: number one with a staggering 6.4 to 13.4 move.

In Atlanta, Rush has helped WGST fend off an enormous competitor, WSB-AM, with a similar 4.0 to 6.2 upward move, good for fifth place overall and a total audience of 473,500. The results are better in the male 35-64 demographic, surging from 5.5 to 8.0 share.

Bucking Detroit’s recent Democratic voting trend, Rush’s performance on WJR-AM has been more significant than ever, moving into first place with a 5.8 to 9.6 jump. Men 35-64: number one and 11.6 share. Total audience: 253,000.

Mark at I Hate the Media says:

Hey, turn down that conservative talk radio show for a second. Hear that dull thud? That’s the sound of lib talk radio hosts pounding their heads against the wall.

Don’t worry. Once the Dems somehow get the “Fairness” Doctrine or some other censorship or free-speech-suppression law imposed, we’ll be hearing no liberals or conservatives. What we will be hearing, however, is lots of chirping crickets coming from that AM dial.

And that’s just the way they want it.

Dreams From His Father

A blast from our president’s past. It was reported in IBD Editorials [h/t Dinah Lord] in August, 2008, i.e., months before President Golden Calf was elected.

What is more important is to find means by which we can redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all. This is the government’s obligation. …

Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed. …

I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development. …

Certainly there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay. It is a fallacy to say that there is this limit, and it is a fallacy to rely mainly on individual free enterprise to get the savings.

– Barack Obama, Sr., Harvard-educated economist, in a 1965 scholarly paper.

This is Communism/socialism pure and simple. It was the dream of our president’s father and it is the dream of our president. This should make anybody’s blood run cold. (Funny, I didn’t hear about any of this from our crack journalists in the mainstream media. They must have been too busy with John McCain’s non-existent affair or Sarah Palin’s non-existent book banning.)

Welcome to the future, suckers.

And if you voted for this dangerous, arrogant, megalomaniacal ideologue, thanks for nothing.

The Most Overused, Misused, and Abused Word in the English Language

After “hope” and “change,” the most overused, misused, and abused word in the English language these days is “fairness.” Just like hope and change, fairness is extremely subjective; what’s fair to you, might not be fair to me.

And when the White House and Congress are packed Marxist-socialist ideologues, the misuse of the term “fairness” to achieve their political ends is as common as breathing. It is the banner under which every tax increase, every oppressive regulation, every liberty-squelching speech code is imposed on a supposedly free society.

While our socialist-in-chief continues to set fire to our economy and fiddle while it burns, one can’t help wonder if he’s collapsing it deliberately … Anyway, the next travesty President Golden Calf is about to unleash is going to drastically reduce the amount of donations to charities. And how is he going to pull that off? By cutting tax deductions for charitable donations for Americans in the top income brackets. Even some Democrats are concerned about this idea. But ideologues like Obama doesn’t care. All he cares about is “fairness.” Which essentially translates to sticking it to the most productive members of our society and redistributing their wealth to more and more of the unproductive members, in exchange for eternal allegience to the Democrat Party. Pretty clever, huh?

Today’s American Thinker has an article on this tax deduction issue, written by a tax lawyer with 30 years experience in the business (as opposed to President Golden Calf, who has no such credentials but has 30 years experience in Marxism.)

March 27, 2009
Obama, Charity, and Fairness

By Gregory V. Helvering

Leave it to Barack Obama to justify a tax proposal that would significantly reduce the amounts going to charity—on grounds the proposal is necessary for “fairness.” In his press conference on March 24, the president offered this explanation of his proposal:

And so this provision would affect about 1 percent of the American people. They would still get deductions. It’s just that they wouldn’t be able to write off 39 percent. In that sense, what it would do is it would equalize. When I give $100, I get the same amount of deduction as when some—a bus driver who’s making $50,000 a year or $40,000 a year gives that same hundred dollars. Right now, he gets 28 percent—he gets to write off 28 percent, I get to write off 39 percent. I don’t think that’s fair.

Obama’s example is a useful analytical tool, but the conclusions properly drawn from it are virtually the opposite of his. To understand why, however, you need to know some basic facts about the tax system—which Obama misrepresents in his example.

According to the latest IRS statistics, the top 1 percent of American taxpayers in 2006 bore 40 percent of the burden of the income tax (the top 50% paid 97 percent, and the bottom 50 percent bore 3 percent). Under the Obama tax proposal, the top rate is increased by 13 percent (from 35 to 39.6 percent), and the relative burden borne by the top 1 percent will presumably increase even more.

It is not clear at what point that burden will finally reach Obamian “fairness” (and the president has much more “fairness” in mind for the top 1 percent once he turns to social security taxes). But it is manifestly not necessary to increase the top tax rate (much less restrict deductions) to administer “fairness” to the top 1 percent; they already bear an extremely high proportion of the tax burden. The 40 percent burden is the highest it has been in 30 years (including all of the Clinton years)—and more than double the 19 percent figure in 1980.

Moreover, Obama’s comparison with the $40,000 bus driver—let’s call him Joe the Bus Driver—is seriously misleading. If Joe is married with two children, he will receive a standard deduction of $10,900 and personal exemptions of $14,000, resulting in taxable income of $15,100 and tax of about $1,172 (after a $341 earned income credit). His effective tax rate is less than 3 percent—even if he makes no charitable contributions at all.

In other words, Joe the Bus Driver does not suffer from his inability to deduct charitable contributions at 39 percent—he is already the beneficiary of a tax system that reduces his effective tax rate to a minimal percentage even if he has no deductions whatsoever.

The same 2006 IRS statistics show that 43 million American taxpayers paid no tax at all, and many of them received—in addition—a payment from the government, because the earned income credit is “refundable” (meaning it can exceed the taxpayer’s actual tax liability, resulting in a “refund” even if no taxes are due). That is still another indication that “fairness” is not a pressing problem in the American tax system. Viewed in terms of the proportion of the tax borne by the rich, the system is “fairer” than it has ever been.

The Obama proposal to combine a tax rate increase with a deduction limitation is thus not necessary to create “fairness” in a tax system that is already extremely progressive. On the other hand, the proposal is necessary if the goal is not fairness but rather to transfer to government money that would otherwise go to charity.

The mechanics of that transfer are explained in detail in “Obama’s Double Tax Whammy,” but a shortened explanation will suffice to illustrate the point: if top tax rates increase by 13 percent, one can expect contributions to charity to increase by at least 13 percent—both because wealthy taxpayers could then donate 13 percent more to charity at the same after-tax cost, and because such taxpayers will increasingly decide to benefit charities of their choice rather than pay more taxes to the government—and thus may well increase their contributions by more than 13 percent, in reaction to the new higher rates.

Without Obama’s deduction limitation, more money would thus go directly to hospitals, schools, churches and other charities. Americans would have increased incentives to provide funds directly to worthy institutions already working in the community and perennially in need of additional funds, and the result would be significantly more direct aid for United Way, the American Cancer Society, colleges and other schools, churches and synagogues—the entire array of charitable, educational, and religious activity in the United States.

By limiting the deduction to 28 percent, however, the Obama proposal will not only take away the incentive for increased contributions, but do the opposite: make the current level of contributions substantially more expensive on an after-tax basis—and thus inevitably reduce them. Charitable contributions will not only not increase, but actually go down. Estimates of the money that would go to government rather than to charity run as high as $4 billion per year.

Not only does this effect not faze Obama—it is the intended result. And the reason is not “fairness.” As Randy Shaw, the editor of BeyondChron (San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily), wrote earlier this week, there is a much different goal:

Even if we accept that charitable giving would decline by nearly $4 billion under Obama’s plan, this critique addresses the wrong issue. The key question is whether the United States is better off having wealthy taxpayers pay more toward funding universal health care, or rather are free to give more billions to Harvard and Yale, more billions to elite art museums, and to otherwise spend tax dollars in a way that does not address a pressing public priority.

And there you have it: the problem is that taxpayers can benefit charities of their choice, rather than send the money to Washington to “address a pressing public priority” the government deems more important. Shaw concluded that opponents of Obama’s plan “miss the big picture”—which is that “Government, not private donors, should decide how tax dollars are allocated.” Implicit in this view is the conclusion that charitable contributions are actually the government’s money—and the government wants part of it back. So income would be taxed at 39.6 percent but the contribution would be deductible at 28 percent—meaning the government would effectively get a 11.6 percent toll charge on any charitable contributions made by the top 1% of taxpayers.

It is not really fairness to Joe the Bus Driver that Obama has in mind; nor is he trying to add “fairness” to a system that is already more than fair. The government needs as much money as it can get to fund its new expanded goals, and Obama has found a way to get a large chunk of it from charities—while justifying the massive transfer of funds to government as something required for “fairness” to bus drivers. George Orwell, call your office.

This hearkens back to April 2008, when, during a debate with Hillary Clinton, Obama revealed his unwillingness to accept indisputable economic facts, due to his unswerving adherence to his Marxist-socialist ideology:

Moderator Charles Gibson: [I]n each instance, when the [captial gains] rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

Obama: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year—$29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That’s not fair.

So even before Barack Obama clinched the Democrat ticket, he was already admitting that despite the fact that capital gains tax cuts benefit the economy and ultimately increase tax revenue, he did not care. The leftist ideologue wants fairness (at least what he considers to be “fair”).

This charity tax deduction issue is the same thing—he doesn't care that his idea is going to significantly reduce the amount of charity donations. He's going to stick it to that reviled 1% and the American people, so brainwashed by his class warfare, couldn't care less. He's driven by his Marxist-socialist ideology and no amount of facts will change his mind.

It would be hilarious if it weren't so damn scary.

The Obama's: A Family We Can Believe In

The I Hate the Media blog has the Obama Family Update.

One’s in the hospital, one’s in court, one’s still in a slum

It’s no wonder President Obama became a Democrat. The way Barack Obama, Sr. reproduced, junior may have thought he was a Kennedy. He had so many kids in so many cities that he may posthumously nominated for the NBA Hall of Fame.

That being said, we can understand why the media pays so little attention to the President’s extended family. Where to start? Where to start? Where to start? […]

Older half-brother Malik Obama: Kenyan health officials report that the president’s older half-brother has been hospitalized with abdominal pains. He’s being tested for cholera. […]

Illegal alien Auntie Zeituni Onyango: President Obama’s Auntie Zeituni, an illegal alien, is back in her government-subsidized Boston housing project preparing for an April 1 deportation hearing. Of course, that hearing will not be open to the public. […]

Half-brother George Obama: It’s status quo in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. When last seen, George Obama was living in a wretched 65-square foot shack decorated with a newspaper photo of his wealthy, powerful half-brother. However, reports have recently surfaced that half-brother Barack has moved into a luxurious home located in the Washington, DC area. This has not been confirmed.

Barack Obama has five Kenyan half-brothers and a half-sister, another half-brother in China, and who knows how many others. So watch for other updates.

I guess the old saying about “equality” in the world the Statists, for which Obama is the poster child, is true: Some people—or families—are more “equal” than others. This is a presidential family we can really be proud of, folks. In fact, several tingles are running up my leg as I write this …

Of course, with all the stories the mainstream media has been doing on Meghan “Big Mouth” McCain, the broken engagement of Bristol Palin and her baby daddy, and the like, it’s perfectly understandable why more attention hasn’t been spent on this …

Right?

Ways the Left Has Screwed Up My Country Today: Obama Admin. Axes "GWOT"

With each passing day, the evidence piles up suggesting quite strongly that our current president and his administration are deliberately making this country vulnerable to radical Islamic terrorism.

The Washington Post reported yesterday on a new head-in-the-sand PC-dripping language vis à vis our war against Islamofascism:

The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase “global war on terror,” a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.

In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department’s office of security review noted that “this administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT.] Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’ ”

The memo said the direction came from the Office of Management and Budget, the executive-branch agency that reviews the public testimony of administration officials before it is delivered.

Not so, said Kenneth Baer, an OMB spokesman.

“There was no memo, no guidance,” Baer said yesterday. “This is the opinion of a career civil servant.”

Coincidentally or not, senior administration officials had been publicly using the phrase “overseas contingency operations” in a war context for roughly a month before the e-mail was sent.

Rick Moran at American Thinker is (rightfully) skeptical:

I would say the chances of this being a “coincidence” are pretty close to zero. Some Obamabot bureaucrat evidently got it in his head to try and lay down the law about the right nomenclature to use when discussing the previously acceptable term War on Terror.

Don’t worry. I don’t plan on changing my use of the terms “terrorist” or “GWOT” because these are serious matters and I would probably end up giggling if I talked about “man caused disasters” instead of a terrorist attack that cost the lives of thousands of people.

The question is, how government spokesmen keep a straight face when using the new terms.

Michelle Malkin correctly calls this ridiculous move “whitewashing the GWOT out of existence.”

First the releasing of detainees from Club G’tmo, many of whom are returning to the battlefield for Al Qaeda, the abolition of the term “enemy combatant,” and now this.

Does it strike anybody as slightly disturbing that at the same our sworn enemies are being treated as innocent victims and released to wage bloody jihad against us again, right-wing talk show hosts who are American citizens are labeled the enemy, and corporate bonus recipients who are American citizens are labeled the enemy?

I look at my young children and think what a crying shame that the president of my own country—and everyone who voted for him (and you know who you are!)—is apparently deliberately jeopardizing their very lives.

No answer I can come up with gives the slightest bit of comfort.

Where’s Our Daniel Hannan???

One thing about Europe is that it gives us Americans a glimpse into our future. The nations of Central and Western Europe that have been living under a soft socialistic system these many decades are falling apart economically, culturally, politically, and morally. Under Obama and this out-of-control Democrat Congress, this is where we’re headed. 

In fact, I have recently read a book by British author James Delingpole called Welcome to Obamaland. The subtitle reads: “I have seen your future and it doesn’t work.” What Delingpole spells out in the book is that everything Barack Obama is plannng to try in the United States has already been put into effect in the U.K.: cradle-to-grave welfare, oppressive taxation and regulation of the private sector, liberty-stifling political correctness and speech codes, and rampant unchecked immigration by Islamic groups who have no intention of assimilating to their host country and who instead expect the U.K. to alter their laws and culture to accommodate them.

That’s why this story that El Rushbo reported on today was music to my ears. At a European parliament meeting yesterday in Strasbourg, France, Daniel Hannan of southeast England tore British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a new one. The transcript of Hannan’s key statements is provided below, from Rush’s site, but I recommend you watch the video. Hannan’s proper British accent makes his statements all the more pleasant to hear:

Prime minister, I see you’ve already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely, the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate. Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words. Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the counsels of the world if the United States kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G20 country. […]

The truth, prime minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child. Now, it’s not that you’re not apologizing. Like everyone else I’ve long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It’s that you’re carrying on willfully, worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. Last year, in the last 12 months, a hundred thousand private sector jobs have been lost, and yet you’ve created 30,000 public sector jobs. Prime minister, you cannot carry on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. […]

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat in that wooden and perfunctory way that our situation is better than others, that we’re well placed to weather the storm, I have to tell you, you sound like a Brezhnev era apparatchik giving the party line. You know and we know, and you know that we know that it’s nonsense! Everyone knows that Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so. The European Commission has said so. The markets have said so, which is why our currency has devalued by 30%, and soon the voters, too, will get their chance to say so. They can see what the markets have already seen, that you are the devalued prime minister of a devalued government.

Rush, clearly invigorated by this speech, said: This is exactly the kind of thing the opposition party in this country needs to be saying to President Obama. … Republicans in Washington could take a lesson from the bravery of this man.

Over at the Wake Up Black America blog, Tyrone writes:

This speech should be emailed to Obama's blackberry and encoded so he can't erase it. Mr. Hannan's speech should also be a requirement for the irresponsible, self serving, grandstanding, hypocritical, worthless politicians that are repeating Great Britain's economic suicide march. It's sad that I have ten times the respect for a person that isn't even a citizen of my country then the President of the United States. Rush Limbaugh was attacked by loyal Obama supporters, because he said he wishes Obama's socialist agenda to fail. This is something that many people haven't picked up on. Socialism is failure in itself. Wishing for its success is like wishing two plus two to equal fifteen. Daniel Hannan explained what happens when a country "successfully" implements socialism. The country fails.

He’s exactly right. That’s why the words of Daniel Hannan made me both cheer and weep. Cheer because at least someone in Britain gets it. Weep because, at this moment, we don’t have a brave and eloquent Republican in American politics right now. Sarah Palin? Bobby Jindal? Where’s our Daniel Hannan??? Someone who really speaks truth to the ever-growing power of our socialist in chief?

Breitbart Fed Up with Obama's "Core Incompetence"

Andrew Breitbart is as mad as hell and he’s not gonna take it anymore. In yesterday’s Washington Times, he lets loose with much of what so many of us have been thinking [h/t Brutally Honest]:

When the going gets tough, the weak go on Leno.

I can’t get out of my head that the leader of the free world gave the British prime minister 25 films on DVD that don’t even work in U.K. machines.

I can’t wrap my head around the fact that the commander in chief tried (for a minute anyway) to require injured warriors to pay to have private insurers take care of their treatment.

I can’t believe the president would allow the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to dictate the terms of his budget—and Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, the symbols of government kowtowing to Wall Street—to be spokesmen for his financial bailout.

And did President Obama really produce a YouTube video to appease President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs of Iran?

Yes, he did.

These aren’t beginner’s mistakes. These are his core incompetencies.

The media that got him elected knows it is responsible for the gathering debacle, and so Jon Stewart, a so-called comedian and exemplar of the groupthink of the governing elite, is desperately hunting for scapegoats. Now that their secular savior is in charge, the “Dissent is Patriotic” bumper-sticker crowd is figuring out ways to stamp out criticism.

I admit, I am now officially freaking out.

The last time I felt this hopeless was when the Democratic Party and its cohorts in the media sold us on the false premise that we lost the war in Iraq. […]

Can’t argue with any of that. In this article, Breitbart recommends Gen. David Patraeus as a future Republican presidential candidate. But whether Patraeus (whose military experience is spectacular but whose political experience is nil) is the GOP’s knight in shining armor is not a discussion I am prepared to engage in just yet.

Still, Breitbart’s frustration with the ever-clearer incompetence, recklessness, and sheer stupidity of President Golden Calf’s actions is perfectly valid.

Diversity Lane (3/24/09): "Dept. of Fun"

The latest from Zack R. at the inimitable Diversity Lane:

Pic of the Day - Billboard Juxtaposition

How's this for ad placement? [Posted by Glenn at Instapundit]

Around the Web in 80 Minutes (3/24/09): D. Prager, S. Parker, D. Limbaugh

The latest from Dennis Prager is, I think, one of his best. Not only because it is well-written, but also because the topic is so vitally important.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Why Doesn't Communism Have as Bad a Name as Nazism?
by Dennis Prager

… 1. Communists murdered their own people; the Nazis murdered others. Under Mao about 70 million people died—nearly all in peacetime!—virtually all of them Chinese. Likewise, the approximately 30 million people that Stalin had killed were nearly all Russians, and those who were not Russian, Ukrainians for example, were members of other Soviet nationalities.

The Nazis, on the other hand, killed very few fellow Germans. Their victims were Jews, Slavs and members of other “non-Aryan” and “inferior” groups.

“World opinion”—that vapid amoral concept—deems the murder of members of one’s group far less noteworthy than the murder of outsiders. That is one reason why blacks killing millions of fellow blacks in the Congo right now elicits no attention from “world opinion.” But if an Israeli soldier is charged with having killed a Gaza woman and two children, it makes the front page of world newspapers.

2. Communism is based on lovely sounding theories; Nazism is based on heinous sounding theories.

Intellectuals, among whom are the people who write history, are seduced by words—so much so that deeds are deemed considerably less significant. Communism’s words are far more intellectually and morally appealing than the moronic and vile racism of Nazism. The monstrous evils of communists have not been focused on nearly as much as the monstrous deeds of the Nazis. The former have been regularly dismissed as perversions of a beautiful doctrine (though Christians who committed evil in the name of Christianity are never regarded by these same people as having perverted a beautiful doctrine), whereas Nazi atrocities have been perceived (correctly) as the logical and inevitable results of Nazi ideology.

This seduction by words while ignoring deeds has been a major factor in the ongoing appeal of the left to intellectuals. How else explain the appeal of a Che Guevara or Fidel Castro to so many left-wing intellectuals, other than that they care more about beautiful words than about vile deeds?

3. Germans have thoroughly exposed the evils of Nazism, have taken responsibility for them, and attempted to atone for them. Russians have not done anything similar regarding Lenin’s or Stalin’s horrors. Indeed, an ex-KGB man runs Russia, Lenin is still widely revered, and, in the words of University of London Russian historian Donald Rayfield, “people still deny by assertion or implication, Stalin’s holocaust.”

Nor has China in any way exposed the greatest mass murderer and enslaver of them all, Mao Zedong. Mao remains revered in China.

Until Russia and China acknowledge the evil their states have done under communism, communism’s evils will remain less acknowledged by the world than the evils of the German state under Hitler.

4. Communism won, Nazism lost. And the winners write history.

5. Nothing matches the Holocaust. The rounding up of virtually every Jewish man, woman, child, and baby on the European continent and sending them to die is unprecedented and unparalleled. The communists killed far more people than the Nazis did but never matched the Holocaust in the systemization of murder. The uniqueness of the Holocaust and the enormous attention paid to it since then has helped ensure that Nazism has a worse name than communism.

6. There is, simply put, widespread ignorance of communist atrocities compared to those of the Nazis. Whereas, both right and left loathe Nazism and teach its evil history, the left dominates the teaching profession, and therefore almost no one teaches communist atrocities. As much as intellectuals on the left may argue that they loathe Stalin or the North Korean regime, few on the left loathe communism. As the French put it, “pas d’enemis a la gauche,” which in English means “no enemies on the left.” This is certainly true of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban communism. Check your local university’s courses and see how many classes are given on communist totalitarianism or mass murder compared to the number of classes about Nazism’s immoral record.

7. Finally, in the view of the left, the last “good war” America fought was World War II, the war against German and Japanese fascism. The left does not regard America’s wars against communist regimes as good wars. The war against Vietnamese communism is regarded as immoral and the war against Korean (and Chinese) communism is simply ignored.

Next, independent-thinking Star Parker states an uncomfortable reality:

Monday, March 23, 2009
We’ve legalized theft in America
by Star Parker

… Until the left and all the institutions influenced by the left acknowledge how evil communism has been, we will continue to live in a morally confused world. Conversely, the day the left does come to grips with communism’s legacy of human destruction, it will be a very positive sign that the world’s moral compass has begun to correct itself.

It’s one of those things that makes so much sense that you wonder why you have to do a study to show it. The easier it is to steal in any given country the less likely the economy will function well there. You really don’t even need a fancy business degree to predict this. One of the Ten Commandments, transmitted so many thousands of years ago, instructs us not to steal. Yet, basic truths such as this are becoming increasingly lost in our country and this is what should be driving our outrage. That we now live in a country where our private property is no longer safe and the very government that supposedly exists to protect it has become the thief we have to worry about. President Obama went on Jay Leno’s popular Tonight Show and talked about the current crisis. Listening to him, there seems little doubt that everything started on Wall Street. “The problem is … people were able to take huge, excessive risks with other people’s money.” But, Mr. President, half the mortgages in this country are owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—which were and are backed up with the money of us taxpayers. An easy flowing mortgage credit market built by politicians, by setting us taxpayers up to guarantee it all, which is what we wound up doing, is what started this whole thing. The president and Leno bantered about electric cars and, talk about taking risks with other people’s money, the president apparently sees no problem tapping into us taxpayers to finance research into these cars. “So, we’re going to be investing billions of dollars in research and development around these technologies—that’s what’s going to create the auto industry of the future,” Obama said. We’ve already used taxpayer funds to bail out auto companies. Now we’re going to use them to take over their research and development functions. Given what the International Property Rights Index shows, we might consider that because private property has become as insecure as it has in our country—that we have really legalized theft—that this might be what’s at the root of our economic chaos. So, we can have government-issue edicts on what executives are paid at companies that politicians bail out with taxpayer funds. Or maybe we should check if families whose mortgages we bail out are going on vacation or out to dinner. Or we can re-direct our attention from symptoms to causes. We can recall that the founders of our country intended the role of government to protect our lives and property, not violate them. And that in times when we have respected that proper use of government, our country has prospered.

Finally, David Limbaugh discusses the sickness currently infecting Washington: arrogance.

March 24, 2009
Beltway Arrogance and Blind Faith
By David Limbaugh

… Chris Wallace, the host of “Fox News Sunday,” asked Rangel whether he was troubled by Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obama’s deficits will be $2.3 trillion higher than the already-astronomical White House projections.

“I am more impressed,” said Rangel, “with the fact that Obama is looking for a better-educated and a healthy—a stronger work force, going into a new green economy, that this has to show that America can get off the ground with the deficit and move to where we were under the Clinton administration—drawing a strong surplus. The only way for us to get out of this is to change our way of living in this country, and that’s the direction in which the Obama budget is going, and I strongly support it.”

When Rangel says we need to “change our way of living in this country,” he does not mean that the solution to our unsustainable budgets is to tighten our federal belt and curtail government intervention in the market.

What he’s really saying is, “We liberals are going to do what we’ve been itching to do for decades, and even though our policies will place greater burdens on the economy, retard economic growth, and cause the debt and deficits to further explode, we’ll end up with a surplus anyway because we are so doggone virtuous with our liberal compassion that fate will have to reward us.”

Does anyone really believe that greater federal control over education replete with liberals’ priority for indoctrination over academics, the environment—with its onerous cap and trade requirements—and health care will stimulate the economy and reduce our deficits?

Of course not, but their agenda is not about economic growth, which is bound to occur as a matter of course despite their irresponsibility. These liberal tinkerers believe they finally have a chance—because of the crisis mentality, which they see as an “opportunity” they can’t waste—to implement their comprehensive agenda—and not just on education, the environment and health care. Now is their time to strengthen labor unions, punish producers and redistribute wealth. Now is the time to convert the war on terror into a law enforcement matter and coddle foreign dictators even as they laugh in our face. Now is the time to use the power of the presidency to promote the abominable practice of abortion.

The way they see it, they now have a chance to actualize their vision for an America that is remade in their image and that is radically at odds with the vision of this nation’s Founders. It doesn’t matter that there couldn’t be a worse time in our history for implementing their reckless policies. They know they may not get another chance in their lifetimes to work such mischief. Even though it will break the federal bank, us, our children and our grandchildren, it’s all going to be OK because they will finally have achieved their statist vision for America. […]

It's Heeeeere! [UPDATE]

It was an almost unbearable wait for fans like me, but “The Great One” Mark Levin’s new book, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto officially hits the stores today!

With a family at home, it wasn’t feasible for me to trek to Long Island this past Saturday, where Mark Levin was doing an advance book release and signing autographs. I was only able to enjoy the event precariously through the many attendees who called Mark’s show last night, as well as Hannity’s show preceding it. Sounds like a fantastic event!

During his shows, Mark has revealed only some info about the book; he has been deliberately reticent so as not to spoil the actual release. I can’t wait to pick it up, but here’s an advanced-copy review by Steve G. at Sweetness & Light:

I have had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of Mark Levin’s latest book, Liberty And Tyranny which goes on sale in bookstores today.

It is an eloquent exegesis of the two primary and opposing political forces at work in our nation today: conservatism and statism.

In the most basic terms, a conservative aspires to liberty, while a statist, whether he will admit it or not – and perhaps without even realizing it — aspires to tyranny.

In a succession of brilliant essays Mr. Levin contrasts the outlook of the conservative with that of the statist towards the major issues before our nation — from religion to immigration, from the environment to national defense.

Along the way Mr. Levin buttresses his arguments with insights from the Founding Fathers and lessons drawn from history as well as the most recent news.

He concentrates especially on Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Which is most appropriate since it was Mr. Roosevelt who really set the country on the road to socialism and what Alex De Tocqueville termed its ‘soft tyranny.’

Moreover, we are watching history repeat itself with a vengeance, as Mr. Obama exploits the current financial crisis as an excuse to introduce a Second New Deal to further advance his socialist agenda.

But Mr. Levin holds out the hope that we can still save our nation from the “soft tyranny” that is being pushed upon us ceaselessly by the statists who now hold sway over nearly every institution in our society.

So rather than simply chronicle the seemingly insurmountable problems the statists’ nearly unchallenged ascendency has given the nation since the days of FDR, Mr. Levin ends his book with a call to action – both in general and in very specific terms.

For the latter, he provides in the book’s epilogue a ‘Conservative Manifesto’ for how to begin the long road back to a better country.

His manifesto is actually a succinct list of 10 difficult but practical approaches we can take right now to begin the daunting job of winning back our country from the statists.

Still, despite being very much rooted in our current problems and their solutions, Liberty And Tyranny is also quite a timeless work.

For it lays out the fundamental choices that any free people will always and constantly have to face to preserve their liberty.

Only the details change.

And if you want a more detailed review, see Thomas Lifson’s today at American Thinker.

Great work, Dr. Levin. This is sure to be a best seller.

[UPDATE: It was here. Went to one major bookseller ... Sold out! Went to another major bookseller ... Sold out!]

GW Hoax Continues to Collapse Like a Glacier; What the Hell Difference Does It Make?

Here’s today’s biggest story not to be reported by the mainstream media:

Shocker: ‘Global warming’ simply no longer happening
Temperatures dropping, fewer hurricanes, arctic ice growing, polar bear population up

Posted: March 22, 2009
9:56 pm Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

WASHINGTON – This may come as bad news for Al Gore.

The modest global warming trend has stopped – maybe even reversed itself.

And it’s not just the record low temperatures experienced in much of the world this winter.

For at least the last five years, global temperatures have been falling, according to tracking performed by Roy Spencer, the climatologist formerly of NASA.

“Global warming” was going to bring more and more horrific hurricanes, climate change scientists and the politicians who subscribed to their theories said. But since 2005, only one major hurricane has struck North America.

A new study by Florida State University researcher Ryan Maue shows worldwide cyclone activity – typhoons, as well as hurricanes – has reached at least a 30-year low.

Two more studies – one by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany and another by the University of Wisconsin – predict a slowing, or even a reversal of warming, for at least the next 10 to 20 years.

The Arctic sea ice has grown more on a percentage basis this winter than it has since 1979.

The number of polar bears has risen 25 percent in the past decade. There are 15,000 of them in the Arctic now, where 10 years ago there were 12,000.

“The most recent global warming that began in 1977 is over, and the Earth has entered a new phase of global cooling,” says Don Easterbrook, professor of geology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, confidently. He maintains a switch in Pacific Ocean currents “assures about three decades of global cooling. New solar data showing unusual absence of sun spots and changes in the sun’s magnetic field suggest ... the present episode of global cooling may be more severe than the cooling of 1945 to 1977.”

Climatologist Joe D’Aleo of the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, says new data “show that in five of the last seven decades since World War II, including this one, global temperatures have cooled while carbon dioxide has continued to rise.”

“The data suggest cooling not warming in Earth’s future,” he says.

NB: D’Aleo was the first Director of Meteorology at the Weather Channel and runs the website IceCap.us. In other words, he’s not some politically-motivated hack in the pay of Big Oil, as the Gorebots would have you believe all deniers are.

Now, while all this information may be well and good, to many of us it is not shocking in the least. 

What’s more, although the article says this might be bad news for Al Gore, it is not; it’s bad news for us. 

Why? Because do you think for a second that facts, truth, and actual science will change the policy decisions of the ideologues currently in charge of so much of our daily lives? The ideologues whose main goal is to tax and regulate energy companies into oblivion, so that they can replace them with government-approved “green” companies?

Come on! The Obama administration and the Democrat Congress (with the help of pandering turncoat Republicans too) have made it more than clear that they are full speed ahead with turning us into a green nation—whether we’re technologically or economically ready for it or not. And if it means knocking the U.S. down a few notches on the global prosperity scale, then so be it. American prosperity was never on the priority list of eco-Marxists to begin with.

Forget it. No amount of evidence against the man-made global warming theory will make an iota of difference in the agenda of the eco-Marxists in charge of energy and economic policy in this fading republic of ours. Even as the man-made global warming hoax continues to collapse all around us like a glacier, they are still planning to ban the incandescent light bulb, still planning to impose punitive carbon taxes on companies (the expense of which will be passed on to you, the consumer), still planning to consider putting a mileage meters in your vehicles, and still planning to consider putting controls on your home thermostat.

And all the while declaring with a straight face that it’s conservatives/Republicans who are the fascist authoritarians who want to control your lives.

The irony would actually be hysterically funny if it weren’t so pathetically sad.

Welcome to the future, suckers.