Vocal Minority

Diversity Lane (6/30/09): Fire; Land

Below are two more from Zack R. at the incomparable Diversity Lane.

FYI: Today (Tuesday, June 30) at 5:00 PM Central Zack will be a guest on “The Conscience of Kansas” with Paul A. Ibbetson. The interview can be heard on KSDB 91.9 “The Wildcat” in the Kansas area. It will also be available at Blog Talk Radio. Congratulations, Zack!

Whitey 1 - Sotomayor 0: SCOTUS Overturns Ricci v. DeStefano

Well, wonder of wonders. Justice gets served for firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut who were initially handed an unjust, ideologically-tainted verdict by Sonia Sotomayor because they had the audacity to be born white in politically correct America.

Many liberals/Democrats—including Facebook friends with whom I’ve engaged in many an impassioned debate!—seem to be so in love with President Golden Calf’s “empathy” pick for SCOTUS that they don’t care that the woman’s decisions have been overturned an embarrassing 60% of the time. Imagine using a mechanic who six times out of ten fails to fix what you brought your car in for—and then charges you for it! Or going to a doctor who misdiagnoses you six out of the ten times you visit her for an appointment—and then charges you for it. Sotomayor is the judicial equivalent to this, yet Obama and my Obama-worshiping liberal/Democrat friends consider her qualified to serve in the highest court in the land. (Maybe sign her up in major league baseball. A .400 batting average is excellent!)

Now chalk up one more overturned ruling to stain Sotomayor’s record: This morning, squeaking by in a 5-4 decision, SCOTUS overturned the wise Latina’s infamous Ricci v. Destafano decision. Here’s a report from Townhall’s blog:

Ricci v. Destafano [sic] Overturned
Posted by: Jillian Bandes at 10:14 AM

A decision by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was overruled by the current Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision this morning. The move probably won’t impact her confirmation, but will undoubtedly provide more fodder for critics who are focusing in on Sotomayor’s views on race.

The ruling, Ricci v. Destafano, said that 20 white firefighters who were denied a promotion after they took a leadership test were unfairly discriminated against; the reason the test result was thrown out was because no black firefighters had scored high enough to qualify. Sotomayor had previously ruled that discriminating based on race was acceptable in this situation.

Sotomayor’s controversial attitudes towards race were first aired when it became clear that her comments about “wise Latinas” were a common refrain in her public speeches and private comments:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

The court’s decision to overturn Sotomayor comes at a critical time, given that her confirmation hearings will occur in just two weeks. The news media swarmed the Supreme Court as the case was decided.

Ricci v. Destafano was launched in 2007. Firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut had taken a test to see who would qualify for higher-level management positions. Only white and hispanic firefighters did well enough on the test to qualify. Because no black firefighters qualified, the city threw the test out, saying it was racially insensitive.

The firefighters who qualified had spent time studying for the test and spent hundreds of dollars on test prep materials. They sued, saying that throwing out the test results was reverse-discrimination. Sotomayor ruled against them.

Publius at the Patriot Room blog provides some more background and offers commentary:

SCOTUS released their opinion today on Ricci v. New Haven. They overturned the case in it’s totality - Kennedy wrote it 5-4 decision. Here’s Sotomayor’s opinion. The SCOTUS opinion is here. In part — “city’s fear of litigation cannot justify the refusal to apply the test.”

The central holding: “All the evidence demonstrates that the City rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white.Without some other justification, this express, race-based decision-making is prohibited.”

Here’s the quick overview and context of the case before the SCOTUS decision:

Judge Sotomayor’s most high-profile case, Ricci v. DeStefano, concerns white firefighters in New Haven who were denied promotions after an examination yielded no black firefighters eligible for advancement. Joining an unsigned opinion of a three-judge panel of the appeals court, Judge Sotomayor upheld the rejection of a lawsuit by white firefighters, one of them Hispanic, claiming race discrimination and, as part of the full appeals court, she declined to rehear the case. The Supreme Court is currently considering the case, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is the likely swing vote. Among the questions in the case is whether the law should treat diversity in the work force differently from diversity in the classroom. Judge Sotomayor dissented in part in an earlier case, Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education, finding that race discrimination had occurred when a school demoted a black child from first grade to kindergarten.

SCOTUSBlog has an older writing on the implications of this decision. Their money quote:

I agree with Tom’s assessment that Judge Sotomayor’s detractors will have a hard time making the case that her work is anything but thorough and thoughtful, based on a reading of the bulk of her opinions. This may, however, make the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci all the more important in the coming debate. The Court’s review of the decision will provide those involved in the public debate with a seemingly objective measure of the quality of her work. (Emphasis added.)

This case goes to the heart of the issues surrounding Sotomayor—her membership (recently ended) in an all-female club [which personally, never bothered me], her thrice-stated opinion that Latina women can make more wise decisions than white men, and whatever else is yet to surface on her ethnic and gender superiority model of both living and judging.

So, it looks like the President Obama’s “empathy” pick is not as wise a Latina as some thought. Question is, will this development have the littlest bearing on her appointment being approved?

Given the fact that our current administration and Democrat-controlled House and Senate have done more to destroy this republic than any foreign terrorist attack, I am not holding my breath.

The EPA Report That Could Have Sunk the C(r)ap and Trade Bill — And the Suppression Thereof

Friday June 26, 2009 is a day that will live in infamy: It was the day that the United States government enacted its own Pearl Harbor and 9/11 on the its own people, a.k.a. the “C(r)ap and Trade bill.”

Back in 1994 NY Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel (who was just as detestable then as he is now) said when the Republican-led Congress wanted tax relief: “It’s not ‘spic’ or ‘nigger’ anymore. They say, ‘Let’s cut taxes.’”

Now, of the Democrat-led Congress we can say, “It’s not ‘Let’s raise taxes’ anymore. It’s ‘Let’s pass a Cap and Trade bill.’”

If, God forbid, this bill passes in the Senate—and some are saying it won’t—it will be the death knell of the American republic. Its unattainable federally imposed regulations on energy and industry, as well as exhorbitant taxes on businesses and individual households, will strangle our nation to death as sure as a noose strangles a homosexual in Iran.

Then why did the House want the bill passed so badly? To control you, you moronic little sheep. To control the car you will drive; to control the electricity you use in your own house; and even to control, from a nameless, faceless bureaucrat’s office in Washington D.C., the decisions of local homeowners associations.

In the meantime, all my liberal-Democrat friends who for eight years bemoaned Bush and Cheney and Ashcroft and Gonzales and others “shredding” the Constitution (without nary a substantive example, of course) are curiously silent about this unprecedented federal oversight of the everyday actions of American individuals and the daily practices of business owners.

The ideological classes who demanded that government “stay out of the bedroom” are apparently more than happy to let government control the light switch and thermostat in your bedroom.

Now, I have checked my Constitution several times over the past few weeks—a pocket-sized one, given to me as a gag by an ultra-liberal relative during the W presidency—and I have yet to find the section that allows the president or Congress to impose any of regulations enumerated in the C(r)ap and Trade bill. (It must be the same yet-undiscovered section that constitutionalizes abortion.)

Of course, Obama and Pelosi and proponents of the C(r)ap and Trade bill will tell you that it’s all to save the planet from man-made global warming climate change. Except for one tiny thing: Global warming ain’t happenin’, man-made or otherwise. That’s right, my gullible little sheep. In fact, for about 10 years now we’ve been at a standstill and are even experiencing a slight cooling.

”Lies!” You say? I’m simply regurgitating the unscientific propoganda of flat-earth religious fundamentalists and greedy oil tycoons?

If this little biddy piece of information is so demonstably false, then proponents of the C(r)ap and Trade bill shouldn’t be afraid of it, right?

Then explain why the 98-page findings of the EPA—yes, that EPA—which confirms this “lie” was deliberately suppressed until the day before Friday’s vote?

Turns out the EPA forbade one of its own research analysists from divulging the findings of a 98-page document (available on-line) because it would have put a cannon-sized hole in the man-made global warming climate change scam that lays the foundation of the C(r)ap and Trade bill. We also now know of e-mails between Obama officials and EPA, unearthed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, proving that the Obama team worked with the EPA higher-ups to keep the information secret:

June 26, 2009
EPA’s Game of Global Warming Hide-and-Seek
By Michelle Malkin

… The free market-based Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington (where I served as a journalism fellow in 1995) obtained a set of internal e-mails exposing Team Obama’s willful and reckless disregard for data that undermine the illusion of “consensus.” In March, Alan Carlin, a senior research analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency, asked agency officials to distribute his analysis on the health effects of greenhouse gases. EPA has proposed a public health “endangerment finding” covering CO2 and five other gases that would trigger costly, extensive new regulations of motor vehicles. The open comment period on the ruling ended this week. But Carlin’s study didn’t fit the blame-human-activity narrative, so it didn’t make the cut.

On March 12, Carlin’s director, Al McGartland, forbade him from having “any direct communication” with anyone outside his office about his study. “There should be no meetings, e-mails, written statements, phone calls, etc.” On March 16, Carlin urged his superiors to forward his work to EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, which runs the agency’s climate change program. A day later, McGartland dismissed Carlin and showed his true, politicized colors:

“The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.”

Contrary comments, in other words, would interfere with the “process” of ramming the EPA’s endangerment finding through. Truth in science took a back seat to protecting eco-bureaucrats from “a very negative impact.”

In another follow-up e-mail, McGartland warned Carlin to drop the subject altogether: “With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research, etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate.”

But, of course, the e-mails show that EPA had already predetermined what it was going to do — “move forward on endangerment.” Which underscores the fact that the open public comment period was all for show. In her message to the public about the radical greenhouse gas rules, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson requested “comment on the data on which the proposed findings are based, the methodology used in obtaining and analyzing the data, and the major legal interpretations and policy considerations underlying the proposed findings.” Jackson, meet Carlin.

Malkin reports an epilogue so absurd, only a liberal could buy it:

The EPA now justifies the suppression of the study because economist Carlin (a 35-year veteran of the agency who also holds a B.S. in physics) “is an individual who is not a scientist.” Neither is Al Gore. Nor is environmental czar Carol Browner. Nor is cap-and-trade shepherd Nancy Pelosi. Carlin’s analysis incorporated peer-reviewed studies and, as he informed his colleagues, “significant new research” related to the proposed endangerment finding. According to those who have seen his study, it spotlights EPA’s reliance on out-of-date research, uncritical recycling of United Nations data, and omission of new developments, including a continued decline in global temperatures and a new consensus that future hurricane behavior won’t be different than in the past.

But the message from his superiors was clear: La-la-la, we can’t hear you.

… Will Carlin meet the same fate as inspectors general who have been fired or “retired” by the Obama administration for blowing the whistle and defying political orthodoxy? Or will he, too, be yet another casualty of the Hope and Change steamroller? The bodies are piling up.

Now, some of you might be wondering if this EPA report was so significant and so damning, why didn’t we hear about it on the news? Wouldn’t the media consider it news if the POTUS’s own administration were working secretly with an organization to suppress important information related to arguably the hugest piece of legislation in the history of our republic?

If the president were a Republican, they would have.

Who are we kidding? Who—other than the radical environmentalists in the EPA, the Democrat-controlled Congress, and the Obama administration—is more gung-ho over imposing climate change regulation than the mainstream media? It should be no surprise to anyone that, having for quite some time rid itself of any journalistic integrity and professionalism, the Obamamedia were more than happy to play cheerleader for this liberal cause by keeping quiet about the Carlin report.

Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters gives the details, reporting that the only place the story appeared was on CBS News’s website Friday night (i.e., after the bill was passed) and on the NY Times web page (i.e., there was no print version.). Thanks for nothing!

Media Ignore EPA Suppressing Skeptical Global Warming Report
By Noel Sheppard | June 28, 2009

The day before the House was to vote on a controversial energy bill destined to be the largest tax hike in American history, it was revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency had suppressed an internal report challenging the entire global warming myth.

Despite the importance of this study, and how it related to a debate about to ensue on the House floor, its existence and suppression went almost completely ignored by America’s media.

This, of course, comes in stark contrast to regular and frequent news reports in previous years accusing the Bush White House of intentionally censoring the science of climate change.

Making matters worse, the media have no excuse for this current oversight for several House members held a press conference about this issue early Thursday afternoon (h/t NBer Joseph Johnson). […]

Also in attendance at the press conference which took place at 12:32 PM EDT Thursday were Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), Rep Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Rep. John Fleming (R-Louis.).

Yet, despite this press conference, and the significance of this revelation just before a key House vote, LexisNexis identified not one television news report on this subject.

Not one.

As for the print media, at 11:09 PM EDT, hours after Friday’s vote, CBSNews.com published this piece at its Political Hotsheet blog. […]

Bravo, CBSNews.com. But why not begin revealing this on Thursday evening and Friday morning BEFORE the House voted on the American Clean Energy and Security Act? And why not do it on television, hmmm?

As for major print media, the only article I could find on the subject was published some time on Friday by the New York Times. As this was a piece originally published Thursday by Environment and Energy Daily, it seems this only appeared at the Times website and not in its print edition.

And that’s it.

But not to worry, Mr. Sheppard. The NY Times did find space in its print version for the latest crazed rant editorial by Paul Krugman in which he declares any opposition to the C(r)ap and Trade bill as “treason against the planet.”:

Krugman Accuses Republicans Of ‘A Form Of Treason’
By Mark Finkelstein | June 29, 2009

Remember the good old days—when dissent was patriotic? Fuggedaboutit. Dissent isn’t merely unpatriotic now. It’s downright treasonous. Just ask Paul Krugman.

If, like virtually all House Republicans and a handful of Dems, you don’t agree with the likes of Henry Waxman on the need to take radical measures on the climate, you’re guilty of . . . ”a form of treason.” Treason against the planet, to be precise.

That was Krugman’s formulation in his New York Times column of today, Betraying The Planet. […]

Concluding his post, Sheppard contrasts the blatant act of news suppression with what can only be viewed as an overzealous witch hunt of science-related shenanigans supposedly taking place during the Bush presidency:

One has to wonder why the suppression of such information by the EPA is suddenly not considered newsworthy given the media’s fascination with what it consistently depicted as scientific censorship when George W. Bush was in the White House.

A Google search using the words “Bush censors science” produced 752,000 results. 752,000!!!

Such included this one published by ABCNews.com December 10, 2007:

House Democrats and Republicans traded rhetoric Monday over a new report claiming White House officials sought to suppress scientific views of global warming that clashed with Bush administration policies.

The report—originally undertaken as a bipartisan effort—leads to what the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee calls an “inescapable” conclusion that “the Bush administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.”

Considering the 752,000 reports about Bush censoring science, it appears the news media don’t mind aiding and abetting such suppression when it furthers their agenda.

Be afraid, America. Be very afraid.

Way ahead of you there, Mr. Sheppard.

Folks, we have just witnessed a three-pronged attempt to suppress vital climate information that would have rendered the disastrous C(r)ap and Trade bill DAO in the House: Suppression by the EPA, suppression by the Obama administration, and suppression by the liberal mainstream Obamamedia. All three of these parties, by no coincidence at all, are among the loudest cheerleaders for taking drastic measures to combat man-made global warming climate change.

And so, barring the bill’s defeat in the Senate, the United States will finally meet its demise on the basis of a carefully protected lie.

Back in April, President Obama stated that “The days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.”

Far from it, Mr. Obama. Looks like, with your willing participation, they’ve only just begun. As John Hinderaker at the Power Line blog eloquently puts it:

Global warming zealots are a bit like Iran’s mullahs. They are fanatically devoted to a series of false propositions. Unable to win an open scientific debate, they consistently resort to bullying and brute force to suppress their opposition. Once again, we see the Obama administration taking the lead in this regard, putting political ideology above scientific truth and demanding that all others do likewise.

Welcome to the future, suckers!

Honduran Dictator Deposed; Now Obama Meddles!

Probably due to celebrity deaths and other events the past couple of days, one story that hasn’t received as much attention is the arresting and deposing of leftist Honduran dictator Manuel Zelaya. Fausta’s Blog, which has an excellent real-time account of the situation in Honduras, reports that:

The Honduran Congress has officially ousted Zelaya “for repeated violations to the Constitution” and has now named the Congress President Roberto Micheletti as president of the country.

Honduras is scheduled to hold a presidential election next November.

The situation, which has apparently been brewing for some time, came to a head on Friday. The Wall Street Journal reported:

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya's push to rewrite the constitution, and pave the way for his potential re-election, has plunged one of Latin America's poorest countries into a potentially violent political crisis.

A day after Mr. Zelaya fired the head of the country's armed forces, hundreds of troops on Thursday deployed around the Congress, presidential palace and airport in Tegucigalpa, the country's capital. It wasn't clear whether the troops were responding to orders from Mr. Zelaya, or Honduras' other civilian and military powers, all of which oppose the president.

The Real Clear World’s blog The Compass pick up the story from there:

Zelaya wants a referendum to be held this Sunday that would allow voters in the upcoming presidential elections in November to also vote on rewriting the constitution. Zelaya's term is scheduled to end in January.

Most recently, rewriting the Constitution is one of the trademarks of Chavista-style regimes like Ecuador and Bolivia, but the maneuver is not limited to them.

There is strong opposition to the referendum:

• When the armed forces refused to distribute the ballots, Zelaya fired the chief of the armed forces, Gen. Romeo Vásquez, and the defense minister, the head of the army and the air force resigned in protest. 
  
• Yesterday the Supreme Court ordered by a 5-0 vote that Vásquez be reinstated. 
  
• Honduras's Supreme Electoral Tribunal ordered authorities to pick up all the ballots and electoral material, which were held by the country's air force. 
  
• The country's Attorney General requested yesterday that Congress oust Zelaya.
  
• The courts have declared the referendum unlawful. Last Tuesday the Congress passed a law preventing the holding of referendums or plebiscites 180 days before or after general elections. Congress has also named a commission to investigate Zelaya.

Now enter Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who has much stake in Zelaya being reinstated. For Zelaya’s arrest and the ensuing street riots, Chavez blames … America, particularly “The North American Empire,” “the rich,” and “the extreme right.” My God, isn’t it amazing how much Chavez and U.S. Democrats sound exactly the same???

To which The Compass blogger Paul Talley responds:

Yeah, that’s it. With chaos in Iran, American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, a nuclear North Korea, and a faltering economy, US interests include destabilizing a poor Central American country for military and political purposes.

Not to worry, Dear Leader. Comerade Obama is on your side. That’s right. When a leftist despot in the image of Hugo Chavez is (ostensibly lawfully) deposed by his country’s Supreme Court, now Obama meddles! Mainstream media sources have reported that in the days leading to, and since, the arrest of Zelaya, Obama has been reaching out directly to the deposed dictator:

US has talked with deposed Honduran leader
By CALVIN WOODWARD
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 28, 2009; 7:25 PM

WASHINGTON—U.S. diplomats are working to ensure the safety of deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and his family as they press for restoration of constitutional law and his presidency.

President Barack Obama called Sunday for “all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter” as the Central American crisis unfolded.

For those conditions to be met, Zelaya must be returned to power, U.S. officials said.

Knowing trouble was brewing in Honduras over several weeks, the Obama administration warned power players there, including the armed forces, that the United States and other nations in the Americas would not support or abide a coup, officials said. They said Honduran military leaders stopped taking their calls.

It gets better. WSJ reports that Obama actually worked to prevent Zelaya’s ouster! Talk about meddling!

June 28, 2009
Obama Worked To Prevent Ouster of Honduras President
By Jay Solomon, Of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The Obama administration worked in recent days to prevent President Manuel Zelaya’s ouster, said a senior U.S. official. The State Department, in particular, communicated to Honduran officials on the ground that President Barack Obama wouldn’t support any nondemocratic transfer of power in the Central American country.

“We had some indication that a move against Mr. Zelaya was afoot,” said a U.S. official briefed on the diplomacy. “We made it clear it was something we didn’t support.”

WSJ informs us that even Hillary “Wait and See” Clinton also made a statement:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined Obama Sunday in criticizing the Honduran coup and calling for the restoration of the democratic process.

“We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue,” Clinton said in a statement.

So at least we know that Obama has no problem meddling into the events of foreign nations. It just has to be the right events—ones that affect him and his other comrades. Surely, someone like Barack Obama also nervous any time an out-of-control leftist dictator is ousted from the presidency—especially for repeated violations of the Constitution!

Article of Note: America a Nation of Idiots, Led by Idiots (J. Lewis)

Even before the disastrous C(r)ap and Trade bill passed in the House, James Lewis at the American Thinker has become convinced that we are a nation of idiots, being led by idiots. Can’t say I blame him.

June 26, 2009
When did the lowbrows take over the culture?
By James Lewis

I’ve been trying to grasp for a truth that is so obvious that all of us know it. But it’s not a polite truth, so we don’t talk about it. Yet I think it’s important to say it out loud, because it is a truth that haunts our national discourse.

As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots. Not just indoctrinated, or wrong-thinking, or power-hungry, or manipulative, or even malevolent people. No, I mean real lowbrows, people who constantly fall for really stupid ideas. Neanderthals. (Look at the Governor of California just running the state budget into the ground. See what I mean? That’s not just incompetence. It takes special stupidity, almost a deliberate, willful absence of real thinking.)

The Federal EPA is about to officially declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. That’s not just false and unscientific; it’s not just an excuse for taxing everything in sight, including breathing. It’s not merely wrong. It’s idiotic. It marks a low point in our national conversation. Scientists or engineers with a grain of sense shouldn’t be taking the EPA seriously for a second. Forget the “climate experts,” with their grossly inadequate computer models. Normally intelligent people should boggle at the EPA. They are bizarre. Only the truly ignorant could fall for this level of ignorance. Or those who just can’t think.

Or look at Obama’s unbelievable spending spree. No sane and sensible taxpayer could possibly believe that spending trillions and trillions of dollars on blue-sky fantasies makes any sense at all; the only reason Americans aren’t in open rebellion yet is that half of them can’t believe it’s happening, and the other half are idiots. We haven’t seen the effect (yet) on our pocketbooks. There’s food in the stores still, and housing has gotten cheaper. But let Obama’s budget affect our wallets directly and just watch the voters explode with rage.

The Democrats in Congress are trying desperately to put the brakes on Obama’s egomaniacal ambitions because they can see themselves going over the edge in 2010. In a self-respecting, intelligent culture, the Obama budget would be dead on arrival. It’s an insult to our national intelligence. (His foreign policy is more of the same.)

Or look at the global warming farce, still hotly pursued by the political classes in Europe and this country, although the Australians seem to be coming to their senses. China now has more millionaires than the UK, because they use all their resources, like coal, to fire their industrial plants. They will never sacrifice a single luxury car to the cap and trade fraud. Neither will India. China and India have been under the thumb of egomaniacal socialists (in the case of India) and communists (in the case of China). They’ve been there, done that, seen the suffering.

No wonder those Chinese college students fell all over themselves with laughter when Timothy Geithner assured them that Obama would never spend the United States into debt. What an idiot! They laughed because Geithner’s stupidity or mendacity was too obvious for words.

That’s how we should all react to the miserable frauds who are now in national office. You have to dull your senses with drugs or endless propaganda to fall for it. I’ve sometimes wondered how many people must have killed off their critical thinking with alcohol and drugs. I know a walking few drug casualties myself, people who just burned out their brains. I’m sure they voted for Obama.

Or maybe there’s such a thing as learned stupidity. How else can so many people be so idiotic? Our national IQ has dropped to about 75: Several standard deviations below normal.

Well, we have now voted in a President for the lowbrows. Yes, Obama himself is smart enough; even smart enough to say a few years ago that he didn’t feel ready for the presidency. Well, now we can see why he said that. But legions of idiots voted for a man who was plainly unqualified, even by his own estimation, and surrounded by a bunch of malignant sociopaths like Wright and Ayers and all the rest. How could he possibly win? Well, Obama cynically appealed to the idiots—the young, the stupid, the naive, the silly, the rock idol worshippers, and probably the drug-addled masses, all the lowbrows in the land.

That includes the idiot savants of academia. Academics have a very narrow band of intelligence, something that satirists since Aristophanes have noticed and poked fun at. The first philosopher in Western history was Thales of Elea; Thales featured in Greek folklore as a man who walked around at night gazing at the stars only to fall into a ditch. That’s probably a folksy giggle at the absent-minded professor who is constantly bumping into walls. But there’s a big element of truth in it. Academics can be incredibly ignorant and dumb outside of their small areas of expertise. Professors and media scribblers generally lack human smarts. They are sure suckers for all the con artists of the day.

Obama is a smooth-talking hustler who has specialized in charming academic liberals, like a smart graduate student who needs to impress his teachers with every word. They just dote on him, like a proud parent smiling on a favorite child. He’s their dream, a black man who sounds so smart.

In his press conferences he hypnotizes all the ink-stained wretches of the media. It’s a sight to behold. The man swats a fly and the suck-ups of the media go ga-ga with applause, and go back and write articles about it. That’s not just a reflection on their (lack of) character and judgment. It’s not just their childish immaturity. It’s a reflection on their brains, or rather, on all that empty space between their ears. Our media stars are just not very bright. They’re idiots. That single fact explains a lot. (And yes, they are also corrupt, easily seduced, haunted by deadlines, decadent in their values, and very prone to mob thinking. But if they had any brains it might be harder to manipulate them like this. The White House just pulls their strings and they dance.)

Obama’s 22 White House czars. That’s really stupid. As well as a violation of the Constitution. But it’s a Chinese laugh line. It’s so obviously wrong and power-mad that it’s not worth debating.

Legalizing drugs. That’s really stupid.

Obama’s power-grab over the medical sector of the economy? It’s profoundly stupid. We can insure all the uninsured people in the country for a tiny fraction of all that money. We just need to fix the tire on our national car, and this guy tries to sell us a brand-new O-mobile, it can practically fly off the lot, all on credit, long-term payments, no money down. It’s gonna be free! So what if you have to mortgage your wife and children? Even if we already have two national lemons in our garage, Medicare and Medicaid, which nobody likes. Now Obee is trying to sell us on a really, really expensive dream mobile that will fix our problems forever, plus it’ll be cheaper than what we have now!

Can you believe it?

That sales pitch only works for idiots. […]

Schmuck Republicans: The "Crazy Eights" Who Voted YAY on C(r)ap and Trade Bill

[Graphic from Michelle Malkin]

The C(r)ap and Trade bill passed by a margin of seven votes in the House. How many Republicans voted for this economy-obliterating bill? Eight. That’s right. The bill would have been dead in the House had eight Republicans not pushed it over the finish line. For that I consider each and every one of these Republican Congressmen traitors to their party and their country. One of them, Rep. Lance, represents my own district (NJ-7)

On Friday evening, I emailed Mr. Lance informing him that even if the C(r)ap and Trade bill dies in the Senate, he should not count on my vote next time around. I urge all citizens who love their country and their children—because those are the two things the C(r)ap and Trade bill are going to destroy—to contact their Republican representatives if they are on this list.

Shame on each and every one of you for voting in favor of the most reckless piece of regulation in American history. If yours truly has anything to say about it, your days in Congress are numbered.

Although it's no consolation, there were 44 sensible Democrats who voted NAY (some, it is reported, because the bill didn't strangle American liberty and economy enough!)

Listen & Learn: El Rushbo Says Obama and Dems Are Seizing American Liberty, Not Securing It (6/26/09)

Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson aren’t the only ones who died on Friday. As the Americans were overwrought with grief over the passing of these two celebrities, the Democrat-controlled House, with Lord Obama’s blessing, passed the C(r)ap and Trade bill, a bill which will no doubt kill the American economy, kill American industry, and kill American liberty.

I’m currently drafting a post with my thoughts on this disastrous bill. In the meantime, do yourself the favor of taking in the wise words of El Rushbo. Just hours within the passing of this abomination of a bill, Rush cites the words of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison themselves to make his case that the out-of-control president and Democrat Congress have completely dismissed all constitutional restraints on the federal government and abandoned securing the liberty of the American people, as specified in the Declaration of Independence, and instead has seized it at every turn with impunity.

(Google Chrome users click here)
[Clip has been edited out for long silences, commercial breaks, and any other moments of extraneous talking]:

My Wife Killed Michael Jackson ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

R.I.P. Farrah too.

As the famous Mel Brooks line goes, “It’s good to be the king.” Yes, and it’s also good when you’re treated like a king by the ass-kissing liberal mainstream media.

The past week has been yet a new low in liberal mainstream media reporting since … well, since the week before.

Brent Bozell at the indispensible Media Research Center writes in a press release:

ABC News has more than earned the title of the All Barack Channel, they have recklessly fought to achieve it. After being condemned by conservatives for organizing a Presidential infomercial, they publicly pledged a fair discussion. But their coverage is proof that they were disingenuous and made a mockery out of the very notion of journalism. The All Barack Channel is nothing but a megaphone for President Obama and has committed itself to the success of his radical, left-wing agenda.

But it wasn’t just ABC News that provided PR for ObamaCare this past month. The New York Times did its best to help with weighted polls.

NewsBusters is a treasure trove of all the embarrassing biased coverage of this health care scam. Many of these low-lights are discussed in detail there. To be sure, this is not an exhaustive list.

1. Wall-to-wall coverage, with virtually no opposing view. Whatever happened to the “Fairness” Doctrine? The Anointed One got to do his days-long infomercial on ABC, including not only the Monday speech and two town halls, but a stint on Good Morning America and on “Nightline.” That’s five appearances on one channel in three days.

Republican opposition to Obama’s plan was rejected for airing on ABC. And one little known Republican appeared on Good Morning America to discuss the plan for less than two minutes. Bozell reports in the aforementioned press release:

ABC “balanced” it this morning by having GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin on today’s Good Morning America to discuss his health care ideas - for a 3 minute 5 second segment. Ryan got less than 2 minutes (1 minute, 47 seconds) to respond to questions. Obama received 25 times that much time last night.

Not only that, but it seems no one thought it necessary to point out non-politicians who are against Obama’s sweeping and overreaching plan, including Obama’s own doctor of 23 years.

Credit should be given to Washington Post’s Ezra Klein—not exactly a conservative—for being very critical of the Obama healthcare plan and for exposing some of the backdoor dealings he and Democrats are engaged in, which Klein has called “Single-Payer by Stealth” [h/t Verum Serum]. Yet, the goals of these dealings and their contradictions with the rhetoric from Obama has been addressed by Sawyer, Gibson, or anyone else on the ObamaCare bandwagon at ABC.

Finally, there seem to be some Congressional Democrats not yet on board with Obama’s plan, so many that Obama is working hard to convince them to see things his way, or in the words—and spirit—of Don Corleone, “make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

But watching the ABC parade this week, the uninformed viewer would think that everyone and his mother is gung-ho about ObamaCare. Not even close.

2. Stacking the deck. Participants were evidently handpicked to agree unanimously with Charlie Gibson's question, “Does health care need change?” question. Warner Todd Huston at NewsBusters writes:

With the very first question of its prime time special,Questions for the President: Prescription for America, ABC set the tone that essentially confirmed for viewers that the president was right in his desire to radically remake America's healthcare system. As the infomercial began, "moderator" Charles Gibson asked a seminal question of the doctors and other participants that were about to hear the president speak: "How many of you agree with the president that we need to change our healthcare system?" Naturally they all raised their hands.

Imagine that? This handpicked crowd all agreed with ABC and Obama that "change" was paramount. Surprised? Hardly.

So, as the viewer is introduced to the infomercial, they start off with the unanimous affirmation that the president is right, radical changes have to be made. The premise is set and even the sharp questions to the president later in the show are blunted by the assumption that some major change is needed. And since the president is the only person allowed to offer any plan during this ABC special, the further assumption promulgated is that he is the one that must affect that change.

3. Slanted polling. This one is courtey of the New York Times, which ran a poll last week whose headline blared: In Poll, Wide Support for Government-Run Health.

Unfortunately, but typically, the poll was weighted to include 48% Obama voters but only 25% McCain voters, a ratio of nearly 2-to-1. This contrasts significantly with a Rasmussen poll from the 15th, which showed the percentage of Americans favoring and opposing government-run health care tied at 41%.

This, of course, is not the first time liberal media’s polls were weighted heavily in favor of Democrats and taken as gospel by the mainstream media.

4. Obama makes whoppers and media doesn’t follow up. During the town hall meeting, Obama spills the beans on some facts that should make every freedom-loving American quake in her boots.

First, under his idea for a health plan, old and infirm people would be too expensive to treat. In other words, just like in other countries that have the much-touted nationalized health care, the government—not you, not your loved ones—will decide whether you’re too old or too sick to be financially worth it to treat.

He also said Wednesday night he plans to lower healthcare costs by abandoning the sort of care that “evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve” the patient’s health. Isn’t that nice? So, if you or a loved one gets cancer, and some government statistics show too low an improvement rate for people with your condition, boom. Dr. Obama has just signed your death sentence.

Obama also admitted in his typical roundabout way that he, as president, as well as members of Congress are exempted from anything they are planning to pass. (Isn’t that the way it always works when Democrats enact policy that adversely affects your liberty, wealth, or private property?)

This made no one at ABC bat an eyelash. Well, except for one person: During the week, reporter Jake Tapper made this blasphemous statement: "President Obama struggled Wednesday to explain whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people—like the president himself—wouldn't face.

Yeah, I’d be struggling to if I had to explain that. But no fear, Mr. Tapper. “Moderators” Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer and all the other anchors didn’t press Obama for a second on that microscopic issue.

Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Tapper. Expect a call on your cell from the Obama administration to inform you they no longer have the fullest confidence in you. Please submit your resignation, or you will be fired. You have one hour.

5. Slobbering commercials. Listening across the house from the home office as the wife caught up with her ABC soaps, I almost fell off my chair when the promos came on: Watch Monday, when we go to “hiiiiiis house.” Um, no, ABC. That would be the People’s house. But never mind. This is then followed by: “And then President Obama hiiimseeelf” will make his case on Good Morning America. How disgusting.

6. Demonizing private insurance companies as greedy and dishonest. The embarrassing, ass-kissing Diane Sawyer carried the water for Obama on this one. Here’s El Rushbo discussing Sawyer’s set-up of a town hall attendee, an insurance company CEO:

SAWYER: Mr. Williams, Aetna, to take one, an insurance company. We hear all over the country people see their premiums going up 119% in the last several years. They see the profits of the insurance companies in the billions and billions of dollars. Even in a lean year, they see profits in the billions of dollars. Is the President right that you need to be kept honest?”

Naturally, Diane Sawyer’s premise is as Marxist-socialist as Obama’s: That a company earning profits is by default dishonest. How dare she! How. Dare. She!

RUSH: Oh, now, this wasn’t an infomercial, was it? This wasn’t a stacked deck. “Is the President right, you people are a bunch of greedy SOBs? They can profit. Who the hell do you think you are making profits?” She wouldn’t know the first thing about the risks anybody in the insurance business takes. She doesn’t pay for her own health care, either. So let’s bash the insurance companies. This is CEO Ronald Williams, Aetna president and CEO. This answer is one of the few things that made sense on ABC last night.

WILLIAMS: It’s difficult to compete against a player who is also the person who is refereeing the game. And so I think in the context of thinking about a government plan, what we say is: “Let’s identify the problem we’re trying to solve. Let’s work collaboratively with physicians, hospitals, and other health care professionals, and make certain that we solve the problem as opposed to introduce a new competitor who has the rule-making ability the government would have.”

RUSH: See, he is right on the money, and this is the thing that nobody’s paying any attention to. Obama is saying, “Hey-ey-ey. You know, our public option is going to be subject to the same rules that the private sector is.” No, they’re not, because Mr. Obama’s plan doesn’t have to make a profit, and Obama has already established himself as the referee, as Mr. Williams said. Obama says, “I’m going to sit here and I’ll allow you to keep your doctor. I’ll allow you to do that.” Who the hell is he to “allow” us to do anything? He’s not a king. He’s not a dictator. He’s the president. So after this answer, the brilliant Obama gives his rebuttal and calls this guy “Mr. Walters” instead of his name, “Mr. Williams.”

OBAMA: First of all, I want to say that, uh, Mr. Walters (sic) has been very cooperative. We’ve been having a series of conversations, and I appreciate the constructive, uhh, manner in which we’ve been, uhh, uhh, trying to work together. Uh, but I—I just want to make clear that, uh, the government, whatever rules it provides to insurers, a public plan would have to abide by those same rules. So we’re not talking about an unlevel, unequal playing field. We’re talking about a level playing field.

RUSH: This is absurd. This is outrageous. The rules? “Whatever rules government provides to insurers, a public plan would have to abide by the same rules.” These are the same rules that are going to be applied to making cars. The same rules that are going to be applied to mortgages and so? What is this? Can the private plans raise taxes? No, they can’t! In fact, private insurers cannot go out and raise taxes to defray their costs, but Obama can.

It’s not a level playing field and it never is. The government doesn’t ever have to make a profit. Another thing they can do is print money if there’s a shortage of it. Mr. Williams over at Aetna can’t do that. …

Don’t get me wrong. I have no sympathy for insurance companies if they are overcharging their customers. But Rush and Mr. Williams are dead on.

7. Elephants in the room completely ignored. If the goal is making health care more affordable and accessible, then Obama and ABC conveniently neglected two primary reasons for skyrocketing prices:

a. Out-of-control malpractice litigation and malpractice insurance, whose expense gets passed on to you. Naturally, malpractice litigation have enriched quite a number of trial lawyers. (Seen John Edwards’ house lately?). If it weren’t for this gluttonous practice, doctors wouldn’t order so many tests that are only necessary because it covers their ass. Obama and the Dems want to talk about American greed? Malpractice lawyers are the poster children.

But trial lawyers, next to the teachers unions, are among the Democrat Party’s hugest supporters and donors.

Coincidence? Naaaaah.

b. Illegal aliens are sucking hospitals dry all over the American Southwest. But of course, Democrats (and too many schmuck Republicans to name) want to legitimize and amnestize (I made it up) illegal aliens, who will most likely become a new huge Democrat voting bloc.

Coincidence? Naaaaah.

And so, like virtually every issue—from poverty to hunger to the “income gap” to crime to education etc. etc. etc., Democrats are targeting every possible cause except for the actual ones, because it’s either too politically incorrect or too politically disadvantageous.

Would we expect anything less from the Democrat Party?

The epilogue is this: In terms of TV ratings, Obama’s Monday speech was DOA, coming in dead last in the 10:00 PM time slot. Tuesday’s town hall-style meeting was better, but then on Wednesday he was in last place again.

Maybe there’s hope for the American people after all!

Yesterday the Boston Herald reported:

Sen. Kerry jokes: ‘Too bad’ Gov. Sarah Palin didn’t go missing
By Rachelle Cohen
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Kerry must have been channeling his inner Letterman yesterday.

The Bay State senator was telling a group of business and civic leaders in town at his invitation about the “bizarre’’ tale of how South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had “disappeared for four days’’ and claimed to be hiking along the Appalachian Trail, but no one was really certain of his whereabouts.

“Too bad,’’ Kerry said, “if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin.’’

The Democratic-centric crowd laughed.

This brilliant, enlightened, compassionate, caring statement by the 2004 Democrat presidential candidate took place on Tuesday, before the reason for Sanford’s disappearance became public.

Jenn at The Freedom Post blog adds:

... Palin wasn’t exactly sitting around telling stupid jokes in Washington, D.C. She was busy doing something very foreign to Kerry: She was on her way to an undisclosed “overseas” location to visit deployed Alaska National Guard troops and offer thanks and support. As she wrote on her Twitter page yesterday: “Travel now to bring appreciation from their Alaska family & Natl Guard leadership to heroes in US European Command’s area of responsibility.”

It’s actually no wonder that John Kerry wants Sarah Palin to disappear, except he’d probably like her to vanish completely, since she continues to be the number one threat to the Democrat party. She just may be the next president.

Allahpundit at Hot Air advises us not to take Kerry’s statement too personally:

Don’t be too hard on Waffles. His humor’s always been laced with nastiness, which is why he periodically finds himself in clusterfarks over “botched jokes.” It’s not that he hates Palin. He’s just a jerk.

But wait! There is more. The Conservatives 4 Palin site has a story (which radio host Tammy Bruce is also discussing as I write this) about an Alaskan liberal blogger “Celtic Diva” in Alaska who took an iconic photo of Palin with Down Syndrome baby Trig and superimposed a local conservative radio host’s face onto Trig’s face:

The blogger, whose real name is Linda Kellen Beigel, tries to explain that she was aiming her ridicule at the radio host, not at Trig. OK, fine. And David Letterman was only making a rape joke about Sarah’s 18-year-old daughter, not her 14-year-old daughter.

That makes it all better now, doesn’t it?

Why do liberals/Democrats, from grassroots bloggers to Senators/past presidential contenders to late night TV show hosts continue to spew this hate against this woman who has done nothing but have the nerve to be a female pro-life conservative Republican?

Rush said it the other day: They are scared to death of Sarah Palin.

In my opinion, they have every reason to be.

[Read Liberal Hate: Sarah Palin, Part I here.]

7 Ways ABC and the MSM Disgraced Themselves During "ObamaCare Week"

As the famous Mel Brooks line goes, “It’s good to be the king.” Yes, and it’s also good when you’re treated like a king by the ass-kissing liberal mainstream media.

The past week has been yet a new low in liberal mainstream media reporting since … well, since the week before.

Brent Bozell at the indispensible Media Research Center writes in a press release:

ABC News has more than earned the title of the All Barack Channel, they have recklessly fought to achieve it. After being condemned by conservatives for organizing a Presidential infomercial, they publicly pledged a fair discussion. But their coverage is proof that they were disingenuous and made a mockery out of the very notion of journalism. The All Barack Channel is nothing but a megaphone for President Obama and has committed itself to the success of his radical, left-wing agenda.

But it wasn’t just ABC News that provided PR for ObamaCare this past month. The New York Times did its best to help with weighted polls.

NewsBusters is a treasure trove of all the embarrassing biased coverage of this health care scam. Many of these low-lights are discussed in detail there. To be sure, this is not an exhaustive list.

1. Wall-to-wall coverage, with virtually no opposing view. Whatever happened to the “Fairness” Doctrine? The Anointed One got to do his days-long infomercial on ABC, including not only the Monday speech and two town halls, but a stint on Good Morning America and on “Nightline.” That’s five appearances on one channel in three days.

Republican opposition to Obama’s plan was rejected for airing on ABC. And one little known Republican appeared on Good Morning America to discuss the plan for less than two minutes. Bozell reports in the aforementioned press release:

ABC “balanced” it this morning by having GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin on today’s Good Morning America to discuss his health care ideas - for a 3 minute 5 second segment. Ryan got less than 2 minutes (1 minute, 47 seconds) to respond to questions. Obama received 25 times that much time last night.

Not only that, but it seems no one thought it necessary to point out non-politicians who are against Obama’s sweeping and overreaching plan, including Obama’s own doctor of 23 years.

Credit should be given to Washington Post’s Ezra Klein—not exactly a conservative—for being very critical of the Obama healthcare plan and for exposing some of the backdoor dealings he and Democrats are engaged in, which Klein has called “Single-Payer by Stealth” [h/t Verum Serum]. Yet, the goals of these dealings and their contradictions with the rhetoric from Obama has been addressed by Sawyer, Gibson, or anyone else on the ObamaCare bandwagon at ABC.

Finally, there seem to be some Congressional Democrats not yet on board with Obama’s plan, so many that Obama is working hard to convince them to see things his way, or in the words—and spirit—of Don Corleone, “make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

But watching the ABC parade this week, the uninformed viewer would think that everyone and his mother is gung-ho about ObamaCare. Not even close.

2. Stacking the deck. Participants were evidently handpicked to agree unanimously with Charlie Gibson's question, “Does health care need change?” question. Warner Todd Huston at NewsBusters writes:

With the very first question of its prime time special,Questions for the President: Prescription for America, ABC set the tone that essentially confirmed for viewers that the president was right in his desire to radically remake America's healthcare system. As the infomercial began, "moderator" Charles Gibson asked a seminal question of the doctors and other participants that were about to hear the president speak: "How many of you agree with the president that we need to change our healthcare system?" Naturally they all raised their hands.

Imagine that? This handpicked crowd all agreed with ABC and Obama that "change" was paramount. Surprised? Hardly.

So, as the viewer is introduced to the infomercial, they start off with the unanimous affirmation that the president is right, radical changes have to be made. The premise is set and even the sharp questions to the president later in the show are blunted by the assumption that some major change is needed. And since the president is the only person allowed to offer any plan during this ABC special, the further assumption promulgated is that he is the one that must affect that change.

3. Slanted polling. This one is courtey of the New York Times, which ran a poll last week whose headline blared: In Poll, Wide Support for Government-Run Health.

Unfortunately, but typically, the poll was weighted to include 48% Obama voters but only 25% McCain voters, a ratio of nearly 2-to-1. This contrasts significantly with a Rasmussen poll from the 15th, which showed the percentage of Americans favoring and opposing government-run health care tied at 41%.

This, of course, is not the first time liberal media’s polls were weighted heavily in favor of Democrats and taken as gospel by the mainstream media.

4. Obama makes whoppers and media doesn’t follow up. During the town hall meeting, Obama spills the beans on some facts that should make every freedom-loving American quake in her boots.

First, under his idea for a health plan, old and infirm people would be too expensive to treat. In other words, just like in other countries that have the much-touted nationalized health care, the government—not you, not your loved ones—will decide whether you’re too old or too sick to be financially worth it to treat.

He also said Wednesday night he plans to lower healthcare costs by abandoning the sort of care that “evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve” the patient’s health. Isn’t that nice? So, if you or a loved one gets cancer, and some government statistics show too low an improvement rate for people with your condition, boom. Dr. Obama has just signed your death sentence.

Obama also admitted in his typical roundabout way that he, as president, as well as members of Congress are exempted from anything they are planning to pass. (Isn’t that the way it always works when Democrats enact policy that adversely affects your liberty, wealth, or private property?)

This made no one at ABC bat an eyelash. Well, except for one person: During the week, reporter Jake Tapper made this blasphemous statement: "President Obama struggled Wednesday to explain whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people—like the president himself—wouldn't face.

Yeah, I’d be struggling to if I had to explain that. But no fear, Mr. Tapper. “Moderators” Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer and all the other anchors didn’t press Obama for a second on that microscopic issue.

Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Tapper. Expect a call on your cell from the Obama administration to inform you they no longer have the fullest confidence in you. Please submit your resignation, or you will be fired. You have one hour.

5. Slobbering commercials. Listening across the house from the home office as the wife caught up with her ABC soaps, I almost fell off my chair when the promos came on: Watch Monday, when we go to “hiiiiiis house.” Um, no, ABC. That would be the People’s house. But never mind. This is then followed by: “And then President Obama hiiimseeelf” will make his case on Good Morning America. How disgusting.

6. Demonizing private insurance companies as greedy and dishonest. The embarrassing, ass-kissing Diane Sawyer carried the water for Obama on this one. Here’s El Rushbo discussing Sawyer’s set-up of a town hall attendee, an insurance company CEO:

SAWYER: Mr. Williams, Aetna, to take one, an insurance company. We hear all over the country people see their premiums going up 119% in the last several years. They see the profits of the insurance companies in the billions and billions of dollars. Even in a lean year, they see profits in the billions of dollars. Is the President right that you need to be kept honest?”

Naturally, Diane Sawyer’s premise is as Marxist-socialist as Obama’s: That a company earning profits is by default dishonest. How dare she! How. Dare. She!

RUSH: Oh, now, this wasn’t an infomercial, was it? This wasn’t a stacked deck. “Is the President right, you people are a bunch of greedy SOBs? They can profit. Who the hell do you think you are making profits?” She wouldn’t know the first thing about the risks anybody in the insurance business takes. She doesn’t pay for her own health care, either. So let’s bash the insurance companies. This is CEO Ronald Williams, Aetna president and CEO. This answer is one of the few things that made sense on ABC last night.

WILLIAMS: It’s difficult to compete against a player who is also the person who is refereeing the game. And so I think in the context of thinking about a government plan, what we say is: “Let’s identify the problem we’re trying to solve. Let’s work collaboratively with physicians, hospitals, and other health care professionals, and make certain that we solve the problem as opposed to introduce a new competitor who has the rule-making ability the government would have.”

RUSH: See, he is right on the money, and this is the thing that nobody’s paying any attention to. Obama is saying, “Hey-ey-ey. You know, our public option is going to be subject to the same rules that the private sector is.” No, they’re not, because Mr. Obama’s plan doesn’t have to make a profit, and Obama has already established himself as the referee, as Mr. Williams said. Obama says, “I’m going to sit here and I’ll allow you to keep your doctor. I’ll allow you to do that.” Who the hell is he to “allow” us to do anything? He’s not a king. He’s not a dictator. He’s the president. So after this answer, the brilliant Obama gives his rebuttal and calls this guy “Mr. Walters” instead of his name, “Mr. Williams.”

OBAMA: First of all, I want to say that, uh, Mr. Walters (sic) has been very cooperative. We’ve been having a series of conversations, and I appreciate the constructive, uhh, manner in which we’ve been, uhh, uhh, trying to work together. Uh, but I—I just want to make clear that, uh, the government, whatever rules it provides to insurers, a public plan would have to abide by those same rules. So we’re not talking about an unlevel, unequal playing field. We’re talking about a level playing field.

RUSH: This is absurd. This is outrageous. The rules? “Whatever rules government provides to insurers, a public plan would have to abide by the same rules.” These are the same rules that are going to be applied to making cars. The same rules that are going to be applied to mortgages and so? What is this? Can the private plans raise taxes? No, they can’t! In fact, private insurers cannot go out and raise taxes to defray their costs, but Obama can.

It’s not a level playing field and it never is. The government doesn’t ever have to make a profit. Another thing they can do is print money if there’s a shortage of it. Mr. Williams over at Aetna can’t do that. …

Don’t get me wrong. I have no sympathy for insurance companies if they are overcharging their customers. But Rush and Mr. Williams are dead on.

7. Elephants in the room completely ignored. If the goal is making health care more affordable and accessible, then Obama and ABC conveniently neglected two primary reasons for skyrocketing prices:

a. Out-of-control malpractice litigation and malpractice insurance, whose expense gets passed on to you. Naturally, malpractice litigation have enriched quite a number of trial lawyers. (Seen John Edwards’ house lately?). If it weren’t for this gluttonous practice, doctors wouldn’t order so many tests that are only necessary because it covers their ass. Obama and the Dems want to talk about American greed? Malpractice lawyers are the poster children.

But trial lawyers, next to the teachers unions, are among the Democrat Party’s hugest supporters and donors.

Coincidence? Naaaaah.

b. Illegal aliens are sucking hospitals dry all over the American Southwest. But of course, Democrats (and too many schmuck Republicans to name) want to legitimize and amnestize (I made it up) illegal aliens, who will most likely become a new huge Democrat voting bloc.

Coincidence? Naaaaah.

And so, like virtually every issue—from poverty to hunger to the “income gap” to crime to education etc. etc. etc., Democrats are targeting every possible cause except for the actual ones, because it’s either too politically incorrect or too politically disadvantageous.

Would we expect anything less from the Democrat Party?

The epilogue is this: In terms of TV ratings, Obama’s Monday speech was DOA, coming in dead last in the 10:00 PM time slot. Tuesday’s town hall-style meeting was better, but then on Wednesday he was in last place again.

Maybe there’s hope for the American people after all!

Why I Left Liberalism #22- Hate, Hate, Hate (Sarah Palin Edition, Part II)

Yesterday the Boston Herald reported:

Sen. Kerry jokes: ‘Too bad’ Gov. Sarah Palin didn’t go missing
By Rachelle Cohen
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Kerry must have been channeling his inner Letterman yesterday.

The Bay State senator was telling a group of business and civic leaders in town at his invitation about the “bizarre’’ tale of how South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had “disappeared for four days’’ and claimed to be hiking along the Appalachian Trail, but no one was really certain of his whereabouts.

“Too bad,’’ Kerry said, “if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin.’’

The Democratic-centric crowd laughed.

This brilliant, enlightened, compassionate, caring statement by the 2004 Democrat presidential candidate took place on Tuesday, before the reason for Sanford’s disappearance became public.

Jenn at The Freedom Post blog adds:

... Palin wasn’t exactly sitting around telling stupid jokes in Washington, D.C. She was busy doing something very foreign to Kerry: She was on her way to an undisclosed “overseas” location to visit deployed Alaska National Guard troops and offer thanks and support. As she wrote on her Twitter page yesterday: “Travel now to bring appreciation from their Alaska family & Natl Guard leadership to heroes in US European Command’s area of responsibility.”

It’s actually no wonder that John Kerry wants Sarah Palin to disappear, except he’d probably like her to vanish completely, since she continues to be the number one threat to the Democrat party. She just may be the next president.

Allahpundit at Hot Air advises us not to take Kerry’s statement too personally:

Don’t be too hard on Waffles. His humor’s always been laced with nastiness, which is why he periodically finds himself in clusterfarks over “botched jokes.” It’s not that he hates Palin. He’s just a jerk.

But wait! There is more. The Conservatives 4 Palin site has a story (which radio host Tammy Bruce is also discussing as I write this) about an Alaskan liberal blogger “Celtic Diva” in Alaska who took an iconic photo of Palin with Down Syndrome baby Trig and superimposed a local conservative radio host’s face onto Trig’s face:

The blogger, whose real name is Linda Kellen Beigel, tries to explain that she was aiming her ridicule at the radio host, not at Trig. OK, fine. And David Letterman was only making a rape joke about Sarah’s 18-year-old daughter, not her 14-year-old daughter.

That makes it all better now, doesn’t it?

Why do liberals/Democrats, from grassroots bloggers to Senators/past presidential contenders to late night TV show hosts continue to spew this hate against this woman who has done nothing but have the nerve to be a female pro-life conservative Republican?

Rush said it the other day: They are scared to death of Sarah Palin.

In my opinion, they have every reason to be.

[Read Liberal Hate: Sarah Palin, Part I here.]

Mark Sanford's Confession. What Now?

Oh goody. Another ostensibly prominent Republican falls from grace. By now you most certainly know that South Carolina governor Mark Sanford addressed his state after several days MIA to confess of an extra-marital affair with a woman in Argentina.

You’ll find no defense or excuses here. They guy screwed up. Big time. He correctly resigned his post as the head of Republican Governor’s Association. He stil plans on being S.C.’s governor, which I guess is the Palmetto State’s problem to deal with.

I can’t help but notice that governor scandals happen a lot, and in both major parties: Eliot Spitzer (NY) and Jim McGreevey (NJ) on the Democrat side (oh, I forgot Sen. John Edwards!). John Rowland (CT) and now Sanford (not to mention Nevada Senator John Ensign who, until a couple days ago, I never even heard of) on the Republican side. A pox on both their houses.

Blogger Streiff at Red State pretty much says it all:

This is a crying shame. Governor Sanford had much to offer to his country, especially at a time when the federal government seems to have lost its wits in regards to fiscal sanity. It is also a shame because it means we may have to endure yet another Mitt Romney candidacy as fiscal conservatives look for a home on 2012. On the positive side, it is better we find this out now than a year or two from now.

Romney would certainly be better than another McCain. He was personally my favorite choice when the Republican contenders were all battling it out in ’08. There’s plenty of time.

Meanwhile, Eric Zimmerman at The Hill blog wonders whether Romney will become the Republican contender in 2012 by default:

Potential Republican contenders for the 2012 Presidential nomination have been imploding at an alarming rate.

Earlier this year, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) gave a horrendous and much-criticized rebuttal to President Obama's first address to Congress. Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) has been at the center of a constantly unfolding tabloid drama surrounding her daughter.

Newt Gingrich called Sonia Sotomayor a racist, then (sort of) apologized. Meanwhile, President Obama neutralized Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman by appointing him Ambassador to China. […]

At this rate, Mitt Romney will be the last guy standing when the Iowa caucuses roll around. The good news for him is he's actually becoming MORE popular, surviving what some are already calling a "curse" on 2012 GOP contenders.

Whoa there, Mr. Zimmerman. I think you’re jumping the gun. You can’t rule out Bobby Jindal because of one speech that some, not everyone, considered weak. He’s made other national appearances and has done fine.

As far as I can see, Sarah Palin is getting more popular every time another vicious news story comes out about her and her family. She’s the cat that keeps coming back. Besides, as Rush Limbaugh has pointed out, if Sarah Palin weren’t as dangerous to the Left as they would have us believe, they wouldn’t keep pummeling her with negative media coverage. The recent hulabaloo with David Letterman gained her some sympathy points, coupled with the knockout punch she threw when she was subsequently on with Matt Lauer.

Finally, whether or not Newt called Sonia Sotomayor a racist, which she is (or at least, she made a racist comment, which the leftist media has all but ignored except for reporting Republican crtiticism of it), I never considered him a serious contender. In my opinion, he’s old news.

So, not so fast there, libs. Don’t pop open the sparkling Kool-Aid just yet. Obama’s been in office only half a year, and if his sinking poll numbers are any indication, you have a lot more to worry about on your side than we do on ours.

Do you think the Sanford scandal will have an effect on the 2012 Republican nomination, and if so, how?

Speaking of Red State, blogger E Pluribus Unum has a passionate message for all you gloating Democrats in the media who are milking the Sanford affair for all they can:

To majority media and other Democrats : we police our own, and you don’t get to judge: Drop dead.

By all means report the facts. I’m sure you’ll be happy to cover every salacious detail. Have at it. Be sure to cover the pain and suffering of Governor Sanford’s family. While you are at it, cover the depth to which all South Carolina and nation-wide Republicans and conservatives rightly feel betrayed.

Beyond that, just shut up. Shut your lying, hypocritical, power-above-patriotism, hyper-partisan, two-faced, shamelessly double-standard bearing pie hole.

You don’t get to judge.

The Library of Congress could hardly contain chapter and verse of the multitudes of ways the press and the other Democrats have gotten away with judging Republicans by wholly different standards than that applied to Democrats. But that double standard is both obvious and as wide as the Grand Canyon. You show no honor, no equity, no fairness, and no scruples yourselves. You, to put it mildly, do not police your own.

We do. We’ll deal with Sanford. We have standards (you don’t), and we have a long history of punishing and purging our leaders who prove unworthy of trust. For your part, serial adulterer Bill Clinton remains a rock star as far as you are concerned, and that about sums up the standards to which Democrats hold themselves..

So, spare us your mock outrage, your tut-tutting, your finger-wagging, your eyebrows furrowed in anger. If you are well and truly outraged by Mark Sanford’s adultery, but could not trouble yourself to muster even a little mild disapproval against the cretin who wiped his feet with the honor of the office of President of the United States, then you are a hypocrite yourself of the lowest stripe. You are unworthy to judge.

So just shut up.

Eric Zimmerman, I think he’s talking to you …

Related reading at Chicago Ray.

Diversity Lane (6/25/09): The Wrong Schoolmate

Poor Diversity Lane! The 8-year-old daughter of uber-leftists keeps bringing home schoolmates of the wrong kind. Why are they the wrong kind? See the latest three strips to find out, from Zack R. at the inimitable Diversity Lane:

There's Who on My Starbucks Cup?

This morning my wonderful wife surprised me in my home office with a venti coffee from Starbucks. At some point my eyes glanced over at the quote on the side of the cup; they've been doing that for a few years. It read:

Americans spend an average of 29 hours a week watching television—which means in a typical life span we devote 13 uninterrupted years to our TV sets! The biggest problem with mass media isn’t low quality—it’s high quality. Cutting down just an hour a day would provide extra years of life—for music and family, exercise and reading, conversation and coffee.

Good point, I thought, wondering if I had read this statement once before. When I pulled down the sleeve the author's name was revealed: "Michael Medved, author of Right Turns and radio talk show host."

Wow. I always considered Starbucks to be kind of a left-leaning company. What's a right-leaning commentator doing being quoted on their cups?

I guess Starbucks got it: The Seattle Times reported back in 2005 that right-leaning patrons were accusing the company of using quotes from only liberal sources. So they made an attempt to be "fair and balanced." Although, it's 2009 and this is the first time I've had such a quote on my cup. And believe me, I drink a whoooole lot of the stuff!

Anyway, maybe "diversity" and "fairness" don't need to be regulated by the jackboot of Congress or the FCC.

-Michael Medved, author of Right Turns and radio talk show host

Obama Wrote a Letter to the Ayatollah? No Surprise Here

So, it’s now been revealed that President Hope&Change wrote a conciliatory letter to Ayatollah Khamenei sometime before the Iranian elections took place.

Some people might consider this a scandal. I don’t. Obama made no secret of planning to reach out to the world’s most tyrannical regimes and use his gift of rhetoric to soothe the savage beast.

I’m also not surprised that, now that the cat is out of the bag, the White House is being elusive about the letter. Oh sure, Obama had promised openness and transparency. And Nancy Pelosi also promised the most ethical Congress in U.S. history and we all know how that has turned out.

Finally, no surprise to yours truly that Obama’s overtures didn’t do squat to improve U.S.–Iranian relations. In fact, they probably made them worse, given that tyrants like the Ayatollah can smell appeasement like a shark can smell blood. As I stated yesterday, based on a sound clip from Mark Levin’s Monday show, a weak president like Barack Obama is just what A’jad and the Iranian clerics needed to go about business as usual unimpeded.

The most interesting part of the story, however, is how in a sermon Friday, the Ayatollah actually accused the U.S.—i.e., Obama—of infiltrating Iran and deliberately instigating the chaos that is currently occurring in the streets of their country. As The Washington Times reports:

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. contacted Iran’s ayatollah before election
Administration overture to Khamenei ridiculed in sermon
By Barbara Slavin | Wednesday, June 24, 2009

… In a lengthy sermon Friday that reaffirmed the disputed re-election of Mr. Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei made an oblique reference to a letter from the U.S. but embedded the reference in a diatribe against purported U.S. interference in Iranian affairs.

“The American president was quoted as saying that he expected the people of Iran to take to the streets,” Ayatollah Khamenei misquoted Mr. Obama as saying, according to a translation by Mideastwire.com.

“On the one hand, they [the Obama administration] write a letter to us to express their respect for the Islamic Republic and for re-establishment of ties, and on the other hand they make these remarks. Which one of these remarks are we supposed to believe? Inside the country, their agents were activated. Vandalism started. Sabotaging and setting fires on the streets started. Some shops were looted. They wanted to create chaos. Public security was violated. The violators are not the public or the supporters of the candidates. They are the ill-wishers, mercenaries and agents of the Western intelligence services and the Zionists.” […]

Hmm, how interesting. It seems that the Ayatollah’s view of the United States and its president has not changed, despite the fact that the president’s name is not George W. Bush but Barack Hussein Obama. To him—and to A’jad no doubt—the U.S. is still the Great Satan and its president is still a conniving devil.

People like Obama used to castigate George W. Bush for making our enemies—be it Iran, the Palestinians, or North Korea—hate us. I thought that Obama was going to end that evil Bush policy of rattling everyone’s cages and that he was going to bring hope and change to all the unstable regions of the world with his silver tongue. 

Well, how does it feel being treated like George W. Bush now, Mr. Obama?

When reality smacks you in the ass, it’s never just a love tap, is it?

God continue to watch over the brave people of Iran. And especially watch us, the American people, under this feckless president.

Naturally, the right-o-sphere has a lot to say about this letter revelation. William Teach at the Pirate’s Cove (Stop the ACLU cross-post) says:

So, Obama disses leaders of countries that are allies, such as Britain, France, Germany, Brazil, not to mention slights at those countries themselves, but is willing to reach out to a hard line Muslim leader of a country that still stones people, hangs gays, you know the hit parade. … Respect for the Islamic Republic. I don’t know what else to say.

Freedom Eden quips:

Contrary to the ramblings of Newsweek's Evan Thomas, it turns out that Obama is not God.

And Hot Air Pundit says it best with a picture:

Yup. That just about sums it up for me.

P.S. I hope Obama being branded a “Zionist” (or at least being in cahoots with them) by the Ayatollah doesn’t damage his relationship with Jeremiah Wright.

End the Occupation! 700 NYC Teachers Paid Not to Work

Back in May, I posted about an L.A. Times report about hundreds of union-protected L.A. school teachers who sit at home not to work—and even get paid to do it!

Later in the article the L.A. Times talked of similar situations in other large cities, one of them being New York City.

Well, lo and behold, yesterday AP had a story of the NYC situation. And it’s not pretty.

700 NYC Teachers Paid to Do Nothing
Monday, June 22, 2009

NEW YORK -- Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that’s what they want to do.

Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its “rubber rooms” — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues _ pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year. […]

Because the teachers collect their full salaries of $70,000 or more, the city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year. The department blames union rules.

“It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract,” spokeswoman Ann Forte said.

City officials said that they make teachers report to a rubber room instead of sending they home because the union contract requires that they be allowed to continue in their jobs in some fashion while their cases are being heard. The contract does not permit them to be given other work. […]

Indeed, in this article the L.A. public school system is mentioned:

Some other school systems likewise pay teachers to do nothing.

The Los Angeles district, the nation’s second-largest school system with 620,000 students, behind New York’s 1.1 million, said it has 178 teachers and other staff members who are being “housed” while they wait for misconduct charges to be resolved. […]

New York City’s reassignment centers have existed since the late 1990s, Forte said. But the number of employees assigned to them has ballooned since Bloomberg won more control over the schools in 2002. Most of those sent to rubber rooms are teachers; others are assistant principals, social workers, psychologists and secretaries.

Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six. […]

David Suker, who has been in a Brooklyn reassignment center for three months, said he has used the time to plan summer trips to Alaska, Cape Cod and Costa Rica. Suker said he was falsely accused of throwing a girl’s test sign-up form in the garbage during an argument.

“It’s sort of peaceful knowing that you’re going to work to do nothing,” he said.

Philip Nobile is a journalist who has written for New York Magazine and the Village Voice and is known for his scathing criticism of public figures. A teacher at Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill School of American Studies, Nobile was assigned to a rubber room in 2007, “supposedly for pushing a boy while I was breaking up a fight.” He contends the school system is retaliating against him for exposing wrongdoing.

He is spending his time working on his case and writing magazine articles and a novel.

“This is what happens to political prisoners throughout history,” he said, alluding to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “They put us in prison and we write our `Letter From the Birmingham Jail.’“

Awww, isn’t that nice. A union-protected teacher enjoys how peaceful—not shameful or humiliating, peaceful—it is to go to work and get paid to do nothing.

And another one who gets paid to sit on his ass at home writing magazine articles and novels is comparing his “plight” to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Spoken like true liberals/Democrats. Oh, how do I know these are liberals/Democrats? Trust me, I just know.

‘Cause contrary to the sentiment of disgraced DNC Chair Howard Dean, according to whom Republicans don’t work an honest day in their lives, the hundreds of hundreds of union-protected public school teachers—whom I would bet my hard-earned money are mostly Democrats—tell a much different story.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air quips:

When an employee performs poorly in the workplace, normally employers let them go and find better replacements, or sometimes just reduce headcount and save costs to keep prices low. When a union gets involved, and especially when the employer is the government, the dynamic changes — dramatically.

Wait a sec, Aren’t the unions among Barack Obama’s biggest supporters? Why, yes they are. 

And didn’t Obama put the fix in real good on their behalf when he took over … um … what’s that car company’s name? Why, yes he did.

Remember, this is what the Left calls progressive Without the progress.

End the occupation! Liberals out of the schools NOW!

Article of Note: Health Care Myths (E. MacDonald)

I’m sure you are all sitting in nail-biting anticipation of tonight’s health care speech by the Snake-Oil-Salesman-in-Chief. To tide you over, Friend and VM reader Sabi tipped me to this article at Fox Business about health care myths which have been pushed by the Left since time immemorial, and which will certainly enter into the speech brought to you by the One’s personal PR firm, ABC News.

It’s a long article, but here are the myths confronted by author Elizabeth MacDonald:

June 23, 2009
Health-Care Myths
By Elizabeth MacDonald

• Myth: “The U.S. has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world.”
• Myth: “About 46 mn Americans lack access to health insurance.” 
• Myth: “The uninsured can’t afford to buy coverage.” 
• Myth: “Most of the uninsured do not have health insurance because they are not working and so don’t have access to health benefits through an employer.” 
• Myth: “The estimated 45 mn people without health insurance lacked health insurance for every day of the year.” 
• Myth: “Government-run universal health care would increase the international competitiveness of U.S. companies.” 
• Myth: “The cost of uncompensated care for the uninsured significantly increases hospital costs.” 
• Myth: “Nationalized health care would not impact patient waiting times.” 
• Myth: “Insurers cover less today than they did in the past.” 

Rush Limbaugh has said time and time again that our nation’s most expensive commodity is ignorance. To attempt—and often succeed—in passing the nation’s most destructive policies and regulations, the Democrat Party has necessarily relied on the citizenry’s ignorance. The reason they demonize and even try to silence opponents on the other side of the fence isn’t because the latter are liars; it’s because they tell the truth. The truth is a liberal/Democrat’s worst enemy. For when the American citizenry is apprised of the truth, the liberal/Democrat’s power and control are threatened.

And, as Rush and many others on our side of the fence have argued, the health care issue is not about health care nor about the physical welfare of the American people; it’s not about affordability, availability, it’s not about convenience or mortality rates. It’s about control. Government control over you. Once the government controls your health care, they pretty much control every other aspect of your life.

Whether you listen to President Hope&Change’s sales pitch tonight or not, do not buy the snake oil, my friends. Do not drink the Kool-Aid.

Listen & Learn: Mark Levin Spells Out the Obama Doctrine (6/22/09)

If one needs a reason to explain why Mark Levin is one of the most intelligent, cogent, and engaging voices on talk radio today, the provided clip from yesterday’s show is it.

The argument laid out in Mark’s first hour is three-pronged. First, he criticizes President Hope&Change for his initial silence, later followed by prevaricating and mealy-mouthed platitudes about being “concerned” for the people of Iran. (I know, I know, by now Obama’s “condemned” the violence. Bully for you.) 

With all due respect, Mr. President, that’s bullsh*t. You were so concerned about them that while they were being gunned down by the Ayatollahs’ militia in the street, you were treating your own children to ice cream. Sorry, but your idea of “concern” doesn’t muster much confidence in me. (Especially, since in just a few short hours you will be on ABC News telling the American people how much you’re “concerned” about our access to health care.)

Second, Mark ridicules Obama for actually taking credit for the uprising claim last week, as if somehow his morally and substantively vacuous Cairo speech somehow motivated the Iranian people to—how did he say it?—have the “debate.” Yeah, because marching in the streets while militia gun you down is my idea of “debate.” Mark totally destroys this ridiculous claim. On the contrary, if Obama’s Cairo speech did anything, it was embolden the Iranian Islamofascist regime to rig the election (allegedly) and to beat down the ensuing popular uprising with violent force. (‘Cuz that’s what tyrannical regimes do, schmuck!)

Then Mark comes to a brilliant conclusion: Rather than Obama’s Cairo speech motivating the Iranian people to speak out, it was much more likely to have been George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Thanks to Bush and hundreds of thousands of brave troops, 25 million Iraqi people now know the taste of freedom. They’ve had several elections, they’ve built schools and hospitals, they’ve created businesses, a stock market, and brought electricity, running water, and phone service where they never existed under Saddam. Yet Barack Obama and Democrats across the country derided and demonized Bush and the Iraq War.

I think Mark is exactly right. The Iranian people aren’t rising up at the risk of losing their lives because of a vacuous, pandering, and self-aggrandizing speech. They’re rising up because they witnessed the Iraqi people rise up for freedom—thanks to George W. Bush—and they’ve seen that liberty can exist in their corner of the world.

Thirdly, Mark castigates Obama’s vision of himself as a “global” president, for not having the courage of even the leaders of Canada and France to call out this murderous regime for what it is. He takes Obama to task for his obsession with not wanting to “offend” the Islamofascist regime and making them hate us any more than they already do (which, of course, Obama would claim to be the fault of some other preceeding president). Mark correctly points out that this position is no less reprehensible than not intervening so as not to “offend” Hitler during WWII.

By taking the position of taking no position, Obama has squandered the opportunity taken by U.S. presidents—regardless of political party—as bold speakers for liberty throughout the world. By failing to uphold that role of moral leadership expected of American presidents, Obama has stained the reputation of the American presidency, and in the processed weakened the status of the U.S. as a nation that stands up for the freedom of all peoples.

Taking this all in, Mark formulates what should henceforth be known as the Obama Doctrine:

Even when people are screaming out for liberty, even when they’re screaming out for democracy, even when they’re facing down one of the worst terrorist regimes on the face of the Earth—that seeks nuclear weapons!—even when they’re doing our job for us to try and topple this regime, we should be quiet, ‘cause we might offend.

Bingo. They don’t call him “The Great One” for nothing.

Sit back and listen to 23 minutes of pure gold.

[Commercial breaks, long silences, and any other moments of extraneous talking have been edited out by me. For the original clip in its entirety, visit www.MarkLevinShow.com]:

(Google Chrome users click here)

I Hope My Obama-Supporting Jewish Friends Are Proud of Themselves, Part II

See Part I here, originally posted Thursday, with an addendum at the bottom.

I also wanted to share this article sent to me by a fellow FReeper Kevin “Coach” Collins, a former Marine and retired NYPD cop who runs the blog The Collins Report. It dates back to early May but is still as relevant as ever—maybe even more so:

May 7, 2009
While American Jews cheer him on, Obama is killing Israel: they love socialism more than Israel
By Kevin “Coach” Collins

American Jews are liberal Democrats before supporters of Israel and this spells big trouble Israel.

Since Harry Truman every American President has courted Jewish votes with his support for Israel. But time has frayed the emotional ties between America’s Jews and their “homeland” Israel. Until Obama’s campaign no candidate recognized this.

The Obama team is loathsome and Marxists, but make no mistake, their political acumen on the question of Israel is flawless. Obama is making it clear he’s using his presidency to change American foreign policy to favor the Palestinians over Israel and he’s not worried about the consequences.

Until today any president turning away from Israel would be committing political suicide. But Obama’s handlers have recognized he can “have his political cake and eat it too,” on Israel. They know there’ll be no political price to pay for throwing Israel under the bus because America’s Jews have “progressed.” They no longer care about Israel and find liberal Democrat politics more appealing than expending time money or energy protecting Israel.

Monday Obama ordered his Chicago thug enforcer Rahm Emanuel to deliver a blunt message to Israel: bend over and given the Palestinians gangsters who want to kill you what they want or forget about American help against Iran. This used to be a fatal mistake for a president, but not anymore.

Nothing to fear from Jewish voters

A new Gallup poll shows Obama, who campaigned with strong support from vicious anti Semites like Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Wright, has not lost the support of a single American Jew over the issue of Israel or anything else. Obama has the same 79% Jewish support he got on Election Day.

The situation is very clear: Israel must stand alone because Obama and his American Jews don’t give a damn about her survival.

Obama knows attacking Israel is a winning hand. He has a green light to build his support among America’s anti-Semites while still keeping the Jewish vote no matter what he does. He can use threats against Israel to cozy up to those who wish the Jewish state would die, keep the Jews and gain still more support from Israel’s enemies. For Obama anti-Semitism is all good.

Comments on this or any other Collins Report essay can be sent to kcoachc “at” gmail.com

If we've learned anything so far, it's that elections do have consequences.

Listen & Learn: Mark Levin Exposes How Your Tax Money Funding Radical Left Orgs for Decades (6/19/09)

Ya know how investigator general Gerald Walpin was just fired by Barack Obama curiously after he discovered the misuse of funds by prominent Obama-supporter, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson? Well, how's this for misuse of funds?

Mark's opening monologue in the first hour of Friday's show was bone chilling. He retells how, as a young law school graduate in the early 80's, he was part of an organization that discovered how tax dollars were being laundered through front groups to reach counter-revolutionary left-wing organizations, one of them being ACORN and other groups run by radical 60's leftists such as Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. During the investigation Levin himself discovered thousands of copies of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," which were being distributed to community organizers all over the country--on on the tax-payer's dime. Levin helped see to the defunding of these organizations.

Now, with the help of Alinsky's chief apprentice Barack Obama in the White House, these organizations are back with a vengeance. Why else, Levin asks, would Obama have sought to allocate billions upon billions of stimulus money to ACORN and other such groups? It seems Barack Obama is a Trojan Horse that the Alinskyites have been waiting for for decades. It sounds to me like the biggest infiltration of America's enemies into the highest levels of government since the days of Alger Hiss.

Listen and learn from The Great One [I edited out commercial breaks, long silences, and any other moments of extraneous talking]:

(Google Chrome users click here)