Vocal Minority

Ratio Of Takers To Givers Reaches A Tipping Point

From Larry Elder at Investors.com.

Little by little, inch by inch, drop by drop, governments both in America and in Europe began taking more and more from people, diminishing the incentive of those on both sides of the transaction — the taker and the giver.

In America, nearly half of wage earners pay not one single dime in federal income taxes. Many of them trudge down to the local polling place or vote via absentee ballot — and vote themselves a raise.

The Founding Fathers conceived a brilliant document to restrain the federal government and allow maximum freedom for the people to make their own way. It leaves people the power to make their own decisions and to deal with the consequences. Almost before the ink dried, Congress tried to circumvent the Constitution.

James Madison, the fourth U.S. president and the "Father of the Constitution," warned against using the document — especially the "general welfare" clause — to dispense money, no matter how well-intended or deserved:

"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." ...

 

Video of the Day (7/4/11): Reagan Speech on July 4, 1986

Well, it's the 4th of July, when liberals/Democrats pretend to love America for just one day (including our president, unfortunately).

A Facebook friend posted this speech that then-President Ronald Reagan gave on July 4, 1986. It was delivered on the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy in front of the Statue of Liberty (to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the statue.)

Reagan had many great speeches; I'd definitely consider this one of them. The beaming pride with which he speaks of America's freedom, history, military, and gift to the world.

The text is here, for those of you who'd rather read it than watch it.

My G0d, how far have we come ...

On this Independence Day, Great Britain unveiled a bronze statue of Reagan in front of the American embassy in London. He deserves it.

Happy 4th! G0d bless America! (Oh sorry, does that sound too Republican?)

 

Convicted Texas White Supremicist Soon to Meet His Maker. What's a Liberal to Do?

This is what we might call a "liberal's paradox".

Anybody recognize the name Lawrence Russell Brewer? That's one of the three racist human debris who in 1998 chained James Byrd, Jr., a black man, to a pickup truck in Texas and dragged him to his death.

It's been reported today that Brewer, who had been given the death penalty, will be executed for this crime later this year:

A judge in Jasper County signed an order on Tuesday that sets Sept. 21 as the date 44-year-old Lawrence Russell Brewer will be put to death by lethal injection for killing James Byrd. Three white men chained the 49-year-old black man to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him to death on a country road near Jasper.

Brewer was one of the three convicted in the June 1998 case that shocked the nation for its brutality. Partner John William King also was sentenced to death and is awaiting an appeal. A third man, Shawn Berry, received life in prison.

Incidentally, and unsurprisingly, Democrats milked this horrible race-related murder for all the political points they could score. First and foremost, in 2000, then-Texas governor and presidential candidate George W. Bush was accused of racism by the Democrat-media complex for opposing a state hate crime law which was proposed following this crime.

(Bush was, in my view, absolutely correct in opposing such legislation, since hate crime legislation has nothing to do with stopping crime and everything to do with stifling speech that liberals/Democrats disagree with simply by labeling it "hate speech". Another flaw with hate crime legislation is that it deems the murder of one human being as more serious than that of another simply by virtue of the color of their skin. That is no way to ensure a color-blind society where everyone is equal before the law, but it is a surefire way for liberals/Democrats to win the votes of Americans whose stance on such issues is based in raw emotion rather than rational critical thinking. Indeed, in 2009, a Democrat president and a Democrat-controlled House and Senate managed to pass nationwide hate crime legislation, in honor of Byrd (as well as of homosexual University of Wyoming student Mathew Shepard.)

To add insult to injury, although Bush opposed hate crime legislation for Texas, he was criticized for governing a state that allowed the death penalty -- which is exactly what Brewer and a second perpetrator was sentenced with in 1998! (So remember kids: when you're a Republican, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't!)

And so now, 13 years after this heinous crime, Brewer is finally going to get his final punishment. But what is a liberal to do?

What a moral dilemma for the anti-capital punishment crowd. On the one hand, if they applaud the death of Brewer, then that will expose their hypocrisy by suggesting they're really only against capital punishment when it's one of "their own" they're trying to save. It will also conflict with the position of the sanctimonious moral superior types who a month ago chastised those cheering OBL's death. 

On the other hand, if they stay consistent with their stance on the death penalty and plead for this man's life, they might be criticized for defending the life of a racist who violently murdered a black man.

Don't get me wrong. This racist piece of trash deserves what's coming to him. If his execution were televised, I'd watch it and cheer.

But let's see what the liberati do ...

Paul Krugman and The Know-Nothings

From James Lewis at American Thinker, a real scathing and no-holds-barred of the intellectual moronic-ness that liberals like Krugman project:

Paul Krugman recently was quoted as telling the world he doesn't follow contemporary conservative news commentary. Krugman's open contempt for the dominant political philosophy of the Western Enlightenment, including most of American history, is incredibly revealing. It's not just one New York Times guru of Political Correctness. No, I've run into Krugman's mental lockbox among "educated" people all my life, people with advanced degrees who just mouth the platitudes of the left. In all their education they never learned to open their minds. 

It is pathetic. Intellectually, Paul Krugman has just run up the white flag. That's how we have to see the self-censorship of the left. In a free marketplace of ideas they can't survive. It's our job to restore the free media and give Americans a choice again.

*     *     *     *     *

Ever wonder why the left doesn't teach history? It's one disaster after another for them.

Until the organized left decided to purge our schools and universities of our own Western traditions, "conservatism" was called "liberalism," because it celebrated liberty of thought, liberty of speech and religion, freedom of association, and free ownership of productive assets, including the fruits of one's own labors. Today China, India and Russia have thrown off their Marxist shackles and their economies are suddenly thriving, and we can still see the wonders of South Korea right next to the Stalinist nightmare of the North. 

But Paul Krugman, economist extraordinaire, just doesn't get it. What is it you don't get, Professor Krugman? ...

*     *     *     *     *

The left doesn't  need official censors because they carry their own censors in their heads. But just to make sure, they also work to block the free flow of information to everybody else. That must be why the media have to witchhunt Sarah Palin and Clarence Thomas on a regular basis, a smart conservative woman and a smart conservative black man. It's why they have to keep smearing good and decent people. If their own followers ever figured out the scam the media couldn't compete. 

Liberals are constantly telling their obedient flocks what not to listen to, like Fox News. I've never heard a conservative radio host tell the audience not to read the New York Times. Who would listen to that?  We stay astonished by the Mind-locked Media, to see what kind of disinformation they pump out every day. The liberal media provide daily mind-food for conservatives, just like the old Kremlinologists who would look at air-brushed photos of Soviet apparatchiks standing on top of Lenin's tomb, to see who was in power and who got purged.

We criticize their ideas, while they go on poisoning the wellsprings. That's why they fell for global warming fraud and for con artists like Bernie Madoff. If you have no conscience and want to make a million bucks, try selling GM Volts to liberals. But sell them an expensive accident policy at the same time, for the inevitable moment when their motor buggy gets crushed on the freeway. You can get them coming and going, if you have no conscience. If you do have a conscience you can only tell the truth and hope.

Leftist censorship often seems like a source of power for the left, but it's also a great weakness, because reality keeps finding them out.  Ever since he took office Obama has looked stunned that nothing works the way he expects. Maybe that's why he's playing so much golf, to get away from all the bad news. Baffled. Why don't the Muslims and Israelis do what I tell them? Why doesn't the economy rebound from my "stimulus"? He doesn't get it. The more things get out of control, the more confused he feels. It wasn't supposed to be this way. ...

Lots more where that came from.

 

Ronald Reagan: The 100-Year-Old Racist? (L. Elder)

The 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronaldus Magnus came and went last weekend, to the chagrin of a Reagan-hating liberal media. As a scan of NewsBusters will show, the embarrassingly paltry coverage of this milestone was embarrassingly negative. Lib talkers also resurrected the myth that Ronald Reagan was a racist who kept blacks down and, according to taxpayer-funded PBS host Tavis Smiley, "tortured" blacks.  

It's not just the liberal media who detests/detested Reagan. A lefty and gay friend of mine channeled her "new civility" by proudly posting on Facebook:

On this, Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday, I would like to say the same thing to him that he said to so many gays and people with AIDS during his time as our president. DROP DEAD! Again!

Can't you just feel the new civility?

But here's Larry Elder to thwart the race-baiting history revisionists. On the economic "plight" of blacks in the 80's, Elder writes:

The economic lot for blacks and Hispanics improved far more than it did for whites after Reagan's steep tax cuts. In late 1982, Reagan's second year in office, the unemployment rate for blacks was 20.4 percent. By 1989, his last year, the black unemployment rate had fallen to 11.4 percent — a 9 percent drop. In late 1982, the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 15.3 percent. By 1989, it had fallen to 8 percent — a drop of over 7 percentage points. White unemployment, by contrast, fell "only" 4 percentage points.

What about black-owned businesses? In 1982, according to the Census Bureau, there were 308,000 black-owned businesses. By 1987, the number had increased to 424,000, up 38 percent. The number of all U.S. businesses was up "only" 14 percent. Receipts for black-owned businesses went from less than $10 billion to nearly $20 billion — a 100 percent increase.

Not exactly "keeping the black man down," is it? But Democrats will do anything to keep poor ignorant black Americans on their plantation, not least lie about Republican leaders.

Elder also addresses this point oft made by the Reagan-haters:

But didn't Reagan appeal to Southern racism by giving a "states' rights" speech in Philadelphia, Miss., a town immortalized in the movie "Mississippi Burning"? In 1964, three civil rights workers were murdered there. To the left, "states' rights" is code for preferred parking at a Klan rally.

Reagan spoke for 15 minutes at the Neshoba County Fair, about seven miles outside of Philadelphia, in that politically "in-play" state carried by Jimmy Carter four years earlier by 14,000 votes. Eight years later, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis spoke at the same Neshoba fair.

Here's what Reagan said at the fair about "states' rights": "Programs like education and others that should be turned back to the states and the local communities with the tax sources to fund them. I believe in states' rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and the private level."

Isn't it interesting that after arguing that two blocks from Ground Zero is far enough not to call the Ground Zero Mosque "the Ground Zero Mosque." But Reagan giving a speech seven miles from the racially-tainted Philadelphia, Mississippi is close enough to say Reagan gave a speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi?

Look, I didn't expect liberals/Democrats to stir up a lovefest for Reagan on his 100th birthday. But the way the liberati degrudgingly marked this milestone and dredged up all the vicious accusations which were just as false then as they are now shows just how all this talk about the "new civility" was just that: Talk.

Listen & Learn: Obamedia Compares Obama to JFK. El Rushbo Begs to Differ (2/8/11)

On Monday President Obama stood for the first time before of the Chamber of Commerce (who last year he and Dems accused of accepting secret foreign contributions; guess they conveniently forgot Obama's own campaign website illegally allowed foreign donations, and he got plenty, but I digress ...).

The crowd barely gave him an applause through the speech. And no wonder. During it, he got his Marx on and admonished them to hire more (Ah what does he care? He doesn't know anything about making payroll.) and to share more of the corporate profits with the workers.

And liberals scoff when critics call Obama a socialist. The audacity!

But to add insult to injury, the Obamedia got right on the story and touted Obama's performance as Kennedyesque. No, not Teddy. Jack. El Rushbo provided the montage:

E.J. DIONNE: (b-roll noise) It was a John F. Kennedy sort of "ask, uh, what you can do for your country" speech!

CONNELL McSHANE: (music under) A JFK moment...

LARRY KUDLOW: ...stealing a page from JFK. [Et tu, Larry!?]

JOHN HARWOOD: A JFK-style challenge to businesses...

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: ...a Kennedy-like call to action!

MARK CRUMPTON: ...hearken back to President Kennedy!

CHRISTINE ROMANS: ...sounded like JFK!

By comparing Obama to JFK the media hasn't looked as ridiculous since ... well, since they compared him to Ronald Reagan. But Rush does not let the Obamedia revise history and get away with it. In yesterday's first hour he plays three distinct clips of Kennedy from a speech he made in December 14, 1962 to the NY Economic Club:

JFK: This administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963. I am not talking about a quickie or a temporary tax cut which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm to ease some temporary complaint. The federal government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures

This is exactly the opposite of what Obama has done. In terms of tax cuts, he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table to sign the extension of the Bush tax cuts that he promised during his campaign to let sunset.

JFK: When consumers purchase more goods, plants use more of their capacity, men are hired instead of laid off, investment increases and profits are higher. Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment.

Oh yeah, this is definitely Obama's approach. NOT.

JFK: Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions. And any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low -- and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.

Let's see: avoiding large federal deficits? Obama. Wild-eyed spending? Obama. Breaking deficit records? Obama.

So not only is Obama not like JFK with regard to economic policy, but Obama's actions are precisely what JFK was warning against!

But I guess as long as the Obamedia pushes the notion that their messiah was Kennedyesque, they can rest assured that the citizenry, dumbed down by 50 years of liberal/Democrat-run education will buy their revisionist history lesson.

Here's Rush in his own way going through this topic. The clip ends with a hysterical story by AP lamenting how Uncle Sam isn't getting his fair share of tax revenue (translation: We need to raise taxes!!!). Rush nips that one in the bud too.

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

(Download clip here)

30 Years Ago Tonight ...

... Ronaldus Maximus was declared winner of the 1980 presidential election [h/t Freedom Torch]:

Note that back then the GOP was blue and the Democrats were in red.

Great American Suggests Reflecting on Founding Documents Before This Election Day

What follows is an essay penned by my friend Carl, an attorney, gun-owner, and lover of all things related to the Founders and the Founding Documents. Every time I see him, under his arm is yet another book on American history, especially the time of the Founding. I find Carl's passion for this nation and its history and traditions virtually unmatched, and it shows in this essay, which he asked me, being a blog owner, to share with you all.

With less than a week until arguably the most important election in the last seventy years, I am asking the citizens of the United States to do a little homework. This is not a request for anyone to vote for a particular party or a particular candidate, but rather to remind themselves and to understand the principles upon which this great, not perfect, nation was founded.

The assignment is simple; review three of the nation’s most important documents; namely, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Federalist, also known as the Federalist Papers. These documents hold the answers to today’s most pressing questions.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are the documents most individuals are familiar with, and express the basic principles upon which this nation was founded. Reread these documents and rediscover the genius of the Founding Fathers. Many people gave their lives to bring forth this nation conceived in the principles set forth in these documents. Many others fought and died to preserve those very same principles. Rereading these documents every now and then is the least we can do as citizens.

The Federalist is a compilation of eighty-five essays written individually by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay in an attempt to explain the various provisions and ideals expounded in the Constitution in order to garner popular support for ratification of the Constitution. Even a cursory review of the Federalist reveals that the Founding Fathers knew that the Constitution was not perfect, but the best possible Constitution that could be created by fallible men. The importance of the Federalist may best be summed up by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 1, wherein he writes, “It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.”

Although the Federalist is over two hundred years old, it is as applicable today as when it was written. For example, in Federalist No. 35, Alexander Hamilton discusses the importance of balance in taxation wherein he writes, “There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information, and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best, will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or to sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burthensome.” Hamilton understood that taxation requires reflection, consideration as well as balance, and not just the redistribution of wealth. The redistribution of wealth not only violates the founding principles but also has the potential to foster class warfare which also is discussed in the Federalist.

In Federalist No. 10, James Madison writes, “But the most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold, and those who are without property, have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a monied interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests, forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government.” There will always be classes in any society. It is not the function of government to eliminate classes or redistribute wealth amongst the classes, but rather to regulate the various classes so that the nation works to the advantage of all its citizens.

In Federalist No. 57, James Madison addresses the principle that the laws passed by Congress should apply equally to all citizens, including themselves, wherein he writes, “I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the house of representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communication of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.” Based on this fundamental tenant, each of us should ask our representatives why the new health care legislation does not apply to members of Congress.

Also applicable to the recent health care legislation is Federalist No. 62. In Federalist No. 62, James Madison writes, “The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessings of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood: if they be repealed or revised before they are promulg[at]ed, or undergo such incessant changes, that no man who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.” The current speaker of the House of Representatives recently informed the nation that we will have to pass the bill to find out what it says. I cannot conceive of any government which passes an almost two thousand page law that no one understands or has even read and then has the arrogance to announce that we will find out what it says after it is enacted.

In Federalist No. 41 James Madison explains that the Constitution and the laws that flow from it are not perfect, but they represent the best that people can do wherein he writes, “It may display the subtlety of the writer; it may open a boundless field for rhetoric and declamation; it may inflame the passions of the unthinking, and may confirm the prejudices of the misthinking: but cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human blessings must have a portion of alloy in them; that the choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT good; and that in every political institution, a power to advance the public happiness, involves a discretion which may be misapplied and abused.” Every law enacted may be misapplied or abused and thus it is up to the people and the courts to ensure that it is not. The new Arizona immigration law is the perfect example of a law that is good and necessary, albeit not a perfect law. Immigration should be handled by the Federal Government, who should start enforcing the existing laws rather than suing the states that attempt to enforce Federal Law.

One hears, especially in law school, that the Constitution is a living, breathing document. I believe this is correct, but not in the way the phrase is used today. The Founders built in a provision that allows the Constitution to be amended. In this sense, it is a living, breathing document. However, certain individuals, both in government and society at large believe that the elements or provisions of the Constitution itself are open to change based on the situation. I respectfully submit that this cannot be the case. There must be certain fundamental principles that govern us as a nation, otherwise everything is subjective. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton writes, “The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is in fact, and must be, regarded by the judges as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought of course to be preferred; or in other words, the constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.” The people have the power in the end, and the government needs to be reminded that they govern us only with and by our consent.

Regardless if you agree or disagree with anything that I have said, James Madison in Federalist No. 62 sets forth the purpose of good government, wherein he writes, “A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can best be attained. Some governments are deficient in both these qualities: most governments are deficient in the first. I scruple not to assert, that, in the American governments, too little attention has been paid to the last. The federal constitution avoids this error: and what merits particular notice, it provides for the last in a mode which increases the security of the first.” Let us make sure we have a good government by reminding ourselves of the founding principles and exercising our right to vote. The right to vote was a gift from our Founding Fathers who wanted us to have an enduring republic with a strong, but limited central government.

Abraham Lincoln, in a speech at Cooper Union in New York City, ended with the following pledge:, “LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.”

God Bless the United States of America.

Carl J. Evens, New Jersey USA

The American Left Slides Into Psychosis (J.R. Dunn)

From American Thinker:

… Leftists have always believed that one clear shot, one opportunity to put their policies into play without opposition from “reactionary interests,” would result in a political chain reaction, success leading to further success and finally absolute triumph as the New Socialist Jerusalem came into being with almost no effort on their part. This is childish fantasy, a wish-fulfillment daydream, transparent almost to the point of contempt. (It’s also extremely ahistorical—exactly such circumstances existed in 1933 and 1964 due to historical accident. Liberals botched things then exactly as they are doing now.) But for many years it has been the only thing keeping the left going.

Leftists really believed that Obama embodied their moment. Obama held all the cards—majorities in both houses, a slavish press that viewed him as no less than a godling, an enthusiastic public, even an acquiescent international establishment, overlooking a few holdouts such as Kim and Ahmadinejad. No left-of-center president has had smoother road before him—not FDR, not Lyndon Johnson. Yet Obama’s efforts amount to utter failure. Not because of opposition from the “party of no,” not because of circumstances, not because of sabotage. But because of Obama’s “success” itself. He got the bills passed, guaranteed that their execution would be in the hands of extraconstitutional figures beholden only to him, and got them funded by means both legal and illegal. All of it was put into play with a smoothness that only Chicago thuggery combined with socialist chicanery could accomplish. He launched them, and they crashed, and they burned.

They crashed and burned because they cannot work. Not in a universe with natural laws that operate the way they do and with human nature constituted as it is. They have never worked anywhere they have been tried—not in Europe, not in Asia, not in Africa, nowhere across this wide world. Obama’s grand schemes have been attempted previously. The failures were hurriedly stuffed down the memory hole, enabling the left to hope for another shot sometime down the line. (No small number of people in this country—many of them not doctrinaire leftists by any means—truly believe that FDR “ended” the Depression.)

But today they have a problem—several, in point of fact. The first is that the memory hole has in large part been filled in over the past decade and a half by such things as the Internet and the New Media. It’s no longer a simple matter to shove nationwide failures out of sight. It may not even be possible.

The second is the fact that this time they bet the house. They put everything down on Obama. Because it had to work. Because the third time was the charm. Because O was the messiah. And now they’re sitting in the casino dead broke, without another dime to lay on the table, and through the doorway they can hear the shouts of the people whose money they embezzled.

This is why the left is being overwhelmed by psychosis. Because they are up against the wall with no way out. Under such circumstances the strong individual bites the bullet and runs for daylight. The weak fall apart. It’s been a long, long time since anyone defined leftists as “strong.” …

Video of the Day (8/17/10): Great Montage

Mark Levin played this last night on his show. I didn't even realize it was a video until I saw it on the home page at Human Events. Enjoy:

Video of the Day (5/23/10): Dennis Prager Speaking at Univ. of Denver in May

A Facebook friend posted this clip of Dennis from YouTube. (Is that Sarah Palin sitting next to him?):

One of his best lines, which is wholly relevant today, is this statement on Elena Kagan and the Democrats:

The very fact that the United States of America is about to confer to the U.S. Supreme Court a woman who banned the military from her campus gives you an idea of how deep this problem is: That that is not disqualifying to Democrats is a moment of darkness in American history.

I shiver at the utter destruction this party has wrought.

Classic Listen & Learn - Happy 22nd Anniversary, Rush!

In honor of today, the 22nd anniversary of El Rushbo’s national radio show, here are three classic clips downloaded and kept over the years.

The first clip, from Monday, June 7, 2004, is the first half of a tribute to Ronald Reagan, who had passed away over the weekend. Even though it was merely the first term of George W. Bush’s presidency, Rush’s eulogy made you really miss the Gipper. Now, during this dark age of the oppressive Constitution-shredding liberty-squelching and wealth-stealing triumvirate of Obama-Pelosi-Reid, is Reagan ever more missed.

The second clip is from April 26, 2007. The economy was still pretty robust, unemployment impressively low, and record tax revenue coming in, thanks in no small part to those eeeevil Bush tax cuts. That, Rush shows us, did not stop the lib Bush-hating media to spin the news as negatively as humanly possible.

Finally, the third clip, also from April, 2007, is from an immigrant from Peru. She used to believe the hate-America tripe of the liberati - which was eerily similar to the hate-America trip she would get from the Hugo Chavezes and other socialist demagogues of South America. This is, until she came across Rush's TV show one night.

Dittos, Rush! Here’s to 22 more years!

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

(Download clip here)

(Download clip here)

(Download clip here)

Black Conservatives Respond NAACP's "Tea Parties = Racist" Resolution

NAACP Ushers in The Era of Nonsense
Kevin Jackson

… [NAACP president] Jealous appears to have selective memory when it comes to who founded the NAACP and fought for the rights of blacks. While most groups are proud of their heritage, it seems the NAACP is intent on revising theirs, and in fact, I found no reference to the NAACP being founded by Republicans on their website!

The same Republicans, black and white, are still fighting for the rights of blacks, yet Jealous portrays us as racists.

Jealous calls the tea parties racist, yet he hasn’t attended any. I suspect Jealous believes that Greenland is really green! Jealous doesn’t want to actually see for himself that tea parties are not racist, because then he would be forced to find new lies, and the left is running out of lies. Further, Jealous can’t have facts getting in the way of his racist rhetoric, or, God forbid, black people might actually start thinking for “theysefs.”

Jealous refuses to believe—or even speak with—the many blacks who have actually attended the thousands of Tea Party events without a single racial incident.

However, the NAACP, and its co-conspirators like the Congressional Black Caucus, is constantly associating tea parties to the Klan, as Rep Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) did here.

I fact-checked this and found that at the Democrat-sponsored Klan events of the past, the only featured blacks present were the ones being lynched! Perhaps Jealous and Sheila Jackson Lee overlooked that smidgen of racism that existed in the Democratic Party?

What Jealous seems to not want to acknowledge is the obvious bigotry within the NAACP. This group flatly does not like conservatives, regardless of color.

When Ken Gladney, a young black, was beaten by the SEIU while working, the NAACP held a press conference in St. Louis where their spokesperson called Gladney an “Uncle Tom.” The spokesman further added that Gladney was “not black enough,” thus establishing the color spectrum for the NAACP. Gladney’s color: conservative!

Former president of the NAACP Benjamin Hooks in this article called Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams “Uncle Toms.” Two of America’s most brilliant minds, two of the most respected black men in America, called Uncle Toms because of their political persuasion.

As for representing blacks who support the organization, the NAACP’s record is dismal—so much so, in fact, that the organization should be called the National Association for Taking Advantage of Colored People. [Nice one, Kevin! – ETR]

Like Jackson and Sharpton, the NAACP is now simply using black people to further its own cause. They have taken a page out of the Operation PUSH playbook and begun corporate shakedowns—only they are much better at it than Jesse Jackson was.

In 2009, the NAACP sued America’s largest banks, saying essentially that they tricked black people into bad loans. In 2010 the suit was dropped after a settlement was reached. I ask you: How much of that settlement directly impacted blacks in their communities?

Jealous wants the Tea Party to condemn a figment, a specter, in fact a ghost—ironically, a ghost of Democrats past ... and present. Present, because the group Jealous represents has racism in its very name, and its members live up to their very real racism on a daily basis.

*     *     *     *     *

The NAACP Risks the Ash-bin of History
by Ken Blackwell

The NAACP is in the headlines again. This old and respected civil rights organization is taking the unwise step of condemning the TEA Party for alleged racism. Those allegations include unsubstantiated charges that TEA Partiers rallying at the Capitol against passage of the unconstitutional health care takeover had yelled racial epithets at black congressman who were walking from their offices to the House of Representatives to cast historic votes. They yelled the “N” word, the congressmen claimed. But no one seems to be able to produce any video, any audio, or any sworn statements naming names, or even pointing to specific yellers.

When asked why they chose to walk through a crowd of anti-ObamaCare demonstrators, the liberal Members disingenuously replied: It was the first day of spring. Right. And Gov. Sanford wanted to enjoy the spring air hiking the Appalachian Trail, too.

I want to remind my friends why the NAACP is revered in the black community in this country. At a time in the early 1900s when hundreds of communities in this land of liberty were in the grip of the murderous Ku Klux Klan, when hundreds of black Americans were lynched every year for daring to exercise their right to vote, when local law enforcement, editors and jurors ignored the plight of black Americans, the NAACP was there to champion civil rights for the oppressed.

For these and many other courageous actions, the NAACP deserves the gratitude of all Americans. But this legendary organization is risking its honored legacy when it cries wolf and hurls baseless charges of racism against Americans who are exercising their civil rights to protest against radical policies coming from Washington, D.C.

The NAACP can once again become the respected organization that champions civil rights for all, if it avoids these race-baiting tactics.

*     *     *     *     *

I Condemn the NAACP: It Is Grossly Out of Touch
by Darryn “Dutch” Martin

I condemn the NAACP. The more the NAACP throws accusations of “racism” at patriotic groups such as the tea party movement, the more this formerly great civil rights organization shows its ever-increasing irrelevance.

This is an example of the NAACP showing how grossly out-of-touch it is with issues of importance to blacks today.

With the abnormally high 21 percent high school dropout rate, 70 percent out-of-wedlock birthrate, and epidemic of fatherlessness and a black American sub-culture that condones social ills, one must wonder why the NAACP would waste its time trying to take shots at the tea party movement.

NAACP: ‘Useful Idiots’ of Liberal Racism
by LTC Allen West (USA, Ret.)

… Instead of maintaining its mission and vision, the NAACP has now become the “useful idiots” (a term coined by Vladimir Lenin) for liberal racism. They have made themselves into a political hack job organization which now seeks to maintain the liberal progressive socialist control of the 21 century plantation. It is on this new economic plantation where the liberals seek to enslave the black community in order to maintain a devoted, monolithic, voting electorate.

I find it interesting that the NAACP was silent when Senator Harry Reid made his insidious comments about President Obama was favorable, likeable, because he is “light-skinned” and did not speak in “negro dialect”. I recall that the NAACP said nothing when Vice President Joe Biden referred to Barack Hussein Obama as “clean and articulate”. The NAACP said nothing when liberals attacked Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice (birthing tubes cartoon), Michael Steele, and General Colin Powell. …

It is this duplicitous hypocrisy which allows me to state that the NAACP is shamefully now a liberal racist enabler. The upcoming mid-term elections have the Democrat party in certain peril. Therefore they have turned to their tactic of first and last resort, race baiting.

The resolution issued by the NAACP against the Tea Party is just a strategy to focus this coming election not against liberal progressive policies, which are anathema to our Republic. No, the NAACP, in conjunction with their masters, the Democrat party, seek to make this into an election based upon an insane charge of racial hatred.

We even see charlatan blasts from the past such as Julian Bond stating that Martin Luther King Jr was a socialist, a feeble attempt to garner black community acceptance of the liberal progressive agenda. We are truly on the verge of a dangerous situation in America. And yes, this also includes the lawsuit being brought against the sovereign State of Arizona, an attempt to win Hispanic votes…an extension of liberal racism to another minority group. …

Liberal Racism does not believe in One Nation under God. They believe in a Nation of subjects organized into collective groups under which they shall rule, not govern, in a secular humanist based society.

Indivisible, Liberal Racism does not believe in “e pluribus unim”, they prefer a balkanized America where they can pit us against each other through their manipulated messages…such as Tea Party racism.

Liberal racism does not believe in Liberty and Justice for All, they believe in freedom defined by a ruling class elite while creating more victims who become dependent upon their dishonest benevolence. Justice in the world of Liberal Racism means social and economic justice rooted in a principle of leveling, which founding father Samuel Adams spoke against. Al Sharpton defined justice as everyone having the same in every home in America…..government engineering of results and outcomes. …

*     *     *     *     *

Black Tea Party Spokesperson Lloyd Marcus, Rebukes NAACP Resolution Against Tea Parties
Lloyd Marcus

… The NAACP Resolution proclaiming the Tea Party Movement to be racist is motivated by hate and fear. Though well disguised in intellectual rhetoric, underneath festers hate and fear. Along with their underlying resentment of whites and non forgiveness of America’s sins of the past, the NAACP has become zealots for the religion of Progressivism which preaches victimhood-ism and entitlement. The NAACP are the true racists whose secret motto is “Keep Hate & Victimhood-ism Alive.”

The NAACP fears the Tea Parties because they are effective; getting conservatives elected and giving We The People a voice to challenge the “deaf to the will of the American people” Obama administration.

Obama and the NAACP are kindred spirits in their disdain for America and the tea parties. Speaking at an NAACP event, President Obama fed the mostly black audience red meat sure to please. Obama said racism is still very much alive and a problem for blacks in America. The audience erupted in cheers and applause. In essence the NAACP audience was saying, “Hallelujah, we’re still victims in America!” …

For the ga-zillionth time, the tea party attendees are not racist. They are decent hard working Americans motivated by love for their country. These patriots oppose Obama’s policies, not his skin color.

America is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it via education, hard work and a dream. In areas where blacks are having difficulty, the problem is not a racist America. The true enemies of the black community are liberal Democrat policies and programs which have destroyed the black family enslaving them to government.

It is truly sad to see the once great civil rights organization acting like modern day “Uncle Tom” slaves on a liberal plantation selling out their people for a seat in the big house at the liberal democrat Massa’s table.

The bottom line is the NAACP, Obama and their co-conspirators in the liberal mainstream media have no interest in the truth regarding the tea parties. Their only goal is the furtherance of their progressive agenda. Thus, they will continue lying and functioning from a place of hate and fear which will ultimately lead to their destruction.

What the anti-America zealots can not comprehend or understand is this incredible tea party movement was birthed out of and is motivated by love for our great country. Love is the source of our extraordinary strength and growing power. Motivated by love, we tea party patriots are defeating the anti-America zealots. Come November, the anti-America zealots will be devastated. How do I know this? Because love never fails.

*     *     *     *     *

NAACP Ushers in The Era of Nonsense
Kevin Jackson

… [NAACP president] Jealous appears to have selective memory when it comes to who founded the NAACP and fought for the rights of blacks. While most groups are proud of their heritage, it seems the NAACP is intent on revising theirs, and in fact, I found no reference to the NAACP being founded by Republicans on their website!

The same Republicans, black and white, are still fighting for the rights of blacks, yet Jealous portrays us as racists.

Jealous calls the tea parties racist, yet he hasn’t attended any. I suspect Jealous believes that Greenland is really green! Jealous doesn’t want to actually see for himself that tea parties are not racist, because then he would be forced to find new lies, and the left is running out of lies. Further, Jealous can’t have facts getting in the way of his racist rhetoric, or, God forbid, black people might actually start thinking for “theysefs.”

Jealous refuses to believe—or even speak with—the many blacks who have actually attended the thousands of Tea Party events without a single racial incident.

However, the NAACP, and its co-conspirators like the Congressional Black Caucus, is constantly associating tea parties to the Klan, as Rep Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) did here.

I fact-checked this and found that at the Democrat-sponsored Klan events of the past, the only featured blacks present were the ones being lynched! Perhaps Jealous and Sheila Jackson Lee overlooked that smidgen of racism that existed in the Democratic Party?

What Jealous seems to not want to acknowledge is the obvious bigotry within the NAACP. This group flatly does not like conservatives, regardless of color.

When Ken Gladney, a young black, was beaten by the SEIU while working, the NAACP held a press conference in St. Louis where their spokesperson called Gladney an “Uncle Tom.” The spokesman further added that Gladney was “not black enough,” thus establishing the color spectrum for the NAACP. Gladney’s color: conservative!

Former president of the NAACP Benjamin Hooks in this article called Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams “Uncle Toms.” Two of America’s most brilliant minds, two of the most respected black men in America, called Uncle Toms because of their political persuasion.

As for representing blacks who support the organization, the NAACP’s record is dismal—so much so, in fact, that the organization should be called the National Association for Taking Advantage of Colored People. [Nice one, Kevin! – ETR]

Like Jackson and Sharpton, the NAACP is now simply using black people to further its own cause. They have taken a page out of the Operation PUSH playbook and begun corporate shakedowns—only they are much better at it than Jesse Jackson was.

In 2009, the NAACP sued America’s largest banks, saying essentially that they tricked black people into bad loans. In 2010 the suit was dropped after a settlement was reached. I ask you: How much of that settlement directly impacted blacks in their communities?

Jealous wants the Tea Party to condemn a figment, a specter, in fact a ghost—ironically, a ghost of Democrats past ... and present. Present, because the group Jealous represents has racism in its very name, and its members live up to their very real racism on a daily basis. …

Ways the Left Has Screwed Up My Country Today: Obama Cr@ps on Daniel Pearl's Memory with Meaningless "Act"

The ever-insightful Mark Steyn hit it on the head with this National Review article from this weekend [bolds mine]:

May 22, 2010
One of Those Moments
Mark Steyn

The president has become the latest Western liberal to try to hammer Daniel Pearl’s box into a round hole. …

Like a lot of guys who’ve been told they’re brilliant one time too often, President Obama gets a little lazy, and doesn’t always choose his words with care. And so it was that he came to say a few words about Daniel Pearl, upon signing the “Daniel Pearl Press Freedom Act.”

Pearl was decapitated on video by jihadist Muslims in Karachi on Feb. 1, 2002. That’s how I’d put it.

This is what the president of the United States said: “Obviously, the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is.”

Now Obama’s off the prompter, when his silver-tongued rhetoric invariably turns to sludge. But he’s talking about a dead man here, a guy murdered in public for all the world to see. Furthermore, the deceased’s family is standing all around him. And, even for a busy president, it’s the work of moments to come up with a sentence that would be respectful, moving, and true. Indeed, for Obama, it’s the work of seconds, because he has a taxpayer-funded staff sitting around all day with nothing to do but provide him with that sentence.

Instead, he delivered the one above. Which, in its clumsiness and insipidness, is most revealing. First of all, note the passivity: “The loss of Daniel Pearl.” He wasn’t “lost.” He was kidnapped and beheaded. He was murdered on a snuff video. He was specifically targeted, seized as a trophy, a high-value scalp. And the circumstances of his “loss” merit some vigor in the prose. Yet Obama can muster none.

Even if Americans don’t get the message, the rest of the world does. This week’s pictures of the leaders of Brazil and Turkey clasping hands with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are also monuments to American passivity.

But what did the “loss” of Daniel Pearl mean? Well, says the president, it was “one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination.” Really? Evidently it never captured Obama’s imagination, because, if it had, he could never have uttered anything so fatuous. He seems literally unable to imagine Pearl’s fate, and so, cruising on autopilot, he reaches for the all-purpose bromides of therapeutic sedation: “one of those moments” — you know, like Princess Di’s wedding, Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, whatever — “that captured the world’s imagination.”

Notice how reflexively Obama lapses into sentimental one-worldism: Despite our many zip codes, we are one people, with a single imagination. In fact, the murder of Daniel Pearl teaches just the opposite — that we are many worlds, and worlds within worlds. Some of them don’t even need an “imagination.” Across the planet, the video of an American getting his head sawed off did brisk business in the bazaars and madrassas and Internet downloads. Excited young men e-mailed it to friends, from cell phone to cell phone, from Karachi to Jakarta to Khartoum to London to Toronto to Falls Church, Va. In the old days, you needed an “imagination” to conjure the juicy bits of a distant victory over the Great Satan. But in an age of high-tech barbarism, the sight of Pearl’s severed head is a mere click away.

And the rest of “the world”? Most gave a shrug of indifference. And far too many found the reality of Pearl’s death too uncomfortable and chose to take refuge in the same kind of delusional pap as Obama. The president is only the latest Western liberal to try to hammer Daniel Pearl’s box into a round hole. Before him, it was Michael Winterbottom in his film A Mighty Heart: As Pearl’s longtime colleague Asra Nomani wrote, “Danny himself had been cut from his own story.” Or, as Paramount’s promotional department put it, “Nominate the most inspiring ordinary hero. Win a trip to the Bahamas!” Where you’re highly unlikely to be kidnapped and beheaded! (Although, in the event that you are, please check the liability-waiver box at the foot of the entry form.)

The latest appropriation is that his “loss” “reminded us of how valuable a free press is.” It was nothing to do with “freedom of the press.” By the standards of the Muslim world, Pakistan has a free-ish and very lively press. The problem is that some 80 percent of its people wish to live under the most extreme form of Sharia, and many of its youth are exported around the world in advance of that aim. The man convicted of Pearl’s murder was Omar Sheikh, a British subject, a London School of Economics student, and, like many jihadists from Osama to the Pantybomber, a monument to the peculiar burdens of a non-deprived childhood in the Muslim world. The man who actually did the deed was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed in March 2007: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi.” But Obama’s not the kind to take “guilty” for an answer, so he’s arranging a hugely expensive trial for KSM amid the bright lights of Broadway.

Listen to his killer’s words: “The American Jew Daniel Pearl.” We hit the jackpot! And then we cut his head off. Before the body was found, The Independent’s Robert Fisk offered a familiar argument to Pearl’s kidnappers: Killing him would be “a major blunder … the best way of ensuring that the suffering” — of Kashmiris, Afghans, Palestinians — “goes unrecorded.” Other journalists peddled a similar line: If you release Danny, he’ll be able to tell your story, get your message out, “bridge the misconceptions.” But the story did get out; the severed head is the message; the only misconception is that that’s a misconception. …

“My name is Daniel Pearl. I am a Jewish American from Encino, California, U.S.A.”

He didn’t have a prompter. But he spoke the truth. That’s all President Obama owed him — to do the same. …

As far as I’m concerned, Barack Obama crapped on Pearl’s memory. First, this whole “free press” is a freaking joke. Steyn is right in noting Pearl’s murder had nothing to do with a free press. It had to do with the threat by radical Islam to freedom, period. This is a lesson that President Hope&Change and his feckless gaggle of blame-America-first cronies like Hillary and Posner still haven’t learned.

Second, Obama craps on Pearl’s memory by referring to his brutal on-camera beheading a “loss.” How insipid and callous can one get?

Thirdly, as Steyn points out, how can Obama insist on caring about Daniel Pearl when he and his America-hating terrorist-coddling AG Holder have defied all reason and historic precedence to give his beheader taxpayer funded attorneys to be defended him in civilian freaking court!

Finally, as Steyn also notes, by taking on this “one world” stance, Obama is exposed for his typical blame-America-first mentality. He apparently believes that the killing of Daniel Pearl could somehow have been prevented if only the U.S. engaged the Muslim world and the rest of those other countries it—read: Bush!—isolated for too long.

How can anyone argue that Obama gives one whit about Daniel Pearl and the real reasons he was killed? I’ll bet Barack Obama never even saw the video of Pearl’s beheading. I only saw it once and that was enough to make me almost need to run to the bathroom and puke. He is not only completely ignorant, but also truly cold-hearted and devoid of any character whatsoever. I have absolutely no respect for this empty-suited and empty-hearted shadow of a human being that now occupies the Oval Office.

UPDATE: A slightly tweaked version of this article appears in this morning's (Monday, May 24) Washington Times.

Why I Left Liberalism #18 - Willful Ignorance: No Love for the Founders

James Lewis at American Thinker takes on a liberal Salon writer who doesn’t understand American history and mocks conservatives for their so-called “fetish” with the Founders.

May 16, 2010
Why Conservatives Love the Founders
By James Lewis

A Salon writer wonders, “What’s the conservative fetish with the Founding Fathers?”

It’s because we read history, my sadly ignorant friend. So did the Founders.

History is full of Obamas, and the people who idolized such power-hungry self-glorifying narcissists. The Founders understood human history in their very bones, because they read history from the Bible to the Roman Empire, Europe’s bloody and tyrannical history, and the Americas. If you want to understand Obama, just look at any idolized hero in Latin America: Chavez, Fidel, Bolivar, Juan Peron. Look at European monarchs. Look at Napoleon.

They are all the famous Man on Horseback, the hero of the hour who instantly turns into a tyrant. Even today Latin America is bedeviled by its own Obamas, who all demand to be idolized and worshipped. Obamas are a dime a dozen.

The Founders knew about abuse of power by arrogant and ignorant narcissists, over and over again in human history. …

The Founders understood that liberty had to come in stages. Only tyrants claim to create instant paradise. Practical statesmen work step by step. They created the intellectual and legal framework for the liberation of the slaves. When Abraham Lincoln came along, Americans were willing to fight a terrible war to free the slaves, even if more than half a million people had to die. Read the lyrics of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and you can see the real campaign for human liberty, not the fantasy version liberals entertain today. Liberty is bought very dearly, in blood and suffering. (And it was Christian Abolitionists who created the campaign to liberate the slaves.) …

America’s wars of liberation were real, not frauds like the Marxist ones. We brought liberty to Europe in World War I, in World War II, and in the Cold War. We brought liberty to American slaves in the Civil War. No other nation in history can claim anything close to that.

The Founders created the first land of liberty in human history. To be sure, they learned a great deal from British political thinkers like John Locke and Edmund Burke, and from the classical writers. They demanded for themselves the rights that were (theoretically) granted to Englishmen of their time. Meanwhile the French Revolution led to massive bloodshed and twenty years of bloody war to conquer Europe. Napoleon was another Obama idol. …

Karl Marx was just a throwback to all the slave-taking empires in history. Marx was born in Prussia, and idolized the chief propaganda philosopher of Prussia for his own “philosophy.” (That was Friedrich Hegel.) Marx wanted a militaristic state, run by an elite of Marx followers, who would indoctrinate all the workers to march in lockstep to the Central Commander. Is that what you want? It’s what Obama is creating for the United States today.

Read a little history, my poor friend, and you will see Obamas everywhere you look. Lenin was an Obama (and the Obama campaign deliberately used Lenin imagery for its propaganda). Stalin was an Obama. Mussolini was an Obama. Napoleon was an Obama. Putin is an Obama. Ahmadinejad is an Obama. Saddam was an Obama.

America never had a rock star president until the Obama campaign. George Washington made very sure no one would suspect him of being an Obama. Lincoln never claimed to be an Obama. None of our presidents have paraded themselves as Obamas—not until Obama came along and brought the psychology of self-glorifying narcissism to these shores. And the Left snapped to and saluted Obama, worshiped at his feet of clay in that ancient and corrupt way that humans have known for millenia. …

Conservatives love the Founders because we read history. We know that you don’t read history. Obama doesn’t know history.

That’s why you liberals scare us.

Worse than not knowing history, the Left is very adept at rewriting history. Obama, with his incessant blaming the Bush administration for everything that liberal Democrat policies have caused, is a case in point.

Listen & Learn: El Rushbo Corrects Media on 2 Things He Didn't Say (5/4 & 5/5/10)

Oh boy, is Rush Limbaugh in trouble. This time he’s gone too far!

For at least two days earlier this week the lefty media and blogosphere have been abuzz with two different statements that he made w.r.t. the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

First is Rush’s claim that environmentalist wackos blew up the oil rig on purpose in order to show the country that off-shore drilling is too detrimental to the environment and should be immediately stopped. Chris Hayes of The Nation, Anderson Cooper on CNN, Joy-less Behar of ABC and somewhere else, Stephen Colbert on MSWTF, some Brown chick. And that’s just folks talking on TV. The lefty e-zines from Mother Jones to the Atlantic are discussing it too. Oh yeah, and Chris Matthews on his show reported that Rush suspected the Obama administration of sabotaging the oil rig to advance their environmentalist agenda.

Except for one small problem: Rush never said any of those things. He was merely wondering out loud (on April 29 and some other subsequent days) why the Obama administration sent SWAT teams out there to investigate the exploded oil rig and that perhaps they suspected some sort of sabotage.

As to Chris Matthews statement that Rush was implicating the Obama administration itself, he was clearly confused by the fact that while discussing Obama’s decision to send SWAT teams, he noted that the sequence of events was quite curious: The oil rig exploding on Earth Day, the administration taking over a week to respond to the crisis while the oil gushed, and then sending SWAT teams out there (not before they sent attorneys). If anything, Rush was questioning the type and timing of the adminstration’s response to the rig explosion, and not that the administration plotted the explosion itself!

Here is exactly what Rush said on April 29:

RUSH: Wow. All right, so SWAT teams, we’re sending big sis down there, Janet Napolitano, to look at all the valves and stuff, make sure they’re properly greased. He-he-he-he. Ahem. And Lisa Jackson is doing the same thing. So obviously the regime is open to the idea that this is not an accident. The regime is open to the possibility that this could well have been on purpose. Don’t forget, the original Earth Day, 40 years ago, was inspired by the river in Cleveland catching fire. Forty years later, the day before Earth Day this year, the Gulf is on fire. Coincidence? Jury’s still out. The regime is on the case, soon to tell us what happened.

I want to get back to the timing of the blowing up, the explosion out there in the Gulf of Mexico of this oil rig. Since they’re sending SWAT teams down there now this changes the whole perspective of this. Now, lest we forget, ladies and gentlemen, the carbon tax bill, cap and trade that was scheduled to be announced on Earth Day. I remember that. And then it was postponed for a couple of days later after Earth Day, and then of course immigration has now moved in front of it. But this bill, the cap-and-trade bill, was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist wackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants, nuclear plant investment. So, since they’re sending SWAT teams down there, folks, since they’re sending SWAT teams to inspect the other rigs, what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I’m just noting the timing here.

You will note that Rush himself admits that he never even suspected foul play until the administration announced it was sending out a SWAT team. Why would one be sent out to an explosed oil rig unless the Obama administration suspected criminal or terroristic involvement? But the Obamedia from Matthews to Colbert to Behar twisted Rush’s words and/or put new words in his mouth in order to impugn him.

I don’t think Rush is wrong at all to think out loud about the timing. His prediction of anti-oil rhetoric was borne out when eventaully folks like the loony RFK, Jr. and Ahhnold the governator were declaring, “That’s it. No more oil drilling! It’s too dangerous.” Plus, all this was set against the background of the c(r)ap-and-tax bill.

This is a conspiracy theory lefties should appreciate! Compared to all the conspiracies propogated by the Democrat-media complex about the Bush administration and 9/11, the Bush administration and the War in Iraq, and the Bush administration and Hurricane Katrina, this one is a no-brainer.

Again, like Rush I’m not accusing the Obama administration of plotting the explosion although I am questioning both the type and timing of their response. And I’m wondering—as Rush did—whether or not this curious sequence of events is coincidental.

Anyway, Rush is in trouble with the mainstream media for another thing: for the claim that is oil is natural just like water is (!) and for saying we shouldn’t do anything to clean up the spill because the ocean will do it itself.

How callous. How uncaring.

Except for one small problem: Rush didn’t say those things either (the second part, that is - that we shouldn’t do anything about it.)

Here is what Rush said, also on April 29:

Our official climatologist, Dr. Roy Spencer has just sent me something. I’ve been wondering about this. He must have been reading my mind. We’ve got 5,000 barrels a day being spilled from the rig, and Dr. Spencer looked into it. … There’s natural seepage into oceans all over the world from the ocean floor of oil—and the ocean’s pretty tough, it just eats it up. Dr. Spencer looked into this. You know the seepage from the floor of the Gulf is exactly 5,000 barrels a day, throughout the whole Gulf of Mexico now. …

You do survive these things. I’m not advocating don’t care about it hitting the shore or coast and whatever you can do to keep it out of there is fine and dandy, but the ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and was left out there. It’s natural. It’s as natural as the ocean water is.

So there you have it. Two items that the Obamedia has gone batty with for days impugning Rush for saying, except he never said them.

Nope, no liberal media bias here!

Here is Rush addressing the media frenzy and trying to set the record straight. The first clip is from Tuesday May 4; the second one from Wednesday the 5th:

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

(Download here)

(Download here)

The Great Uniter Is Really the Great Divider

Here’s the latest “Lion’s Roar” from guest blogger Loud Lion:

It was in Philadelphia on a March day during the 2008 Presidential primary that a then first term U.S. Senator was declared the great uniter, and having bridged the great race divide in the United States. It was after this speech that we read and heard lines like:

“Obama has also grown into the character he was born to play: the great uniter who can bring together old and young, black and white, Democrat and Republican.” (Edward McClelland; Salon.com).

We had this great statement by Chris Matthews of MSNBC referred to the speech as “what many of us think is one of the great speeches in American history, and we watch a lot of them.” (Dickens, Geoffrey (2008-03-18). “Chris Matthews Hails Obama Speech As ‘Worthy of Abraham Lincoln’”).

I could go on and on, but why should I, must of us know how the media could find no fault in the man then, and barely now. If you want to know more, I suggest you pick up Bernard Goldberg’s book A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media.

With his coronation in November, the chills up Chris Matthews’s leg grew greater and greater. Here we had a President who prided himself on being the type of politician who would be the one to really cross the aisle and get Democrats and Republicans work through the many difficult and trying issues that need unifying support and not unilateral action. Well, I am here to call BS on all that. Nothing in the man’s history shows that he is a uniter.

Let’s look at the great uniters’ childhood first to see if he was exposed to uniting ideas, because it is believed that the man rises from the ashes of his childhood. (OK, I have no idea if they say it, but I kind of like the statement, so feel free to say it now.)

President Obama’s parents met in a 1960 Russian Language class. Let’s examine that in itself: 1960, height of the Cold War, Bay of Pigs and Russian Missile Crises are looming, and we have two kids, neither of which went into espionage or the like, taking an advanced Russian language class. Obama’s father wrote a thesis entitled “Problems With Our Socialism” that advocates 100% taxation of the rich, communal ownership of land and the forced confiscation of privately controlled land. 

I have no idea if this is true or not, but with his grandparents being friends with members of the Communist Party of the United States, and a father from Kenya, which was at the time fighting for independence from Great Britain, with probable support from the Soviet Union it supposes that maybe they leaned towards a belief that Communism was a true and viable solution.

After President Obama’s parents divorced, his mother met and married a graduate student from Indonesia. Indonesia at the time was in the midst of a civil war in which the military was trying to oust, which it later did, the Communist group in power. After the military assumed control of the country, all students learning in foreign countries were recalled, and with that he returned, followed a year later by his new bride and his step-son. 

An interesting twist, was/is, that at the time, the only way for Barack to be enrolled in school was to be a citizen of Indonesia, so his step-father adopted him. While Indonesia is the largest Islamic practicing, by population, country in the world, it is not ruled by sharia law. So, while Barack was now an adopted child of a follower of Islam, and was living in a predominantly Islamic nation, and went to school there, there is nothing to say he was schooled in the tolerant ways of Islam.

In 1971, Barack was sent back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. The same grandparents that counted as their friends, Frank Marshall Davis a noted American Communist, who is mentions as “Frank” in President Obama’s books, and moved over 2000 miles so one of them could attend a school where communism was openly discussed and attended the “Little Red Church” so named after Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. While in theory Communism espouses equality, we all know “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

A year after Barack come back from Indonesia so did his mother, staying in Hawaii for a few years (5), and then returning back to Indonesia until 1994, and then sadly died of cancer in 1995. I bring this up to point out that throughout his life Barack parents were entering and leaving his life, leaving him to be raised by his grandparents. Grandparents do not raise their grandchildren like parents raise their children for the most part. Grandparents are the ones who say yes, and give the grandchildren what they want. They are the dotters, while the parents are the disciplinarians. Also, with a mother that comes and goes as she pleases, it is my thesis that Barack thought that putting oneself ahead of your family is the norm, and that nothing was greater then oneself.

Jumping ahead, we see that the friends that Barack had after his schooling are radical class warfare devout terrorists. (Yes I’m talking about you, Willy Ayres, and Rashid Khalidi, and Mike Klonsky.) Now, I am not saying these people were not just guys from around the neighborhood, or that he believes or accepts their beliefs as his own, but you are who you are by your associations. And, these people are clearly thinking about destruction of an American society that has enabled them to obtain the positions that they are now in.

I could sit and write a lot on the hatred spewed forth by Rev. Wright, and how someone sitting in his pews for over 20 years could not have accepted at least some of the venom coming from the pulpit unless they too believed it. If not, then our president is either a sociopath or someone who say his membership as a way of acceptance within the black community he still believed he was not a real part of because he had a white mother who basically abandoned her black looking child, and whitey grandparents that raised him.

Again, this is all a part of what makes President Obama the race baiter, and great divider he actually is, and not the proclaimed great unifier.

Let’s now look at some of the wording BHO uses, and you see if these are unifying terms, or dividing.

“I can no more disown him [Rev. Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.” (Emphasis mine)

“It will be up to each of you to make sure the young people, African-Americans, Latinos and the women who powered our victory in 2008, stand together once again.”

Think back to the police incident in Massachusetts which resulted in the famous “Beer Summit,” which will surely go down in history with other great summits like Yalta, Potsdam and many others. Let’s look at his words:

“Well, I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don’t know all the facts. What’s been reported though is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house. There was a report called in to the police station that there might be a burglary taking place. So far, so good, right? I mean, if I was trying to jigger into—well, I guess this is my house now, so …”

OK, he admits that the man looked like he was breaking into the house, and if that is true, then the police have a right to check it out.

“Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

Again, he says he does not know all the facts, but he is willing to then go on about race and it having a direct correlation between it and police. That is not someone who thinks that race should not be an issue, but that it is the issue.

Here is a phrase that the president likes to use “So if these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have.” You tell me, are those uniting words or dividing words. I don’t’ know about you, but when someone wants to fight me, I tend to think they are not my friend, and definitely not looking out for my best interests.

All these things by themselves does not indicate a divider, but as president the man is not a sound bite, and not someone who can allow his deep seated racial issues to control him and his speech and policies, but we are seeing it on an almost daily basis. The child learned early how to control the message, and get what he wants, and we are seeing that too on a daily basis. The teachings of Marx, Mao, Alinsky are those being used to develop and massage the message of this administration.

To Those Comparing Arizona to Nazi Germany: Shame on You!

There are no depths too low for the Democrat-media complex to sink in order to pursue their agenda. The latest is the shameful comparison between the just and justified rule of law in Arizona to systematic persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. 

I was going to write a full response to this, but Angry White Dude beat me to it:

MAINSTREAM MEDIA INSULTS HOLOCAUST VICTIMS
Tuesday, April 27, 2010

 

Here are some of the recent mainstream media headlines and comments on Arizona’s new immigration law (h/t Ace of Spades):

Democrat: Arizona law like ‘Nazi Germany’

Arizona illegal immigrant law is a Nazi measure says Catholic Archbishop Mahony

(Newsweek) Arizona or Nazi Germany?

Sharpton, other activists compare Arizona immigration law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and Jim Crow

Roger Ebert Compares Arizona Immigration Bill To Nazi Germany

NYT Former Reporter Greenhouse Fires on Arizona’s ‘Police State,’ Makes Nazi Comparison

How freely liberals throw around comparisons to Nazi Germany when things don’t go there way. When things don’t go there way translates into when something is good for America and it’s citizens. What a tremendous insult to innocent Jewish victims of the socialist German Nazi death machine to the plight of lawbreaking, illegal aliens entering our country and living at great expense on the backs of the American taxpayer. Not to mention the tremendous amount of crime committed at the hands of illegals!

... Let’s examine. Jews in Germany and Poland were productive citizens of both countries. They had their hard-earned possessions stripped from them. They were beaten in the streets and made to wear Stars of David at all times identifying them as Jews. Our police cannot even question people stopped for crimes if they are citizens! Jews were forcefully taken to concentration camps where they were gassed, shot or used in barbaric medical experiments. Six million innocent Jewish men, women and children died horrible deaths. They were treated worse than anything we could imagine. Yet liberals equate the treatment of Jews with illegal aliens!

Illegal aliens break American laws by entering our country without legal permission. Once they are here, our backward laws heap upon them rights and taxpayer aid. We spend untold billions of dollars each year housing, educating, medicating and incarcerating illegal aliens. Areas where they live soon become crime-ridden ghettos. They do not assimilate into American culture. Americans are too often the victims of violent crimes at the hands of these unlawful hordes. Yet liberals continue to compare them to Jews under the Nazis!

Arizona has over 500,000 illegal aliens. The upkeep of those illegals has nearly bankrupt the state. Crime is rampant and Phoenix has become the kidnapping capital of America because of them. It has gone too far and one state decided it was time to do something about it. But liberals are worried about hurting the feelings of lawbreakers who should never be here in the first place! Whose country is it anyway?

None of this would be necessary if the federal government had done its duty. Each President from Clinton to Obama has broken their oath of office by not protecting America’s borders. Who has paid the price? American taxpayers who either pay for illegals and the services they steal and/or those who suffer crime at the hands of violent illegals.

American values are upside down under the fools in Washington who control our country. Our President calls the new Arizona law “misguided.” Who, sir, may I ask, is misguided…the people who must pay for and suffer the consequences of failed immigration enforcement or the tools in Washington who don’t have to suffer living in proximity to these illegals and can only see a future voting bloc? Our country has slipped from a true republic into a system controlled by a ruling class.

Isn’t it sad liberals were only months ago calling the Tea Party movement names and decrying posters that portrayed Hussein Hopenchange as Hitler when Obama’s actions socializing America closely resemble Hitler’s in installing total government control? Liberals are out to destroy America. None of their actions can be portrayed as beneficial to our country. We must fight them at every turn and not tire! Arizona has set an example for all states to follow. I pray Texas will be next or we will soon suffer a wave of crime and expense from the seas of illegals fleeing Arizona.

Thank you, AWD.

When you compare what the state of Arizona is doing to deal with rampant illegal immigration to Nazi Germany, as the Democrat-media complex has done, you are sh*tting on the memory of every one of the six million Jews and millions of others who lost their lives during that dark era of modern history. There is no comparison whatsoever. No comparison.

Shame on you! Shame. On. You.

Limbaugh vs. Clinton? No Contest [UPDATED 4/26]

It seems all liberals/Democrats know how to do is lie. Lie lie and lie some more until their lies become accepted as truth. We've got President Hope&Change on a jihad to punish Wall Street and regulate the "unfettered" free market for supposedly causing the housing crash and current economic crisis, when it was intrusive Democrat-government policies largely responsible. And of course we have the whole Tea Party = angry write racist extremists meme being perpetuated daily by the Democrat-media complex. 

To add more fuel to the fire, Slick Willie Clinton has come out of the woodwork on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing to compare the Tea Party essentially as potential Timothy McVeigh's, just waiting for the right motivational words in order to snap into action and then boom! there goes another government building. And who, in Clinton's, sick perverse mind would be speaking these words? Why, Rush Limbaugh and right-wing talk radio, of course. It's your typical liberal/Democrat notion of: Disagree with our policies? You must be a dangerous, bigoted extremist. Blah blah freaking blah.

This week, right after Clinton stood up at a microphone and despicably rewrote the history of the Oklahoma City bombing and the supposed right-wing inspiration of Timothy McVeigh, the despicable New York Times gave the disgraced ex-president a forum to do it again in the form of a written op-ed.

Luckily, the Wall Street Journal responded by giving Rush Limbaugh—the perceived target of Clinton’s charge—a chance to set the record straight:

April 23, 2010
Liberals and the Violence Card
Conservative protest is motivated by a love of what America stands for.
By RUSH LIMBAUGH

The latest liberal meme is to equate skepticism of the Obama administration with a tendency toward violence. That takes me back 15 years ago to the time President Bill Clinton accused “loud and angry voices” on the airwaves (i.e., radio talk-show hosts like me) of having incited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. What self-serving nonsense. Liberals are perfectly comfortable with antigovernment protest when they’re not in power.

From the halls of the Ivy League to the halls of Congress, from the antiwar protests during the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq to the anticapitalist protests during International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, we’re used to seeing leftist malcontents take to the streets. Sometimes they’re violent, breaking shop windows with bricks and throwing rocks at police. Sometimes there are arrests. Not all leftists are violent, of course. But most are angry. It’s in their DNA. They view the culture as corrupt and capitalism as unjust.

Now the liberals run the government and they’re using their power to implement their radical agenda. Mr. Obama and his party believe that the election of November 2008 entitled them to make permanent, “transformational” changes to our society. In just 16 months they’ve added more than $2 trillion to the national debt, essentially nationalized the health-care system, the student-loan industry, and have their sights set on draconian cap-and-trade regulations on carbon emissions and amnesty for illegal aliens.

Had President Obama campaigned on this agenda, he wouldn’t have garnered 30% of the popular vote.

Like the millions of citizens who’ve peacefully risen up and attended thousands of rallies in protest, I seek nothing more than the preservation of the social contract that undergirds our society. I do not hate the government, as the left does when it is not running it. I love this country. And because I do, I insist that the temporary inhabitants of high political office comply with the Constitution, honor our God-given unalienable rights, and respect our hard-earned private property. For this I am called seditious, among other things, by some of the very people who’ve condemned this society?

I reject the notion that America is in a well-deserved decline, that she and her citizens are unexceptional. I do not believe America is the problem in the world. I believe America is the solution to the world’s problems. I reject a foreign policy that treats our allies like our enemies and our enemies like our allies. I condemn the president traveling the world apologizing for America’s great contributions to mankind. And I condemn his soft-pedaling the dangers we face from terrorism. For this I am inciting violence?

Few presidents have sunk so low as Mr. Clinton did with his accusations about Oklahoma City. Last week—on the very day I was contributing to and raising more than $3 million to fight leukemia and lymphoma on my radio program—Mr. Clinton used the 15th anniversary of that horrific day to regurgitate his claims about talk radio.

At a speech delivered last Friday at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., the former president said: [T]here were a lot of people who were in the business back then of saying that the biggest threat to our liberty and the cause of our domestic economic problem was the federal government itself. And we have to realize that there were others who fueled this both because they agreed with it and because it was in their advantage to do so. . . . We didn’t have blog sites back then so the instrument of carrying this forward was basically the right-wing radio talk show hosts and they understand clearly that emotion was more powerful than reason most of the time.”

Timothy McVeigh was incensed by the Clinton administration’s 1993 siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. It’s no coincidence that the bombing took place two years to the day of the Waco siege. McVeigh was not inspired by anything I said or believe and to say otherwise is outright slander. In the aftermath of the bombing, I raised millions of dollars for the children of federal employees killed in that cowardly attack through my association with the Marine Corp Law Enforcement Foundation.

Let me just say it. The Obama/Clinton/media left are comfortable with the unrest in our society today. It allows them to blame and demonize their opponents (doctors, insurance companies, Wall Street, talk radio, Fox News) in order to portray their regime as the great healer of all our ills, thus expanding their power and control over our society.

A clear majority of the American people want no part of this. They instinctively know that the Obama way is not how things get done in this country. They are motivated by love. Not hate, not sedition. They love their country and want to save it from those who do not.

Here here!

Of course, the media is milking this "war of words" between Clinton and Rush. It makes for good news. But what they won't discuss is the content. They won't dig down into the details of the argument, because it will expose Rush as 100% right, and Clinton as an opportunistic hate-mongering buffoon.

UPDATED 4/26: Mark Steyn has put out this article on this topic.

Listen & Learn: Mark Levin on "National Day of Prayer" Being Declared Unconstitutional

In yet another instance of turning the Constitution on its head and making our Founders roll in their graves, a leftist activist federal judge in Wisconsin sided with an atheist group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation and declared that the National Day of Prayer - first instituted by Congress in 1952 - is unconstitutional:

In a 66-page opinion issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb said the holiday violates the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment, which creates a separation of church and state.

“I understand that many may disagree with that conclusion and some may even view it as a criticism of prayer or those who pray,” Crabb said in her opinion. “That is unfortunate. A determination that the government may not endorse a religious message is not a determination that the message itself is harmful, unimportant or undeserving of dissemination.”

Umm, I'm no hot shot justice or law professor, but even I know that the establishment clause of the First Amendment does not - contrary to leftist fantasy - create a separation of church and state. It merely prevents the federal government from creating a national Church, to which all its citizens must belong.

There also is no determination - except, apparently, in the mind of this leftist activist in a black robe - that the government may not endorse a religious message.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

... [W]ith a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Gee, where can that be from? Oh yeah, the Declaration of Independence. But anyway ... I'm sure that this decision Crabb lady just earned herself a place on the short list for Obama's SCOTUS nominations.

Like I said, I'm no constitutional scholar. But there is someone who is: "The Great One" Mark Levin. And yesterday he gave this pathetic excuse for a judge a lesson in Constitution law and the so-called "separation of church and state" that the left has been using for nearly 70 years in order to hatefully eradicate G0d from our blessed republic:

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

Download levin2010-04-15_80kbps.mp3