Dismantling America

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Dismantling America: Part II

by Thomas Sowell

Many years ago, at a certain academic institution, there was an experimental program that the faculty had to vote on as to whether or not it should be made permanent.

I rose at the faculty meeting to say that I knew practically nothing about whether the program was good or bad, and that the information that had been supplied to us was too vague for us to have any basis for voting, one way or the other. My suggestion was that we get more concrete information before having a vote.

The director of that program rose immediately and responded indignantly and sarcastically to what I had just said-- and the faculty gave him a standing ovation.

After the faculty meeting was over, I told a colleague that I was stunned and baffled by the faculty's fierce response to my simply saying that we needed more information before voting.

"Tom, you don't understand," he said. "Those people need to believe in that man. They have invested so much hope and trust in him that they cannot let you stir up any doubts."

Years later, and hundreds of miles away, I learned that my worst misgivings about that program did not begin to approach the reality, which included organized criminal activity.

The memory of that long-ago episode has come back more than once while observing both the actions of the Obama administration and the fierce reactions of its supporters to any questioning or criticism.

Almost never do these reactions include factual or logical arguments against the administration's critics. Instead, there is indignation, accusations of bad faith and even charges of racism.

Here too, it seems as if so many people have invested so much hope and trust in Barack Obama that it is intolerable that anyone should come along and stir up any doubts that could threaten their house of cards.

Among the most pathetic letters and e-mails I receive are those from people who ask why I don't write more "positively" about Obama or "give him the benefit of the doubt."

No one-- not even the President of the United States-- has an entitlement to a "positive" response to his actions. The entitlement mentality has eroded the once common belief that you earned things, including respect, instead of being given them.

As for the benefit of the doubt, no one-- especially not the President of the United States-- is entitled to that, when his actions can jeopardize the rights of 300 million Americans domestically and the security of the nation in an international jungle, where nuclear weapons may soon be in the hands of people with suicidal fanaticism. Will it take a mushroom cloud over an American city to make that clear? Was 9/11 not enough?

When a President of the United States has begun the process of dismantling America from within, and exposing us to dangerous enemies outside, the time is long past for being concerned about his public image. He has his own press agents for that.

Internationally, Barack Obama has made every mistake that was made by the Western democracies in the 1930s, mistakes that put Hitler in a position to start World War II-- and come dangerously close to winning it.

At the heart of those mistakes was trying to mollify your enemies by throwing your friends to the wolves. The Obama administration has already done that by reneging on this country's commitment to put a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and by its lackadaisical foot-dragging on doing anything serious to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That means, for all practical purposes, throwing Israel to the wolves as well.

Countries around the world that have to look out for their own national survival, above all, are not going to ignore how much Obama has downgraded the reliability of America's commitments.

Iraq, for example, knows that Iran is going to be next door forever while Americans may be gone in a few years. South Korea likewise knows that North Korea is permanently next door but who knows when the Obama administration will get a bright idea to pull out? Countries in South America know that Hugo Chavez is allying Venezuela with Iran. Dare they ally themselves with an unreliable U.S.A.? Or should they join our enemies to work against us?

This issue is too serious for squeamish silence.

The Obama White House: Bundlers' Paradise

The Obama White House: Bundlers' Paradise

by Michelle Malkin

Like Capt. Renault in "Casablanca," I am shocked, shocked to discover that access peddling is going on in the Obama White House. Perks for deep-pocketed donors? Presidential meetings for sale? The stale Chicago odor of pay-for-play wafting from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Knock me over with a feather.

Despite the president's claimed distaste for the campaign finance practice known as "bundling" (rounding up aggregate contributions from friends, business associates and employees), the House of Obama has been a campaign finance bundlers' paradise from Day One. A new report by Matthew Mosk of The Washington Times just confirms the gob-smackingly obvious: It's business as usual in the era of Hope and Change. O's wealthiest Democratic donors have received lavish receptions, golf outings, bowling dates and movie nights with Obama.

And internal Democratic National Committee documents acquired by the Times reveal that "high-dollar fundraisers have been promised access to senior White House officials in exchange for pledges to donate $30,400 personally or to bundle $300,000 in contributions ahead of the 2010 midterm elections." Yup, they're just haggling over the price.

Many Obama bundlers have secured slots on federal advisory panels and commissions. Still more have benefited from the time-honored patronage tradition of rewarding political benefactors with ambassadorships. Clinton did it. Bush did it. And despite all his fantastical, Balloon Boy-level rhetoric of bringing a "new politics" to Washington, Obama's done it, too.

His ambassador to London, Louis Susman, is a Chicago crony with no diplomatic experience who bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for Team Obama and is known as "The Vacuum Cleaner" for his fundraising prowess. His ambassador to France, entertainment mogul Charlie Rivkin, headed up Obama's California fundraising operations, raking in $500,000 for the campaign and another $300,000 for the inaugural. His ambassador to Spain, Boston moneyman Alan Solomont, also bundled the same amounts for the campaign and inaugural.

In June 2008, candidate Obama railed: "We need a president who will look out for the interests of hardworking families, not just their big campaign donors and corporate allies." Immediately after the speech, he headed to a campaign fundraiser at the Manhattan headquarters of Credit Suisse, one of the major investment companies caught up in the subprime lending debacle. President Obama collected $3 million last week at another Manhattan fundraiser after carping about Wall Street's "self-interestedness." Audacity is his middle name.

When Obama inveighs against Wall Street greed and politicians beholden to Big Business, remember this: The Wall Street gamblers that Obama and his wife carped about on the campaign trail shoveled money to his campaign hand over fist. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, hedge funds and private equity firms donated $2,992,456 to the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle. No fewer than 100 Obama bundlers are investment CEOs and brokers: Nearly two dozen work for financial giants such as Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs or Citigroup.

Obama happily accepted more than $200,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager James Torrey, more than $100,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones and more than $50,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin, chief executive officer of Citadel Investment Group in Chicago. Another notable: Chicago investment banker James Reynolds, who raised more than $200,000 for the Obama campaign while chief executive of Loop Capital Markets. The municipal bond specialist was a longtime friend of Obama's -- feting the rising star in his Hyde Park home and convincing friends and associates to open up their wallets more than a decade ago.

In 2003, USA Today reported, Reynolds was caught on FBI wiretaps arranging what prosecutors called a "sham" consulting contract with a gal pal of a Philadelphia mayoral adviser. After the conversations, Reynolds snagged $300,000 in no-bid city contracts for Loop Capital Markets. City officials went to jail over the scam. Reynolds skated. The Obama campaign's only statement? "Jim Reynolds has admitted that he made mistakes, but he has not been charged with any wrongdoing."

Fortunately for Obama bundlers who may find themselves in legal trouble in the future, Clinton-era donor-maintenance fixer Eric Holder (who oversaw the pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich) is guarding the henhouse at the Justice Department.

Every corner of the Obama administration is stuffed with crony moneybags. Take the first lady's social secretary, Desiree Rogers. More than a party planner, she's a fundraising machine in her own right. According to left-wing watchdog Public Citizen, Rogers bundled more than $200,000 for Obama and contributed $28,500 to Democratic committees. Rogers' ex-husband, John W. Rogers Jr., chief executive of multibillion-dollar Ariel Capital Management, played basketball with Michelle O's brother, Craig Robinson, at Princeton. Mr. Rogers also served as a campaign finance bundler for Team Obama -- and hung with Obama in the White House on Super Bowl Sunday.

An indignant White House says this is about "friendship," not influence peddling. But as Obama himself noted in 2007: "It is no coincidence that the best bundlers are often granted the greatest access, and access is power in Washington."

Indeed, the Obama White House policy can be summed up in four words: No Bundler Left Behind.

Divorce Agreement - America

DIVORCE AGREEMENT
THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM.

American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:
We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.
Here is a model separation agreement: 
Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by Blue and Red majority landmass each taking a portion. That will be most difficult part, but I am sure  our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.
We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.
You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).
We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies,Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood ..
You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security. 
We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill. 
We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find. 
You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World. 
We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.  
Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you Answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years. 
Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American
P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheehan, Barbara Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you.
P. S. S.  And we won't have to press 1 for English.

Obvious Media Bias

Politico Notes the Obvious Media Bias

Politico, in a well written article, notes the double standard that exists with the Obama administration and the media. Worth a read, the point should be less about sympathy for the Bush administration, and more about the media’s complete lack of objectivity…

What if Bush had done that?

A four-hour stop in New Orleans, on his way to a $3 million fundraiser.

Snubbing the Dalai Lama.

Signing off on a secret deal with drug makers.

Freezing out a TV network.

Doing more fundraisers than the last president. More golf, too.

President Barack Obama has done all of those things — and more.

What’s remarkable is what hasn’t happened. These episodes haven’t become metaphors for Obama’s personal and political character — or consuming controversies that sidetracked the rest of his agenda.

It’s a sign that the media’s echo chamber can be a funny thing, prone to the vagaries of news judgment, and an illustration that, in politics, context is everything.

Conservatives look on with a mix of indignation and amazement and ask: Imagine the fuss if George W. Bush had done these things?

And quickly add, with a hint of jealousy: How does Obama get away with it?

Liberal Socialists – Playing For Keeps

Here is a column worth reading:

Monday, October 26, 2009

Playing For Keeps

by Joseph C. Phillips
I was an innocent - not pure as the driven snow, but certainly unwise as to the level of the stakes at which we were playing. I entered the debate believing it would be an intellectual exercise; we would joust with each other and after it was all over shake hands and exit with mutual respect. I couldn't have been more wrong. Mutual respect? The black panelists on my side of the question were called Uncle Toms, the white member was accused of seeking to repeal the civil rights act. Honesty? No lie was too large to tell; statistics were made up, facts were created to suit the argument. And there would be no shaking of hands at the conclusion of the debate, in fact barely a graceful word was spoken. It was in that moment I realized the left not only disagreed with me; they hated me. I was not only wrong; I was evil. That slap in the face knocked the rose colored glasses from my eyes and I am now seeing clearly: we are in the midst of a cultural and ideological war and while Conservatives concern themselves with civility and rules, progressives are playing for keeps.

It is a continuing fascination for me that conservatives are constantly depicted as wearing Jackboots and engaging in intimidation, violence and general thuggery. However, current events suggest that more often it is the new left that is wearing jack boots and not the right.

For instance who was doing the goose-stepping when radio host Rush Limbaugh was booted from an investment group trying to buy the NFL franchise St. Louis Rams? The new left lied and slandered Limbaugh with the aim of denying him an economic opportunity. Denying a man opportunity because we don't like what he believes, what he says or what he looks like is (or should be) anathema to a free society. Shame on Dave Checketts and Roger Goodell for giving in to cheap intimidation and ideological bigotry! By their cowardice we are all diminished.

Many on the left disagree and are no doubt satisfied at the outcome. But for whom does the bell toll next? Who else's opinions will be objectionable? What makes a football team any different from any other business that employs people? Should anyone with unpopular beliefs be barred from owning, say, a Burger King franchise? Should we then also check ideological credentials at the gates of certain neighborhoods? The doors to our schools?

The left often dons the coat of righteous indignation because it tends to give one an air of civility. They are not, however, above some good old fashioned name calling or back alley beat-downs.

Recall the response of Dennis Rivera, health care chairman of the Service Employees International Union, (SEIU) - as well as a master of irony -- following the arrest of two of his esteemed members for allegedly pummeling a conservative protestor senseless. Rivera denounced conservative "terrorist tactics" aimed at derailing the debate on healthcare reform. Terrorists tactics are now defined as peaceful protest.

Rivera is not the only one with a rather elastic definition of terrorism; Rosabeth Moss Kanter a professor at Harvard business school writing in Politico justifies the depiction of tea partiers, conservatives and healthcare reform protestors as racist buffoons because they are enemies of America. Kanter writes: "President [Barack] Obama is marginalizing not just his enemies but those of the American people. He is attacking organizations standing in the way of progress toward reforming health care or cleaning up the conditions that led to the financial crisis. He is putting on notice advocates of greed - instead of the greater good - that they no longer have public legitimacy."

Yes you read it correctly. America's enemies are not Islamist, North Korean demagogues, or even Maoists and admitted communists working at the highest levels of our government. Rather they are American citizens that disagree with this president and other new liberals on the degree to which government should interfere and control our economic and cultural institutions. No doubt they had better keep their opinions to themselves lest they be greeted with some of what Rush got.

I have been working on a collection of thoughts by Americans on their love of America. After agreeing to participate a comedian friend of mine reneged. He joked that he didn't want to be dragged from his car and beaten for having his name appear in a conservative book. Two things struck me as peculiar: first, that loving ones country and writing about it is a "conservative" activity (not my belief but apparently his), and that he would joke of his concern that the liberal thought police would find him and give him a beat him for stepping out of line.

As my mother used to say, "Many a truth is said in jest."

Obviously my friend had discarded his rose colored glasses long ago.

Funny Isn’t It?

That it was the liberal/socialist and their media lackies that first used the term tea baggers while us Christian Conservatives didn’t know that it was all about.  But then morality was never their strong suit. 

Do you align yourself with the good values and morality of the Right or the everything goes excess of the Left.

Fox News

Keep up the good work!    The Whitehouse Obama thugs are showing their true Socialist colors.   Can you imagine what this Bozo would do if he was trashed and demonized the way President Bush was.   

So all of you Lemmings keep following this scum bag Socialist over the cliff – and hurry up would you. . . .

Obamacare – Lies

As liberals rush Obamacare through Congress, let's review the disparity between promises and text. Joe Wilson's declaration "You lie!" is ringing truer with each passing day.

Barack Obama promised "transparency" and to give the public five days to read the bill, but Sen. Jim Bunning's amendment to require the bill, along with a final Congressional Budget Office score, to be posted online 72 hours before the vote was defeated.

The Democrats still hope to rush the bill through unread. The 1,100-page stimulus bill was posted online only 13 hours before the vote, and the 1,200-page cap-and-trade bill was posted only 15 hours before the vote.

Obama promised that the health care bill would not cover illegal aliens, but Sen. Chuck Grassley's amendment to require immigrants to prove their identities with photo IDs was rejected.

Obama promised that if you like your current health insurance, you won't have to change it, but Sen. John Cornyn's amendment to assure present insurance owners that they wouldn't have to change their coverage and that they could keep the coverage they have with their current employers without government driving up cost was defeated.

Obama's appointment of 34 czars includes a health care czar, but Sen. John Ensign's amendment to require any health care czar to be subject to the constitutional Senate confirmation process was defeated. Obama's new regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, defends removing organs from terminally ill patients and from deceased people, even when they did not consent to be organ donors.

Obama promised that under his plan, "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions," and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, tried to divert attention from this bold lie by obfuscating the Hyde Amendment. But the Hyde Amendment is not a law; it's a one-year-at-a-time rider that applies only to current Medicaid programs, and it would not apply to the health care law.

The Democrats five times (twice in Senate committees, three times in House committees) defeated amendments to prohibit the health care plan from spending federal money or requiring health insurance plans to cover abortions.

They also defeated Sen. Orrin Hatch's amendment to respect the conscience rights of health care workers who do not want to perform abortions because of moral or religious objections.

One amendment that did pass was Sen. Maria Cantwell's amendment, which would give the secretary of health and human services the power to define cost-effective care for each medical condition and to punish doctors who treat high-cost patients with complex conditions. That has been Obama's goal from the beginning and inevitably will lead to the "death panels" Sarah Palin warned about

Finally, we are subject to the deviousness of what House Minority Leader John Boehner calls the 70 phantom amendments, which were added in secret after the bill was voted out by the committee. The bill may be even worse than we think.

Democratic , Liberal , Socialist Hypocracy

And the concept of attempting to intimidate the press was, for many people, among the most serious of misdeeds by Richard Nixon.

So, where is the outrage over the public war the White House is waging against the Fox News Channel?

Can't find it.

Barak Hussein Obama

Sorry to disillusion those of you who are still in denial about President Barack Obama's true socialistic and dictatorial nature, but this guy's militancy against his perceived enemies puts Richard Nixon's White House to shame. His war on Fox News is just his latest salvo.

Obama's perceived enemies are all those who have the temerity not to roll over for his extreme agenda. They all must be demonized, marginalized and silenced by a president who has turned the Oval Office into a glorified street organizing headquarters to attack his opponents. Indeed, this self-described uniter is the most divisive president in memory, and his uncontrollable ego can't countenance legitimate dissent.