Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Environment, European Union, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Freedom, History, Intelligence, Middle East, National Security, Politics, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Culture War, Democrat Corruption, Liberal lies
The temper out there is quite remarkable, remarkably nasty to be precise. Our current election campaign is quite the nastiest I can ever remember, and anger seethes through the comments of even the most staid columns.
Britain is in the same spot with the battle over BREXIT —Britain’s upcoming vote over whether to exit the European Union or stay in. Only Britain has a scheduled vote, but there is plenty of rumbling in other European nations who are not happy with the influx of migrants, and the response of their governments. The future is uncertain and the people know it and are not pleased with the preparedness.
It’s hard for most Americans to imagine that they would choose to stay in. We’re not much on unelected government passing down laws to regulate our lives, and having no ability to even say ‘Hey Wait a minute! You can’t do that.’ Well, they can and do.
Bureaucrats are the same all over the world. They discover power and that, pushed for, there is no end to the power they can accrue to themselves. They start out intending to do right by the people, and end up establishing a dictatorship, and enriching themselves and their friends and relatives. When people start out promising hope and change, you’d better inquire a bit more deeply into exactly what they mean by the pretty slogans.
We were lucky to be founded by men brought up under English Common Law and the Magna Charta. and all too familiar with the Wars of Religion, but they were soon busy with trying to survive and build communities and deal with wild animals and the native people. A number of the earliest settlers returned to England to fight in the English Civil War with Oliver Cromwell.
In a world run mostly by the divine right of Kings, or Caliphs, or Sultans, or Czars — Democracy and Liberty were an enormous shock to the system, and few expected it to last. The French tried with their bloody Revolution, and ended up with the Napoleonic Wars.
It is particularly interesting then, that the Left, the radical Left, is so determined on eliminating democracy in the name of complete control. It is fairly clear when they want to send “deniers” to prison on RICO charges for disagreeing with their idea that global warming is a huge crisis, when they want to do away with the Second Amendment, as well as the rest of the Constitution, reject patriotism and its traditions — like the Pledge of Allegiance, support open borders and reject our immigration laws.
I have been startled at the way the leftist media speaks the same leftist ‘talking points’ all at once, in the same words with the same exact punctuation, but I never realized what I was seeing and hearing until I posted the video below about “It’s Just What ISIL Wants.” They do it all the time, and we don’t really notice. But that is a very different kind of journalism than we expect in a free country! You can think of dozens of different subjects in which they have tried to set the agenda by repetition of precisely the same words. That is not thought, nor is it journalism — who hands our the talking points? Think Progress?
We have a generation or two of ambitious youngsters who have signed on, not to accurately report events, but to put a label on things before the ordinary person has time to think it through — in the goal of changing the world. I can remember it being reported that the journalism schools were producing young reporters ambitious to change the world. I should have paid more attention. That is really the problem, isn’t it? We are just not paying close enough attention.
Filed under: Conservatism, Economy, Election 2010, Health Care, Liberalism, Politics | Tags: Culture War, Democrat Demagogues, Obamacare, Republicans
Pat Caddell was a long-time Democrat pollster and political consultant. He worked for Jimmy Carter, George McGovern, Gary Hart, Joe Biden and Jerry Brown. His analysis on polls and campaign issues has often put him at odds with the current leadership of the Democrat Party; and as he has become more conservative and criticizes Democrats, they like him less.
Democrats don’t like disagreement in the ranks. But Caddell is quite free with his criticism of Republicans as well. The odd thing is that Republicans don’t mind. He is a frequent guest on Fox News, and as he knows his way around politics intimately — he’s very interesting.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Law | Tags: Culture War, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi
There were the shower heads, the low-flush toilets, and upcoming before we know it, will be the mandate to use only CFL (twisty) light bulbs. The latter is ostensibly to save energy, but the only reason to save energy is because of the government’s refusal to drill for oil or natural gas, and its war on coal all in the name of stopping a non-existent global warming and keeping CO2, a natural plant fertilizer, out of the atmosphere which is actually short of CO2.
Liberals are control freaks. They want to remove all annoyances from life — not things that annoy us, like government over-regulation, but things that annoy them. Mayor Bloomberg of New York and now Governor Schwarzenegger of California have banned trans-fats. The only problem is that there is no evidence whatsoever that trans-fats are harmful to anyone.
It’s time to shape up the American population. Attacks on fast food of any kind will continue. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act contains a little section requiring restaurants to disclose calorie counts on their menu boards. Envision Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and Waxman and the others all sitting around a table in a backroom trying to decide just what to do about American obesity. Obviously they don’t often patronize fast food restaurants and have never seen the menu boards behind the counter.
Seems so simple. Just add nutritional information for each item on the menu. Picking a can at random from my pantry shelf, you have: Calories, Calories from fat. Total fat, Saturated fat, Trans fat, Cholesterol, Sodium, Total carbohydrates, Fiber, Sugars, and Protein, and then there are vitamins A and C, Calcium and Iron. On the back of my can, it takes up a space of about 1″ x 2″, and includes teeny tiny type. On a behind-the-counter menu board it all has to be easy to read from a distance. Details, details!
Can you spell l-i-t-i-g-a-t-i-o-n ? Does publishing caloric information constitute advertising? So you run up against the truth in advertising rules. Suppliers change frequently, does that mean doing the whole thing over? Can you take the supplier’s word for the information, or do you have to have each item tested yourself? When all these extra costs are added, can you still churn out innovative menu items? If you cannot raise the price of the food, where do you put the extra costs?
Democrats have no grasp of consequences. Actions always have consequences, and the consequences have consequences. Would anyone read the calories on the menu board? If they read them would that change their behavior? And what business is it of the government anyway. This is a huge bomb of mass economic destruction on an economy in the throes of a semi-permanent depression.
Ed Morrissey of Hot Air talked the federal menu mandate over with a vice president of Davanni’s pizza chain in the Twin Cities. More lost jobs, reduced choices for customers, money that might have funded more jobs wasted, because political elites fail to understand that Americans are perfectly capable of seeking out such information for themselves.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Economy, Freedom, Politics, Taxes, The Constitution | Tags: Culture War, Democrat Corruption, Liberal lies, Politics
Tea Parties, as I understand it, grew out of unsatisfying Town Hall meetings, and representatives who wouldn’t listen. People who had never demonstrated before, nor carried a sign joined with others who were similarly disturbed at excessive spending, and irresponsible congressmen.
Demonstrations began popping up all over the country, interest spread all over the internet. The Obama administration claimed to be unaware of the hundreds of thousands of people marching on the mall, and cleaning up after themselves like the nice responsible people they were.
Leftists have sneered and criticized, and recently anti-tea party groups have popped up in opposition. Joseph Abrams of Fox News has conducted a detailed investigation of the independent grassroots groups which have turned out to be part of “a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country’s biggest labor unions and trickling slowly into political slush funds for Democrat activists.”
The biggest benefactor is AFSCME the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which donated $10 million to two front groups. Other unions are SEIU, Change to Win, Communications Workers of America, NEA, Teamsters, United Food & Commercial Workers and others.
Here’s how it works: What appears like a local groundswell is in fact the creation of two men — Craig Varoga and George Rakis, Democratic Party strategists who have set up a number of so-called 527 groups, the non-profit election organizations that hammer on contentious issues (think Swift Boats, for example).
Varoga and Rakis keep a central mailing address in Washington, pulling in soft money contributions from unions and other well-padded sources to engage in what amounts to a legal laundering system. The money — tens of millions of dollars — gets circulated around to different states by the 527s, which pay for TV ads, Internet campaigns and lobbyist salaries, all while keeping the hands of the unions clean — for the most part.
“One of the groups created a web site,” says Daniel Foster, “TheTeaParty Is Over.org, dedicated to stopping tea partiers; attempts to, in its words “undermine…the legitimacy of the federal government in favor of a radical rightwing form of state’s rights,” and “Prevent their dangerous ideas from gaining a legislative foothold.”
Goodness, can’t have people out there with such radical ideas as cutting back on spending, or balancing the budget, or banning earmarks. That’s downright dangerous! What will those crazy radicals think of next?
Filed under: Conservatism, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Progressivism | Tags: Culture War, Democrat Perceptions, News and Partisan Politics
Public Policy Polling is a Democrat polling outfit. That makes its newest survey looking at perceptions of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News especially interesting. The survey found Fox as the only one that more people say they trust than distrust. 49% say they trust Fox to 37% who do not.
CNN does next best at a 39/41 spread, followed by NBC at 35/44, CBS at 32/46, and ABC at 31/46. Ouch!
There is a lot of political polarization in which outlets people trust. 74% of Republicans trust Fox News, but no more than 23% trust any of the other four sources. For Democrats the numbers are a complete opposite — a majority trust all of NBC, CNN, ABC, and CBS while only 30% have faith in Fox News.
This indicates something about the post-partisan president who was going to bring us all together. Perhaps the White House vilification of Fox News demonstrated to the public that Fox wasn’t a Progressive patsy. Pandering and sycophantic coverage doesn’t sit well with the public.
This conforms with non-partisan studies that have found Fox to be the most centrist of the news outlets. Public Policy Polling is not happy with the results of their survey:
These numbers suggest quite a shift in what Americans want from their news. A generation ago Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in the country because of his neutrality. Now people trust Fox the most precisely because of its lack of neutrality. It says a lot about where journalism is headed.
And that snarky comment says a lot about Democrat perceptions.
Filed under: Law, Military, Progressivism | Tags: Culture War, Diversity, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, Political Correctness/Multiculturalism
Mark Steyn is always brilliant, sometimes he’s just more brilliant than usual. Today he pointed out the specific arrangements we have put in place to make sure that terrorist attacks were unlikely, because an alert citizenry was on the case. And yet, there was evidence that Major Nidal Hasan deserved attention:
You didn’t have to be “alert” to spot Maj. Nidal Hasan. He’d spent most of the last half-decade walking around with a big neon sign on his head saying “JIHADIST. STAND WELL BACK.” But we (that is to say, almost all of us — and certainly almost anyone who matters in national security and the broader political culture) are now reflexively conditioned to ignore the flashing neon sign. Like those apocryphal Victorian ladies discreetly draping the lasciviously curved legs of their pianos, if a glimpse of hard unpleasant reality peeps through we simply veil it in another layer of fluffy illusions.
“The truth is we’re not prepared to draw a line even after he’s gone ahead and committed mass murder,” Steyn said. “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy,” said Gen. George Casey, the U.S. Army’s Chief of Staff, “but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a tragedy here.”
“Diversity” is more important than 14 dead, dozens wounded? That is undoubtedly not what he meant, but “diversity” is the ultimate meaningless politically correct notion.
If you have an African-American who immigrated 5 years ago from Ethiopia, and an African-American whose family has lived in America for 150 years, the important thing to them is the color of their skin? The latter person may have far more in common with someone whose origins were in Mexico, but who was also raised as an army brat. Mothers of toddlers care a lot more about playmates of the same age than their ethnicity.
The differences within ordinary people are far larger than ethnicity. Political, disinterested, scholarly, cannot read, abused as a child, handicapped, twin, mountain climber, pianist. hunter, animal trainer,potter, vegetarian, homeless, chemist. artist — but only their ethnicity matters? Please.
The notion that what is important about a person is their race or ethnicity may result in checking off the right little boxes on a census questionnaire but has little to do with the lives of real people. Are those diversity numbers so important? When it comes to lawsuits, or publicity or promotions the checked-off boxes may matter. When counting boxes becomes more important than real people, political correctness does more damage than it is worth.
And shame on you, General Casey.
Filed under: Health Care, Progressivism, Science/Technology | Tags: Culture War, Junk Science, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, Taxes
Remember all the fuss about stem cells? Candidate Obama was going to restore science to its rightful place in the wake of the dreadful Bush administration which was apparently completely unfamiliar with science or the scientific method. Embryonic stem cells, freed from the religious fundamentalism of the Bushies, would cure diseases, allow the lame to walk and provide scientific honors for those who engaged in federally funded embryonic stem cell research, as well as endless riches for those who developed the wondrous new treatments. President Obama quickly lifted the ban that limited federally funded research to existing lines of cells. (Please note, there was no ban on research).
Dr. Bernadine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health, was once an embryonic stem cell enthusiast. She now calls such research “obsolete.” Medical-research insiders know that embryonic stem cell technology is proving to be a dead end. Senator Arlen Specter, (D-PA) said the research “has the most remarkable potential of any scientific discovery ever made with respect to human health.” That statement gives an idea of the enthusiasm. Remarkable potential indeed. Real results were another thing.
First of all, there is the rejection problem. Your body naturally fights off foreign cells, even ones that might help. So cell recipients must permanently use imunosuppresive drugs, which are dangerous themselves. Then there is the unpleasant tendency of ES cells to become cancerous or to form teratomas — tumors that can grow larger than a football and contain hair or teeth.
The problem of rejection may someday be solved, but University of Wisconsin scientist James Thomson, who created the first human ES-cell line, says that treatments and cures could be decades away.
Adult stem cells do not have the problem of rejection, for they come from the patient’s own body. They have treated scores of illnesses including many cancers, autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease, immunodeficiency disorders, neural degenerative diseases, anemia and other blood disorders. They have been used in over 2,000 clinical trials. No uncomfortable moral questions, just cautious, responsible science.
Although it was long thought that only embryonic cells could become pluripotent, researchers in 2006, led by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan’s Kyoto University, were able to reprogram human skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells.
Several states now fund embryonic stem cell research. Dead broke California created a $3 billion research effort with their Proposition 7, and other states such as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut also fund the research, which may be a dead end. Federal funds are flowing.
We’re investing a remarkable amount of money in things that are supported by enthusiasm rather than science. Liberals have always been utopians, attached to a romantic view of policy: ending climate change, stopping the seas from rising, powering the world with the wind and the sun, curing disease and injury with embryonic stem cells. It’s not going to happen. But they always want the rest of us to support their flights of fancy with our taxpayer dollars.
And if their romantic policies don’t work? They cannot fail, it’s just that they did not appropriate enough money.
Filed under: Law, National Security, Politics, Terrorism | Tags: Culture War, Democrat Corruption
The political assault on the CIA which has been created by the administration and the Democrats in the House of Representatives is disgraceful. Not long ago the CIA was in the news with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, accusing the CIA of lying to Congress about the interrogation of al Qaeda detainees. The CIA promptly pointed out the authorization by Congress, and the dates on which Ms. Pelosi was briefed.
Then came news of a “secret program” which promptly appeared in the pages of the New York Times which seemed to be intended to kill or capture the top leaders of al Qaeda. You know, the gentlemen now being targeted by Predator drones in Afghanistan. Now “assassination” has been banned by
order since the Ford administration. This “secret program” was apparently initiated by a presidential order from George Bush in September, 2001, just after 9/11. The order was to find a way to kill or capture the leaders of al Qaeda. Which seemed to be what everybody in the United States wanted (except Code Pink of course) in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The assumption was that Democrats were trying to provide cover for Ms. Pelosi’s embarrassment. Accusing the nation’s top intelligence agency of lying and not briefing Congress is a pretty serious accusation.
CIA Director Leon Panetta instantly leaped into the fray, and “closed down the program”, which had never done anything much but have meetings to try to figure out how to find the leaders of al Qaeda. It had essentially been shelved several years previously. But Mr. Panetta wanted to show Congress that he would brook no shilly-shallying, and reported to the House Intelligence Committee, and the Senate Intelligence Committee the same day. Not a peep has been heard from the Senate, but the House wants everyone to know that the CIA is the problem, not Ms. Pelosi.
Then came the insinuation that, um, Dick Cheney had told the CIA not to tell Congress. Attorney General Eric Holder made appropriate noises about an investigation, and possible prosecution, with no legal cause, which clearly had nothing to do with President Obama’s sinking approval ratings or being lectured for 2 hours by Vladimir Putin about the “real” cold war, or the clear failure of the stimulus bill to reduce unemployment which was over 20 percent in Oregon, Michigan and California.
And of course, if “assassination” is forbidden by law, it doesn’t make the slightest difference whether it is done by a sharpshooter in Afghanistan or a Predator ordered up by Obama. But that can be overridden by a presidential order anyway.
In the meantime, Admiral Dennis Blair, our chief intelligence officer, stepped forward to announce that there was no legal obligation to brief Congress on a program that never came to fruition.
So all the excitement is about a program that never got off the ground, and was shelved ages ago, the secrets of which have already shown up in the New York Times. But the politics are fascinating, if you can just figure them out.
It’s demoralizing to the CIA, and damaging to our relations with our allies’ intelligence agencies. The name-calling, the threats of prosecution, the constant effort to distract attention by blaming Bush are a disgrace. President Obama spent his entire campaign complaining that our military was not chasing down Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan; and denigrating the valliant efforts of our military, where they were changing the face of the Middle East by winning a difficult war and bringing the first free elections and tremors of democracy to Iraq. The politicization of our intelligence community is a danger to our country.
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Michael Ramirez’ splendid cartoons are available at IBD Editorials.
Filed under: Economy, Energy, Environment | Tags: Culture War, Democrat Lies/Dirty Tricks, Junk Science
Here is the Must Read Article for the weekend, and for the foreseeable future. Stephen Spruiell and Kevin Williamson have rounded up 50 reasons why the Waxman-Markey climate bill is part government power-grab, part enviro-fantasy, and should be stopped. You have no idea of the horrors to be found within its many pages, but of course your representatives have no idea either, because nobody read it before they voted to pass it.
Read it, print it out and pass it around. Take it to a Tea Party. Inflict it on your relatives. Discuss it with your friends. Challenge the Democrats you know. You can have all sorts of fun with this.
Filed under: Environment, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear | Tags: Culture War, Global Warming
If you are wondering about “cap-and-trade” or “carbon taxes” or “carbon sequestration” or “global warming” or “climate change,” here is all you need to know. [from Steven Milloy’s new book Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them].
There is no scientific evidence indicating that carbon dioxide, much less man-made carbon dioxide emissions, control or even measurably impact global climate.
Global Warming hysteria is based on hypothetical computer models that have never been validated against real world experience. The fact that many scientists accept the hypotheses does not make them true. For that matter, many scientists actively dispute those same hypotheses.
When you are confronted with hysteria about climate change, you might remember these four factual sentences.
American Elephants 