A brilliant short lecture from famed author and Hollywood screenwriter Andrew Klavan.
Monthly Archives: September 2011
Fox News Presidential Debate Live Blog & Commentary – UPDATED!
UPDATES (See Bottom of post for details) – Glenn Beck: Romney lied in the debate
New York Post: Romney not authentic, pandering
Fox News: Polling dictates Romney answers…
In the debate Romney trashed Rick Perry and takes the position that you cannot be too against illegal immigration, but he was talking amnesty with Tim Russert:
Live Blog by PoliticalArena.org editor Chuck Norton:
Perry opens up with setting an environment to help get small business hiring – points 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Perry: Texas was the number one state for relocation for five years in a row.
Mitt Romney opens up by attacking Obama on his job crushing policies – very smart. “Regulators have to be allies to business not foes”…
Romney is trying to walk the fence of the class warfare game. – We need to bring wealth home and dodging Brett’s question about that does not inspire confidence.
[Note – Romney had an opportunity to take on Obama’s recent push on class warfare he and he totally waffled. Romney’s answer fell somewhere between the non-committal committal and the non-denial denial. This is really indicative of a man who is making political calculations and is not standing on principle. This really bothered me.]
Bachmann goes after Obama on the “Out of every dollar I earn how much do I deserve to keep” question.
Federal Right to Work Law Question – Santorum goes after over reaching government unions – but the feds already took such bargaining away from the federal govt unions under Carter.
Newt: Unemployment should be tied to a business training program.
Huntsman targeted by Chris Wallace on his idea to subsidize natural gas…..and my internet freezes… so I did not hear the rest of his answer. OK – He favors it to ‘get the ball rolling’, so long as there is a quick phase out so it isn’t a long term thing…
Herman Cain on his 9 9 9 plan. Throw out the tax code totally. Romney wont toss out the tax code and start over and that dog wont hunt says Cain. Cain is absolutely right. The tax code is such a mess and so hard to comply with right now that modifying the edges of it will not help really fix the real problem which is the tax code itself.
How to get teeth in the 10th Amendment – Ron Paul says that he would veto every bill that violates the 10th amendment – It sounds great in theory, but that radical of a change so fast would be a huge shock to the economy. It would have to be phased in over time. There are just better answers to this question.
Gary Johnson gets his first answer. I promise, I promise list of goodies. Gary is a nice guy and pretty smart. I have had the pleasure of talking with him personally. He wants the Fair Tax. He needs to work on his charismatic approach IMO but a nice answer.
Megyn Kelly quoting Newt: Sure of course he is (a socialist) LOL I love it. Romney – I have news for Obama, European socialism isnt working for Europeans so stop trying to use it here.
Huntsman – this is the worst time to be raising any taxes and everybody knows that. We have structural problems with our tax code. Now huntsman is pretty much quoting the Obama deficit commission plan, which is actually a pretty good plan, which is why Obama ignored it.
Our friend Lee Doren in the debate with a question!! What department would YOU eliminate?? Herman Cain – we need to start all over on these departments like the EPA- he is right. More Cain – we need to use the Chilean model on Social Security – “The solution is FIX IT” – Herman Cain is GREAT at ‘make sure you are addressing the RIGHT problem’.
Newt – once again he refuses to accept the premise of the media figures question. Newt announces a NEW Contract with America – Far Deeper, far bolder, far more profound. Newt: Obama’s socialist policies..,. SMACK home run.
Newt just wowed the debate again.
Education Question: Gary Johnson – the department of education actually costs us more money than it spends. Santorum agrees saying “The federal education system doesn’t serve the customer” Great answer Rick. Newt Gingrich wants Pel Grants for K-12 – he obviously believes that the public schools have failed. Ron Paul – if you love your children get the govt out of public education, people need a right to opt out of the public school system when it is failing.
Rick Perry – comes out for school choice praises everyone on stage and slaps Romney for praising the “Race to the Top” program which is a regulatory disaster. Notice Romney does not deny what Perry said. Romney is dodging…. Romney just praised Arne Duncan /facepalm [Arne Duncan and ‘Race to the Top’ are both a disaster, if you do not know why I will be happy to explain in comments below – Editor]
[UPDATE – More on the education issue and Romney added in the update section below.]
Huntsman – I signed the second voucher bill in the United States. I have actually done something about this. Localize, Localize, Localize.
Bachmann asked the illegal immigration question – Should each state enforce the immigration laws because the feds will not. Wallace said that laws like Arizona’s are at odds with the Constitution – that is NOT so. The courts have said that the states can enforce federal law as long as the state law mimics it and the AZ law does.
Newt: E-Verify is a mess with massive fraud. Visa and Mastercard could run E- Verify better. Newt is right that E-Verify as it is now is useless. The federal govt keeps that program a mess.
Romney goes after Perry on in state tuition in Texas. Perry – only 4 dissenting votes in legislature on his tuition law – Perry is Right about this guys.
The accusation: Perry wants to hand ‘in state’ tuition to illegals who just waltz over the border…This particular “in state tuition for illegals” accusation is an easy one to bust when ALL of the facts are considered. WHY?????
The bill did not give in state tuition for all “illegals”, it gave it to the children of illegals who graduated in good standing from Texas high schools. The difference is a huge moral gulf. I am fine with punishing illegals who had illegal intent when crossing the border in the middle of the night.
What I am NOT willing to do is punish their children who could not control who their parents are or what they did. The very idea of punishing someone for the acts of their parents, or of continuing punishment via bloodline is morally repugnant to many good people, including myself. Would you want your kids to suffer for what YOU did, as a politician would you want to take the position that the children of those who do wrong should “pay”?
The very idea of “criminal intent” goes to the very fabric of our rule of law and of our legal procedure back to the earliest days of the common law. No case can be made that the kids of those illegals had criminal intent.
This policy is way better than having them go on state and federal welfare rolls. By the way, said students who get in state tuition have to had come out from the shadows and be on a path to citizenship
Foreign policy question – time to watch Ron Paul blow himself to bits … IF he gets asked the Iran question. He doesn’t get asked.
On Israel: Romney – you do not have an inch of space between you and your allies. Romney pounding Obama on his trashing of Israel and sucking up to Hamas. Well done Mitt. “It is unacceptable for Iran to be a nuclear state”.
Herman Cain – I like peace through strength so my policy would be “Peace Through Strength & Clarity”. Very good answer.
Perry on the Pakistan nuke question “Where do you start”? Perry answers that you begin with Pakistan’s neighbors who are our allies. – Good answer. Santorum says stabilize Iraq and then goes after Ron Paul. He obviously does not want to see RP as the nominee.
Newt: If the country is not your ally why are you giving them money? Newt says that the world could become dramatically more dangerous in a short time.
Gary Johnson – the biggest threat to our national security is that we are bankrupt – he was wise to ignore the stupid Cuba question at first. Cuba doesn’t matter right now.
Santorum: Just because our economy is sick doesn’t mean that our values are sick – /smacks Huntsman hard and lectures him on Obama’s stupid rules of engagement. [It is true that the rules of engagement that our soldiers are operating under are ridiculous and made by a pack of lawyers. They cost lives – Editor]
Bachmann is right on the separation question. Separation means that the US Govt should not be run as a Church of the United States, not the idiocy that the courts are engaged in now. Her constitutional interpretation is spot on.
Santorum on the gays in the military question – His answer is spot on. Folks, anyone who leads with or defines himself with his sexuality is making a mistake. Sex should not be an issue so soldiers, liberals, activists should not make it one.
Ron Paul on the day after pill – the rape question – we have too many laws already and the “day after pill” is just too hard to enforce a ban upon.
Perry: the fed govt has no business telling the states how to educate our children.
Cain on ObamaCare – I suspect that he is about to whack it out of the park….. he does. Herman Cain – I had stage four colon and liver cancer. ObamaCare would have resulted in delays in tests and treatments. The only reason I survived is because I got treated on MY timeline and not the federal governments. Great answer.
YouTube question from Ian McDonald – “I have a heart condition” – asks about the new provision for kids to stay on parents policies till they are 26 [Note – this was a GOP idea a long time ago and that was included in ObamaCare in an attempt to call it “bipartisan”]. Huntsman: lets have the states engage in experiments. In Utah we have a state backed catastrophic policy that can be a supplement to private insurance [This is also a long time GOP idea by the way].
Chris Wallace goes after Bachmann on the HPV causes retardation question. – Bachmann is spinning because the day after the last debate she doubled down on this issue . Bachmann is going after Perry on the Merck donations issue – the issue is a total red herring. Bachmann gets donations from Merck’s competition and those donations are more than what Perry got. Perry reminded us on the opt out and gave a touching story. Perry is trying a rise above strategy – it may be working.
Perry on Romney’s flip flopping. Sorry Mitt, but Perry is right about that. Romney has a cute line about experience to get this country going again, but he is shying away from substance and trying to go charismatic. It is already starting to get a tad old [Note – I am trained in political communications, including deception and propaganda, so I am more sensitive to the game Romney is playing. I am not sure regular folks wont fall for this tactic. I hope not].
Via Doug Scheon and Pat Caddell: Perry is winning the polling on Fox News on immigration – toldja 🙂
Question: How to jump start the turn around once elected:
Huntsman – good specifics on energy.
Herman Cain – the problem is a severe lack of confidence in leadership – great point and one that should not be underestimated. – Reagan, shining city on a hill – Cain is doing very well tonight.
Bachmann – first thing to do is repeal ObamaCare – its a good point because domestic business is scared to death of it, while the internationals love the idea so it can eliminate their domestic competition.
Romney – restore trust in the Oval Office
Perry – energy independent, repeal ObamaCare, reform the tax code,
Ron Paul – fix the Federal Reserve problem in creating market bubbles – Good point.
Newt Quoting Reagan – “When Jimmy Carter is unemployed it is a recovery”. Awesome.
Santorum – We need to remember who are are as Americans and we have a president who does not understand what America is all about. Obama is the new King George III who believes that things need to be dictated to on high. WOW
Gary Johnson – My neighbors two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this current administration. More – Balance the budget now, not 20 years form now. Do it NOW. Toss out the tax system and start over.
The Running-mate question:
Johnson picks Ron Paul.
Santorum – I would pick Newt.
Newt – I do not know yet but would be capable. Newts audio flaked out so I missed part of his answer.
Ron Paul – I defer
Rick Perry – I want to merge Herman Cain and Newt and make him VP 🙂
Romney – there are a couple images I am going to have a hard time getting out of my mind. Any one up here would be a great president or VP.
Bachmann – a solid conservative she says. Then she has a good moment saying, (paraphrasing) “Every 4 years we are told that we have to settle. I do not think that is true. We need a candidate who represents constitutional conservatives especially since Obama’s numbers will be even more in the tank come election time.”
Cain Hints using a non verbals that he is open to be asked for the VP spot and says – If Romney throws out his bad jobs plan and adopted 9 – 9 – 9 I could go for him, but am thinking Newt Gingrich.
Huntsmnan – I would pick Herman Cain.
END OF DEBATE –
Commentary
Romney had his first decent night, but once again everyone had their moments. Romney and Herman Cain stood out as far as showmanship is concerned.
Doug Scheon said that the people are still ahead of the candidates. That is a very astute observation, but I think Doug missed Mitt walking the fence on the class warfare card because Scheon is a Democrat who does not understand GOP sensitivities on that issue.
Mitt’s fence walking on this critical issue has actually managed to lower my confidence in him, but he did raise my estimates of him communications ability. I think more voters caught onto that than the Fox News team realizes.
If I was on Perry’s communications team. I would have this theme and pound it:
Voters have had enough of candidates who talk a great game and then lack follow through when elected. You guys TALK about plans and job creation, but I do it every day and I do something none of you have done, and that is have the best job growth under the totally irresponsible job killing policies of this president. Talk all you want, I walk the walk when the chips are down.
I am becoming more convinced that Romney is not going to replace the tax code, he is not going to tackle the bureaucracy and regulatory reform except superficially. His vision lacks boldness. Every time Romney was asked to state a BOLD plan or vision for reform he gave platitudes and/or his weak-sauce “59 points job plan” answer. Even Herman Cain made it clear that Romney”s 59 points plan is almost a joke.
I discussed tonights performance with two communications professionals. One who is from out West and another who is a DC insider with many years of political experience.
Out West:
I’m not liking Romney. Class warfare, the scare tactics and his flip flopping. I smell a John McCain all over. Conservative in the primaries and a moderate in the general & presidency. Perry needs to be specific and articulate more. My top three candidates so far are Perry, Gingrich & Cain. Santorum & Bachmann come off as bitter Perry haters, although I loved Rick Santorum’s smack-down on Ron Paul/Huntsman on foreign policy.
If Bachmann is so anti Obamacare, why is she not pounding Romney on Romneycare? If she’s truly principled, she’d hammer Romney instead of trying to pry back the Evangelical vote from Perry?[Answer: Bachmann wants Romney v Bachmann two man race, that is why.]
DC Insider:
Thanks, Chuck…good honest assessment of candidates’ positions. Right on…exactly about the Fox News team of Caddell, Scheon, and Parino missing the point on Romney’s fence walking. Romney’s communications person (Eric Fehrnstrom) and his strategist are crippling him [in the long run as they may have done OK in this battle but will lose the war with the charismatics and the fence walking].
UPDATE – Glenn Beck comparing Romney’s book from 2 and a half years ago to the recently released paperback version (ironically called ‘No Apologies’).
Romney then: The stimulus will help some but could be better. RomneyCare could be a national model.
Romney now: Stimulus is a war against free enterprise. National health care of any kind is unconstitutional.
Glenn Beck just read verbatim from the two versions of Romney’s book. When Perry hit Romney for making these changes he said “I have changed no such thing” – Romney lied.
I am going over clips from the debate. When Romney praised Obama’s radicalized and failed Education Secretary Arne Duncan in the debate, Romney was saying that we need to have a teacher accountability program like Duncan has proposed (and will never see the light of day).
How many “teacher accountability” programs have we had? Tinkering around the fringes of our failed education system will not fix the problem. Herman Cain lectured Romney last night for taking that same approach to his economic recovery and jobs program. Cain always says, “Make sure that you are working on the RIGHT problem”. The problems are institutional in education as well as our regulatory structure. Much like the tax code, they are structurally flawed and tinkering with them will not solve the problem.
UPDATE II – New York Post: Romney an unauthentic panderer
Today’s New York Post after going through Romney’s statements found out that he was not being honest in much the same way we did.
And yet maybe Perry’s debate wasn’t all awful. Far from it. The thing is, debates aren’t only about performance; they are also about the way the interchanges reveal the character of the candidates — their political character.
Do they stand up for what they believe? Do they believe in anything, or are they just willing to say whatever their audiences want to hear?
And in that regard, Romney did not perform well at all.
In the opening of the debate, Romney went after Perry for statements in his book, “Fed Up,” about Social Security and the problems with the direct election of senators. And Perry lowered the boom on him. Romney, he noted, changed his line on his own health-care plan in the text of the paperback version of his book “No Apology.”
Words poured from Romney’s mouth like smoke from a wildfire. He zoomed through sentences impossible to follow as he tried to deny that he had done what he had in fact done, which was scrub his own book as his own position changed.
The speed with which he spoke recalled the flim-flam salesman Harold Hill, clouding the minds of innocent Iowans as he raced through the song “Trouble in River City” in “The Music Man.”
Even more telling, Perry hit Romney for speaking well of President Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative, as implemented by Education Secretary Arne Duncan–which Romney absolutely did in Miami on Wednesday. “I think Secretary Duncan has done some good things,” he said, as reported by Politico. “I hope that’s not heresy in this room.”
Romney denied it–a huge blunder, because this contradiction can be thrown back at him daily until the campaign is over. And because it speaks to precisely the reason Romney has been unable to make the sale with Republicans despite his incredible persistence in wooing them over the course of five years. He comes across as false, somehow.
Is unprepared and graceless worse than smooth and false in the eyes of voters desperate for authenticity? I don’t think so.
UPDATE III – Dan Henniger at Fox News
A reader sent us the following note:
Chuck, Dan Henninger just referenced your sentiments on Journal Editorial Report on Fox. He said that Romney’s answers scream “Polling, polling, polling”. The sentiment from the panel is that Romney is a well polished panderer.
UPDATE IV: Rick Perry Backer Matt Gaetz: Romney Supporters Voting for Herman Cain to ‘Skew Results’ | Sunshine.
This does not surprise me, they did not want Perry to be first and Romney second. So they decided to put their votes behind someone with very little support in the general public to help diminish Perry. As was shown in the last debate, to the Romney camp everything is a political calculation and that is very revealing.
Congressman King vs Wash Post’s Eugene Washington on Islamic Radicalization Hearings
I am not going to hold back here. Eugene Robinson is the quintessential example of what is wrong with journalism today. His arguments amount to emotionalism, fear mongering and demagoguery, which he uses to try to hide that fact that he rarely does his homework.
We have talked about the way the far left argues. The first argument is S.I.N. and the last argument is an attempt to paint you as a monster to shut you up. This is all that is in the far left play-book. You can see that Cong. King pummels Robinson with fact after fact while Robinson just sits there and shakes his head. The far left typically ignores most facts that threaten their narrative. You will see this pattern perfectly in this video.
When Joe Lieberman and Snow had similar hearings some years ago why did the left not call Lieberman a McCarthy or a bigot? This is all politics folks and Eugene Robinson once again shows himself to be a naked partisan hit man.
Daily Caller: Dems at radicalization hearings recite Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group’s talking points
I am not surprised I am sorry to say.
Ted Kennedy reached out to Russia to undermine Reagan.
Democrats opposed Reagan’s efforts to end the Cold War.
Democrats favored Daniel Ortega when he aligned with the Soviets in the 80’s
NPR was just caught expressing a willingness to funnel illegal terrorist funds from the Muslim Brotherhood to itself.
On college campus around the country the progressive secular left and the MSA, which is a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, collude to harass Christians and Jews and to stifle free speech.
The Daily Caller:
The Daily Caller has acquired the talking points that the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group with deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, supplied to its supporters as an aid in attacking the Muslim radicalization hearing New York Republican Rep. Peter King held Thursday. Save for Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s incoherent ramblings on Thursday, Democrats’ statements and testimony against King’s hearing, whether intentionally or unintentionally, largely mirrored MPAC’s talking points.
MPAC recommended that its supporters accuse King of “pure political posturing,” and told them to say, “these hearings appear little more than a political circus with Rep. King as the ringleader.” MPAC also recommended supporters say that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of their “narrow scope.” Finally, it said supporters should say that the hearings were unnecessary because “active” partnerships between law enforcement and the American Muslim community already exist.
California Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson hit on the “pure political posturing” point in the MPAC memo. She compared King’s hearings to those of the McCarthy era.
Rep. Al Green, Texas Democrat, asked why King wasn’t investigating the Ku Klux Klan, something that plays right into the MPAC “suggested message” that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of a “narrow scope.”
“I think that all criminals should be prosecuted. I think that all terrorists should be investigated which is why I said we ought to investigate all of them and that would include the KKK,” Green said. “Over a hundred years of terrorism why not investigate them too. They are rooted in a religion as well. Check their website out. You’ll see.”
Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison regurgitated all the MPAC talking points in his testimony at the beginning of the hearing.
“Ascribing the evil acts of a few individuals to an entire community is wrong; it is ineffective; and it risks making our country less secure,” Ellison said. “Targeting the Muslim American community for the actions of a few is unjust. Actually all of us–all communities–are responsible for combating violent extremism. Singling out one community focuses our analysis in the wrong direction.”
A spokesman for Ellison told TheDC that the congressman didn’t receive the MPAC talking points and “wrote his testimony himself.” Spokespeople for Green and Richardson did not immediately respond to TheDC’s request for comment.
The MPAC’s talking points aren’t something that surprise Ben Lerner of the Center for Security Policy. He said they are just another example of a self-described “rights” group shifting the debate away from the issues at hand and onto whatever they want to talk about.
“Serious people are trying to raise serious questions about the issue of homegrown terrorism and radicalization in the Muslim community,” Lerner said in a phone interview. “A lot of what these ‘so-called mainstream’ Muslim organizations are doing is throwing out insults and labels to anyone who has tried to delve into this. They’re not offering any serious, substantive responses to the concerns that are being raised by Congress.”
Thousands of Christians Displaced in Ethiopia After Muslim Extremists Torch Churches & Homes
Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes in Western Ethiopia after Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.
At least one Christian has been killed, many more have been injured and anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 have been displaced in the attacks that began March 2 after a Christian in the community of Asendabo was accused of desecrating the Koran.
The violence escalated to the point that federal police forces sent to the area two weeks ago were initially overwhelmed by the mobs. Government spokesman Shimelis Kemal told Voice of America police reinforcements had since restored order and 130 suspects had been arrested and charged with instigating religious hatred and violence.
The Democrats Were Right
I hate to admit it. My Democrat liberal friends were right. They told me if I voted for McCain, all sorts of bad things would happen. Well, I voted for McCain anyway . . . and they were right.They told me if I voted for McCain, the nation’s hope would deteriorate, and sure enough there has been a 20 point drop in the Consumer Confidence Index since the election, reaching a lower point than any time during the Bush administration.
They told me if I voted for McCain the US would become more deeply embroiled in the Middle East, and sure enough tens of thousands of additional troops are scheduled to be deployed into Afghanistan
They told me if I voted for McCain, that the economy would get worse and sure enough, unemployment is approaching 8.8% and the President’s many gloom and doom announcements and the new stimulus packages have sent the stock market lower than at any time since 9-11.
They told me if I voted for McCain, we would see more “crooks” in high ranking positions in Federal government and sure enough, several recent cabinet nominees revealed resumes of bribery, immigration violations and tax fraud or tax evasion.
They told me if I voted for McCain, our relations with foreign countries would be worse, and sure enough China has questioned investing in more US treasuries, France and Germany have rejected our President’s suggestions that they spend more money to save the world economy, Russia has apparently forced us to abandon our defense missile programs in Poland and Czech Republic, we snubbed Great Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he visited Washington (and sent him packing with a bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office), the State Department shuffled the visit of the president of Brazil to avoid a conflict with St. Patrick’s Day (and spelled his name wrong in the official announcement), the President scuttled the pending free trade agreement with Colombia (an important ally next to Chavez’s Venezuela), Mexico imposed tariffs on $2.4 billion of American products in retaliation for our breach of the North America Free Trade Agreement, and Iran is getting ever close to making a nuclear bomb. It’s a good thing we’re chumming up to Syria.
They told me if I voted for McCain, that the moguls of industry would increase their salaries and bonuses at the expense of the little people. And sure enough, companies like Merrill Lynch and AIG and Fannie Mae have used the bailout money to pay record bonuses to the very executives who drove those companies into the ground.
They told me if I voted for McCain that innocent children would die, and sure enough, the President has lifted the ban on federal funding of abortion and the ban on using federal funds for research on embryonic stem cells, so many more innocent children will die.
They told me if I voted for McCain, the civil rights of Americans would be put in jeopardy. And sure enough, the Congress is about to pass the misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” which will deprive workers of the secret ballot in union elections and the President wants to institute a civilian national security force to spy on Americans.
Well, I ignored my Democrat friends, voted for McCain, and they were right . . . all of their predictions have come true.
Author Unknown
Why Leftists Don’t Get the Tea Party Movement
Our universities haven’t taught much political history for decades. No wonder so many progressives have disdain for the principles that animated the Federalist debates.
by PETER BERKOWITZ in the Wall Street Journal:
Highly educated people say the darndest things, these days particularly about the tea party movement. Vast numbers of other highly educated people read and hear these dubious pronouncements, smile knowingly, and nod their heads in agreement. University educations and advanced degrees notwithstanding, they lack a basic understanding of the contours of American constitutional government.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman got the ball rolling in April 2009, just ahead of the first major tea party rallies on April 15, by falsely asserting that “the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass-roots) events.”
Having learned next to nothing in the intervening 16 months about one of the most spectacular grass-roots political movements in American history, fellow Times columnist Frank Rich denied in August of this year that the tea party movement is “spontaneous and leaderless,” insisting instead that it is the instrument of billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne criticized the tea party as unrepresentative in two ways. It “constitutes a sliver of opinion on the extreme end of politics receiving attention out of all proportion with its numbers,” he asserted last month. This was a step back from his rash prediction five months before that since it “represents a relatively small minority of Americans on the right end of politics,” the tea party movement “will not determine the outcome of the 2010 elections.”
In February, Mr. Dionne argued that the tea party was also unrepresentative because it reflected a political principle that lost out at America’s founding and deserves to be permanently retired: “Anti-statism, a profound mistrust of power in Washington goes all the way back to the Anti-Federalists who opposed the Constitution itself because they saw it concentrating too much authority in the central government.”
Mr. Dionne follows in the footsteps of progressive historian Richard Hofstadter, whose influential 1964 book “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” argued that Barry Goldwater and his supporters displayed a “style of mind” characterized by “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.” Similarly, the “suspicion of government” that the tea party movement shares with the Anti-Federalists, Mr. Dionne maintained, “is not amenable to ‘facts'” because “opposing government is a matter of principle.”
To be sure, the tea party sports its share of clowns, kooks and creeps. And some of its favored candidates and loudest voices have made embarrassing statements and embraced reckless policies. This, however, does not distinguish the tea party movement from the competition.
Born in response to President Obama’s self-declared desire to fundamentally change America, the tea party movement has made its central goals abundantly clear. Activists and the sizable swath of voters who sympathize with them want to reduce the massively ballooning national debt, cut runaway federal spending, keep taxes in check, reinvigorate the economy, and block the expansion of the state into citizens’ lives.
In other words, the tea party movement is inspired above all by a commitment to limited government. And that does distinguish it from the competition.
But far from reflecting a recurring pathology in our politics or the losing side in the debate over the Constitution, the devotion to limited government lies at the heart of the American experiment in liberal democracy. The Federalists who won ratification of the Constitution—most notably Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay—shared with their Anti-Federalist opponents the view that centralized power presented a formidable and abiding threat to the individual liberty that it was government’s primary task to secure. They differed over how to deal with the threat.
The Anti-Federalists—including Patrick Henry, Samuel Bryan and Robert Yates—adopted the traditional view that liberty depended on state power exercised in close proximity to the people. The Federalists replied in Federalist 9 that the “science of politics,” which had “received great improvement,” showed that in an extended and properly structured republic liberty could be achieved and with greater security and stability.
This improved science of politics was based not on abstract theory or complex calculations but on what is referred to in Federalist 51 as “inventions of prudence” grounded in the reading of classic and modern authors, broad experience of self-government in the colonies, and acute observations about the imperfections and finer points of human nature. It taught that constitutionally enumerated powers; a separation, balance, and blending of these powers among branches of the federal government; and a distribution of powers between the federal and state governments would operate to leave substantial authority to the states while both preventing abuses by the federal government and providing it with the energy needed to defend liberty.
Whether members have read much or little of The Federalist, the tea party movement’s focus on keeping government within bounds and answerable to the people reflects the devotion to limited government embodied in the Constitution. One reason this is poorly understood among our best educated citizens is that American politics is poorly taught at the universities that credentialed them. Indeed, even as the tea party calls for the return to constitutional basics, our universities neglect The Federalist and its classic exposition of constitutional principles.
For the better part of two generations, the best political science departments have concentrated on equipping students with skills for performing empirical research and teaching mathematical models that purport to describe political affairs. Meanwhile, leading history departments have emphasized social history and issues of race, class and gender at the expense of constitutional history, diplomatic history and military history.
Neither professors of political science nor of history have made a priority of instructing students in the founding principles of American constitutional government. Nor have they taught about the contest between the progressive vision and the conservative vision that has characterized American politics since Woodrow Wilson (then a political scientist at Princeton) helped launch the progressive movement in the late 19th century by arguing that the Constitution had become obsolete and hindered democratic reform.
Then there are the proliferating classes in practical ethics and moral reasoning. These expose students to hypothetical conundrums involving individuals in surreal circumstances suddenly facing life and death decisions, or present contentious public policy questions and explore the range of respectable progressive opinions for resolving them. Such exercises may sharpen students’ ability to argue. They do little to teach about self-government.
They certainly do not teach about the virtues, or qualities of mind and character, that enable citizens to shoulder their political responsibilities and prosper amidst the opportunities and uncertainties that freedom brings. Nor do they teach the beliefs, practices and associations that foster such virtues and those that endanger them.
Those who doubt that the failings of higher education in America have political consequences need only reflect on the quality of progressive commentary on the tea party movement. Our universities have produced two generations of highly educated people who seem unable to recognize the spirited defense of fundamental American principles, even when it takes place for more than a year and a half right in front of their noses.
Mr. Berkowitz is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
Must See Video – Newt Gingrich: Orwellian Government from 1979-2010
The good stuff starts near the end of video one when he starts talking about Poland.
Milton Friedman: Why soaking the rich won’t work
Milton Friedman – The Great Depression Myth
The crash that initiated the Great depression was not a failure of freedom or private enterprise. The great depression was initiated largely by the actions of the Federal Reserve (with some outside forces) who acted in such a way that was contrary to the ideas in which it was created.
Notice how Dr. Friedman says that government can deliberately cause inflation because it acts as a tax. Inflation brings more money to government and also makes the dollars that the government pays back to debt holders and bond holders worth less and less. This is why the Obama Administration and his lackey at the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, have been deliberately driving up prices with inflation. This also makes every dollar in savings that the elderly have weaker and able to buy less, thus making them even more dependent on government, which falls in line with the current Democrat Leadership’s political strategy.
Final word on death panels and rationing?
[Editor’s Note – I posted this in March 2010. After repeatedly insisting that ObamaCare would never be able to ration care or ever have death panels and even after the self-proclaimed politifact.com labeled this their “lie of the year”; fast forward to September 2011, now the truth is reported so casually that even Robert Reich and Paul Krugman have admitted that death panel like rationing will be necessary and the ObamaCare “Independent Payment Advisory Board” is common knowledge. Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich were the first to call this what it was and deserve credit for doing so by stating the obvious: that the words “death panel” do not have to appear in the bill because Congress, by passing the ObamaCare law, has handed such overwhelming regulatory authority over to these faceless bureaucrats that they have the ability create law by regulation at the stroke of a pen.]
Bloomberg News reports about one of the ways health care will be rationed, notice it starts after the upcoming presidential election.
So will it become a death panel?
The legislation also creates an Independent Payment Advisory Board to suggest cuts in spending by Medicare, the government health program for the elderly and disabled, that could threaten payments for drug and device-makers. Starting in 2014, the panel’s recommendations would take effect unless federal lawmakers substitute their own reductions.
The president’s own cousin, Dr. Milton Wolf, said that this bill does harm and rations care in multiple ways – LINK:
As one example, consider the implications of Obamacare’s financial penalty aimed at your doctor if he seeks the expert care he has determined you need. If your doctor is in the top 10 percent of primary care physicians who refer patients to specialists most frequently – no matter how valid the reasons – he will face a 5 percent penalty on all their Medicare reimbursements for the entire year. This scheme is specifically designed to deny you the chance to see a specialist. Each year, the insidious nature of that arbitrary 10 percent rule will make things even worse as 100 percent of doctors try to stay off that list. Many doctors will try to avoid the sickest patients, and others will simply refuse to accept Medicare. Already, 42 percent of doctors have chosen that route, and it will get worse. Your mother’s shiny government-issued Medicare health card is meaningless without doctors who will accept it.
Obamacare will further diminish access to health care by lowering reimbursements for medical care without regard to the costs of that care. Price controls have failed spectacularly wherever they’ve been tried. They have turned neighborhoods into slums and have caused supply chains to dry up when producers can no longer profit from providing their goods. Remember the Carter-era gas lines? Medical care is not immune from this economic reality. We cannot hope that our best and brightest will pursue a career in medicine, setting aside years of their lives – for me, 13 years of school and training – to enter a field that might not even pay for the student loans it took to get there.
Of course, when the regulations written by bureaucrats get written how will they be interpreted and enforced? Several of Obama’s Czar’s and advisers have said in no uncertain terms that value judgements about who should get care need to be made, and we have reported those statements right here on this web site.
Milton Friedman: Socialized medicine results in increased input with less output.
Milton Friedman, one of the greatest economists, talks about the results of socialized medicine.
Allen West: Liberal Progressive Agenda is Antithesis of Who We Are as a Republic
Now some of you will watch this and think he is being over the top. But is he?
Allen West he defines tyranny as the Founders did. Think about the situation, what would the Founders think of the following:
All three branches of government are now legislating on their own and against the will of the people. We have a breakdown of separation of powers. Federalism is all but eliminated. Government is infringing on private property rights more and more, government owns most of the land west of the Mississippi to prevent us from using our own resources, Congress banned the Thomas Edison light bulb, government uses the tax code and other regulations to pick winners and losers and funnel money to their allies, judges and other office holders do not respect the limits of their office or the Constitution. The government is becoming so big that it is becoming ungovernable.
Congress spent almost $4 trillion last year with $2.08 trillion of that being new deficit spending which is 10 times higher than the yearly deficit the last year the Republicans had budgetary control.
Does anyone doubt for a minute that George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, Jon Jay, Ben Rush, George Mason, Gouverneur Morris, Sam Adams, or Alexander Hamilton would say otherwise? Would Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglass or Joseph Story?
Video: Milton Friedman Destroys the Keynesian Fallacy
Spending isn’t what is good it is producing!
Flashback: Obama vs Obama on ObamaCare
Obama on the transition process to nationalized health care. He says that he opposes national health care , but when in front of a safe audience he says that is what he supports and where he is headed.
Obama saying how he would do health care different form the Clinton’s; notice the transparency and process he is describing was never seriously attempted and the process the Democrats used was so secretive that ‘Easter Eggs” in the bill are still being discovered such as the three multi-billion dollar political slush funds hidden in the bill.
So six months ago we were “nuts” and now some on the left admit that we are right. Of course if one were still in denial over this and believes the video’s and information links above are totally innocent coincidences, at the very least you must admit that Obama gives very different messages when he is in front of different groups, showing that he is just a typical politician willing to tell you anything you want to hear at the time.
This one is just a bonus, definitely worth five minutes of your time. This video is from a union supporting Obama voter who came to the realization that his president just doesn’t tell the truth. The shame is that this guy who is just waking up, doesn’t realize that this ObamaCare bill regulates the insurance industry in such a way that it is designed to blow them up and make health care costs skyrocket. Using the Alinsky model they will blame capitalism and freedom for the problems they created and offer a government take over as the solution. –
Economics 101- Demand Side vs. Supply Side (Featuring Jim Quinn)
Why Keynesian (neo-socialist) economics doesn’t work in the modern economy explained very well in 5 minutes.
This audio is from July 2010. Notice what Quinn says about Obama’s economic policy came true.
Milton Friedman vs Phil Donahue on Freeedom vs the Leviathan State
Milton Friedman: How to Reform Education
A film documentary that all should watch.
Flashback 2009: W.H.O. ‘America is 37th’ Report Refuted. USA vs. Canada vs Britain Health Care Statistics.
NEW – British National Health Service late cancer diagnosis kills 10,000 a year – LINK.
By Deroy Murdock
Imagine that your two best friends are British and Canadian tobacco addicts. The Brit battles lung cancer. The Canadian endures emphysema and wheezes as he walks around with clanging oxygen canisters. You probably would not think: “Maybe I should pick up smoking.”
The fact that America is even considering government medicine is equally wacky. The state guides health care for our two closest allies: Great Britain and Canada. Like us, these are prosperous, industrial, Anglophone democracies. Nevertheless, compared to America, they suffer higher death rates for diseases, their patients experience severe pain, and they ration medical services.
Look what you’re missing in the U.K.:
* Breast cancer kills 25 percent of its American victims. In Great Britain, the Vatican of single-payer medicine, breast cancer extinguishes 46 percent of its targets.
* Prostate cancer is fatal to 19 percent of its American patients. The National Center for Policy Analysis reports that it kills 57 percent of Britons it strikes.
* Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data show that the U.K.’s 2005 heart-attack fatality rate was 19.5 percent higher than America’s. This may correspond to angioplasties, which were only 21.3 percent as common there as here.
* The U.K.’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) just announced plans to cut its 60,000 annual steroid injections for severe back-pain sufferers to just 3,000. This should save the government 33 million pounds (about $55 million). “The consequences of the NICE decision will be devastating for thousands of patients,” Dr. Jonathan Richardson of Bradford Hospitals Trust told London’s Daily Telegraph. “It will mean more people on opiates, which are addictive, and kill 2,000 a year. It will mean more people having spinal surgery, which is incredibly risky, and has a 50 per cent failure rate.”
* “Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets,” Daniel Martin wrote last year in London’s Daily Mail. “Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour [party] pledge. The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 911 calls. Doctors warned last night that the practice of ‘patient-stacking’ was putting patients’ health at risk.”
Things don’t look much better up north, under Canadian socialized medicine.
* Canada has one-third fewer doctors per capita than the OECD average. “The doctor shortage is a direct result of government rationing, since provinces intervened to restrict class sizes in major Canadian medical schools in the 1990s,” Dr. David Gratzer, a Canadian physician and Manhattan Institute scholar, told the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee on June 24. Some towns address the doctor dearth with lotteries in which citizens compete for rare medical appointments.
* “In 2008, the average Canadian waited 17.3 weeks from the time his general practitioner referred him to a specialist until he actually received treatment,” Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes, a Canadian native, wrote in the July 2 Investor’s Business Daily. “That’s 86 percent longer than the wait in 1993, when the [Fraser] Institute first started quantifying the problem.”
* Such sloth includes a median 9.7-week wait for an MRI exam, 31.7 weeks to see a neurosurgeon, and 36.7 weeks – nearly nine months – to visit an orthopedic surgeon.
* Thus, Canadian supreme court justice Marie Deschamps wrote in her 2005 majority opinion in Chaoulli v. Quebec, “This case shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care.”
Obamacare proponents might argue that their health reforms are neither British nor Canadian, but just modest adjustments to America’s system. This is false. The public option – for which Democrats lust – would fuel an elephantine $1.5 trillion overhaul of this life-and-death industry. Having Uncle Sam in the room while negotiating drug prices and hospital reimbursement rates will be like sitting beside Warren Buffett at an art auction. Guess who goes home with the goodies?
A public option is just the opening bid for eventual nationalization of American medicine. As House Banking Committee chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) told SinglepayerAction.Org on July 27: “The best way we’re going to get single payer, the only way, is to have a public option to demonstrate its strength and its power.”
Barack Obama seconds that emotion.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately,” Obama told a March 24, 2007 Service Employees International Union health-care forum. “There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision [single payer] a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.” As he told the AFL-CIO in 2003: “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health-care coverage. . . . That’s what I’d like to see.”
And why a public option just for medicine? Wouldn’t government clothing stores be best suited to furnish the garments Americans need to survive each winter? And why not a public option for restaurants? Shouldn’t Americans have universal access to fine dining?
All kidding aside, government medicine has proved an excruciating disaster in the U.K. and Canada. Our allies’ experiences with this dreadful idea should horrify rather than inspire everyday Americans, not to mention seemingly blind Democratic politicians.
Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
UPDATE: Refuting WHO report nonsense.
This post has gone viral on the internet and is posted on thousands of message board around the world and the most common response I have seen are some profoundly ignorant postings from leftists screaming that the WHO Report ranks the United States number 37th in care world wide, therefore we must stink. If said leftists had taken the time to actually read the report they would see that the WHO ranks the United States number one in patient responsiveness and care, but putting the United States as number one offends the WHO’s socialist sensibilities, so they had to find a way to lower America’s ranking. They were at least nice enough in the report to admit what they were doing and how they did it.
The WHO figures into the ranking weather or not the country in question has socialized health care, that means that if health care dollars come from the private sector, charities or the consumer the WHO lowers the ranking. WHO also skews the mortality rates by including people who die from crime and more importantly WAR.
When you look at the breakdown the United States according to WHO is number ONE in patient responsiveness and care – http://www.photius.com/rankings/world_health_systems.html
The WHO divides the report into sections – Here is the section on patient responsiveness and level of care – the United States is ranked number one – http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/annex06_en.pdf
The WHO ranks the United States overall as 37 because we don’t have socialized health care; meaning that doesn’t meet socialists standard of “fairness”.
http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_en.pdf – look here and do a search for the words “fairness in contributions” to see for yourself.
This means that the ranking of 37 has little to do with the quality of care people receive and it has everything to do with ideology and politics.
UPDATE II – 12- 15- 09 An article coming to the same conclusion that we did above about the WHO report LINK.
Flashback 2009: Democrats use Sopranos-style tactics in health care
by Newt Gingrich:
Rep. Henry Waxman is making America’s health insurance companies an offer they can’t refuse.
Like a mafia underboss trying to face down a rival crime family, the powerful California Democratic chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has resorted to ugly intimidation tactics with opponents of government-run health care.
In the spirit of Joe McCarthy, earlier this week, Waxman and House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak, D-MI, sent a letter to 52 of the nation’s largest health insurance companies that contained a not-so-veiled threat.
Waxman and Stupak’s letter demanded detailed information from health insurance companies about executive pay, corporate conferences and retreats, and other business practices.
For any employees or officers making more than $500,000 a year in the past six years, the congressmen are demanding details on salaries, bonuses, pensions and other compensation.
They’re asking for a list of conferences and retreats that are paid for by insurance companies. They’re also insisting that insurance companies disclose the identity of all board members and their compensation.
According to the letter, all this information must be provided by Sept. 14 as part of an investigation of “executive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry.”
Imagine that. An investigation of health insurance compensation launched by two powerful Democratic House Committee Chairmen in the midst of a coordinated campaign to vilify health insurance companies.
As far as intimidation tactics go, this latest move by Waxman and Stupak makes the White House’s effort to “flag” online political opponents look small time.
Waxman and Stupak are attempting to use raw political power to silence their opponents, plain and simple. If that’s not the case, why single out one sector of healthcare and not others, like physician groups, hospitals, and drug companies? Could it be because many of these groups have publicly supported the emerging Democratic legislation?
The problem for Democrats is that making health insurance companies the cartoon villains of heath care reform is a sign of desperation, not strength.
President Obama and his congressional allies have insisted for months that government health insurance is necessary, not to lay the groundwork for a single payer system, but to provide healthy competition for insurance companies.”To keep them honest,” in the president’s words.
But the more they talk down private health insurance in order to talk up government health insurance, the more the public distrusts government health insurance.
The latest NBC news poll found that 47 percent of Americans now oppose the government health insurance plan while just 43 percent support it. That’s a reversal of opinion from last month’s poll, in which 46 percent supported the government plan and 44 percent were opposed.
Americans have a lot to be dissatisfied with when it comes to private health insurance, but we’re not buying the argument that “competition” from government run health insurance will fix things.
If the White House is so interested in creating competition, why not give health care consumers real choices of better plans by creating a national health insurance market?
Today, there are more than 1,300 health insurance companies in America divided among 50 different state markets with 50 different sets of regulation of what level of coverage private health insurance plans must offer in each state.
Consumers are currently prohibited from buying less expensive health insurance policies issued by a private health insurer in another state. Creating a nationwide health insurance market in which individuals or groups can choose better and less expensive coverage from another state would create real competition and force private insurers in each state to create better products, improve service and lower prices.
Americans know the public option is declining rapidly in support, and Waxman and Stupak know that we know it. That’s why they’ve resorted to Sopranos-style tactics with health insurance companies.
For them, private insurance companies aren’t legitimate options for Americans seeking higher quality, lower cost health care. They’re poll-tested straw men in a desperate campaign to create government run health care.
Maybe that’s why Americans view their health insurance companies more favorably than their congressmen.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has published 19 books, including 10 fiction and nonfiction best-sellers. He is the founder of the Center for Health Transformation and chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future.
Reagan’s short stories: Leftist college student vs. capitalist. The story of the Little Red Hen.
Lessons every student should know.
NEWSWEEK gave 1,000 Americans the U.S. Citizenship Test–38% failed.
Ironically, the article blames not enough central control of schools pointing the finger at a, “decentralized education system” that relies on the states, and “market-driven programming.”
The truth, many Western European countries have school choice. What do you expect, this IS Newsweek after all.
They’re the sort of scores that drive high-school history teachers to drink. When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.
To appreciate the risks involved, it’s important to understand where American ignorance comes from. In March 2009, theEuropean Journal of Communication asked citizens of Britain, Denmark, Finland, and the U.S. to answer questions on international affairs. The Europeans clobbered us. Sixty-eight percent of Danes, 75 percent of Brits, and 76 percent of Finns could, for example, identify the Taliban, but only 58 percent of Americans managed to do the same—even though we’ve led the charge in Afghanistan. It was only the latest in a series of polls that have shown us lagging behind our First World peers.
Top 140 All Time Top Political Donors
Look at what party gets most of the fat cat money? Looking out for the little guy my foot.
So do these groups contribute massive funds so that the politicians will faithfully follow the Constitution? No, most of them want favors, and most favors have questionable ethics and constitutionality.
The only answer is to strip politicians of some power to do these favors.
To examine the list click HERE.
Related:
Top 20 Industry Money Recipients This Election Cycle – Who is in the back pocket of Wall Street?
Corruption You Can Believe In: Failed Sub Primes and Mortgage Fraud Lenders Funneled Money to Dodd & Obama the Most. Fannie & Freddie Gave $200 Million to Partisans-Most Went to Democrats! Dodd, Obama Among Top Recipients.
Democrat Leadership owned by Wall Street
Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy
[Flashback to March 2011]
BMI:
Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start – and no one seems to have noticed.
On April 8, a group he’s funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros’s goal for such an event is to “establish new international rules” and “reform the currency system.” It’s all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for “a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.”
The event is bringing together “more than 200 academic, business and government policy thought leaders’ to repeat the famed 1944 Bretton Woods gathering that helped create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Soros wants a new ‘multilateral system,” or an economic system where America isn’t so dominant.
More than two-thirds of the slated speakers have direct ties to Soros. The billionaire who thinks “the main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat” is taking no chances.
Thus far, this global gathering has generated less publicity than a spelling bee. And that’s with at least four journalists on the speakers list, including a managing editor for the Financial Times and editors for both Reuters and The Times. Given Soros’s warnings of what might happen without an agreement, this should be a big deal. But it’s not.
Wait till you see who else on on the attendee’s list. Find out HERE.
George Soros is the number one money man of the radical left and the Democratic Party.
Marxist group launches propaganda kids video against the First Amendment
This is the same Marxist group that made “The Story of Stuff“. A slick propaganda video that targets kids with a series of cliche’s the communists use against American freedom and market system – LINK.
Lee Doren takes their latest propaganda film apart.
Story of Citizens United v. FEC, The Critique
David Gregory at NBC is all upset by Michelle Bachmann’s description of White House behavior as ‘Gangster Government’
Video – Michelle Bachmann: GM care dealers who donated to Republicans were targeted for closure. Those who donated to Democrats in many cases were taken off – LINK.
Michael Barone: Gangster government stifles criticism of ObamaCare – LINK.
Car dealerships being closed that are profitable are owned by mostly GOP donors – LINK.
THUGOCRACY – OBAMA ADMINISTRATION THREATENS INSURANCE COMPANIES TO KEEP QUIET ABOUT RISING HEALTH CARE COSTS DUE TO LEGISLATION….OR ELSE – LINK.
CNN Analyst Advocates Obama Go “Chigaco-Style Al Capone Gangsta” on Political Opponents – LINK.
Bill Whittle: How the “Progressive Movement” became corrupt
A history lesson you may never forget.
FORMER OBAMA ADVISOR VAN JONES IN YOUTH RECRUITMENT: FORGET RESPECTING OLD PEOPLE — YOU ARE GODS, GENIUSES & WALKING SUPERPOWERS!
Via The Blaze.
Folks, this is Hitler Youtharian. That is not a term I use lightly as I oppose frivolous comparisons to WWII.
After you watch the Van Jones video, compare that with the message from “Der Morgige Tag Ist Mein” (Tomorrow Belongs to Me) – English version LINK.
Creeped out yet?
What Jones is doing goes beyond what far left groups were pushing in schools shortly after Obama was elected such as this:
It starts out with a Cuban indoctrination song but then something happens….
and this….
There has also been concern about school teachers doing things like taking songs about Jesus and replacing Jesus with Obama and teaching the kids to sing them in public schools and other outrageous acts of propaganda as has been done HERE, HERE,HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. [Note: YouTube has pulled most of the video’s down].
Donald Rumsfeld’s “Parade of Horribles”
I now have a better understanding of why the services of Donald Rumsfeld have always been in great demand.
It is well known that during the the early days of the Iraq War mistakes were made, what is less known is that Donald Rumsfeld predicted most of them. Other elements of the Bush Administration either did not take those warnings as seriously as they could have, or plan as effectively as possible in light of his warnings.
Rumsfeld’s “Parade of Horribles”
Parade of Horribles 10-15-2002 – LINK
Arrest Al Sadr or not 1-7-2004 – LINK
re: Security Update Situation in al-Anbar 2006-10-26 – LINK
re: National Security Council Meeting 10-27-2006 – LINK
Live Sex With a Powertool in Class at Northwestern University. Your Tax Dollars at Work…
Live Sex Demo at Northwestern University’s ‘Human Sexuality’ Class… complete with a power-tool. Your tax dollars at work.
They also used a power-tool with a sex-toy connected to the end to use on the female “subject”. The university paid them $500.00 an hour.
Here is a look at the “teachers”…
Evanston, Ill. – More than 100 Northwestern students watched as a naked woman was penetrated by a sex toy wielded by her boyfriend during an after-class session of the school’s popular “Human Sexuality” class.
The demo, which was optional, was part of the popular class taught by Prof. John Michael Bailey, the Sun-Times is reporting. More than 600 students take the class, which the course description says “will treat human sexuality as a subject for scientific inquiry.”
The woman involved in the demonstration was not a student, according to the Daily Northwestern, NU’s student newspaper.
“Her boyfriend did the penetration on her,” said Ken Melvoin-Berg, who narrated what was happening for the class. He operates the “Weird Chicago Red Light District Sex Tour.”
In an email, Northwestern defended the class and its professor.
“Northwestern University faculty members engage in teaching and research on a wide variety of topics, some of them controversial and at the leading edge of their respective disciplines,” said spokesman Alan Cubbage. “The University supports the efforts of its faculty to further the advancement of knowledge.”
Political Arena 