“Over the top rhetoric” coming from MITTENS? You’ve GOT to be KIDDING ME!
Editor:
Romney says “follow the law” that is a nice sound bite, but when Obama starts running ads saying that Romney is coming after the Latina grandma we will see Romney adopt Newt’s position real fast.
Editor:
You know, if Romney hadn’t gone hack ‘n slash ‘n lie in Iowa onward none of this would be going on like this. Newt tried to be positive but when you have millions in attack ads launched against you one has to fight back.
Now Romney says “follow the law” when it comes to illegals in the country. That is a nice sound bite, but when Obama starts running ads saying that Romney is coming after the Latina grandma we will see Romney adopt Newt’s position so fast it will make our heads spin.
While there is a degree of demagoguery going on by everyone, that one from Romney was just over the top.
Also Mitt Romney was on Meet The Press just a couple of years ago calling for amnesty and in the first debate told Rick Perry that one not be too against illegal immigration. It is maddening and why doesn’t CNN ask Mitt about that?
Chuck DeVore:
CNN Debate: Newt Gingrich: my goal is to shrink government to fit the revenue, not increase the revenue to fit the government.
Editor:
Newt: What does NASA do now that it has mismanaged itself into having no space vehicle? Does it sit down and think space? – Great!
Editor:
Santorum is going after everyone with some degree of effectiveness.
Santorum – We cannot give up this issue to Obama, this is about fundamental freedom! Santorum is right about Romney.
The issue is that RomneyCare was so inflationary that most of the private guys fled the state.
Go Rick Go!! That is absolutely right and the study [that talks about the expense of RomneyCare] is on my web site! – LINK
Editor:
Almost every question Wolf asks keeps Obama out of criticism……..and when Santorum went after Obama it was “Move on….”
Good answer from Mitt Romney on Israel/Palestine.
Final Thoughts:
Romney had a good night, but make no mistake, he is trying to be above the fray while his surrogates smear everyone and if Rick Santorum does well in Florida he will be next.
Newt was unwise to go after Mitt on the Freddie/Fannie stock. Millions of people had those stocks….. Who the heck is his communications team?
I didn’t ask for a neat and tidy campaign, I am asking for something a little less revolting… I can play rough. But destroying the Republican Party in the process is not a great plan going into the general as evidenced by the fact that Obama’s poll numbers are up three points in the last two weeks… this kind of smear crap damages the entire Republican brand and Mitt doesn’t care.
That is bad for the general, but that also says something about what his leadership style will be, it is ALL about HIM.
Newt was unwise to go after Mitt on the Freddie/Fannie stock. Millions of people had those stocks….. Who the heck is his communications team? I would never have made such a mistake.Newt should fire his comm director and hire me.
The first time Obama nails Mitt with “You will send ICE after Latina grandmothers” Mitt will adopt Newt’s position so fast it will make our head’s spin. And really all, that exchange on what to do about illegals is SO indicative of these two men. Newt is absolutely right. Mitt can say “Just follow the law” and you know… that sounds so nice. It is so easy to say. Well Speaker Gingrich understands full well the difference between the law and the law applied.
Of course so does Mitt Romney and that shows how incredibly disingenuous he is. I could not do what Mitt did and look in the eyes of my kids at night.
Just remember what this picture did to Bill Clinton and Janet Reno… I guarantee you David Axelrod will use something similar against Mitt Romney and he will lose the Hispanic vote just like that…
Sarah is spot on. A total Rookie mistake that will be used against Newt if he is the nominee. This was David Gregory looking to generate sounds bites for Obama to use in commercials later.
If/When Newt is the nominee and Christie endorses Newt this sound bite will be used against both Newt and Gov. Christie’s reelection.
Notice that you don’t see John McCain on the Sunday shows bashing his fellow Republicans any more. He used to all the time. He learned his lesson.
Not to mention that this new narrative on “Newt being an embarrassment” relies on a series of incomplete facts. This is just Mitt Romney out to destroy his opponents again and it really doesn’t matter what the full facts are.
Hey elite media….what happened to “it’s just sex” and “sex doesn’t matter”?
ABC is accusing Newt of having wanted an open marriage…. just like Bill and Hillary Clinton. Everyone knows they have an open marriage so where was the firestorm? Where was it when Hillary ran in 2008? They didn’t even live together for how many years?
Of course this is coming from an elite media who knew all about how John Edwards was cheating on his cancer stricken wife and said nothing until the National Enquirer caught Edwards red-handed.
How many years ago did Newt and Marianne get divorced? If memory serves it is over 12 years. So why is this big news and Bill and Hillary are held up as virtuous by the elite media?
Well besides the fact that what Marianne said is likely not true, my point is the hypocrisy. The elite media and the left will lie or do anything to trash us with one standard, and yet proclaim that the same standard is a virtue if the person has a D by their name.
Paula Jones got some media play because her case went to the Supreme Court and Gennifer Flowers got some play when she posed nude. The elite media tried to cover up Monica Lewinsky but Matt Drudge found out. The Lewinsky affair would have come out anyway as Paula Jones’ lawyers had found out about her through the discovery process.
[Editor’s Note – we would rather make no reference to Miss Lewinsky, but in this case we had to. Good editorial judgment is important and the facts indicate that Miss Lewinsky was the victim of a very lopsided power relationship. She should be allowed to live this down and enjoy her life in peace. We wish her well.]
There were also reported affairs with actresses Sharon Stone, Barbara Streisand, Gina Gershon. There are also numerous other affairs and sexual assaults, such as Kathleen Willey (who got one interview at CBS) and others that were just not mentioned such as Dolly Kyle Browning, Elizabeth Ward Gracen and the rape of Juanita Broaddrick (who got one interview with NBC’s Lisa Myers and that was it).
Where was the media frenzy and the planning to release the interview at a key electoral time? What happened to “it’s just sex” and “sex doesn’t matter” elite media??
My dear friend Leah Palomita (2) from Conservative Daily News who is also a reader sent me “her autograph” and I thought it was so lovely that I had to post it.
Every couple of years there is a new anti-piracy bill and a new bill to protect “kids from porn” proposed. These bills are deliberately made to be over reaching and over broad.
This is done so certain members can say “see I voted to protect your kids from X” or they can say to wealthy and powerful companies that have intellectual property “See I voted for a law to protect your interests, intellectual property and your money” – In the case of the later it usually happens at times such as now when politicians are fund raising for the elections coming this November.
The bills are so broad and over reaching that they are not intended to become law and on the off chance that they do they are written in such a way that the courts will strike them down, thus setting the stage to use the issue again to shill for votes and fund raising dollars.
Does this mean that McCain wasn’t serious about his rediscovered Reagan Conservatism on the 2008 campaign? It would seem so by how Steve Schmidt and some other liberals hired by McCain to run his campaign treated Sarah Palin. Or it could mean none of that and these ads meant nothing to John McCain at all other than a means to winning an election.
This schizophrenic messaging completely takes McCain’s endorsement credibility and tosses it right out the window. It also speaks volumes about how the GOP elites view messaging to GOP voters and is another example of why the GOP communications strategy and brand needs new blood.
“Newt balanced the budget and got the policy heavy lifting done while he was in office and it hasn’t been done since he left.” – J.C. Watts
When you cut out all the fluff, feelings, and BS, that is where the rubber meets the road isn’t it? Leave it to J.C. to nail it in a way which should be totally obvious, but often seems obscured.
As so many of our readers know, ideologically I am dead center between the TEA Party and what is so often referred to as the “GOP Establishment”. I have a regular dialogue with both sides and for the most part have been able to garner the respect of both sides. The GOP needs results and the TEA Party and independents are demanding it. While other candidates promise, Newt has “been there and done that”. Newt also has the ability to sell and agenda and use the Bully Pulpit to move the Overton Window back to traditional Americanism.
Newt should pick a CEO, governor, or a social conservative leader to be his running mate.
This is not to say that several of the other candidates would not make a far better President than the current occupant. This editor is very fond of several of the candidates and is acquainted with some of them, but as indicated, results are demanded and nothing else will do.
And last week Romney was lecturing Newt about making zaney statements against Obama…
Newt is “too strident” in his critiques of Obama says Romney… that is what John McCain thought.
Aside from the fact that Lucy was “busy and earning a living because she wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth” (Thank you Christian writer Leah Polomita for that one…).
Mitt Romney will say anything and the elite media has not gone after him yet. When they get done with him we will be having second thoughts just like we did with McCain and Dole. Mitt makes John Kerry look like the Rock of Gibraltar and that is just since 2008.
In my view what we need and what America is searching for is moral clarity.
A Romney endorsement is defensive in measure when we are on the march. It is a step back not a step forward.
Some people say that “Romney is the only one who can bring people together”. Those people need a history lesson.
Newt Gingrich was the first public figure in our lifetime to nationalize a mid-term election. He united America with “The Contract for America” and at the time generated the biggest GOP landslide since 1984.
While others talk about balancing the federal budget, Newt got it done as Speaker. Newt also got a Democrat President to sign welfare reform.
In 2010, nine of the top 10 swing states women and Catholics, both notorious swing voters went for TEA/GOP candidates in the largest margins since 1984. It was not a Mitt Romney message that made that happen, it was the message of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. Since when is Massachusetts a microcosm for America?
If you recall, Newt was on the Sunday shows defending Sarah and our new candidates on the Sunday shows since Obama took office.
Both Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham support Mitt Romney, but I heard both of them saying together on Laura’s show that Mitt will move to the left as the campaign goes on and he will move to the left when the media and the Democrats turn up the pressure. Then they said it was great because then they would have someone to make fun of for four years.
Mitt Romney a uniter? Mitt is trying to divide the conservative vote in pieces so he can get some conservatives, liberal Republicans, and what he perceives as “independents” on his side. The problem is that this strategy totally ignores what happened in 1996, 2008, 1994 and 2010.
[Editor’s Note: I studied Constitutional Law from federal Judge Allen Sharp, I have also been instructed by Henry Abraham, the author of “Justices and Presidents”, which is the definitive text on the Justices of the Court. Newt is totally correct about this as Article III of the Constitution is clear on this issue. The UPDATE is below.]
Go to 4:50 in the video to see Newt’s position. An awesome speech by the way:
What you are about to read below a load of complete nonsense. What Newt is talking about is called Article III of the US Constitution. Congress has almost total power over the lower courts. Congress passes “Judicial Acts” for the purpose of regulating the lower courts and dealing with rogue circuits like the 9th. EVERY first year law student knows this. For a former Attorney General to talk like this is beyond astounding and is likely pure politics.
They go on as if the lower courts are all powerful and that the status-quo is fine. They were created by an Act of Congress so what? Congress cannot take another look at them? Judicial supremacy was opposed by the Founders.
EXCLUSIVE: Former Bush Attorneys General Call Gingrich Position on Courts ‘Dangerous’
Two former attorneys general under President George W. Bush have found a few things to like in Newt Gingrich’s position paper on reining in the authority of the federal courts, but other parts, they say, are downright disturbing.
Some of the ideas are “dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle,” said former Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
In a 28-page position paper entitled, “Bringing the Courts Back Under the Constitution,” Gingrich argues that when the Supreme Court gets it wrong constitutionally, the president and Congress have the power to check the court, including, in some cases, the power to simply ignore a Supreme Court decision.
“Our Founding Fathers believed that the Supreme Court was the weakest branch and that the legislative and executive branches would have ample abilities to check a Supreme Court that exceeded its powers,” he argues.
Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales, in exclusive interviews with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, said they are particularly alarmed by provisions such as allowing Congress to subpoena judges after controversial rulings to “explain their constitutional reasoning” to the politicians who passed the laws.
“The only basis by which Congress can subpoena people is to consider legislation. To subpoena judges to beat them up about their decisions has only — if they are going to say that has to do with legislation they might propose, that’s completely dishonest,” Mukasey said.
“I think we have a great government, a great country because it’s built upon the foundation of the rule of law. And one of the things that makes it great and the rule of law is protected by having a strong independent judiciary,” Gonzales said.
“And the notion of bringing judges before Congress like a schoolchild being brought before the principal to me is a little bit troubling. I believe that a strong and independent judiciary doesn’t mean that the judiciary is above scrutiny, that it is above criticism for the work that it does, but I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges.”
Mukasey has counseled Mitt Romney, Gingrich’s chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, but said only once, and he would do the same for any GOP candidate. He and Gonzales said they were also not happy with the Gingrich call for the power to impeach judges or abolish judgeships following any ruling considered particularly outrageous.
They were additionally very skeptical of Gingrich’s suggestion that we should just “do away with” the Ninth Circuit because of some of the left-leaning decisions from that group of jurists.
UPDATE – Some Romney supporters are trying to spin this story into something it isn’t with a series of misleading accusations and objections.
Bogus Objection #1: Newt wants to micromanage the Judiciary!
Who said anything about “Micromanaging the judiciary” – I will tell you who – NO ONE HAS.
The 9th Circuit has not been micromanaged, on the contrary these created, invented courts who are invented at the pleasure of Congress and the American people have been trying to micromanage our lives.
Judge Hamilton even tried to order the Speaker of the State House and President of the State Senate to ban Jesus from the prayer opening each session.
Newt is not saying that the judiciary should be micromanaged and he has never said anything even remotely close to that. His position paper and the video of his speech which I linked above, make it clear that the 9th and a few other judges have gotten so out of control and so radicalized that they are trying to micromanage our culture like a far left secularist oligarchy.
Creating a straw man is no way to win the point.
Bogus Objection #2: Newt wants exclusive executive control over the judiciary!
Newt is not talking about exclusive executive control. Presidents lobbied for and got those Judicial Acts passed by Congress; just like when people said “Reagan cut taxes”, it was Congress who passed that new tax legislation.
Bogus Objection #3: We should take a Burkean approach in saying are we really so hubristic as to dismantle that system and hope to create something better in its place?
This is elitist euphemistic sophistry for “we need to preserve the status-quo” and it is also pure nonsense. We dismantle some government systems and recreate them all the time, it is called Federalism and the 50 states do it on a regular basis with various legal and policy experiments.
Bogus Objection #4: Chief Justice Marshall established judicial supremacy over constitutional interpretation.
I know all about “The Great Chief Justice” John Marshall, however Marshall cannot remove Article III, nor did he intend to.
Marshall did not establish “judicial supremacy over constitutional interpretation”, he asserted that the Supreme Court had the power of “Judicial Review”; to declare certain acts of Congress and certain enforcement actions of the Executive under it’s jurisdiction to be unconstitutional. There is a significant difference between the two.
In no way was Marshall trying to assert Judicial supremacy and in no way was he trying to elevate the power of the lower courts that exist at the pleasure of Congress to a position over them in such a way to take separation of powers and toss it out the window.
Quite frankly, I am astonished at the near total lack of understanding many so called lawyers have about “Separation of Powers”. All it takes is one good read of the Federalist Papers. So either our law schools are dropping the ball or the self bias of lawyers and law professors has them believing in this supremacy nonsense.
The Judiciary was intended to be the weaker of the three branches of government. It is the duty of all branches, not the sole purview of the court, to uphold and defend the constitution, this is why the Constitution demands an oath of office to defend it for ALL of the three branches.
The way our government is supposed to work is that when one branch gets out of line, the two others can gang up on it and strip it of power when needed. This is basic 8th grade civics stuff and I am seeing political enthusiasts and pros along with some attorneys responding to this very notion as if we had told them that Martians had made a crop circle in their back yard.
Is this simply the rank intellectual dishonesty in the form of political maneuvering or has our education system failed to this degree?
[Editor’s Note – Tossing all modesty aside for just a moment. My Constitutional Law class was as intense as one would find in any law school.
Question #4 on my ConLaw final exam was:
The Great Chief Justice dies in 1801. Thomas Jefferson appoints the head of the Virginia Supreme Court to be the new Chief Justice of the United States. Explain how this likely changes every Supreme Court ruling from 1801 to 1821 (essay format start writing).
I got an A. This writer has found few attorney’s who can beat him in a game of ConLaw quiz bowl.]
Mitt Romney’s latest comments about not having strident criticisms of President Obama is an indicator of how he is absorbed by a beltway mentality that is the antithesis of Ronald Reagan. Romney also said in multiple interviews that people in the primary are making bombastic comments that by implication they do not believe.
Bombastic. You know like when Mitt Romney told Rick Perry that one cannot be too against illegal immigration.
What statements has Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or John Huntsman or Herman Cain said about Barack Obama that was not demonstrably true?
This thinking comes from the “beltway” idea that most voters lean liberal, that if we go directly after Democrats foolishness and corruption that they will send voters into the Democrats arms; as if the Democrats never say bombastic things about Republicans such as
Republicans want to bring back Jim Crow
Republicans want dirty air and water
Republicans hate old people
Republicans hate children….
…All of which are common fare from the Democrat Party leadership.
The numbers show that in 2009 and 2010 that independents responded to the traditional/conservative TEA Party message in a big way, including women and Catholics in nine of the top ten swing states.
Here is a novel idea Mitt Romney, instead of saying things that you think beltway independents want to hear, how about you show us that you have a core and tell us what you genuinely believe, assuming of course there is anything. David Axelrod says that do not have a core. You are proving him correct.
As far as President Reagan, he savaged the left, he savaged Jimmy Carter. Reagan did it with the truth because he understood that truth is indivisible.
In this piece I quote President Reagan and show you his speech at Liberty Island where he blasted the left and Jimmy Carter. Please click the link above for the video.
The Carter record is a litany of despair, of broken promises, of sacred trusts abandoned and forgotten. Eight million — eight million out of work. Inflation running at 18 percent in the first quarter of this year. Black unemployment at 14 percent, higher than any single year since the government began keeping separate statistics. Four straight major deficits run up by Carter and his friends in Congress. The highest interest rates since the Civil War, reaching at times close to 20 percent, lately they’re down to more than 11 percent but now they’ve begun to go up again. Productivity falling for six straight quarters among the most productive people in the world.
Through his inflation he has raised taxes on the American people by 30 percent, while their real income has risen only 20 percent. The Lady standing there in the harbor has never betrayed us once. But this Administration in Washington has betrayed the working men and women of this country.
In what was an attempt to create a hit piece against Newt Gingrich, Freddie Mac execs have admitted that through the last decade it was “conservatives” who were pushing reforms to “dismantle” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before they could blow up the mortgage market and the banking system.
The next time Obama says that it was the Republicans who caused this, remind him of this article. This piece helps Republicans and makes a liar out of Obama far more than it hurts Newt.
So let us address what the anonymous Freddie Mac execs have to say about Newt.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac execs are almost all Democrat appointees. Newt has been blasting them in public since 2008 if not before, so under condition of anonymity what do you think they are going to tell a reporter?
Obama and the Democrats have protected Fannie/Freddie from serious reform, have been bailing them out for hundreds of billions and the Democrats, using language in the stimulus bill inserted by the Democrat leadership, made sure that Fannie/Freddie execs (as well as AIG execs) got their many millions of bonuses for running the mortgage industry into the ground.
So I ask you again what are they going to tell a reporter about the Republican front runner? If any Republican is elected their gravy train gets cut off.
Readers, does anyone honestly believe that people in the same position as Frank Raines, Jim Johnston, or Jaime Gorelick would ever say to a reporter, “Yup! Newt told us not to do what we were doing”?
Remember that Fannie/Freddie bought almost every lobbying and consulting firm in DC to prevent people from working against them. Fannie/Freddie also spent $20o million in partisan donations with the vast majority going to Democrats.
BUSTED: Newt Gingrich Lied About What He Did For Freddie Mac
In last week’s CNBC debate, newly-minted top-tier Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich claimed he was hired by Fannie Maeto be a “historian,” and claimed that pointed out flaws in their “insane” business model.
But an investigation by Bloomberg reveals that Gingrich was much more involved with the government-backed lender than he let on — and that he was hired to promote the company (and its business practices) to other conservatives.
“Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with the consulting work Gingrich was hired to perform for the company in 2006 tell a different story. They say the former House speaker was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it.”
In the debate, Gingrich claimed he warned the company that it was causing a housing “bubble,” but Freddie Mac executives told Bloomberg he was never critical of its business model.
“Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with his work in 2006 say Gingrich was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it.”
His close ties to Freddie Mac are likely to be a liability in the Republican primary — where voters are deeply skeptical of the government-backed lenders, and furious that the public had to bail them out for their bad business practices.
In statement on his campaign website, Gingrich admits to helping the company reach out to conservatives — more than he said he did in the debate — but does not disclose how much he made from his consulting work:
“Freddie Mac was interested in advice on how to reach out to more conservatives. The Gingrich Group stressed that Freddie Mac must be open to reform of their lending practices but that by stressing the historical success of public-private partnerships in achieving public goods at a minimum of taxpayer money and bureaucracy.”
After Gingrich left Freddie Mac’s payroll, Bloomberg notes that he quickly turned into one of its most vocal critics, writing in his 2011 book “To Save America” that the companies “are so thoroughly politicized and preside over such irresponsible lending policies that they need to be replaced with smaller, private companies operating without government guarantees, whose leaders focus on making a profit, not manipulating politicians.”
The Sean Hannity Interview with Donald Trump and it is worth viewing as they have a good policy discussion, especially in the second half of the interview:
One of my worthy academic friends sent me the following note:
Chuck, Trump is a complete buffoon.And his comments in this interview are garbage even compared to his usual bleats…why promote this? Cheers!
I can understand why someone might think this way. Trump is a showman, he knows all about television timing and hype and to some people the hype can certainly be viewed as buffoonery.
But as someone who is trained in communications, which includes journalism, classic rhetoric, manipulation, politics and propaganda, I have learned to separate hype and emotionalism from the substance of any message and I encourage all readers of Political Arena to learn to do the same.
So I respond:
Professor, the thing is, even though he is a showman who is over the top (I mean look at the HAIR), he is an over the top showman who has a policy point of view that connects with voters.
I, as a student of propaganda, tend to strip away the hype and examine the message, and right now Trump is the only one saying what he is saying, and that is why it is news.
Don’t prejudge, just listen. Laura Ingraham with Donald Trump on the derisive comments of pundits like Charles Krauthammer.
Learned Professor:
OK. I listened. Where’s the beef? I hear15 minutes of him dumping on Rove and Krauthammer. Rove is someone I would pay some attention to on strategies and tactics for winning elections, not political philosophy. Krauthammer usually has interesting things to say on politics and culture, but sometimes gets things wrong. I hear repeated boasting that he is a business success, saying that he understands economics…what is the audio supposed to convince me of?
Editor (me):
One of the points being that the pundit class thinks they can pick our nominee.
Think of it this way, yo do real research in physics as well as teach. If you put out crappy research being whoppingly wrong, it would affect you. You have a stake in what you do.
But what if you just taught high school physics and nothing else? You could be glaringly wrong and wrong often and there would be no consequences (just as we see with public school teachers and the textbooks they use).
These pundits who talk and talk (Krauthammer opposed Reagan) are wrong about plenty of things (George Will even once called the Second Amendment an embarrassment) and yet where are the consequences? Yet they act as though they are entitled to dictate to us who our nominee is and anyone else who “butts in” can “butt out” as far as they are concerned.
For someone like Donald Trump, when he is wrong it affects him very directly, the credibility he has for his TV show, not to mention his credibility as a deal maker and a business man.
When Donald Trump makes a mistake it tarnishes his entire brand, his children who are a part of that brand, each move he makes has the potential to cost many millions of dollars of his personal wealth and those who invest in him, and the many thousands of jobs that he provides.
All of this is on the line with every move Trump makes. When Karl Rove or Charles Krauthammer say something stupid does it endanger the entire Fox brand? Of course not, in fact people will likely forget it two weeks later.
So who is more qualified to offer on opinion? Who has more at stake in America and in Americans? The answer is obvious, and that is why if anyone has MORE of a place to speak out as a pundit as the chattering class, it is Donald Trump, and ever other business owner who risked everything to have a chance at success. And that is the point which Laura understands and demonstrates to some degree on her show.
Where is the plan to fix America from Charles Krauthammer? Trump just wrote a book on how to do it. In fact, Charles Krauthammer’s entire life’s work is not as influential or as substantive as Donald Trump’s iconic book “The Art of the Deal”.
This brings me back to my previous point about separating the hype and emotion from the raw substance. We are so used to hype without substance from the elite media, that we start to believe that when we see hype that it automatically means there is no substance.
P.S.
Did you see Mika Brzezinski tell Boon Pickens that he doesn’t pay enough in taxes? Boon is 83, he goes to work every day and he has paid $665 million in taxes since he turned age 70, and Mika went after him for not paying enough. Yet look at who holds up Mika as someone who actually matters.
Learned Professor:
Regardless of what you think about Rove or Krauthammer, the question is: “Is Trump a useful person for the Republican candidates to elevate by attending his debate?” I say ‘no’ (Not R. or K., *I* say this.). I say that Trump is not a serious man. He is a successful real-estate mogul. He is also a vain braggart with too many stupid and non-conservative ideas for me to want him to be a ‘blessed’ voice for American conservatism. I don’t think the roof will fall in if this happens, but I think that the candidates will muddy themselves by association.
Editor:
There is much truth to what you just said, but in fairness, Trump never claimed to be a a “‘blessed’ voice for American conservatism” like Rush Limbaugh or as implied by Krauthammer. Trump speaks as a businessman who sees a government that is stupid with money, corrupt in it’s regulations, killing jobs, and is foolish in managing our resources. Almost every business owner in the country can identify with Donald Trump at some level. Besides, how many reporters moderating a primary debate are anything but a mouthpiece for the extremist wing of the Democratic Party?
Trump will ask questions no one in the media would think to ask, he will address issues they will not bring up, and it will give us an opportunity to see how the candidates react in a very different environment.
[Editor’s Note – It is not that I do not respect Krauthammer, Will, or Rove, it is the entire idea of “butt out” that I really take exception to.]
This is one of those cases where I am unhappy to report that I was quite correct and so were several others about what removing Mubarak would mean for the United States, Israel and the Middle-East.
Barack Obama has managed to pull off the greatest foreign policy disaster since President Carter helped the Mullah’s come to power in Iran. Mubarak was far from perfect, but he helped keep arms out of Gaza, maintained the peace with Israel, and prevented civil war between the Coptic Christians and the hard-core Islamists.
The results of the Egyptian election is in. Anyone who says that the hardcore Islamists are just a tiny fraction of Muslims is lying to themselves and to you as these election results demonstrate.
Parties that want an expansion of Islamic law captured a clear majority of the votes in Egypt’s first election since the uprising that ousted longtime authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak, according to results released Sunday.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party topped winners with 37% of the nearly 10 million valid ballots cast for party lists in the first of three electoral rounds for the Egyptian parliament.
The Brotherhood, a movement that seeks to expand Islamic law in many countries in the Middle East, prevailed in an election that included voters in Cairo and Alexandria, cities where liberal parties had hoped to exhibit their greatest strength.
Also winning big was the Nour Party, which took 24% of the vote. The party, dominated by the ultraconservative Salafis, did not exist until a few months ago. It seeks to impose strict Islamic law similar to Saudi Arabia in which women must be veiled and alcohol banned.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the grandfather of Al-Qaeda and they are involved in raising money for jihadists here in the United States. The motto for the Muslim Brotherhood is:
‘Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
Make no mistake, the Muslim Brotherhood, who won 37% of the vote, is a very patient and a very slick with the propaganda version of Al-Qaeda. The Muslim Brotherhood has seduced the progressive secular left, the State Department, and some naive neocons such as Bill Kristol along with several RNC luminaries (who are friends of mine and will go un-named). The Nour Party, which is essentially Egypt’s version of the Taliban, won 24% of the vote; meaning that 61% of the country voted for Sharia Law, war with Israel, brutal oppression for women and minorities, and martyrdom in the cause of Jihad.
Here is Bill Kristol in February 2011, recent history has proved him, and the many who believed just as he did, how fantastically wrong they have been. Fortunately Liz Cheney was not fooled for a minute:
Glenn Beck was right, so was Niall Ferguson, and so was this very writer.
One can examine the degree of just how far the denial went, much of it in order to protect President Obama, please examine this video from last February when one of the greatest historians alive explained to MSNBC just how strategically flawed the Obama policy in Egypt was. After Prof. Ferguson crushed the point of view of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, they went right back to “the operation looked like it went well to me”:
A retired professor friend of mine, who is sick and tired of the mindless emotionalism of others passing as arguments, created a set of rules for his Facebook wall for those who follow and comment.
RULES OF MY WALL
1) Friends may feel free to contest anything I post. BUT there are rules of engagement that your must adhere to otherwise, if you do not I may either delete your utterance or in obdurate cases defriend as being a friend without redeeming significance. There is a reason why there is a “like” button but no “Dislike” If you dislike something say why specifically.
2) NO profanity or gratuitous snarl words., courtesy meet for my advanced age.
4) Do NOT comment on a post you have not read.
5) Assertions are not facts, nor words merely expressing your view point, logic.
6) If I ask a question you MUST ANSWER it BEFORE preceeding to the next assertion. E.G if you say something is “ridiculous,” I may ask you why you think that. If you assert that I “support BO,” I will definitely ask you WHAT EXACTLY I said that made you think that.
If you say you support Newt, I may ask you if you agree with him on this or that point to ascertain how much you know about your candidate. You MUST answer before making your next point.
7) No hit and run snarl word without supporting specific facts, not unsupported opinion or glittering generalizations. I will abide by these same rules on your wall and your postings.
I like these rules, especially number six. Some people use the selective ignoring of key inconvenient facts as a means of calculated aggression, some are just creatures of raw emotion and block out whatever causes cognitive dissonance.
Also on number six, lots of people say on Facebook “If you don’t agree with me” or “If you don’t support candidate X, then you are just trying to get Obama re-elected”. In most cases that is pure idiocy unless you can back it up with a very good argument.
The fact that such common sense rules are needed is an indication of something that we have lost in society. Why? In the days of the old partisan press, when each town had at least two newspapers with different points of view, people would talk about these differences at the barber shop and the soda shop thus enjoying exercise in debate of the issues of the day regularly. Today if people get half a centimeter out of their comfort zone they can just change the channel or click and button and poof the discomfort is gone. If they cannot do that they pulled the “I’m offended!” card. Pardon me, but I prefer clarity to comfort.
I had this problem with some young professors at IU; said professors could not tell the difference between the sting of an inconvenient truth presented directly and someone being uncivil and nasty. There were several times that I had to explain the difference to a professor when they made this error, which sometimes just enraged them even more.
Fortunately I published my own student newspaper which was very popular so most of the faculty feared my First Amendment ability to sound the alarm. Some Marxist professors were pretty brave until they realized I would be willing to quote them exactly in the student paper. Of course, the professor who appreciated good scholarship and legit debate had nothing to fear from me. Some students would publish grossly unfair things in the official student paper, but in my paper, which was published by older “non traditional” students, we had very high standards because we knew that the administration would use any excuse to attack us.
This video from The Onion shows you just how elite media over-hype works and how they get you to care about news that really isn’t news at all. You will see the techniques that are designed to generate an emotional response and suggest the editorial point of view into your mind with very little facts at all. This is perhaps the most important video The Onion has ever done.
The Federal Reserve pumping dollars into Europe is just a mild kicking of the can down the road. There is no way that Greece, Italy etc will get the political will to embrace the austerity and capitalist policies necessary for them to have a chance to pay their debts.
Of course loaning them more money even cheaper puts our dollar at further risk. It seems that what the Federal Reserve is trying to do is delay the Euro collapse until after the election.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The central banks of the wealthiest countries, trying to prevent a debt crisis in Europe from exploding into a global panic, swept in Wednesday to shore up the world financial system by making it easier for banks to borrow American dollars.
Stock markets around the world roared their approval. The Dow Jones industrial average rose almost 500 points, its best day in two and a half years. Stocks climbed 5 percent in Germany and more than 4 percent in France.
Central banks will make it cheaper for commercial banks in their countries to borrow dollars, the dominant currency of trade. It was the most extraordinary coordinated effort by the central banks since they cut interest rates together in October 2008, at the depths of the financial crisis.
But while it should ease borrowing for banks, it does little to solve the underlying problem of mountains of government debt in Europe, leaving markets still waiting for a permanent fix. European leaders gather next week for a summit on the debt crisis.
The Euro banks are so over leveraged that as confidence in the Euro declines more and more people will pull their money out and buy gold, silver, or dollars, BUT the banks have loaned out so much money to governments that they could not possibly pay off the depositors. Unless something changes in a big way, the Euro seems finished.
“DVD sales are easy money and so are internet sales. While the first three episodes of The Playboy Club are on Hulu, the other seven episodes will not be made available on any internet service or DVD. The networks are not in the business of turning away easy money…”
Cast of ‘The Playboy Club’ on NBC
One might wonder why we would ask such a question, but by the end of this article you will not be so uncertain.
Sometimes television can reflect history, but sometimes it can be recreated too perfectly as is the case with NBC’s The Playboy Club.
The new TV show The Playboy Club takes place in early 1960s Chicago. And if you’re going to do a series about Chicago, you have to include a political angle, right? As the saying goes, Chicago is to politics as Paris is to romance. The Playboy Club, of course, wants to be about both.
So one of the main characters is a young lawyer named Nick Dalton, who wants to leave his past as an Outfit mouthpiece behind and become Cook County State’s Attorney. The Outfit, though, doesn’t want to leave Dalton behind. Dalton constantly hounded by the son of crime boss Bruno Bianchi, who reminds him that the mob can help him get ahead in politics.
In 1964 Chicago, only one man could help you get elected state’s attorney: Mayor Richard J. Daley, chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party Central Committee.
Among local offices, state’s attorney was second only in importance to the mayor. It was important to have a Regular in there, who wouldn’t prosecute the Machine. In 1960, Daley handpicked Daniel Ward, who looked clean because he was the dean of the DePaul University Law School, to run against Republican incumbent Benjamin Adamowski. Adamowski had to go because he was investigating city workers for taking bribes to allow a trucking company to short-weight construction supplies. Legend has it that Daley stole the 1960 election for John F. Kennedy. But he stole just as many votes for Ward, who won by 25,000.
Given Daley’s concern with looking proper, it’s impossible to imagine him slating an ex-Mob lawyer. Daley wasn’t mentioned on The Playboy Club, but he’s an interesting part of the story, and not just because of his power to elect a state’s attorney.
The New York Times wrote about the political impact of the show:
Crime, Sex, Politics and Regular Folks
In the world of prime-time television, Chicago is home to rough-and-tumble politics, street-smart cops and robbers, and the sexiest nightclub of its time, as well as to plenty of down-to-earth folks who make you wonder how that nightclub arose in their midst.
That may not be the way Chicagoans see themselves, but it describes the city’s image as viewed through the lens of modern-day television. Most Americans get their idea of the nation’s cities from what they see on TV.
And that, Political Arena readers, is why ‘The Playboy Club’ had to go.
Indeed in one episode Hugh Hefner’s lawyer pays off the Daley machine with a “donation” of a Jaguar.
This administration has been rife with “pay to play: Chicago style corruption scandals such as Solyndra, BrightSource, and BP; the Goldman Sachs and lobbyist revolving door in the administration, the picking of winners and losers, the illegal offshore drilling ban, the shutdown “green energy competition” such as the Keystone Canadian Oil Pipeline, the yanking of perfectly valid coal mining permits, EPA regulatory shutdown of American power plants, the steering of stimulus funds to Democrat donors and political districts, the favors handed out to White House allies in ObamaCare, the huge political payoffs to get the votes of a few resistant Democrats for key votes, the closing of GM dealerships owned by Republican political donors, the list can go on to fill the page.
A little Chicago style persuasion is nothing new for this administration.
Remember the Ford commercial with the average Joe who said that one of the reasons he bought a Ford was because it didn’t take bail-out funds? It struck a chord with many people and received a great deal of attention.
On Tuesday, Detroit News reporter Daniel Howes reported that White House officials leaned on Ford Motor Company to yank a popular TV and Internet ad critical of competitors who took federal bailout money. According to Howes, “Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House” questioned the firm’s CEO Alan Mulally (who had earlier supported the bailout despite his company’s refusal to participate). Howes concluded: “You’re not allowed, in Obama’s America, to disparage the auto bailout, or — indirectly — Obama. Especially during the election cycle.”
Both Ford and the White House officially deny any political pressure received or applied. But White House press flack Dan Pfeiffer refused to answer when I asked him whether anyone at the White House had ever contacted anyone at Ford to complain about the bailout ad.
So the Washington Post comes to the administration’s defense:
A left-wing Washington Post writer immediately scoffed at concerns about the administration’s heavy hand because the Ford fiasco “is being denied by the parties on both sides.” Must be nice to mainline White House talking points for a living. For the rest of us, reality intrudes.
The Washington Post this morning ran an excellent piece about how President Obama has come up way short on his promises to help the housing market.
And so . . .
Today, Obama will travel to Las Vegas where he will outline new steps to help borrowers refinance. The White House leaked the story to the Post’s chief competitors on the national newspaper scene, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, as well as Reuters.
CBS has been caving and is making Atkisson “unavailable”. She will be lucky to have a job after this is over:
Today, I called CBS News in an attempt to interview Attkisson. I was told by CBS News senior vice president of communications Sonya McNair that Attkisson would be unavailable for interviews all week. When I asked why Attkisson would be unavailable, McNair would not say.
I’ve also heard from a producer at another media outlet that has previously booked Attkisson that they tried to book her since she made news with the Laura Ingraham interview yesterday. They were also told that she would be unavailable.
Recall what Attkisson told Ingraham yesterday: [The White House and Justice Department] will tell you that I’m the only reporter–as they told me–that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing it.
The White House banned a reporter from the press pool because she covered some citizens who were protesting President Obama. When called on this as the obvious intimidation that it was, the White House denied yanking her passes, yet every reporter in the pool knows darn well that the reporter was banned. SF Gate:
In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area.
Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib:
Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all.
The Chronicle’s report is accurate.
If the White House has indeed decided not to ban our reporter, we
would like an on-the-record notice that she will remain the San Francisco print pool reporter.
The White House has threatened to use regulatory action to punish insurance companies, health care providers etc to keep them from telling their customers about how ObamaCare and other Democrat legislation is going to raise proces and interfere with care:
Michael Barone: Gangster government stifles criticism of ObamaCare – LINK
There are some, and I suspect many, Democrat operatives in the elite media who are all for this kind of behavior, so long as they are not the victim of it. CNN political analyst Roland Martin advocated that Obama Go “Chigaco-Style Al Capone Gangsta” on political opponents:
Obama’s critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let ‘em know that if they aren’t with you, they are against you, and will pay the price.
Of course how can we forget what the Democrats did to ABC. I wrote this piece for my college blog in 2006:
Democrats Threaten Broadcast License of ABC Over Path to 9/11 Film
Democrats have issued a thinly veiled threat against ABC’s broadcast license over their 9/11 miniseries, The Path to 9/11, set to air last Saturday night, in a press release issued by the Office of the Senate Democratic Leader last Thursday. Bill Clinton contacted ABC CEO Robert Iger in an effort to yank the film. Cyrus Nowrasteh, the writer and producer of the film, said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that political pressure from Democrats is causing edits to the film.
So partisan Democrats I have a question for you. Where is all the squawking about oppressing free speech now? Allow me to refresh your memory. When The Department of Defense issued a press release saying that they were hiring a public relations team to help counter enemy propaganda it was called an “assault on free speech.”
When the Justice Department investigated a series of classified leaks from the CIA to the New York Times it was called a “witch hunt” and a violation of the free speech rights of the Times. The leaker, Mary O’Neil, was appointed to Clinton’s National Security Council by former NSC Chief Sandy Berger, who later went to work for the Inspector General’s office in the CIA. Her job was to find leakers. Democrat talking heads in the media said that it would violate O’Neil’s free speech rights if she were prosecuted for leaking classified information….. no kidding. Let us not forget that Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to stealing and altering secret documents from the National Security Archive in preparation for the 9/11 Commission’s investigation.
The film was made in consultation with 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, “which praised the film’s ‘commitment to accuracy’ and ‘sincere respect for the subject’ ‘I worked closely with the filmmakers and the network to ensure the mini-series accurately reflects both the facts and the spirit of the Commission’s findings,’ wrote Kean” (http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060908-045948-7634r).
Clinton attorney Bruce R. Lindsey, who runs Clinton’s foundation, “wrote Kean last night that he was ‘shocked’ by the former New Jersey governor’s role, saying: ‘Your defense of the outright lies in this film is destroying the bipartisan aura of the 9/11 Commission and tarnishing the hard work of your fellow commissioners.’”
So it boils down to this, who are we to believe: Bill Clinton, whose propensity to tell lies has not only been proven, but is renown in the American political lexicon; Sandy Berger, who stands convicted of stealing and altering documents from the National Security Archive to “prepare” for the 9/11 Commission investigation; or Thomas Kean, the Chairman of the 9/11 Commission? Even an NEA lobbyist knows the answer to this.
Be sure to read the rest of the piece HERE. ABC cowed to political pressure from the Democrats and edited out parts of the film that were confirmed as accurate. Not only were members of the 9/11 Commission on hand during production to insure accuracy, Dr. Michael Sheuer, the former head of the CIA’s “Bin Laden Unit” was also consulting. Dr. Sheuer wrote a book bashing President Bush so one cannot say that it was a “right-wing hit job” with any credibility.
The naked will to censor the film by the Democratic leadership inspired the production of a new documentary film called Blocking the Path to 9/11. Ironically those who produced The Path to 9/11 said that they expected to be on the receiving end of political heat from Republicans. Some things you just have to see for yourself:
NBC’s cable news channel also jumped on the anti-Path to 9/11 bandwagon.
ABC, in spite of high demand, refuses to release The Path to 9/11 on DVD. DVD sales are easy money and so are internet sales such as Netflix and Hulu. While the first three episodes of The Playboy Club are on Hulu, the other seven episodes will not be made available on any internet service or DVD. The networks are not in the business of turning away easy money.
Like NBC, ABC sure has learned its lesson about airing anything that Democrats might not approve of:
ABC does an infomercial for ObamaCare yet refuses health care ads from Republicans – LINK (2)
ABC saying that “Limbaugh has a history of making racially offensive comments” – but offered no proof – LINK
ABC: If you oppose Obama on policy, your racist – LINK
ABC cut out key substantive portions of the Palin interview (the parts that showed how knowledgeable she was) – LINK (More on that interview HERE and HERE)
Another ABC interview of Sarah Palin where substantive parts of her answers are edited out – LINK
ABC questions asked to Republicans vs Democrats – LINK
ABC’s Sawyer: ‘Protesters Roaming’ DC, ‘Increasingly Emotional, Yelling Slurs and Epithets’ – again no proof in the video – LINK
ABC Gushes Over Patrick Kennedy and Ted’s Fight for Health Care: ‘Dad’s Final Wish’ Came True – LINK
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Argues With McCain on Health Care: ‘What Would You Say’ to Ted Kennedy? – LINK
ABC’s Cokie Roberts: Glenn Beck ‘Corrupting’ Democracy, a ‘Traitor’ to American Values – LINK
Glenn Beck blasts ABC for doctoring clips in smear piece – LINK
ABC Casts Democrats as Profiles in Courage, Republicans as Grief-Exploiting Meanies – LINK
ABC News engages in blatant misrepresentation in anti- TEA Party hit piece – LINK
ABC News Managing Editor: I didn’t even know about the ACORN story – LINK
‘Liberal’ ABC Radio Boss Firing Profitable Conservative Hosts, Hannity Leaves ABC Syndicator – LINK
Howard Kurtz Blasts ABC for Dumping Andrew Breitbart from Election Coverage Because of “Newsroom Uprising” – LINK
A textbook example of media bias. The subtext of the story “smart conservatives agree with Obama” and they push that bias by presenting a partisan view as “the expert’s view”
You might be thinking “Now wait a minute, it was fair because they had Jay Sekulow on”. That sounds good but look at the story again. NBC has Jay Sekulow on for the 29 states opposing ObamaCare, but then they have the Maryland politician who advocates the Obama point of view which is that the commerce clause gives the government unlimited power to control our lives, err I mean the economy [because you cannot control the economy with out controlling people /wink wink, nod nod].
So we have one advocate from each side, OK that is fair so far, but then the “expert” is brought in. We know this because NBC put the word “expert” right under Tom Goldstein’s name. Of course Tom Goldstein has experience covering the court, but he is no more of an expert than Jay Sekulow or Mark Levin. What they don’t tell you is that Tom Goldstein was a lawyer for Al Gore.
When NBC or an elite media outfit looks for a talking head they wish to present as “the experts”, they do not pick an expert at random and ask him “What do you think?”. They find a person they can present as an expert who will say exactly what they want said. This is a very common practice in news rooms all across the country.
Of course ObamaCare is unconstitutional. The Maryland politician says that everyone uses health care so the Commerce Clause covers it. Well everyone eats too, and everyone needs shelter, everyone needs clothes. So was it the intent of the Founding Fathers to have a government that is totally unlimited? ObamaCare is unconstitutional because it takes the entire idea of limited government and tosses it right out the window. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, addressed the idea of reinterpreting a clause in the Constitution to give the federal Government total power.
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.
So where did this crazy idea of a nearly unlimited Commerce Clause come from? Shortly before WWII FDR was not able to advance parts of his socialist progressive plan because the Supreme Court kept striking down laws his party was passing. So FDR threatened to add members to the Supreme Court using Article II of the Constitution to add perhaps a dozen seats to the Supreme Court all filled with cronies. In fear of this the Supreme Court capitulated ” and expanded the Commerce Clause in a way that had never been intended to please FDR. This became known as FDR’s court packing threat.
[Flashback March 2011 (LINK– LINK). Since our Egypt and Libya policy are ending in disaster with the Muslim Brotherhood taking power in both countries, with Christians being slaughtered and in the case of Egypt, being attacked by government armored vehicles, and the Obama administration selling tanks, choppers, small arms, and missiles to Egypt and other countries in the Islamic world, we thought a second look at the editor’s previous coverage of this category is in order. The category list is on the lower right hand pane of the page. – Editor]
I have had this column in my head for over a month, but I resisted posting it because I was using history as a guide along with my knowledge of the Middle East and the Obama Administration to make a trajectory. I had little evidence to go on but my instincts were strong. I ended up being correct and it was a valuable lesson in trusting onesself as a columnist and a person who does hi homework.
While I support the idea of the international community stopping a mad dictator from orchestrating a mass slaughter of his own people when able, we have only seen uprisings in Arab countries where the governments are not associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. There is no freedom in Gaza or in Lebanon since Hezbollah took over and yet there are no democracy, peace and love protests. This did not look spontaneous to me.
On the English web sites of the Muslim Brotherhood they spoke of “peace, love, democracy, and social justice”, while watchdogs reported that on the Arabic web sites, sub groups were saying to get ready to deal with the Christians, infidels and Jews.
The Muslim Brotherhood is making moves to take power in Egypt and the elite media is keeping that pretty hushed in spite of the fact that it was in the NYT. If the Muslim Brotherhood does take over Egypt and Libya, it would mean that the United States under the Obama Administration helped them to do it.
Prof. Niall Ferguson spoke of this very concern on MSNBC – be sure to watch the ENTIRE video:
Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist whose family was close to the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood agrees – LINK
Now we have learned that the rebel commander in Libya fought against the United States in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda is fighting alongside the rebels – LINK. Imagine a Muslim Brotherhood with al-Qaeda that have oil revenue at their disposal.
We have been fooled before. Jimmy Carter actively helped the Mullah’s in Iran take over the country and they too spoke of “peace, love, democracy and social justice”. When they took over the killings, rapes, stonings and suppression of freedoms began. The United States pressured Lebanon to show the Islamists tolerance. As their numbers grew by immigration and they used our Western tolerance as a weapon against them. Then the violence began. Now Hezbollah has taken over the country and freedom in Lebanon is fast coming to an end. They did so using the exact same tactics the Mullah’s used in Iran and the same tactics that Islamists are using in European countries now.
Traditional conservatives like myself have said that we believed that Obama would be the second administration of Jimmy Carter, it seems that we were even more correct than we feared. If the Muslim Brotherhood and its splinter groups like al-Qaeda manage to take over Egypt and Libya with our assistance this could prove to be the biggest disaster since we helped the Iranian regime come to power in 1979.
Why didn’t I say this so directly before? I have been concerned since I noticed the almost simultaneous rumblings of uprisings starting in mid to late January only happening in countries with governments opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood and its associated factions. Other than my noticing that particular coincidence I had no strong evidence to go on to bring to you here at IUSB Vision. I was not confident enough to make a declaration based on my gut feelings and the tiny craps of information I had.
Even after I saw that Prof. Ferguson and Walid Shoebat suspected as I did, at the time it was still a prediction, a suspicion of what they believed might come. After the chaos was over, the largest organized force in these countries is the Muslim Brotherhood. Now the evidence is coming in and it seems we have a real problem.
So lets examine the path we are going down.
Remember when the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) said that the Muslim Brotherhood was a secular organization? – LINK. The DNI was mocked my many including Niall Ferguson for this preposterous testimony. It is like he swallowed the propaganda on the Brotherhood’s English web site and regurgitated it as gospel.
Then Obama came out and said that the Muslim Brotherhood should be a part of the new Egyptian Government.
The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government.
The organization must reject violence and recognize democratic goals if the U.S. is to be comfortable with it taking part in the government, the White House said. But by even setting conditions for the involvement of such nonsecular groups, the administration took a surprise step in the midst of the crisis that has enveloped Egypt for the last week.
/facepalm Iran II here we come…
So Thursday, after the train has left the station, here comes the New York Times to play catch up:
CAIRO — In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.
It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.
As the best organized and most extensive opposition movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an edge in the contest for influence. But what surprises many is its link to a military that vilified it.
“There is evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military early on,” said Elijah Zarwan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. “It makes sense if you are the military — you want stability and people off the street. The Brotherhood is one address where you can go to get 100,000 people off the street.”
There is a battle consuming Egypt about the direction of its revolution, and the military council that is now running the country is sending contradictory signals. On Wednesday, the council endorsed a plan to outlaw demonstrations and sit-ins.[Yup real democratic – Iran & Lebanon here we come – Editor] Then, a few hours later, the public prosecutor announced that the former interior minister and other security officials would be charged in the killings of hundreds during the protests.
Egyptians are searching for signs of clarity in such declarations, hoping to discern the direction of a state led by a secretive military council brought to power by a revolution based on demands for democracy, rule of law and an end to corruption.
“We are all worried,” said Amr Koura, 55, a television producer, reflecting the opinions of the secular minority. “The young people have no control of the revolution anymore. It was evident in the last few weeks when you saw a lot of bearded people taking charge. The youth are gone.”
Suckers.
Fool me once shame on you (Iran). Fool me twice shame on me (Lebanon). Fool me three times and you’re a far left Democrat (Egypt). Fool me four times and you’re a progressive secular leftist who writes for the Washington Post. That’s right folks, even after all we have seen, the far left in the media are still fooled (or shall I say duplicitous). The Washington Post had a piece today saying that we should do the same in Syria – LINK. I see talking heads on the news say that we are supporting lawful democratic governments to take over. What nonsense. The ties between the radical left and Islamists are no secret, especially on campus.
On a side note, Joe Biden once said that if President Bush took us to war without consulting Congress he would move to impeach him. Of course the Senate cannot impeach, another gaffe the elite media ignored, but now his administration has done just that in Libya.
UPDATE I – Let us be very clear just who it is that we are likely helping to take over a country. This LINK will take you to a video of members of a different islamic sect being stoned and brutally murdered by a large group of Indonesian Islamists shouting Allah Akbar. This was done under police supervision according to the up-loader. I have the video cloned in case it is removed. The video is horrible and is not for the timid. Consider yourself warned.
EGYPTIAN WOMEN PROTESTERS FORCED TO TAKE ‘VIRGINITY TESTS’
23 March 2011
Amnesty International has today called on the Egyptian authorities to investigate serious allegations of torture, including forced ‘virginity tests’, inflicted by the army on women protesters arrested in Tahrir Square earlier this month.
After army officers violently cleared the square of protesters on 9 March, at least 18 women were held in military detention. Amnesty International has been told by women protesters that they were beaten, given electric shocks, subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then forced to submit to ‘virginity checks’ and threatened with prostitution charges.
‘Virginity tests’ are a form of torture when they are forced or coerced.
“Forcing women to have ‘virginity tests’ is utterly unacceptable. Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women,” said Amnesty International. “All members of the medical profession must refuse to take part in such so-called ‘tests’.”
20-year-old Salwa Hosseini told Amnesty International that after she was arrested and taken to a military prison in Heikstep, she was made, with the other women, to take off all her clothes to be searched by a female prison guard, in a room with two open doors and a window. During the strip search, Salwa Hosseini said male soldiers were looking into the room and taking pictures of the naked women.
The women were then subjected to ‘virginity tests’ in a different room by a man in a white coat. They were threatened that “those not found to be virgins” would be charged with prostitution.
According to information received by Amnesty International, one woman who said she was a virgin but whose test supposedly proved otherwise was beaten and given electric shocks.
“Women and girls must be able to express their views on the future of Egypt and protest against the government without being detained, tortured, or subjected to profoundly degrading and discriminatory treatment,” said Amnesty International.
“The army officers tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to watch and photograph what was happening, with the implicit threat that the women could be at further risk of harm if the photographs were made public.”
Journalist Rasha Azeb was also detained in Tahrir Square and told Amnesty International that she was handcuffed, beaten and insulted.
Following their arrest, the 18 women were initially taken to a Cairo Museum annex where they were reportedly handcuffed, beaten with sticks and hoses, given electric shocks in the chest and legs, and called “prostitutes”.
Rasha Azeb could see and hear the other detained women being tortured by being given electric shocks throughout their detention at the museum. She was released several hours later with four other men who were also journalists, but 17 other women were transferred to the military prison in Heikstep
Notice how Clinton says that it will work because it means that everyone in the business will have to raise their prices the same so it all works out; no it doesn’t. Clinton is engaging in a false assumption that destroys smaller competition and benefits the biggest players in a market.
Cain is explaining that “big pizza” has a higher base percentage of profit, based on both volume and on economies of scale, that gives them lower costs and higher aggregate profitability compared to smaller competitors. While Godfathers has a profitability of 1.5%, “big pizza” has a profitability that is likely close to 6%.
So what does this mean? If Clinton gets his way “big pizza” will not raise their prices at all, on the contrary they will have a sale and keep that sale on till smaller outfits like GodFathers who are forced to raise prices and reduce service via layoffs can’t compete and shut down. At first the barely profitable stores close, then the better ones. The result is more and more markets where “big pizza” progresses its virtual monopoly in each market. With that competition taken out of the picture “big pizza” can charge whatever it likes and prices go up, and the pressure to keep quality up starts to evaporate.
Big business loves big government, which is why big business loves domestic taxes and regulation because it keeps the small and medium-sized competition out of the competition. It also causes inflation, so ultimately it is you who pays and the poor who are hardest hit. (Big business often gets loopholes written in the laws for themselves such as Nancy Pelosi trying to get a part of the tuna industry exempted from the minimum wage law).
There are many bad sections and power grabs in the Obama “Jobs Bill”. We will be elaborating on them soon, but in general it does six things that will affect most people.
1 – Obama wants to continue the payroll tax rates which shows no evidence of creating a single job. It has a small impact on disposable income but it also further endangers Social Security.
2 – Extend unemployment benefits.
3 – Obama wants almost half a trillion dollars in new deficit spending to pay for more green jobs stimulus money that has not created long-term jobs; much of which was spent on cronies and Solyndra like boondoggles.
At the same time Obama wants to:
1 – Eliminate the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction
2 – Eliminate Charitable Interest Deductions
3 – Eliminate the partial deduction for state and local taxes.
These three changes to our current tax code would be devastating to charities, the housing market and the economy. It would also, interestingly enough, devastate States ran by progressive Democrats as they have the highest state and local taxes. States ran by Republicans would be a much better deal. Obama’s “Jobs Bill” would make Canada an even better deal as their version of the TEA Party is rewriting Canada’s tax code to a pro growth, jobs friendly policy. This is why even most Democrats are not pushing the bill.
News outlets are turning the primary into American Idol by trying these tricks to set up conflict, 30 second answers etc. Newt was right to chastise those Fox News reporters for this.
Are the issues of the day worth more than a 30-60 second soundbite?
Some of my conservative friends are being manipulated by the “American Idoling” of the presentation, and that only serves to get Obama re-elected.
You have two choices. Stop “reacting” and start thinking OR you can be played like a Stradivarius by every leftist propagandist who knows how to pluck your conservative heartstrings.
Your heart is in the right place, but in the age of Saul Alinsky that is no longer good enough.
From time to time we all run into someone with the “union” mentality; meaning that someone believes the conspiracy theories put out by the neo-Marxist union leadership in their news letters. Rarely do I run into someone, even a union member, who truly believes those conspiracy theories and takes them to heart with near total abandon.
Recently I ran into such a person who went on an emotional tirade almost yelling that “All Republicans oppose Obama because they are racist and I don’t care what anybody has to say or show me I have seen it too many times” (obviously from all of the other times in our history when we had Saul Alinsky inspired black presidents) . I was a bit astonished by this because rarely will someone just up and declare that he has a “don’t confuse me with the facts” attitude and be proud of it. At that point I realized that any rational discussion with this person was futile and I let them complete their rant, said “take care now” and left.
Aside from getting such a person to agree to a strictly formal Lincoln-Douglass structured conversation any attempt at rationality with said person is hopeless.
I could have said a few things such as:
Oh I see the Republicans (not to mention almost all independents) opposed ObamaCare for the same reason they opposed HillaryCare, because Hillary is black.
Or:
If only Joe Biden would have been the one proposing “BidenCare”, cap & trade energy taxes, tanking our domestic oil and coal production to drive up energy prices, an EPA that is out of control, abuses of power with ‘Chicago Style’ financing and kick backs with Obama’s other chosen energy buddies (like Solyndra) every Republican and Independent would have supported it overwhelmingly…. or not.
Or:
All of those who voted for Obama in 2008 and have turned against his policies now and or voted for the GOP in 2010 are somehow ‘racists after the fact’. And all of those Jewish Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 only to vote against his candidate in the recent New York special House election, as a protest vote against Obama, weren’t racist then, but they are today.
Or:
For a racist my family which includes Jews, Blacks, and Asians, finds me to be as warm and accepting as anyone (so do my homosexual friends. I supported GoProud at CPAC).
Of course such inconvenient facts would have just enraged the man even further beyond his current hostility. There will always be people who are totally demoralized by conspiracy theories, envy, class warfare emotionalism, etc. Any rational discussion with such a person is futile. It is best to just let them rant because most normal people are easily smart enough to see it for what it is.
If Herman Cain becomes president (who I would be thrilled to vote for over Obama) perhaps my default response to anyone who has even the slightest critique about President Cain will be a reactionary charge of racism. Herman Cain (who by the way is a Black American with “slave blood” as they say) just won the Southern CPAC Straw Poll in Florida which is the second largest conservative event in the country.
More truth than the demoralized can handle – LINK.
The taxes Democrats propose to “soak the rich” always seem to miss those who they demagogue for not paying their fair share. They have been “soaking the rich” for decades and keep missing the target. Why?
Veronique de Rugy is one of the most respected economists alive today.
Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton comments from June 2011:
[Note – some people who are just reading the first few paragraphs are assuming that we are endorsing any form of class warfare, actually it is quite the opposite. Class Warfare is foolish because it not only causes wealth to flee, but it eventually destroys wealth. The opposite of poverty is wealth. One cannot be against poverty and against wealth at the same time as it is as perfect an economic paradox as is possible. Class warfare spreads poverty and that is what it is designed to do, because a prospering middle class whose wealth is growing doesn’t a host of government dependence programs.]
UPDATE 10-10-2002 – I have repeatedly talked about “Consolidation” as Obama’s economic theory. Dick Morris is on Sean Hannity right now saying that Obama wants to have one big union, one big corporation in each industry, along with one big government. He is describing Obama’s merging of Corporatism and Socialism. “The left voted for socialism and got Goldman Sachs”. Anyone mind of I just gloat for a minute 🙂 I started saying this over a year ago on my old college blog. We try to always bring you the cutting edge. ]
This came as absolutely no surprise to me. As with most taxes that are “designed to target the rich” they do no such thing and the “alternative minimum tax” is no different.
The Democratic Party leadership pretends to be interested in genuine class warfare. You hear President Obama talk about “taxing millionaires and billionaires” yet the very policies he and much of the Democratic leadership advocate do no such thing.
Democrats have not been interested in taxing the genuinely rich and aren’t today. John Kerry made $5,072,000 in 2003 and had a total federal tax burden of 12.34%. The very wealthy enjoy a 60,000 page tax code that is filled with exceptions. Much of the income those like John and Teresa Kerry receive is defined as “unearned income” or earnings that are not taxable at the wage earner rate so even if the regular income tax rate was increased to 50% the percentage the Kerry’s would pay would only go up by a couple of points, if that.
Yet small business “sub-s corporations” (most domestic small businesses that have between 1-200 employees) are taxed at the wage earner rate and would be devastated by a 50% rate. Small businesses do most of the hiring in this country. Would someone care to explain how Democrats can claim to be for workers while being against their employers?
We need to be mindful of how a politician defines “The Rich”. I have a close friend who owns a small car repair business. My friend qualified as “The Rich” because his small business is an s-corp that brings in more than 250k per year. Out of that 250K he pays federal and state taxes, his employees, the payroll tax matching, rent, equipment, insurance, parts to put on cars, consumables such as motor oil, advertising etc. What is left is what he gets for his family. He drives an old Chevy truck because that is what he can afford.
The truth is that very few people make over $250k in taxable wages. President Obama talks about taxing billionaires and millionaires (defined as those who make over $250k), but the way the tax code works the wealth of George Soros like billionaires is almost perfectly protected. If George Soros and the Kerry’s paid a percentage like small businesses must, who would fund the Tides Foundation and the Democrat’s 527 groups?
As you may be aware, Google made $3.1 BILLION last year and had a federal tax burden of 2.4%. Google throws fund-raising galas for Obama and the Democrats and have given the Democrats massive donations. Where are the “liberals” condemning the Google Corps of the world? How about GE, whose former CEO now works at the White House, earned 14.2 billion dollars and not only did they have a tax bill of zero, they received taxpayer subsidies.
Yet Obama has waged a rhetorical war against the Chamber of Commerce and who do they represent, you guessed it, most small and medium-sized domestic businesses. Obama blasted the Chamber of Commerce for daring to oppose his plan to tax such businesses at a rate of 39.6%.
[Note: In some cases capital gains is double taxed in that the corporate income tax is paid before hand on the same money. Some connected corporations pay next to zero tax anyways, and if the company is overseas the corporate income tax is usually less and is paid to another country. Once again it is the case of the medium sized corporation here in America that gets creamed because we have the highest corporate income tax in the industrialized world and those American companies do not have the resources to get goodies in the tax code or how it is enforced. Japan and several other countries have lowered their corporate income tax dramatically so now the US is the highest. – Editor]
Policies such as ObamaCare, tax increases, and other actions that cause regulatory uncertainty all but force the producers and investors to stop moving their money domestically. They have the option of just parking it or investing it in China, all of which has the effect of transferring the tax burden away from the wealthy onto the working poor and middle class. Democrats are not interested in taxing the wealthy; they are interested in taxing the domestic producer class.
This brings us to Norton’s First Law: big Business loves big government because big government taxes and regulates the small and medium-sized competition out of the competition. This is a staple of modern “Alinsky” style Democrat strategy. This process is called “consolidation”. The goal of leftist philosophy is to control the wealth “rationally” from above so that less is “left to chance”. With all of these small businesses creating wealth that is chaos which is difficult to control. Through consolidation more of the wealth that is created flows through large corporations that are easier to control.
The Obama bipartisan deficit commission was tasked with the challenge of how to raise revenue, grow the economy and pay off the debt. After an exhaustive study the commission concluded that lowering tax rates, lowering the corporate tax rate and simplifying the tax code to encourage tax compliance, and to encourage more wealth to come back home (so it at least can be taxed), was the most prudent course of action. Reagan would have been pleased with those recommendations.
If you wonder why so many jobs have moved overseas and in some cases to places where governments are corrupt and workers are really exploited; now you are seeing the other side of the coin. The private sector and the jobs that go with it cannot be expected to pay for a government that costs $4 trillion a year and hope to remain competitive. If you want to see demand for American labor to rise, start by making it more economical for jobs to come home.
UPDATE – The Obama Administration is using a variation of this very theme that I wrote about last June in it’s recent effort to raise taxes. Rest assured in the 6o,000 plus pages of the tax code that those who are the Democrats biggest donors will not be impacted greatly. As we have seen with Solyndra, the Stimulus Bill, and the other spending in this administration, much of the spending is done for the purpose of Chicago style kickbacks. One can be most confident that taxes will continue to follow that same path just as the so called Alternative Minimum Tax has.
UPDATE II – Warren Buffet opposes Obama’s new “Buffet Rule” campaign trial balloon because he sees it for what it really is. Real Clear Politics (follow the link to see the video):
CNBC: “Are you happy that the way it is being described. Is the program that the White House has presented a million dollars and over your program? ”
Warren Buffett: “Well, the precise program which will — I don’t know what their program will be. My program would be on the very high incomes that are taxed very low. Not just high incomes. Somebody making $50 million a year playing baseball, his taxes won’t change. Make $50 million a year appearing on television, his income won’t change. But, if they make a lot of money and pay a very low tax rate, like me, it would be changed by a minimum tax that would only bring them up to what other people pay.”
CNBC: “Does that mean you disagree with the president’s new jobs proposal which would be paid for by raising taxes on households with incomes of over $250,000.”
Buffett: “That’s another program that I won’t be discussing. My program is to have a tax on ultra-rich people who are very tax rates. Not just all rich people. It would probably apply to 50,000 people in a population of 300 million.”
Indeed. There is a small group of people who greatly benefit from the way the tax code works which is only a small portion of who most people would consider wealthy. Among these people are among the largest political donors in the country.
I am glad that Buffet clarified (read changed his tune just slightly) on this issue because the way his close friend President Obama had presented this it was going to just as we had described it earlier, a new tax that would barely touch him but sock smaller competition and CNBC called him out on it:
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 