Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.
On Benghazi, Obama's confidence men think Americans are an easy mark…
Confidence men know that their victim -- "the mark" as he has been called -- is eventually going to realize that he has been cheated. But it makes a big difference whether he realizes it immediately, and goes to the police, or realizes it after the confidence man is long gone.
So part of the confidence racket is creating a period of uncertainty, during which the victim is not yet sure of what is happening. This delaying process has been called "cooling out the mark."
The same principle applies in politics. When the accusations that led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton first surfaced, he flatly denied them all. Then, as the months passed, the truth came out -- but slowly, bit by bit. One of Clinton's own White House aides later called it "telling the truth slowly."
By the time the whole truth came out, it was called "old news," and the clever phrase now was that we should "move on."
It was a successful "cooling out" of the public, keeping them in uncertainty so long that, by the time the whole truth came out, there was no longer the same outrage as if the truth had suddenly come out all at once. Without the support of an outraged public, the impeachment of President Clinton fizzled out in the Senate.
We are currently seeing another "cooling out" process, growing out of the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi on September 11th this year.
The belated release of State Department e-mails shows that the Obama administration knew, while the attack on the American consulate was still underway, that it was a coordinated, armed terrorist attack. They were getting reports from those inside the consulate who were under attack, as well as surveillance pictures from a camera on an American drone overhead.
About an hour before the attack, the scene outside was calm enough for the American ambassador to accompany a Turkish official to the gates of the consulate to say goodbye. This could hardly have happened if there were protesting mobs there.
Why then did both President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice keep repeating the story that this was a spontaneous protest riot against an anti-Islamic video in America?
The White House knew the facts -- but they knew that the voting public did not. And it mattered hugely whether the facts became known to the public before or after the election. What the White House needed was a process of "cooling out" the voters, keeping them distracted or in uncertainty as long as possible.
Not only did the Obama administration keep repeating the false story about an anti-Islamic video being the cause of a riot that turned violent, the man who produced that video was tracked down and arrested, creating a media distraction.
All this kept the video story front and center, with the actions and inactions of the Obama administration kept in the background.
The White House had to know that it was only a matter of time before the truth would come out. But time was what mattered, with an election close at hand. The longer they could stretch out the period of distraction and uncertainty -- "cooling out" the voters -- the better. Once the confidence man in the White House was reelected, it would be politically irrelevant what facts came out.
As the Obama administration's video story began to slowly unravel, their earlier misstatements were blamed on "the fog of war" that initially obscures many events. But there was no such "fog of war" in this case. The Obama administration knew what was happening while it was happening.
They didn't know all the details -- and we may never know all the details -- but they knew enough to know that this was no protest demonstration that got out of hand.
From the time it took office, the Obama administration has sought to suppress the very concept of a "war on terror" or the terrorists' war on us. The painful farce of calling the Fort Hood murders "workplace violence," instead of a terrorist attack in our midst, shows how far the Obama administration would go to downplay the dangers of Islamic extremist terrorism.
The killing of Osama bin Laden fed the pretense that the terrorism threat had been beaten. But the terrorists' attack in Libya exposed that fraud -- and required another fraud to try to "cool out" the voters until after election day.
About the Author:
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
Share this information with as many people as you can in the next 24-hours (before they vote) about what really happened in Benghazi and about the cover-up that is going on…
“I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
Interesting how Obama purposely gave the voters as little information about himself, his background and his relationships or about his plans as president as possible, if he were to be elected, yet now Team Obama is hounding Mitt Romney for full disclosure on everything, over and above requirements, and for details on his future plans after being elected. A little odd and a lot hypocritical wouldn’t you say?!?
LYNCHINGS of ‘Conservative’ BLACKS by the LAMESTREAM MEDIA BIGOTS continues: Herman Cain, Allen West, Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Clarence Thomas... Why this is happening (again):
Three recent polls conducted by Fox News, CNN and CBS News have Herman leading the race to the White House
An exclusive POLITICO report published Sunday night alleges that at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about multiple instances of inappropriate behavior exhibited by Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain during his tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. Cain’s campaign has since denied allegations.
Sources told POLITICO that the women complained that Cain had exhibited sexually suggestive behavior towards them, and that they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts in the five-figure range to leave the association. The payouts were reportedly made on the agreement that the women would not speak about their departures.
A Cain spokesman told POLITICO that the candidate indicated to campaign officials that he was “vaguely familiar” with the charges and that the restaurant association’s general counsel had resolved the matter.
POLITICO approached Cain in person on the sidewalk Sunday morning while the candidate was leaving the Washington bureau of CBS news following an interview on “Face the Nation.” POLITICO writes of the tense confrontation that progressed:
“He was then asked, ‘Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?’
He breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, ‘Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?’”
POLITICO claims to have known about the allegations against Cain for weeks, and has put together accounts of what happened by “talking to a lengthy roster of former board members, current and past staff and others familiar with the workings of the trade group at the time Cain was there.”
After questions from POLITICO regarding the allegations, Cain campaign vice president for communications emailed the publication on October 24, writing that any dispute about Cain’s conduct at the restaurant association “was settled amicably among all parties many years ago.”
Cain was president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association from late 1996 to mid-1999. Several board members of the National Restaurant Association mentioned in POLITICO’s story told the publication that they had never heard about any complaints regarding Cain making unwanted advances, and said that such behavior would be out of character based off of their experiences with the executive.
In a statement to The Associated Press Sunday night, Cain‘s campaign said that the POLITICO report isn’t true and represents unfair attacks.
Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon said the political press was “dredging up thinly sourced allegations” from Cain’s tenure leading the trade group in the 1990s. Gordon said the report includes “unsubstantiated personal attacks” and said the press is “casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts.”
Remember what they did to Clarence Thomas? Here we go again.
Someone at long last has had the courage to tell the plain, honest truth about race.
After mobs of young blacks rampaged through Philadelphia committing violence -- as similar mobs have rampaged through Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee and other places -- Philadelphia's black mayor, Michael A. Nutter, ordered a police crackdown and lashed out at the whole lifestyle of those who did such things.
"Pull up your pants and buy a belt 'cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt," he said. "If you walk into somebody's office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won't hire you? They don't hire you 'cause you look like you're crazy," the mayor said. He added: "You have damaged your own race."
While this might seem like it is just plain common sense, what Mayor Nutter said undermines a whole vision of the world that has brought fame, fortune and power to race hustlers in politics, the media and academia. Any racial disparities in hiring can only be due to racism and discrimination, according to the prevailing vision, which reaches from street corner demagogues to the august chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Just to identify the rioters and looters as black is a radical departure, when mayors, police chiefs and the media in other cities report on these outbreaks of violence without mentioning the race of those who are doing these things. The Chicago Tribune even made excuses for failing to mention race when reporting on violent attacks by blacks on whites in Chicago.
Such excuses might make sense if the same politicians and media talking heads were not constantly mentioning race when denouncing the fact that a disproportionate number of young black men are being sent to prison.
The prevailing social dogma is that disparities in outcomes between races can only be due to disparities in how these races are treated. In other words, there cannot possibly be any differences in behavior.
But if black and white Americans had exactly the same behavior patterns, they would be the only two groups on this planet that are the same.
The Chinese minority in Malaysia has long been more successful and more prosperous than the Malay majority, just as the Indians in Fiji have long been more successful and more prosperous than the indigenous Fijians. At various places and times throughout history, the same could be said of the Armenians in Turkey, the Lebanese in Sierra Leone, the Parsees in India, the Japanese in Brazil, and numerous others
There are similar disparities within particular racial or ethnic groups. Even this late in history, I have had northern Italians explain to me why they are not like southern Italians. In Australia, Jewish leaders in both Sydney and Melbourne went to great lengths to tell me why and how the Jews are different in these two cities.
In the United States, despite the higher poverty level among blacks than among whites, the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994. The disparities within the black community are huge, both in behavior and in outcomes.
Nevertheless, the dogma persists that differences between groups can only be due to the way others treat them or to differences in the way others perceive them in "stereotypes."
All around the country, people in politics and the media have been tip-toeing around the fact that violent attacks by blacks on whites in public places are racially motivated, even when the attackers themselves use anti-white invective and mock the victims they leave lying on the streets bleeding.
This is not something to ignore or excuse. It is something to be stopped. Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia seems to be the first to openly recognize this.
This needs to be done for the sake of both black and white Americans -- and even for the sake of the hoodlums. They have set out on a path that leads only downward for themselves.
Although much of the media have their antennae out to pick up anything that might be construed as racism against blacks, they resolutely ignore even the most blatant racism by blacks against others.
That includes a pattern of violent attacks on whites in public places in Chicago, Denver, New York, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Kansas City, as well as blacks in schools beating up Asian classmates -- for years -- in New York and Philadelphia.
These attacks have been accompanied by explicitly racist statements by the attackers, so it is not a question of having to figure out what the motivation is. There has also been rioting and looting by these young hoodlums.
Yet blacks have no monopoly on these ugly and malicious episodes. Remarkably similar things are being done by lower-class whites in England. Anybody reading "Life at the Bottom" by Theodore Dalrymple will recognize the same barbaric and self-destructive patterns among people with the same attitudes, even though their skin color is different.
Anyone reading today's headline stories about young hoodlums turning the streets of London into scenes of shattered and burning chaos, complete with violence, will discover the down side of the brotherhood of man.
While the history and the races are different, what is the same in both countries are the social policies and social attitudes long promoted by the intelligentsia and welfare state politicians.
A recent study in England found 352,000 households in which nobody had ever worked. Moreover, two-thirds of the adults in those households said that they didn't want to work. As in America, such people feel both "entitled" and aggrieved.
In both countries, those who have achieved less have been taught by the educational system, by the media and by politicians on the left that they have a grievance against those who have achieved more. As in the United States, they feel a fierce sense of resentment against strangers who have done nothing to them, and lash out violently against those strangers.
During the riots, looting and violence in England, a young woman was quoted as saying that this showed "the rich" and the police that "we can do whatever we want." Among the things done during these riots was forcing apparently prosperous looking people to strip naked in the streets.
The need to bring people down in humiliation that marked the mass violence against the Armenians in Turkey nearly a century ago, and that later marked the Nazi persecutions of the Jews in Germany, is still alive and well in people who resent those who have achieved more than they have.
A milder but revealing episode in England some time back involved burglars who were not content to simply steal things but also vented their hostility by scrawling on the wall: "RICH BASTARDS."
In the United States, young black thugs attacked whites with baseball bats and took their belongings in Denver, while voicing their hatred of whites. But it is all a very similar attitude to what has been found in other countries and other times.
Today's politically correct intelligentsia will tell you that the reason for this alienation and lashing out is that there are great disparities and inequities that need to be addressed.
But such barbarism was not nearly as widespread two generations ago, in the middle of the 20th century. Were there no disparities or inequities then? Actually there were more.
What is different today is that there has been -- for decades -- a steady drumbeat of media and political hype about differences in income, education and other outcomes, blaming these differences on oppression against those with fewer achievements or lesser prosperity.
Moreover, there has been a growing tolerance of lawlessness and a growing intolerance toward the idea that people who are lagging need to take steps to raise themselves up, instead of trying to pull others down.
All this exalts those who talk such lofty talk. But others pay the price -- and ultimately that includes even those who take the road toward barbarism.
Credit card fraud is a serious problem. But race-card fraud is an even bigger problem.
Playing the race card takes many forms. Judge Charles Pickering, a federal judge in Mississippi who defended the civil rights of blacks for years and defied the Ku Klux Klan back when that was dangerous, was depicted as a racist when he was nominated for a federal appellate judgeship.
No one even mistakenly thought he was a racist. The point was simply to discredit him for political reasons- and it worked.
This year's target is the Tea Party. When leading Democrats, led by a smirking Nancy Pelosi, made their triumphant walk on Capitol Hill, celebrating their passage of a bill in defiance of public opinion, Tea Party members on the scene protested.
All this was captured on camera and the scene was played on television. What was not captured on any of the cameras and other recording devices on the scene was anybody using racist language, as has been charged by those playing the race card.
When you realize how many media people were there, and how many ordinary citizens carry around recording devices of one sort or another, it is remarkable- indeed, unbelievable- that racist remarks were made and yet were not captured by anybody.
The latest attack on the Tea Party movement, by Ben Jealous of the NAACP, has once again played the race card. Like the proverbial lawyer who knows his case is weak, he shouts louder.
This is not the first time that an organization with an honorable and historic mission has eventually degenerated into a tawdry racket. But that an organization like the NAACP, after years of fighting against genuine racism, should now be playing the game of race-card fraud is especially painful to see.
Some critics of the Tea Party have seized upon banners carried at one of its rallies that compared Obama with Hitler and Stalin. Extreme? Yes. But there was nothing racist about it, since extreme comparisons have been made about politicians of every race, color, creed, nationality, ideology and sexual preference.
Some Obama supporters have long regarded any criticism of him as racism. But that they should have to resort to such a banner to bolster their case shows how desperate they are for any evidence.
Among people who voted for President Barack Obama in 2008, those who are likely to be most disappointed are those who thought that they were voting for a new post-racial era. There was absolutely nothing in Obama's past to lead to any such expectation, and much to suggest the exact opposite. But the man's rhetoric and demeanor during the election campaign enabled this and many other illusions to flourish.
Still, it was an honest mistake of the kind that decent people have often made when dealing with people whose agendas are not constrained by decency, but only by what they think they can get away with.
On race, as on other issues, different people have radically different views of Obama, depending on whether they judge him by what he says or by what he does.
As Obama's own books point out, he has for years cultivated a talent for saying things that people will find congenial.
You want bipartisanship and an end to bickering in Washington? He will say that he wants bipartisanship and an end to bickering in Washington. Then he will shut Republicans out of the decision-making process and respond to their suggestions by reminding them that he won the election. A famous writer- Ring Lardner, I believe- once wrote: "'Shut up,' he explained."
You want a government that is open instead of secretive? He will say that. He will promise to post proposed legislation on the Internet long enough for everyone to read it and know what is in it before there is a vote.
In practice, however, he has rushed massive bills through Congress too fast for anybody- even the members of Congress- to know what was in those bills.
Racial issues are more of the same. You want a government where all citizens are treated alike, regardless of race or ethnicity? Obama will say that.
Then he will advocate appointing judges with "empathy" for particular segments of the population, such as racial minorities. "Empathy" is just a pretty word for the ugly reality of bias.
Obama's first nomination of a Supreme Court justice was a classic example of someone with "empathy" for some racial groups, but not others. As a Circuit Court judge, Sonia Sotomayor voted to dismiss a case involving white firefighters who had been denied the promotions for which they qualified, because not enough blacks or Hispanics passed the same test that they did.
A fellow Hispanic judge protested the way the white firefighters' case was dismissed, rather than adjudicated. Moreover, the Supreme Court not only took the case, it ruled in favor of the firefighters.
Obama's injecting himself into a local police matter in Massachusetts, despite admitting that he didn't know the facts, to say that a white policeman was in the wrong in arresting a black professor who was a friend of Obama, was more of the same. So is Obama's Justice Department overlooking blatant voter intimidation by thugs who happen to be black.
There is not now, nor has there ever been, anything post-racial about Obama, except for the people who voted for him in the mistaken belief that he shared their desire to be post-racial. When he leaves office, especially if it is after one term, he will leave this country more racially polarized than before.
Hopefully, he may also leave the voters wiser, though sadder, after they learn from painful experience that you can't judge politicians by their rhetoric, or ignore their past because of your hopes for the future. Voters may even wise up to race card fraud.
Examiner Columnist Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, one of the most respected voices or our time and is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate, Author of The Housing Boom and Bust
Many American, if only subconsciously, voted for Barack Hussein Obama in the hope that his election would finally put an end to the racial tensions in America. Instead racial tensions have not been higher in decades than they are now with Obama at the helm. And the reason for that is Obama and the Progressive left’s consistent use of the race card since he had been in office. Obama and his minions are the ones who have been divisive and derisive… not white main street America, not the tea party and not republicans. Here is just another example:
Sheila Jackson Lee’s question and insane if you use any logic and facts at all and her insinuations are race driven. Nancy Pelosi’s support of Lee’s statements and ideologically driven, for she is one of the most ideologically left politicians on the Hill. The left is obsessed with race and using it as a tool to control and divide people for their purposes and they are rewriting history to serve their purposes. The race card, divide and conquer, multiculturalism and political correctness are all tools of the division and of the left!
The reason Obama’s and buddy Geithner’s latest debt ceiling increase request was such a fight has nothing to do with the fact that Obama is half black, but rather that he has doubled our national debt in 18 months and is bankrupting our country with his spending and ideology.
Star Parker, a black author, former GOP Congressional candidate, and political activist, radio personality and speaker, who used to be a welfare recipient, will tell you (and often does) that the whole divide and conquer philosophy and keeping minorities on the government dole is part of the progressive left’s plan and ideology and we all bought into it…. blacks and whites!
‘A SLAVE HOLDER NAMED THOMAS JEFFERSON’: IS SMITHSONIAN‘S NEW ’RACE’ EXHIBIT - FAIR TO FOUNDING FATHER? HARDLY!!!
Which major government-funded U.S. museum currently features an exhibit that classifies Thomas Jefferson as simply “a slave holder”?
The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History currently features an exhibit titled "Race: Are We So Different?"
That would be the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, located in the heart of nation’s capital.
Developed by the American Anthropological Association, “Race: Are We So Different” offers “an unprecedented look at race and racism in the United States,” according to the Smithsonian’s website.
The Blaze visited the exhibit and found a couple of things that might surprise you.
A five-minute video at the front of the hall sets up the visitor’s experience, which in addition to describing Christopher Columbus as someone who only “colonized and conquered” the natives he encountered, refers to Jefferson merely as a “slave holder”:
“Race,” the narrator says, “is a powerful idea that was invented by society.”
“Many of the ideas we now associate with race originated during the European era of exploration. Europeans like Christopher Columbus traveled overseas and encountered and then colonized and conquered peoples in Africa, Asia and the Americas who looked, talked and acted much differently from them.
“In the American colonies, the first laborers were European indentured servants. When African laborers were forcibly brought to Virginia beginning in 1619, status was defined by wealth and religion, not by physical characteristics such as skin color. But this would change.
“By 1776 when “All men are created equal” was written into the Declaration of Independence by a slave holder named Thomas Jefferson, a democratic nation was born with a major contradiction about race at its core. As our new nation asserted its independence from European tyranny, blacks and American Indians were viewed as less than human and not deserving of the same liberties as whites.”
A display in another part of the exhibit features a historical timeline of slavery. The entry for the year 1784 states: “Thomas Jefferson, future U.S. president and likely the father of at least one of the slaves he owned, publishes ‘Notes on the State of Virginia.’” It quotes Jefferson’s writing, where he posits whether blacks are a distinct, inferior race from whites and if that would be an obstacle to their emancipation.
Jefferson did of course own slaves — hundreds throughout his lifetime. But his feelings on slavery were also much more complex than the exhibit suggests — in other writings he called it “an abominable crime” and “moral depravity.” He drafted Virginia’s 1778 law banning the importation of enslaved Africans and separately proposed slavery be outlawed in the new Northwest territories.
But “Race: Are We So Different?” does not cover any of that. None of the exhibit’s written displays examines these nuances; the only other details offered are on a looped video with a historian who says Jefferson knew it was “a massive contradiction” to both own slaves while professing the “lofty ideals” of America — a brief distinction that is easy to miss.
When contacted by The Blaze, Kelly Carnes of the Natural History Museum‘s press office said she could not speak to the exhibit’s content because it was not created by the Smithsonian. Damon Dozier of the American Anthropological Association did not respond to requests for comment.
At the end of the day, a casual Smithsonian visitor is likely to come away from one of the nation’s preeminent museums thinking that one of the Founding Fathers was truly nothing more than a racist slave owner — and remember, since it’s a government-funded museum, you as a taxpayer are paying for it.
Other features of note:
A display titled “Racism’s effects on health“ says ”numerous studies have linked the stress of racism on African Americans to high blood pressure, adding evidence to the claims that racism contributes to the high rates of hypertension among them.“ It adds that racism may also affect health through ”limited access to nutritious food and safe environments for exercise; increased exposure to environmental toxins; reduced quality of health care.”
A display about the history of affirmative action in the U.S. declares, “The legacy of white privilege still runs far ahead of efforts to compensate for it.” It features a note about two 2003 Supreme Court affirmative action rulings, which it says upheld “the limited use of race as a factor in reviewing student [university] applications.” While Grutter v. Bollinger did uphold the use of race for admissions, the ruling in the second case, Gratz v. Bollinger, actually held that the use of simply assigning “points” to someone based on their race was unconstitutional. Beside the display’s text is a photograph of the 2003 court, including Clarence Thomas, the sole African American justice. Thomas has long maintained his views opposing affirmative action, something nowhere to be found on the display.
You can take a virtual tour of the exhibit here. “Race: Are We So Different?” will be on display at the Smithsonian through Jan. 2. 2012
They Who Live by the Race Card Die by the Race Card
Due to Obama's declining poll numbers, Democrat tongues loosened by cocktails at parties are quietly suggesting,"Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could primary Obama out with Hillary? Darn it, we can't because Obama is black!"
I say, "Hallelujah -- a perfect example of divine justice." They who live by the race card die by the race card.
Almost three years ago, the Democrats offered their equivalent of a Trojan Horse to America in the form of a shiny, new, extremely well-crafted, beautiful black man. Its mega-internal speakers broadcast a hypnotic message, heavily reverbed to create a godlike effect and looped 24/7, promising "Hope and Change."
A "perfect storm" of circumstances led to America's enthusiastic embrace of the Democrats' ebony idol Trojan Horse: white guilt, black racism, and perhaps even the popularity of the American Idol TV show. Obama was the first "rock star" American Ebony Idol presidential candidate.
Democrats were elated by their good fortune.
Obama would be the key to implementing all of their liberal-academia, utopia-producing theories, his black skin insulating him from any and all opposition. Oppose Obama? You're racist!
The Democrats keep their R-for-racist branding iron red-hot and ready to apply swift retribution to any feisty, uppity conservative or Republican who dares challenge Obama.
Basking in their tactical genius, Democrats thought, "We did it! We pulled off the perfect exploitation of race to implement our socialistic agenda; a liberal black man in the White House." Someone at the DNC even broke out their old Commodores record as they partied: "Ce-le-brate good times, C'MON!"
As America slept, one night under the cover of darkness, a hidden door in the ebony idol opened; out rushed an army of vicious liberal minions, freedom-killing mandates, and socialistic policies. Their mission: destroy our capitalist system and massacre America as we know it.
Totally unexpected and to the horror of the Democrats, We The People rose up. Patriots, via divine inspiration, formed the Tea Party. Patriot freedom-fighters began winning skirmishes around the country -- governorships in New Jersey, Virginia, and Florida -- and defeating the tyrannous teachers' union in Wisconsin, to name a few. We took the House. We will take the Senate and are predicted to take the White House in 2012.
The Democrats' ebony idol, their so-called gift to America, has been exposed for the fraud it truly is -- a hollow, soulless shell of empty liberal ideology, its internal recorded message malfunctioning and distorted, stuck repeating the phrase, "I blame...I blame...I blame..."
Seeing the handwriting on the wall via polling, the Dems wish they could abandon their disastrous ebony race card for Hillary, their gender card.
But alas, they cannot. After spending the last three years, assisted by their media minions, convincing Americans that any and all criticism of or opposition to Obama is racist, Democrats find themselves victims of their own trap. Fearing the repercussions, Dems do not dare display the slightest abandonment of Obama. I love it! They who live by the race card die by the race card.
Despite the media's relentless attempts to brand us otherwise, the Tea Party has never been about race. Our focus and sole desire have been to uphold the Constitution and restore our freedom, liberty, and culture. The Tea Party's goals are much higher than the Democrats' bottom-feeding agenda of exploiting race for political gain. This is why it is so sweet that they are stuck with their loser black candidate.
You leftists, do not try to spin my comment as being racist. I, along with millions of my white Tea Party brothers and sisters, would gladly cast a presidential vote for blacks such as Herman Cain and Col. Allen West in a heartbeat. So don't even go there.
Ironically, the Democrats who claim ownership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shamefully dishonor his dream. The Tea Party, vilified by the Democrats, fully embraces MLK's dream by judging and selecting their candidates by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Thus, the Tea Party, much-hated by Democrats, is the realization of MLK's dream. And for the record, MLK was a Republican.
Photo: Sarah Palin and Dr. Alveda King, both speakers at GB’s Restore Honor Event on 8.28.10, on the Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s… instead of walking with opportunist Al Sharpton
The Democrats played the ultimate race card -- an incompetent affirmative-action president, and now they are stuck with him. The faux finish on their once-shiny ebony idol is rapidly deteriorating, peeling off daily. Come 2012, Obama is a sure loser. "Ce-le-brate good times, C'MON!"
Thomas Sowell, once again, hits one out of the park. I love Thomas Sowell! In a recent discussion thread we enjoyed a debate including Frances Fox Piven & Mr. Sowell was a MUST-SEE; if you haven't seen it yet, watch it once you finish reading this!
Despite the old saying, "Don't cry over spilled milk," the Environmental Protection Agency is doing just that. We all understand why the Environmental Protection Agency was given the power to issue regulations to guard against oil spills, such as that of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska or the more recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But not everyone understands that any power given to any bureaucracy for any purpose can be stretched far beyond that purpose.
In a classic example of this process, the EPA has decided that, since milk contains oil, it has the authority to force farmers to comply with new regulations to file "emergency management" plans to show how they will cope with spilled milk, how farmers will train "first responders" and build "containment facilities" if there is a flood of spilled milk.
Since there is no free lunch, all of this is going to cost the farmers both money and time that could be going into farming-- and is likely to end up costing consumers higher prices for farm products.
It is going to cost the taxpayers money as well, since the EPA is going to have to hire people to inspect farms, inspect farmers' reports and prosecute farmers who don't jump through all the right hoops in the right order. All of this will be "creating jobs," even if the tax money removed from the private sector correspondingly reduces the jobs that can be created there.
Does anyone seriously believe that any farmer is going to spill enough milk to compare with the Exxon Valdez oil spill or the BP oil spill?
Do you envision people fleeing their homes, as a flood of milk comes pouring down the mountainside, threatening to wipe out the village below?
It doesn't matter. Once the words are in the law, it makes no difference what the realities are. The bureaucracy has every incentive to stretch the meaning of those words, in order to expand its empire.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has expanded its definition of "discrimination" to include things that no one thought was discrimination when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The Federal Communications Commission is trying to expand its jurisdiction to cover things that were never included in its jurisdiction, and that have no relationship to the reason why the FCC was created in the first place.
Yet the ever-expanding bureaucratic state has its defenders in the mainstream media. When President Obama recently mentioned the possibility of reducing burdensome regulations-- as part of his moving of his rhetoric toward the political center, even if his policies don't move-- there was an immediate reaction in a New York Times article defending government regulations.
Under a headline that said, "Obama May Find Useless Regulations Are Scarcer Than Thought," the Times writers declared that there were few, if any, "useless" regulations. But is that the relevant criterion?
there any individual or business willing to spend money on everything that is not absolutely useless? There are thousands of useful things out there that any given individual or business would not spend their money on. When I had young children, I often thought it would be useful to have a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica for them. But I never bought one. Why? Because there were other little things to spend money on, like food, clothing and shelter.
By the time I could afford to buy a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the kids were grown and gone. But at no time did I consider the Encyclopedia Britannica "useless." Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions-- and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large.
No doubt the Environmental Protection Agency's costly new regulations may somewhere, somehow, prevent spilled milk from pouring out into some street and looking unsightly. So the regulations are not literally "useless." What is useless is making that the criterion.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday that Americans have a 'right' to know if their drinking water is safe. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) (CNSNews.com) – Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson told a Senate panel that preventing children from being exposed to contaminated water could spare them from autism.Jackson made the remark on Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in response to questioning by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who asked if a recent executive order by President Barack Obama about regulations and the regulatory process means that… rest of article HERE
By Thomas Sowell – posted at http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The Constitution of the United States begins with the words "We the people." But neither the Constitution nor "we the people" will mean anything if politicians and judges can continue to do end runs around both.
Bills passed too fast for anyone to read them are blatant examples of these end runs. But last week, another of these end runs appeared in a different institution when the medical "end of life consultations" rejected by Congress were quietly enacted through bureaucratic fiat by administrators of Medicare.
Although Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Senator Jay Rockefeller had led an effort by a group of fellow Democrats in Congress to pass Section 1233 of pending Medicare legislation, which would have paid doctors to include "end of life" counseling in their patients' physical checkups, the Congress as a whole voted to delete that provision.
Republican Congressman John Boehner, soon to become Speaker of the House, objected to this provision in 2009, saying: "This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia."
Whatever the merits or demerits of the proposed provision in Medicare legislation, the Constitution of the United States makes the elected representatives of "we the people" the ones authorized to make such decisions. But when proposals explicitly rejected by a vote in Congress are resurrected and stealthily made the law of the land by bureaucratic fiat, there has been an end run around both the people and the Constitution.
Congressman Blumenauer's office praised the Medicare bureaucracy's action but warned: "While we are very happy with the result, we won't be shouting it from the rooftops because we are not out of the woods yet."
In other words, don't let the masses know about it.
It is not only members of Congress or the administration who treat "we the people" and the Constitution as nuisances to do an end run around. Judges, including Justices of the Supreme Court, have been doing this increasingly over the past hundred years.
During the Progressive era of the early 20th century, the denigration of the Constitution began, led by such luminaries as Princeton scholar and future President of the United States Woodrow Wilson, future Harvard Law School Dean Roscoe Pound and future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.
As a Professor at Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson wrote condescendingly of "the simple days of 1787" when the Constitution was written and how, in our presumably more complex times, "each generation of statesmen looks to the Supreme Court to supply the interpretation which will serve the needs of the day."
This kind of argument would be repeated for generations, with no more evidence that 1787 was any less complicated than later years than Woodrow Wilson presented-- which was none-- and with no more reasons why the need for "change" meant that unelected judges should be the ones making those changes, as if there were no elected representatives of the people.
Professor Roscoe Pound likewise referred to the need for "a living constitution by judicial interpretation," in order to "respond to the vital needs of present-day life." He rejected the idea of law as "a body of rules."
But if law is not a body of rules, what is it? A set of arbitrary fiats by judges, imposing their own vision of "the needs of the times"? Or a set of arbitrary regulations stealthily emerging from within the bowels of a bureaucracy?
Louis Brandeis was another leader of this Progressive era chorus of demands for moving beyond law as rules. He cited "newly arisen social needs" and "a shifting of our longing from legal justice to social justice."
In other words, judges were encouraged to do an end run around rules, such as those set forth in the Constitution, and around the elected representatives of "we the people." As Roscoe Pound put it, law should be "in the hands of a progressive and enlightened caste whose conceptions are in advance of the public."
That is still the vision of the left a hundred years later. The Constitution cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution, by voting out those who promote end runs around it.
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(Dr. Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Sowell and Ben Stein are considered 3 of the top thinkers of our time, by many)
It's better to be paralyzed from the neck down, than to be paralyzed from the neck up....
Dr. Krauthammer is on Fox News. He is an M.D. and a lawyer and is paralyzed from the neck down. A friend went to hear Charles Krauthammer. He listened with 25 others in a closed room. What he says here, is NOT 2nd-hand but 1st. The ramifications are staggering for us, our children and their children.
Last Monday was a profound evening, Dr. Charles Krauthammer spoke to the Center for the American Experiment. He is a brilliant intellectual, seasoned & articulate. He is forthright and careful in his analysis, and never resorts to emotions or personal insults.
He is NOT a fear monger nor an extremist in his comments and views. He is a Fiscal conservative, and has received a Pulitzer Prize for writing. He is a frequent contributor to Fox News and writes weekly for the Washington Post. The entire room was held spellbound during his talk. I have summarized his comments, as we are living in uncharted waters economically and internationally. Even 2 Dems at my table agreed with everything he said! If you feel like forwarding this to those who are open minded and have not drunk the Kool-Aid, feel free.
Summary of his comments:
1. Mr. Obama is a very intellectual, charming individual. He is not to be underestimated. He is a cool customer who doesn't show his emotions. It's very hard to know what's behind the mask. The taking down of the Clinton dynasty was an amazing accomplishment. The Clintons still do not understand what hit them. Obama was in the perfect place at the perfect time.
2. Obama has political skills comparable to Reagan and Clinton. He has a way of making you think he's on your side, agreeing with your position, while doing the opposite. Pay no attention to what he SAYS; rather, watch what he DOES!
3. Obama has a ruthless quest for power. He did not come to Washington to make something out of himself, but rather to change everything, including dismantling capitalism. He can't be straightforward on his ambitions, as the public would not go along. He has a heavy hand, and wants to level the playing field with income redistribution and punishment to the achievers of society. He would like to model the USA to Great Britain or Canada .
4. His three main goals are to control ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, and NATIONAL HEALTHCARE by the Federal government. He doesn't care about the auto or financial services industries, but got them as an early bonus. The Cap and Trade will add costs to everything and stifle growth. Paying for FREE college education is his goal. Most scary is his healthcare program, because if you make it FREE and add 46,000,000 people to a Medicare-type single-payer system, the costs will go through the roof. The only way to control costs is with massive RATIONING of services, like in Canada . God forbid!
5. He has surrounded himself with mostly far-left academic types. No one around him has ever even run a candy store. But they are going to try and run the auto, financial, banking and other industries. This obviously can't work in the long run. Obama is not a socialist; rather he's a far-left secular progressive bent on nothing short of revolution. He ran as a moderate, but will govern from the hard left. Again, watch what he does, not what he says.
6. Obama doesn't really see himself as President of the United States, but more as a ruler over the world. He sees himself above it all, trying to orchestrate & coordinate various countries and their agendas. He sees moral equivalency in all cultures. His apology tour in Germany and England was a prime example of how he sees America, as an imperialist nation that has been arrogant, rather than a great noble nation that has at times made errors. This is the first President ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies!
7. He is now handing out goodies. He hopes that the bill (and pain) will not come due until after he is reelected in 2012. He would like to blame all problems on Bush from the past, and hopefully his successor in the future. He has a huge ego, and Dr. Krauthammer believes he is a narcissist.
8. Republicans are in the wilderness for a while, but will emerge strong. Republicans are pining for another Reagan, but there will never be another like him. Krauthammer believes Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty & Bobby Jindahl (except for his terrible speech in February) are the future of the party. Newt Gingrich is brilliant, but has baggage. Sarah Palin is sincere and intelligent, but needs to really be seriously boning up on facts and info if she is to be a serious candidate in the future.. We need to return to the party of lower taxes, smaller government, personal responsibility, strong national defense, and state's rights.
9. The current level of spending is irresponsible and outrageous. We are spending trillions that we don't have. This could lead to hyperinflation, depression or worse. No country has ever spent themselves into prosperity. The media is giving Obama, Reid and Pelosi a pass because they love their agenda. But eventually the bill will come due and people will realize the huge bailouts didn't work, nor will the stimulus package. These were trillion-dollar payoffs to Obama's allies, unions and the Congress to placate the left, so he can get support for #4 above.
10. The election was over in mid-September when Lehman brothers failed, fear and panic swept in, we had an unpopular President, and the war was grinding on indefinitely without a clear outcome. The people are in pain, and the mantra of change caused people to act emotionally. Any Dem would have won this election; it was surprising it was as close as it was.
11. In 2012, if the unemployment rate is over 10%, Republicans will be swept back into power. If it's under 8%, the Dems continue to roll. If it's between 8-10%, it will be a dogfight. It will all be about the economy. I hope this gets you really thinking about what's happening in Washington and Congress. There is a left-wing revolution going on, according to Krauthammer, and he encourages us to keep the faith and join the loyal resistance. The work will be hard, but we're right on most issues and can reclaim our country, before it's far too late.
Do yourself a long term favor, send this to all who will listen to an intelligent assessment of the big picture. All our futures and children's futures depend on our good understanding of what is really going on in DC, and our action pursuant to that understanding!! It really IS up to each of us to take individual action!! Start with educating your friends and neighbors!!!
The latest "screw-up" that let a man with explosives get on a plane on Christmas day is only part of a larger laxness and irresponsibility when it comes to national security. This administration pays lip service to national security and gives out with a lot of rhetorical notions that makes it notional security instead of national security.
The Muslim major who was arrested for the murders of American soldiers at Fort Hood had left so many clues to his hatred of this country that all you had to do was count the dots, without even connecting them, to see where he was coming from. But for a fellow officer to alert higher authorities to the danger would have meant risking damage to his own career moreso than to that of Major Nidal Hasan.
That is because we have become so obsessed with political correctness that both common sense and self-preservation have to take a back seat. We don't dare "profile" anybody going through security checks because that's not politically correct. Far better to be blown to smithereens than to be politically incorrect.
Probably the country with the strongest security checks for airline passengers-- and the strongest reason for such checks-- is Israel. Israel profiles. I have been to Israel more than once and it is clear that they profile.
Fortunately, my wife and I obviously don't fit their profile, whatever that may be. Others who have been to Israel are amazed when I tell them that we have gone through Israeli security four times and they have never opened our luggage.
That is all the more surprising, since we take a lot of luggage. We have stopped in Israel while on trips completely around the world, including countries both above and below the equator, so we had to have clothing for hot weather and cold weather, since the seasons are the opposite in the northern and southern hemispheres. Moreover, I carry a lot of photographic equipment in a large, separate piece of luggage.
In short, our luggage could carry enough explosives to blow up any building in the country. But, whatever their security system and whatever their profile, they didn't seem to want to waste any time on us.
The last time we flew into Israel was from Cairo, where the Israeli security officials at the Cairo airport detained the lady in line in front of us for 45 minutes, opened her luggage, spread the contents across the counter, and asked her all sorts of questions. When they had finally finished with her and my wife and I stepped up to the counter, the official in charge waved us on impatiently, saying, "Hurry up, you'll miss the plane."
This was no special treatment for us. They had no idea who we were. We were just not the kind of people they spent time on, for whatever reason.
Recently, an Israeli security official was interviewed on Fox News Channel by Mike Huckabee. The official said that he has testified before Congress and offered to help with suggestions on how the American airport security system could be improved-- and he clearly thought it needed a lot of improvement.
Apparently the only response he got from American security officials was a polite letter. "They didn't tell me to go to Hell," he said. "They were polite."
There is no stronger indication of danger than officials who don't want to hear what anybody else has to say, even when those who offer to help have a system that works better than ours.
The fundamental issue goes beyond the Fort Hood massacre or the Christmas bomber. These are just symptoms of a larger set of attitudes and expediences reflecting the same outlook.
Putting terrorists on trial in American criminal courts, under rules designed for American citizens, tells you all you need to know about whether the Obama administration is serious about security or is still playing the political correctness game.
Terrorists are not covered by the Geneva convention for the simple reason that they do not abide by the Geneva convention. They are enemy combatants and you do not turn enemy combatants loose to go back to killing Americans while the war is still on-- not if you are being serious, as distinguished from being political or ideological.
There has probably never been an era in history when intellectuals have played a larger role in society. When intellectuals who generate ideas are surrounded by a wide range of others who disseminate those ideas-- whether as journalists, teachers, staffers to legislators or clerks to judges-- the influence of intellectuals on the way a society evolves can be huge. Trying for years to understand the nature of that influence eventually led me to write the book "Intellectuals and Society," which has just been published.
Intellectuals generate ideas and ideas matter, whether those ideas are right or wrong, and they matter far beyond the small segment of society who are intellectuals. Ideas affect the fate of whole nations and civilizations. Nowhere is that more true than in our own times, when some people make suicidal attacks to kill strangers who have done nothing to them, as on 9/11, because the attackers are consumed with a set of ideas-- a vision-- and driven by the emotions generated by those ideas and that vision.
Whether in war or peace, and whether in economics or religion, something as intangible as ideas can dominate the most concrete things in our lives. What Karl Marx called "the blaze of ideas" has set whole nations on fire and consumed whole generations.
Those whose careers are built on the creation and dissemination of ideas-- the intellectuals-- have played a role in many societies out of all proportion to their numbers. Whether that role has, on net balance, made those around them better off or worse off is one of the key questions of our times.
The quick answer is that intellectuals have done both. But certainly, for the 20th century, it is hard to escape the conclusion that intellectuals have on net balance made the world a worse and more dangerous place. Scarcely a mass-murdering dictator of the 20th century was without his supporters, admirers or apologists among the leading intellectuals-- not only within his own country, but in foreign democracies, where intellectuals were free to say whatever they wanted to.
Given the enormous progress made during the 20th century, it may seem hard to believe that intellectuals did so little good as to have that good outweighed by particular wrong-headed notions. But most of those who promoted the scientific, economic and social advances of the 20th century were not really intellectuals in the sense in which that term is most often used.
eam of human beings flying, were by no means intellectuals. Nor were those who conquered the scourge of polio and other diseases, or who created the electronic marvels that we now take for granted.
All these people produced a tangible product or service and they were judged by whether those products and services worked. But intellectuals are people whose end products are intangible ideas, and they are usually judged by whether those ideas sound good to other intellectuals or resonate with the public.
Whether their ideas turn out to work-- whether they make life better or worse for others-- is another question entirely.
The ideas that Karl Marx created in the 19th century dominated the course of events over wide portions of the world in the 20th century. Whole generations suffered, and millions were killed, as a result of those ideas. This was not Marx's intention, nor the intentions of many supporters of Marxian ideas in countries around the world. But it is what happened.
Some of the most distinguished intellectuals in the Western world in the 1930s gave ringing praise to the Soviet Union, while millions of people there were literally starved to death and vast numbers of others were being shipped off to slave labor camps.
Many of those same distinguished intellectuals of the 1930s were urging their own countries to disarm while Hitler was rapidly arming Germany for wars of conquest that would have, among other things, put many of those intellectuals in concentration camps-- slated for extermination-- if he had succeeded.
The 1930s were by no means unique. In too many other eras-- including our own today-- intellectuals of unquestionable brilliance have advocated similarly childish and dangerous notions. How and why such patterns have existed among intellectuals is a challenging question, whose answer can determine the fate of millions of other people.
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