op ed review 8/29

THIS WEEK’S NEWS

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on all 10 of the important issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/trust_on_issues

Top Democrats are growing markedly more pessimistic about holding the House, privately conceding that the summertime economic and political recovery they were banking on will not likely materialize by Election Day. In two close races, endangered Democrats are even running ads touting how they oppose their leadership.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41469.html#ixzz0xitBlSmI

Republican Congressman Roy Blunt for the first time holds a double-digit lead over Democrat Robin Carnahan in Missouri’s U.S. Senate race.

http://tinyurl.com/2dqh7qt

And a Washington State poll, conducted Aug. 18-19 shows Dino Rossi ahead of Patty Murray 52 percent to 45 percent. Notably, Rossi leads among independents 59 to 35 percent.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/115355-trailing-in-polls-sen-murray-targets-rossi-in-new-ad-

“It's hit that point in the election cycle where the competitive nature of Congressional races are shifting rapidly. Unfortunately for Democrats, the overwhelming majority of those shifts are in favor of Republicans. The latest Senate race rating changes by CQ Politics includes five changes -- in California, Washington, Wisconsin, Georgia and Iowa -- that benefit Republican candidates.”

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000003725329&topic=Feature

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) admitted in a town hall meeting in Colorado that though trillions of dollars of Federal debt has been incurred through spending since he was appointed, “we have nothing to show for it”:

http://www.nationalreview.com/battle10/244695/bennet-bombshell-trillions-debt-nothing-show-it-michael-sandoval

He’s right. “The actual performance of the economy with respect to jobs is almost exactly what they said would it would be if we had done nothing, instead of passing the $800 billion stimulus package. This strongly suggests that the stimulus package enacted by the Democrats was a bust.”

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/08/027050.php

Panic on the Left: A gunshot shattered a glass door Wednesday at an office of the Maryland Republican Party,

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/24764054/detail.html

And former GOP Majority Leader Dick Armey's FreedomWorks organization has been receiving death threats and profanity-laced phone calls as it gets involved in the fall elections.

http://politics.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2010/8/25/tea-party-group-hit-with-death-threats.html

Tuesday night in the 2010 primaries produced mostly establishment victories for the Democrats and tea party victories for the Republicans.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Election-2010/2010/0811/Primary-results-Dems-go-establishment-GOP-goes-tea-party

Joe Miller is poised to knock off RINO Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) in a primary contest. Miller, an Iraq war veteran who received the backing of former Gov. Sarah Palin, emerged from the election Tuesday night with a narrow lead over Murkowski. But officials are still counting absentee ballots in the close race and a lawyer for the GOP Senate campaign committee is heading to Alaska.?????? (To pull an “Al Franken” for the RINO?)

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/116025-miller-concerned-murkowski-will-pull-an-al-franken

The son of former Vice President Dan Quayle has won the GOP nomination in an Arizona congressional race. Ben Quayle managed to pull off a victory after fending off attacks and drawing attention to his race with an ad in which he said, "Barack Obama is the worst president in history."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5joVLlFs5Hr6I6NkfHK0udsQWhKtA

Democrats are facing all sorts of bad news lately but will no doubt take solace in learning that the nation’s two largest and most-powerful unions are teaming up to defend their interests in the 2010 elections……leaders of the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union believe they’re up to the job: The two labor organizations say they have a combined $88 million or more to deploy.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/afl-cio-and-seiu-unions-team-up-on-campaign-spending-101454529.html

Get out your checkbook. The Republican National Committee's $5.3 million war chest for the final stretch of the midterm election campaign is half the amount of its Democratic counterpart.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703589804575446021701571124.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5

Glenn Beck's supporters started boarding buses days ago in cities as far from the nation's capital as Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Houston. Heading east for a grass-roots show of force on Saturday, they will join the conservative icon for a rally that he says is aimed at "restoring honor" to a troubled nation… The rally is expected to draw 100,00 people.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-08-26-glenn-beck-rally_N.htm

Tea Party groups from across the country are mobilizing efforts to support the rally, even though organizers are shying away from putting the Tea Party label on it,

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/glenn-becks-rally-feature-sarah-palin-coincides-civil/story?id=11491130

Beck will speak on the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech, from the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered it. Some "tea party" activists say the event, at which former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is also scheduled to speak, will have a greater impact than last September's "9/12" march along Pennsylvania Avenue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/25/AR2010082507063_pf.html

Dr. Martin Luther King’s niece will also address the rally: “My Uncle Martin’s dream was not that we should be judged by our support for bigger or smaller government, but rather by the content of our character.”

http://www.priestsforlife.org/pressreleases/document.aspx?id=3274

In a recent speech, Sarah Palin referred to union leaders as “union thugs”. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, the dictionary definition of a union thug, took offense.

http://biggovernment.com/jdunetz/2010/08/27/afl-cio-pres-bashes-palin-but-hes-the-one-with-a-record-of-violence/

“In newspaper terms, the reason this story is getting so much attention is that it’s a man bites dog story. It’s just not often that someone with a union card takes on the head of Big Labor, challenging head-on the idea that liberal economic policies are good for the working man.”

http://www.nysun.com/editorials/woman-of-the-year/87058/

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed 14 and wounded 30 in his jihad at Fort Hood after shouting “Allah Akbar”, but according to the DOD final review of the case, the incident wasn't a terrorist attack but merely a case of workplace violence.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/26/islamic-extremists-in-the-workplace/

“Texas fights global-warming power grab. Lone Star state won't participate in Obama's lawless policy” President Obama's EPA is already well down the path to regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, something the act was not designed to do. It has a problem, however, because shoehorning greenhouse gases into that 40-year-old law would force churches, schools, warehouses, commercial kitchens and other sources to obtain costly and time-consuming permits.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/25/texas-fights-global-warming-power-grab/?page=1

Gun owners dodge a bullet. The EPA turned down a petition Friday to ban all traditional gun ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/27/gun-owners-dodge-the-bullet-ban/

The 14 crosses erected along Utah roads to commemorate fallen state Highway Patrol troopers will have to be removed because they “convey a state preference for Christianity”, a federal appeals court said Wednesday. First erected in 1998, monuments were paid for with private funds and erected only with the permission of the troopers' families.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-utah-highway-crosses,0,4829425.story

Senator Baucus, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who helped author the federal health care bill- still hasn't even read the entire thing. "I don't think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill. You know why? It's statutory language. We hire experts."

http://www.northernbroadcasting.com/Talk/FlintReportHeadlines/tabid/519/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/958/Baucus-on-Reading-Bill-We-Hire-Experts-for-That.aspx

A new public school in Los Angeles cost $578 million, the nation's most expensive public school ever. The K-12 complex will house 4,200 students and works out to about $250,000 per pupil.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_us/us_taj_mahal_schools

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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN

John Griffing 8/25

Since the seventies, the American left has warned of coming famine, overpopulation, total deforestation, urban sprawl, and overcrowding. The only problem is that none of this has ever happened. The left lied, and freedom died.

As a consequence of population hysteria, Western countries have overcorrected, aborting pregnancies and exchanging the cradle for a career. The result? The population of the developed world is now shrinking. The European Union (EU) relies on a steady influx of Muslim immigrants to keep pensions afloat. Forest coverage has actually increased in the United States despite sensationalist warnings.

Suburban sprawl never became a substantial problem. In fact, the 2000 Census records show that 94 percent of the United States is still rural, and only 5 percent of U.S. land mass is urban. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies demonstrates that what sprawl does occur is isolated and directly linked to uncontrolled immigration, a problem easily corrected -- without central planning -- if immigration laws are simply enforced.

And food? It just so happens that due to scientific innovation, farmers are growing more food per hectare on less land. But despite the factual evidence, leftists are now implementing environmental policies based on incorrect and historically inaccurate assumptions.

Paying homage to a long legacy of radical environmentalism, President Obama's faithful followers have advanced the Livable Communities Act to attack nonexistent problems like sprawl and overpopulation, as well as sub-issues like pollution. Humans will be punished for seeking to improve their quality of life, with new limits on mobility and Orwellian guidelines dictating where citizens will be allowed to live and work, with the justification of ushering in "sustainable growth." The facts do not matter to Obama and the left. The fact that urban sprawl is a nonexistent problem, that "smart growth" fails where tried, and that the Constitution does not permit government to dictate where and how citizens will live is irrelevant……

Most Americans are unaware that an organized assault on private property rights is tied to a series of dangerous foreign agreements that would transform America into Soviet-style "common" space by way of numerous "biosphere reserves." Never ratified by Congress, these agreements have been incorporated into U.S. regulatory law by way of a Memorandum of Understanding. Interestingly, the "biosphere reserves" program aligns closely with the current Livable Communities Act, conjointly proposing more concentrated human habitats and "buffer zones" to limit human environmental impact. Family trips to Yosemite? Not for long……

It should be noted that in some countries, constitutional restrictions can make regulatory approaches to biodiversity conservation difficult. One frequently occurring constitutional provision that may cause difficulty is a guarantee against deprivation, or acquisition, or taking of property without compensation [iv].

The U.N. and its team of environmental activists view U.S. property rights as a "difficulty." The right to live and work in a place of one's own choosing is the definition of freedom. Karl Marx realized the connection between property and freedom. It was Marx who once said, "In a word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend." Conversely, the revered Justice Joseph Story once remarked, "That government can scarcely be deemed to be free when the rights of property are left solely dependent upon the will of a legislative body…"

We know how well the Soviet Union protected the environment. Is this really the model we want to pursue under the guise of "livable communities"?

If we follow the suggestions of the radical environmentalists, human beings will be sacrificed on the altar of "sustainability." And sometimes, quite literally. This is not stewardship, but perversion.

Clearly, the environmental agenda is not about protecting the environment, but about controlling human beings. The only thing "sustainable" about the radical environmental agenda is the predictable misery and poverty it will yield.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/sustainable_poverty_the_real_f.html

Another good read:

“After reflecting on the results of Republican primary elections for the U.S. Senate and related political happenings over recent months, the message is now clear: Barack Obama was right: It really is about hope and change. Not the naïve "Obama Zombie" hope for a government that would keep us from having to pay for our own mortgages or for filling our own gas tanks. But rather a change toward a government that moves us toward living by our republic's founding principles. The first step on that path, according to the newly awakened and re-energized Republican electorate, was to tell the Beltway kingmakers what they can do with their preferred candidates.”

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/08/27/primary-lessons

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS

"The first open attack on the Constitution by a President of the United States was made by our only president with a Ph.D., Woodrow Wilson. Virtually all the arguments as to why judges should not take the Constitution as meaning what its words plainly say, but 'interpret' it to mean whatever it ought to mean, in order to meet 'the needs of the times,' were made by Woodrow Wilson. It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be in the forefront of those who seek to erode Constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government. How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people? To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America."

-Thomas Sowell

"President Obama couldn't bring himself to observe the National Day of Prayer or spend time with the Boy Scouts of America, but God forbid, he couldn't miss the Muslim Iftar Ramadan dinner, or pass up a chance to praise an Islamic center a stone's throw away from Ground Zero. ... One has to wonder exactly who is this Barack Obama? Is he the Muslim-educated student who has repeatedly proclaimed his Christian beliefs while finding himself unable to put a foot in a Christian church in Washington he can call his own, or is he an adult still motivated by the Muslim faith he learned and practiced as a young man? This is a serious question, especially since Obama has gone out of his way to befriend a community, many of whom bear a deep hatred for the United States and a fanatical belief in the inevitability of supremacy of Islam over the United States. ... Unfortunately, it appears that Islam is also imposing its will and casting a shadow over the Obama White House."

-Michael Reagan

"Muslims should NOT be considered merely a religion and treated as if that's what Islam is. Islam is a political system wrapped in the trappings of a religion. Islam is every bit as much a political threat as was communism - and every bit as much a religion. To the degree that a religion desires to take over the government, it fails the religion test. Islam is a political party whose goal is the destruction of civilization."

-Manfred

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LEFTIST WATCH

The leader of the "progressive Christian" Sojourners movement has accepted funding from leftist atheist billionaire George Soros. "This was significant in that Jim Wallis in recent years has adamantly insisted he did not belong to either side of the political spectrum, but essentially was a centrist who was transcending left and right and was simply a purely Christian activist…”

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=1136894

Liberals plot to ‘Turn off Fox News’ in public places. “Some businesses play Fox without having thought about it at all, and may not know how divisive and dangerous Fox is.”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/do-you-hate-fox-news-join-the-campaign-to-turn-off-fox-in-public-places-101566093.html#ixzz0xjlexvdh

In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the country of what he called the “military-industrial complex,” a reference to the growing relationship between the military industry in the private sector and the federal government. Today, there is another industrial complex taking shape. Only this time, the president is not warning anyone about it – he’s actually directly involved in its growth. One may call it the “green industrial complex.”

http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/26/obamas-green-initiatives-lobbied-for-by-the-same-people-who-profit-from-them/

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ISLAM

A document translated from Arabic to English titled “An Explanatory Memorandum, On the General Strategic Goal for the Group In North America” details the objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Clearly, according to this document, the objective of the Muslim Brotherhood is to convert the U.S. into an Islamic nation through sabotage and subterfuge. It is a handbook to achieve that end. The author painstakingly describes the process of “settlement,” among others, and further described its meaning and the methods to be employed: The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. “The Ikhwan* must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/26849

While President Barack Obama was “forcefully” endorsing the Ground Zero Mosque, Michelle Obama was paying homage with her presence to the Great Mosque at Granada, which overlooks what was once Islam’s most important outpost in Europe, the Alhambra palace in Granada.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/26884

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ARTICLES

US News & World Report: “….both (Obama and Congress) have now participated in the most fiscally irresponsible government in American history.”

http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2010/08/26/the-most-fiscally-irresponsible-government-in-us-history.html?PageNr=3

The battle between taxpayers and government unions will define the fiscal future of the 50 states, and the newest battlefield is Washington State. That's where a few rich taxpayers led by Bill Gates Sr. and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are bankrolling a November ballot measure to create the state's first income tax. And not just a toe-in-the-water tax. They're diving into the deep end.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704901104575423712885940580.html

The Left has George Soros, we have the Koch Brothers.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2010/08/23/new-yorker-publishes-hit-piece-demonizing-koch-brothers-thought-crime-

Thomas Sowell: Medical Care Facts and Fables

http://www.creators.com/conservative/thomas-sowell/medical-care-facts-and-fables.html

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: Advice to GOP Candidates: Avoid Adjectives, Nouns Are Good Enough

http://townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2010/08/25/advice_to_gop_candidates_avoid_adjectives,_nouns_are_good_enough

Bob Dole, once the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, parlayed his political clout into personal wealth, and now he’s putting that wealth to work against a conservative Republican Senate candidate in a general election. Dole, now a lobbyist at Alston Bird, contributed $1,000 on Aug. 11 to the independent Senate campaign of Charlie Crist, who left the GOP in April. The current GOP fault line is not exactly conservatives vs. moderates or new guard vs. old guard. For 2010, the rivalry is the Tea Party wing against the K Street wing.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/The-Republican-divide-K-Street-vs-Tea-Partiers-101286384.html

“A friend poses the following thought experiment: Imagine that there really were these fundamentalist Christian terror cells all over the United States, as the Department of Homeland Security imagines. Let’s say a group of five of these terrorists hijacked a plane, flew it to Mecca, and plowed it into the Kaaba. Now let’s say a group of well-meaning, well-funded Christians — Christians whose full-time job was missionary work — decided that the best way to promote healing would be to pressure the Saudi government to drop its prohibition against permitting non-Muslims into Mecca so that these well-meaning, well-funded Christian missionaries could build a $100 million dollar church and community center a stone’s throw from where the Kaaba used to be — you know, as a bridge-building gesture of interfaith understanding.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/244406/ground-zero-thought-experiment-andy-mccarthy

The success of insurgent candidates in the Florida GOP gubernatorial primary and the Alaska GOP senatorial primary indicates that Republican voters in wildly different locales are not simply in an anti-Obama, anti-Democrat mood. They are genuinely eager to up-end the political system. And this is something very new. Usually, politicians who use the language of insurgency are just that. For them, channeling the anger of voters is a marketing device. They are always using the language of insurgency — “I’ll go to Washington and shake things up; the system is broken and I’m going to fix it”

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/jpodhoretz/347256

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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES

America’s new health care system revealed: updated chart shows Obamacare’s bewildering complexity. Download this and print it out. Show it to your friends.

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/tx08_brady/pr_100728_hc_chart.html

Sharia for Dummies:

http://bigpeace.com/ndarwish/2010/08/26/sharia-for-dummies/

Must see: panoramic view of Mt St Helens from the rim of the crater. Go ahead, use your mouse to scan the view. (Editor’s note: I tried to climb up to this spot once, but the altitude left me gasping for breath about 1000 feet below this point.)

http://www.fullscreen360.com/st-helens.htm

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HUMOR

"Every so often, one of my readers who has apparently dipped once too often into the cooking sherry wonders why I don't run for Congress. The short answer is that I don't want to ever again wear a necktie. I also don't wish to spend my life going hat-in-hand begging for campaign contributions. Worse yet, what if I actually won the election and then had to listen to Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank mouth off endlessly? Between her nursery school delivery and his lisping, I'm sure I'd soon be popping Excedrin like peanuts. Instead, I prefer staying home and telling everybody in Washington how to do their jobs better."

-Burt Prelutsky

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LATE NITE

Letterman: ….President Obama is on vacation. This is his sixth vacation. He’ll have plenty of time for vacation when his one term is up.

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WISE WORDS

"It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them."

-Thomas Jefferson