op ed review 10/24
"What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue ... the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them ... a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers."
"My work is done here."
-James Madison
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
A vigorous post-Labor Day Democratic offensive has failed to diminish the resurgent Republicans' lead among likely voters, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
All signs point to huge Republican victories in two weeks, with the GOP now leading Democrats on virtually every measure in an Associated Press poll of people likely to vote…Most also think the country's headed in the wrong direction. More than half disapprove of Obama's job performance. And even more don't like the Democratic-controlled Congress.
“Pew Poll: Tsunami Warning for Democrats”
“99 Democratic-held House seats now in play” , according to a POLITICO analysis.
Later in the week, another expert says “116 in Play”.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has sent letters to around 90 top employers and a few business associations in Washington State urging companies worried about taxes to head on over to his state. "As the State of Washington considers a multibillion-dollar tax increase for citizens and businesses ... I invite you to consider your future in America's new land of opportunity: the State of Texas…..If Washington doesn't want your business, Texas does. Texas has no personal income tax and no interest in getting one."
Democrats in Seattle are sending out illegal aliens to canvas neighborhoods.
“Arizona Group Accused of Massive Voter Fraud Is Offshoot of SEIU”….two organizations submitted more than 3,000 voter registrations in Yuma County right before the deadline.. over 65% of these last minute registrations were invalid.
Slip of the tongue: A democrat governor refers to illegal aliens as “new Americans”.
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) takes credit for saving the world:'…but for me, we’d be in a worldwide depression..'
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) vowed in February 2009 that he wouldn’t accept campaign donations from banks that received money under the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). That was then, this is now. “…Frank has hauled in at least $27,000…from bank execs — and $13,000 from PACs — connected to banks that received TARP funding...”
In a New York Times interview last week, President Obama acknowledged that there’s “no such thing as shovel-ready projects.” This was one of his main selling points for the $862 billion stimulus package. He now admits they don’t exist, and the stimulus is clearly not working.
It's official: The Obama administration has now borrowed $3 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. It took from 1776, when the United States became an independent country, until 1990, the year after the Berlin Wall fell signaling victory in the Cold War, for the federal government to accumulate a total of $3 trillion in debt. It only took from Jan. 20, 2009, the day President Barack Obama was inaugurated, until Oct. 15, 2010, for the Obama administration to add another $3 trillion to the federal debt.
US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle will be extremely busy in Mumbai, upon landing on November 6 for a two day India visit. To ensure fool-proof security, the President’s team has booked the entire the Taj Mahal Hotel, including 570 rooms, all banquets and restaurants, 125 rooms at the Taj President, 80 to 90 rooms each in Grand Hyatt and The Oberoi hotels……two jumbo jets coming along with Air Force One, which will be flanked by security jets….30 to 40 secret service agents…he President’s convoy has 45 cars. “Adding to the Obamas’ busy schedule is Michelle’s likely visit to Kamathipura, where she will meet commercial sex workers…”
The UK runs out of money, announcing the biggest spending cuts since World War II. “Up to 500,000 public sector jobs could go by 2014-15 as a result of the cuts programme…”
Nanny state? D.C. public schools have started serving an early dinner to an estimated 10,000 students, many of whom are now receiving three meals a day from the system.
Washington state senator Patty Murray wasn't shy about her support for Obamacare during a recent debate with Republican Dino Rossi. "Not only did I read it, but I helped to write it."
Aerospace giant Boeing mailed letters to employees last week, citing Obamacare as part of the reason it is asking some 90,000 nonunion workers to pay significantly more for their health plan next year.
For the second time in little over a month, President Barack Obama stripped the word "Creator" from the Declaration of Independence when giving a speech.
California's pot crop is worth $14 billion, according to a state report. This dwarfs the wine crop which comes in at $2 billion.
The Tea Party Express kicks off its final roadshow of 2010, a two week sprint from Reno, Nevada to Concord, New Hampshire through a host of battleground states and congressional districts where Tea Party backed Republicans are looking to knock off Democrats.
Obama’s Department of Justice has suddenly turned on a dime, becoming the great pro-active protector of voters’ rights: Poll watchers in Harris County, Texas — where a Tea Party group launched an aggressive anti-voter fraud effort — were accused of “hovering over” voters, “getting into election workers’ faces” and blocking or disrupting lines of voters who were waiting to cast their ballots as early voting got underway yesterday.
A top aide at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted..that ICE has released more than a half million convicted criminal illegal immigrants back into American communities instead of deporting them.
Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says. She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German. She said too little had been required of immigrants in the past and repeated her usual line that they should learn German in order to get by in school and have opportunities on the labour market.
The National Commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars has moved to dissolve its PAC after it endorsed Democratic incumbents starting with Nancy Pelosi "[T]he recent endorsement decisions have, in fact, harmed the VFW’s reputation and future ability to fulfill our mission….I cannot let this erosion of public support for our great organization continue."
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Michael Costello, Lewiston Morning Tribune 10/16/10
While most of our congressmen and congresswomen are lawyers, there is probably no better preparation for the job than the study of parasitology. At least one author has made the case that parasites are actually at the top of the animal kingdom. He reasoned that, once established on or in a host, the parasite lives a life of leisure while the host becomes little more than the parasite's slave. Whereas politicians present themselves as humble servants of their constituencies, the truth is that their service they give us is barely distinguishable from the service given by a tapeworm.
To be successful, a parasite must have at its disposal all the machinery to grip tightly to its host and to siphon off what it needs. Parasites have grown so successful at living off hosts that they have dispensed with all superfluous tissues required by free living organisms, such as muscles and nerves. The typical parasite has no brains. There is no such thing as a clever, calculating parasite. In fact, once the parasite established itself in its host, the parasite permits its nervous system and musculature to simply atrophy away as it settles into a life of absorbing nutrients from its host. In other words, the life cycle of the parasite closely resembles the political career of Sen. Patty Murray.
It is past time for Washington's immune system to expel Murray from the Senate. Or to put it more broadly, America needs a change from politicians like Murray if there is ever to be any hope for change. In her 18 years in the Senate, Murray has grown to represent the very worst of our ruling class.
Never the sharpest knife in the drawer, Murray was a natural for the occupation of political parasitism. Murray's political career began when her career as community college teacher ended in failure. She took her degree in "leisure studies" and when it became clear that she was not up to teaching a class in "parenting" at a junior college, she attached herself to the United States Treasury and allowed her political operation to operate on autopilot.
During her reign of mediocrity, Murray has assembled a machine that funnels taxpayer dollars, in the form of pork barrel spending, to political supporters who gratefully repay a portion of their take into her political campaign coffers.
Murray's Senate office has served as an internship program for future lobbyists who use their access to Murray to gain big government contracts that enrich themselves and stuff bucks back to Murray. Seventeen former Murray staffers are now K Street lobbyists. And these former staffers have shown their gratitude by making Murray the second largest recipient of lobbyist campaign contributions. Only the execrable Harry Reid, D-Dimlight, rakes in more cash from lobbyists than Murray.
Reid and Murray are both outstanding examples that simple minds, when combined with an unprincipled ambition, can assemble powerful political machines that reward allies and generate enough campaign cash to purchase re-election ad infinitum. Neither of these people is especially bright, as evidenced by their mutual incapacity to speak extemporaneously. Unshielded by their praetorian guard, and off script, both are prone to utter inanities that would embarrass the average 12-year-old. And even when Murray reads from prepared remarks, her speechwriters are careful to omit polysyllabic words and complex sentences that she might stumble over.
It's not easy to fail as a community college teacher. For someone so incompetent in the real world to fail in an almost fail-proof job and then rise to become the fourth ranking Democrat in the United States Senate should tell you all that you need to know about the skill set required to succeed in politics. It only requires a senator who is willing to give her office over to sub-parasites who know how to trade favors for cash without crossing the blurry line into flagrant illegality. The knowledge that a few years of service to the parasite is all the resume enhancement needed to move up into the more enriching job as a lobbyist ensures that even a dimwit will have a steady supply of talented sub-parasites willing to work hard to guarantee their future benefactor's success.
To fight parasites, hosts must possess an immune system that can be "educated" to respond to parasitic invasions. Our immune system is the ballot box. Consider yourself educated.
Costello is a research technician at Washington State University: kozmocostello@hotmail.com.
The original article is now by subscription only, but Google has cached it here:
Here’s a video of Patty Murray this week dazzling 3000 college students with her great intellect.
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"The political success of liberalism is parasitic, feeding off order and prosperity that the implementation of liberal policies couldn't possibly create. Bill Clinton's recent bragging on the campaign trail about the budgets that he balanced in the 1990s is an illustration of this: Where did those budgets come from? Not from the policies of liberalism. Take away the significant reductions in defense spending that came from Ronald Reagan winning the Cold War, the wealth from an entrepreneurial economy that an era of tax cuts generated, and the check on Democratic spending schemes from Newt Gingrich's Congress, and those budgets would never have been balanced. In his first term, Clinton had every intention of busting the budget with HillaryCare, but he just couldn't get away it. If Clinton is a 'successful' president, as pundits these days insist, that's because his agenda failed where Obama's succeeded. By passing ObamaCare and a raft of other bad bills, the Democrats have made it possible for voters to measure liberal rhetoric against the grim realities it produces. The parasite got fat enough to eat the conservative host whole, and now it is dying."
-George Neumayr
"A nirvana 'Star Trek' world without money, without sickness, and without envy ignores reality. Yet not only do the Left pretend this is possible, but they sell the idea by using envy and government checks like candy from their pocket. They sell this idea to those in need, taking power in exchange for promises they cannot possibly keep. They have merely shifted the burden, first to 'the rich,' and then always expanding according to ever-increasing needs to the entire producing half of the country. This is not fairness. This is lust for power. This is the face of tyranny in disguise. This, then, is the liberal Democrat message of Hope and Change."
-Richard Pecore
"ObamaCare is an unmitigated disaster-in-the-making. If people can be forced to buy health insurance and states can be forced to blow gigantic, federally-mandated holes in their budgets, this country will never recover. Our wannabe socialists in Congress and the White House are already, as Margaret Thatcher put it, 'out of other people's money.' The election in November may do much to blunt their odious ambitions, but they will never give up trying to turn America into a socialist nation."
-Arnold Ahlert
"In interviews, job summits and press conferences, it was shovel-ready this, shovel-ready that. Search the White House website for the term 'shovel-ready' and you'll drown in press releases about all the shovels ready to shove shovel-ready projects into the 21st century, where no shovel is left behind. Only now it turns out that the president was shoveling something all right when he was talking about shovel-ready jobs -- a whole pile of steaming something."
-Jonah Goldberg
"What do you call a Supreme Court that within the last few terms has ruled that carbon dioxide can be regulated as 'air pollution' by the Environmental Protection Agency? That gave captured terrorists and enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay the right to petition for release in federal court? That has relied on foreign law when defining provisions of the Constitution? How would you characterize a Supreme Court that said local governments can seize people's property by eminent domain and turn it over to private developers in order to generate more taxes? That declared it unconstitutional to impose the death penalty for murders committed by killers younger than 18? And that barred the death penalty as well for the rape of young children -- a decision that even Barack Obama suggested was too lenient? Well, if you're the dean of the law school at the University of California-Irvine, you call it 'the most conservative court since the mid-1930s.' If you're NPR's Nina Totenberg, you say it's 'dominated by a new brand of conservative justice.' ... If you're The New York Times, you label it 'the Supreme Court that conservatives had long yearned for and that liberals feared.' The Supreme Court can be something of a Rorschach ink blot: What you see when you look at it may reveal more about you than about any objective reality…”"
-Jeff Jacoby
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BOOKS, FILM
Kyle-Ann Shriver reviews “Rules for Radical Conservatives” “…a remarkable American classic which will help all us conservatives save America. If there were a literary equivalent of the Medal of Honor, this guy would surely get my vote. As a longtime student of Alinsky myself, I was more curious than a lurking feline to see how Walsh answered Alinsky's manual for the left. Rules for Radical Conservatives far outshines Alinsky's drab socialist nihilism and actually not only gives conservative Americans a roadmap for bringing our nation back to Constitutional fidelity,. but also tells us exactly how we got to such a place as this -- where truly limited government is little more than a dim memory.”
Former President Bush explains his new book, “Decision Points”
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LEFTIST WATCH
Sometimes the bias can't get any clearer: A MSNBC graphic on Monday mocked GOP senatorial candidates with the headline, "American Freak Show: Angle, Paul, O'Donnell: New Faces in Politics."
George Soros is bankrolling a documentary that celebrates left-wing terrorists who plotted to napalm Republicans at the 2008 GOP convention in Minnesota. “During a search of a St. Paul residence, police found gas masks, slingshots, helmets, knee pads and eight Molotov cocktails consisting of bottles filled with gasoline with attached wicks made from tampons….They mixed gasoline with oil so it would stick to clothing and skin and burn longer…”
NPR (National Politically-correct Radio) has terminated the contract of longtime news analyst Juan Williams after remarks he made on the Fox News Channel about Muslims. Here is what Williams said: "Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
In the past, nobody at NPR got fired for calling Tea Party members “Tea Baggers,” for saying that "the evaporation of 4 million" Christians would leave the world a better place, or for suggesting that God could give former Sen. Jesse Helms or his family AIDS from a blood transfusion.
The firing of Williams, combined with leftwing billionaire George Soros’ recent $1.8 million donation to the organization, have reignited calls to end NPR’s taxpayer subsidies.
Chris Bowers, campaign director for the Daily Kos, is launching a behind-the-scenes campaign against 98 House Republican candidates that attempts to capitalize on voters' Google search habits in the hopes of influencing midterm races.
The NAACP issued a report detailing "the links between certain Tea Party factions and acknowledged racist hate groups in the United States.
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ISLAM
The United Arab Emirates’ highest judicial body says a man can beat his wife and young children as long as the beating leaves no physical marks.
A top judicial official tried to allay concerns raised by the ruling. Islamic scholars cite the Quran itself in defending wife-beating – specifically, a sura that instructs Muslim husbands with disobedient wives to admonish them, then to refuse to sleep with them, and finally to beat them.
But the head of the U.N. Population Fund says “stereotyping” is to blame for the perception that Islamic societies are “backward” when it comes to the treatment of women.
A cafe owner in the UK has been ordered to tear out a ventilation fan - because the smell of her frying bacon 'offends' Muslims.
The Koran is a text that encourages Islam to impose itself with force and permits the killing of Christians, said Lebanon's Archbishop of Antioch, addressing a Vatican meeting of Middle East bishops. "The Koran gives Muslims the right to judge Christians and kill them with Jihad," he said. "It gives orders to impose religion with force, with the sword. For this reason, Muslims don't recognize the freedom of religion among themselves or others."
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GLOBALONEY
Five centuries ago, a German priest challenged the reigning theological “consensus” about the clerical sale of indulgences, unraveling one of the great religious scams in history and inspiring the Protestant Reformation. This month, a senior American physicist challenged the reigning scientific “consensus” about global warming. His action may prove to be the unraveling one of the great scientific mistakes in history and the beginning of a greatly needed reformation of the scientific community.
Your tax dollars at work: EPA now funding propaganda videos telling kids juiceboxes and toys are destroying the planet.
Government Motors' all-electric car isn't all-electric and doesn't get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like "shovel-ready" jobs, maybe there's no such thing as "plug-ready" cars either. The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its debut in showrooms next month, but it's already being rolled out for test drives by journalists. It appears we're all being taken for a ride. Popular Mechanics found the Volt to get about 37.5 mpg in city driving
Carbon shame goes global: “Earlier this month, the World Bank announced the creation of the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund, in which Norway pays Guyana $30 million for "limiting greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation."….In return for its money, Norway receives "ecosystem services." Because the Scandinavian nation is located more than 5,000 miles from Guyana and receives no tangible benefit from this deal, Norwegians presumably can be comforted in the knowledge that their krones are preserving South American forests, thereby granting them absolution of guilt arising from damage they might wreak on their own forests. No carbon shame for them...”
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ARTICLES
“…..we are seeing a genuine meltdown of both the media and political elite, two groups not happy at all with the new American revolution called the Tea Party. Especially irritating to American Nobility is the fact that women are in front of this storm, leading the way and calling out the political establishment for disdain and punishment on election day. Women control the household accounts and we know when spending is unsustainable, threatening the very fabric of our families, or our country as the case may be. As one Tea Party rally sign aimed at big government succinctly put it, "My kid isn't your ATM." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/19/tea-party-movement-sarahpalin
“An electoral earthquake? Here are warning signs that nothing in recent experience has prepared the experts to assess adequately. First, there is the Tea-Party Movement. It is like nothing that I have witnessed in my lifetime – a spontaneous outpouring provoked by a single remark made by Rick Santelli on CNBC on 19 February 2009. I predict that the Republicans will take between seventy and one hundred seats in the House and that they will take control of the Senate….Moreover, I predict that – if the Republican leadership eschews earmarks, sticks firmly to the principles announced in the Declaration of Independence and embedded in the Constitution, and insists on a repeal of Obamacare, on there being no new taxes, and on serious budget cuts – there will be additional good news for them in 2012, especially, in the Senate. This country is in for a rough ride, but it may well emerge stronger than ever.”
Fred Barnes: “The biggest tent ever…..It’s suddenly a big tent party that includes everyone from Tea Party libertarians to gay moderates. They’re in agreement on the economic issues (spending, taxes, deficit, debt, role of government) and health care. Those are the overriding issues in the election. Other issues pale in comparison. Social issues aren’t unimportant—quite the contrary. But they didn’t need to be pushed front and center in the campaign and haven’t been. The best way to achieve a pro-life Congress is simply to elect Republicans…..”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel tossed one of progressivism's most cherished concepts under the bus. "This (multicultural) approach has failed, utterly failed," What is multiculturalism? It is a bankrupt ideology, one based on the fraudulent premise that all cultures are "equally viable" and "equally deserving" of respect. Are they really--or is this another simple case of progressives looking at the world the way they want it to be, instead of the way it really is?
STRATFOR’s George Friedman: "…The statements were striking in their bluntness and their willingness to speak of a dominant German culture, a concept that for obvious reasons Germans have been sensitive about asserting since World War II. The statement should be taken with utmost seriousness and considered for its social and geopolitical implications.”
Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is working to repeal Obamacare. "With the U.S. Constitution on our side and the hearts and minds of the American people with us, freedom will prevail," says a position paper posted on the website of Liberty Central, the group formed by Virginia Thomas this year to advance conservative principles and candidates.
To the U.S. Army soldiers and Marines some things seem so obviously true that they are beyond debate. Among those perceived truths: The restrictive rules of engagement that they have to fight under have made serving in combat far more dangerous for them, while allowing the Taliban to return to a position of strength. "If they use rockets to hit the [forward operating base] we can't shoot back because they were within 500 meters of the village. If they shoot at us and drop their weapon in the process we can't shoot back," said a U.S. Army medic in Zabul province. “Word had come down the morning Brooks spoke to this reporter that watch towers surrounding the base were going to be dismantled because Afghan village elders, some sympathetic to the Taliban, complained they were invading their village privacy.”
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Here’s your feel-good video of the week:
The AFA has a handy scorecard to see how your Congressional representative voted on family friendly legislation. In Washington, Cathy and Doc have perfect AFA scores, Dave’s is a little mixed. In the Senate, Patty scored zero..
The 2010 Index of Economic Freedom lowers the ranking of the United States to eighth out of 179 nations -- behind Canada!
All About Guns
“Obama by the numbers.” Each American now owes $43,000.
Interesting graphic. Areas of influence of Mexican drug cartels.
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WISE WORDS
"We hear much of special interest groups. Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick -- professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, 'We the people,' this breed called Americans. Well, this administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunity for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination. Putting America back to work means putting all Americans back to work. ... All must share in the productive work of this 'new beginning' and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy. With the idealism and fair play which are the core of our system and our strength, we can have a strong and prosperous America at peace with itself and the world."
-Ronald Reagan
-Ronald Reagan
"My work is done here."
posted by gary at
10:05 AM
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