op ed review 6/26
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Small Business Committee that the Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/geithner-taxes-small-business-must-rise
A new report from the Congressional Budget Office finds that President Obama’s economic stimulus program has nearly doubled U.S. debt.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/06/cbo-stimulus-almost-doubled-us-debt
By a 44 percent to 34 percent margin, Americans say they believe they are worse off than when President Barack Obama took office.
Among likely independent voters, only 23 percent said they will back his re-election, while 36 percent said they definitely will look for another candidate.
Tony the Tiger, some NASCAR drivers and cookie-selling Girl Scouts will be out of a job unless grocery manufacturers agree to reinvent a vast array of their products to satisfy the Obama administration's food police.
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/06/21/obamas-food-police-crack-down
Sen. Jim DeMint has a message to fellow Republicans in Congress: If you support increasing the debt ceiling without first passing a balanced budget amendment and massive across-the-board spending cuts, you're gone -- destined to be swept out of Congress by a wave of voter anger.
New Jersey's Democratic-led Legislature gave final approval to Gov. Christie’s plan that would require public workers to pay more for benefits. The bill, which was bitterly opposed by public-sector unions, would raise the retirement age and increase employee contributions to their pension and healthcare plans, reducing the state's burden by potentially tens of billions of dollars.
http://www.wtvr.com/sns-rt-us-newjersey-pensiotre75n0fe-20110624,0,7424021.story
President Obama has built history’s largest machine for scooping up the $20, $50 and $100 contributions that could catapult his reelection campaign to the billion-dollar mark next year.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57483.html
The Republican House is flinching on passing the simplest and most symbolic piece of legislation this term: repeal of the incandescent light bulb phase out. “Amidst great fanfare and promises to restore limited government, the new majority is proving it isn't much different than the old majority.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/republicans_flicker_on_light_bulb_ban_repeal.html
The National Labor Relations Board has proposed new rules to drastically shorten the period workers have to consider a vote to join a union.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/21/key-gop-lawmaker-slams-administration-labor-organi/
U.S. Agriculture Department officials have asked the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees all federal employee policies, to impose its intense brand of homosexual sensitivity training on all federal departments. The training includes a discussion of “heterosexism” -- the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman -- and compares it to racism.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/usda-pushing-government-wide-homosexual
President Obama heads to New York City to headline a $1,250 per ticket event for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. The money raised will go to a joint fundraising committee that contributes to both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Obama for America (OFA).
In a landmark turnabout, one of the cornerstones of contemporary liberalism is being rejected by one of the fountainheads of liberalism. The politically correct doctrine of multiculturalism is heading for decline, as Holland, one of the most socially liberal societies on earth, is reversing its former policy of multiculturalism…This occurred just a day before a Dutch court acquitted Geert Wilders of defaming Islam by, in part, reading from the Koran. It looks as though common sense is triumphing in one of the nations which led the western world down the path of political correctness. It is hard to overstate the potential importance of this development for societies elsewhere, including the United States.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/06/netherlands_abandoning_multiculturalism.html
For the first time, minorities make up a majority of babies born in the U.S. Preliminary census estimates also show the share of African-American households headed by women - made up of mostly single mothers - now exceeds African-American households with married couples.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110623/D9O1HG5G0.html
When the Department of Education last week released the results of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress -- "the Nation's Report Card" -- the bottom line was depressingly predictable: Not even a quarter of American students is proficient in US history, and the percentage declines as students grow older. Only 20 percent of 6th graders, 17 percent of 8th graders, and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrate a solid grasp on their nation's history.
http://townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/2011/06/20/who_cares_about_american_history
In the most significant global warming case to reach its front doors, the Supreme Court blocked a major lawsuit brought by states and environmental groups against five large power companies they accused of creating a public nuisance because of carbon dioxide emissions.
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
“The science is settled: US liberals really are the dumbest creatures on the planet”
……as I sat at breakfast this morning…I found myself wondering – not for the first time – why it is that liberal-lefties manage to be so utterly wrong about everything.
“Because they’re stupid,” said a libertarian friend of mine.
“Oh come on, not all of them surely? A bit misguided, maybe but…” I protested.
“No really they’re stupid because they’re not interested in facts. They just want to construct their pretty little narrative about the world, regardless of whether or not it has any bearing on reality. And then they want to dump it on us. And ruin our lives. So not just stupid but evil too.”
Well, you know me: what a big-hearted, sensitive, caring, emollient kind of guy I am. I thought these words were harsh, really harsh. But that was before I saw a video of Chris Matthews, one of America’s most popular liberal talk show hosts, talking to a liberal journalist……And guess what these liberals believe the problem with Climate Change is? Go on: think of the most stupid, reality-denying, fact-ignoring, evidence-torturing tosh anyone involved in the media could possibly have to say on the subject……..Yes, they think that the naughty yellow pixies who pull the special, magic Climat-O-Levers which control the weather have been paid by evil capitalists with fat cigars in their mouth and $ signs on their pinstripe suits to make the world’s climate all horrid so that poor, underprivileged and disabled people and endangered creatures suffer – and that the reason we don’t know about it is because the media is run by evil Conservatives who want to keep this truth a secret.
Well, almost. What these liberal opinion-formers actually think – and you’ve really got to hand it to them: not even a lobotomised amoeba could beat them in a competition for dumbest creature on the planet, these three are absolute champs, Matthews especially, make no mistake – is as follows.
They think the main reasons for the public’s growing scepticism on Climate Change are 1. The media has been far too balanced on the subject and is not pushing the eco-message hard enough. 2. Big business is funding Climate Denialism. 3. Evil Conservatives – led by Evil Talk Show Hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck – are deliberately telling lies about Climate Change. 4. The Republican party is “anti-science”.
My favorite bit is the one where Chris Matthews, who I believe takes himself seriously as a journalist, declares: “I hate that even-handed, so-called objective journalism…” ..Let’s examine a few of the claims which he and his two guest liberal echo chambers made on Hardball.
1. The media under-reports climate change. Oh yes. That will explain, for example, the recent widely reported story Decline Of Oceans Worse Than Previously Thought – given unquestioning coverage everywhere from the Sydney Morning Herald, the New York Times and Time magazine to the BBC. Yet as research from Ben Pile at Climate Resistance shows, most of these experts offering their supposed expert views on the imminence of pelagic climate doom were in fact just an ad hoc group of activists from heavily politicised organisations like Greenpeace and Pew Environment Group. Such is the state of Environmental reporting around the world these days: it consists of little more than lovingly transcribed press releases from hardcore eco-loon pressure groups.
2 Jo Nova has estimated that the amount spent by government agencies, left-leaning charitable foundations and big business promoting “global warming” is approximately 3,500 times more than the amount spent funding climate change scepticism.
3. With notable exceptions such as Fox news, US conservative talk radio, the generally right-leaning blogosphere and one or two papers such as Canada’s National Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Express there are few media outlets in the world which broadcast anything other than green propaganda. Far from being evil, the likes of Beck and Limbaugh are islands of truth in a (presumably doomed, increasingly acidified) ocean of lies…
4. Would that be “science” in the sense used by Al Gore, as in the received wisdom of a self-selecting cabal of post-normal activist scientists who dominate organizations like the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society. If so, then the Republican party is indeed “anti-science” because it…bases its scientific views on old fashioned virtues like rationalism, empiricism and open-minded, honest research rather than junk science dogma.
If we’re talking about science in the more old fashioned sense of the word as it might have been understood by, say Isaac Newton, rather than James Hansen or Al Gore, then no, the Republicans are not “anti-science.”
Another delightful read: “America has gotten a steady whiff of B.O. emanating from the White House and its environs for two and a half years now, and even those notoriously asnomiac leftists closest to our foundering President are holding their noses…..Obama's devoted followers, mainly the leftist simpletons in the press claque, continue to find imaginative new ways to structure polling questions designed to maintain the illusion that B.O. is not only still popular, but well-nigh unbeatable…….The fact of the matter is that if the election were to be held today, Obama would lose by 5 points to your mother-in-law, by 7 points to Muammar Ghaddafy, and possibly by double digits to Gary Busey…… His foreign policies are Carteresque, his economic policies are Hooveresque, and his administration's ethics are Clintonesque. B.O.'s approach to the Presidency is so abhorrent, that he may actually be able to accomplish something that even Jimmy Carter couldn't do: he might actually lose the votes of liberal Jewish Americans……..B.O. is Hawaiian toast. The latest polls show that merely 30% of voters intend to vote for Obama in 2012. Support for B.O. is falling like the Roadrunner with an anvil racing off a cliff. He will be lucky to carry Hawaii and Bernie Sanders. B.O.unbeatable? B.S.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/more_bo_than_anyone_can_stand.html
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"What the economy is missing is commercial loan activity or a willingness by corporate boards to part with cash. It's missing those components because bankers and board members generally aren't dopes when it comes to business decisions. Nope, we have enough money to get out of the doldrums. The problem isn't liquidity. The problem is that we have way more Obama than our economy can stand. ... Not a day goes by that I don't see several stories about how the administration is trying to either sue some business or impose new regulations on them. It's absolutely impossible for business owners to make competent plans to hire people under the Obama administration."
-John Ransom
"If doting progressives stopped gazing longingly into 'Obama's face' for just a moment, they might notice that in Benghazi 'democracy activists' have been rounding up Libyan blacks and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa. In Bahrain 'democracy activists' have attacked hundreds of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, ripping the tongue out of one muezzin and leaving him brain damaged. What's so 'multicultural' about the pampered middle-aged narcissists of the West's leisurely 'activist' varsity pretending that the entire planet is just like them? You can learn a lot from the deceptions a society chooses to swallow. ... That's because the liberal worldview is a fiction."
-Mark Steyn
"It saddens me when sometimes my fellow Republicans duck and cover in the face of pressure from the left. Our party cannot be all things to all people……Our opponents on the left are never going to like us, so let's quit trying to curry favor with them!"
-Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)
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BOOKS, FILM
“The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture” by David Mamet. Mamet pulls no punches in his art or in his politics. And as a former liberal who woke up, he will win over an entirely new audience of others who have grown irate over America's current direction.
More than any other Republican presidential prospect, Sarah Palin draws white-hot journalistic loathing. She's too red-state, too gun-toting, too religious and too unwilling to abort a disabled "fetus." Even so, filmmaker Stephen Bannon remains deeply optimistic that his forthcoming Palin documentary, "The Undefeated," will sway the media to see Palin in a different light.
http://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2011/06/22/palin_movie_vs_media_mythology/page/2
Filmmaker John Ziegler has been one of Sarah Palin’s most vocal supporters. He got her cooperation for his film “Media Malpractice,” which blasted the press coverage of her. But Ziegler told CNN’s “Reliable Sources” this morning that it would be devastating for the Republican Party if Palin ran for president next year. “She has no chance of beating Barack Obama, and the media narrative that has been created about her is the No. 1 reason why,” Ziegler told Howard Kurtz. “It’s not her fault. It’s not fair…”
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GLOBALONEY
The calendar says summer starts tomorrow in the Northern Hemisphere. The snow falling in the mountains of Colorado tells a different story.
The NASA scientist who once claimed the Bush administration tried to "silence" his global warming claims is now accused of receiving more than $1.2 million from the very environmental organizations whose agenda he advocated. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., a group claims NASA is withholding documents that show James Hansen failed to comply with ethics rules and financial disclosures regarding substantial compensation he earned outside his $180,000 taxpayer-paid position as director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "Hansen's office appears to be somewhat of a rogue operation.”
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LEFTIST WATCH
In many European minds, America is run by religious fundamentalists and moustache-twirling defense contractors. So, for the sake of balance, it is good to be reminded that there are some real liberal nutjobs living out there too. And you won’t find a more liberal or nuttier city than San Francisco. The San Francisco Animal Control and Welfare Commission has proposed a ban on the sale of goldfish.
General Motors (GM) continues apace its government-backed conversion from a company existing to manufacture automobiles for money – into a fully-formed, Leftist ideological entity working as another wing of the Barack Obama Administration’s fundamental transformation of America. A de facto non-profit organization posing as a for-profit car joint. That seems less and less concerned with designing cars people want, and is instead looking to redesign the nation – with products and policies Americans have time and again demonstrated they don’t want anything to do with.
In order to understand liberalism, all one needs to do is take note of what the left applauds versus what they attack. Case in point: Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann -- wife, mother to five biological children, and foster mother to 23 teenagers -- has now become the focal point of left-wing attacks as they prepare to diminish her stature by attacking her family.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/questioning_michele_bachmanns_foster_parent_claims.html
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ISLAM
Far more disturbing than the salacious details of Rep Anthony Weiner's dalliances is the fact that apparently his mother-in-law is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/the_muslim_brotherhood_and_weiner.html
In a victory for decency and sanity, the Court of Amsterdam has acquitted Dutch politician Geert Wilders of all of the “hate speech” charges that have been hanging over his head for several years now. “This is a decisive defeat for the Islamic supremacist forces that have been trying to destroy the freedom of speech and compel dhimmi Western governments to label the truth about Islam and jihad as “hate speech.”
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2011062413900/world/terrorism/geert-wilders-acquitted.html
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ARTICLES
Karl Rove: Why Obama Is Likely to Lose in 2012.
10 Reasons Obama is a One-Term President
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44311
Five Arguments Against Gay Marriage
A mistake that is hard to forgive: Barack Obama confuses a posthumous Medal of Honor winner with a live one.
CNN reporter: "How's the family ready for this [the election]? It's going to be quite vicious, isn't it? How do you prepare for that?" First Lady Michelle Obama: "….Fortunately, we have help from the media…I'm very grateful for the support….”
A real life experiment has revealed the madness of raising the minimum wage. One of the tenets of brain dead liberalism is that raising the minimum wage benefits workers. In the imaginary world of liberals, government edicts make the world run, and market forces count for nothing. Such thinking can only come from people who have never invested their own money, taken responsibility for hiring and paying people, and had to live with market responses. The GAO has just released a report on the effect of raising the minimum wage in American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands to mainland US levels. What cause could appeal more to liberals? Eliminating discrimination! Treating all American citizens the same! Rescuing exploited workers from evil companies exploiting them! Here is what happened: In American Samoa, employment fell 19 percent….
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/06/minimum_wage_madness_exposed.html
The Democrats’ “historic achievement,” shocking as it seems, turns out to be an expensive, jobs-crippling monstrosity that is filled with unintended consequences. Employers are likely to dump employees into highly subsidized exchanges. It’s not going to bend the cost curve. And today, the Associated Press reports: President Barack Obama’s health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.
You know the debt situation is bad when even AARP changes its tune on Social Security.
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/24/137395740/for-aarp-a-monumental-shift-on-social-security?ps=cprs
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
AFAs fact sheet on Home Depot
http://action.afa.net/uploadedFiles/Activism/National_Activism/Home_Depot_passalongsheet.pdf
Rush Limbaugh is getting into the iced tea business
“Our goal is to cover the ongoing debate about the future of the Republican party and conservatism in America. And to help spur it along.”
http://conhomeusa.typepad.com/home/
Don’t throw out your kiddie pool, it may have other uses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od7U9GhZg_g&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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LATE NITE
Leno: President Obama announced this week that he is going to start sending out his own messages personally on Twitter. And today Anthony Weiner said, “It’s a trap, don’t do it!” But President Obama’s tweets are a little different than Anthony Weiner’s. When Obama sends out pictures of something obscene, it’s the unemployment numbers……..According to new polls, 66 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. But the good news is, gas is so expensive and traffic is so bad that we won’t get there for a long time…….Officials still can't say what happened to $6.6 billion that was sent to Iraq for reconstruction. That's money we could have wasted and mismanaged right here at home.
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WISE WORDS
"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it."
-HL Mencken
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."
-Thomas Jefferson
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