op ed review 1/15
Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night with a broad-based coalition of both conservative and moderate voters overwhelmingly motivated by their worries about America’s economic future and wanting above all to beat President Barack Obama in November. According to exit poll data, more than a third of voters said the quality that mattered most in deciding their vote was the candidate’s ability to defeat Obama. Romney won an overwhelming 62 percent of those voters. One surprising finding: Santorum, a Catholic, won only about 8 percent of self-identified Catholic voters….Romney, a Mormon, dominated among Catholics winning 45 percent of them.
Republican circular firing squad? Mitt Romney is depicted as a financier “more ruthless than Wall Street” and a son of privilege responsible for firing thousands of workers in a film bankrolled by Newt Gingrich supporters set to be released today in South Carolina.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is “shocked” by Newt Gingrich’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s private-sector career. Giuliani asked, “What the hell are you doing, Newt? I expect this from Saul Alinsky!”
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48753
“Obama on Pace to Borrow $6.2Trillion in One Term—More Than All Presidents from Washington Through Clinton Combined”
Size of U.S. debt is now the same as its entire economy: $15.23 TRILLION
The record of President Obama’s first three years in office is in…..Obama, with his throwback, old-fashioned, 1970s Keynesian economics, has put America through the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.
Poll: Americans, 2-1, Fear Obama's Reelection
President Obama Monday evening collected a startling $45,000 per head at a Washington fundraiser to benefit his campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and Democratic state election efforts.
http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2012/01/10/obama-hosts-fundraiser-45000-ticket/
President Obama recently signed a mysterious new law that proclaims all American soil is a "battleground," thereby allowing the president to indefinitely detain any American citizen without charges.
“It's unclear exactly why, but the Department of Homeland has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" program to monitor the top blogs, forums and social networks online. The purpose of the project is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture,” whatever that means.
Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/conservatives-single-largest-ideological-group.aspx
“U.S. Coast Guard called in to protect ships from “occupiers” and labor groups in Longview WA.”
The Obamas threw an epic Halloween bash in 2009 and we’re only just now discovering how over-the-top the bash was — and how complicit media was in keeping the White House’s secret.
Here are some bizarre photos from the event:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez mocked the U.S. and joked about directing 'a big atomic bomb' at Washington as they met in Caracas.
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Ann Coulter 1/11
Earlier this week, Mitt Romney got into trouble for saying, "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." To comprehend why the political class reacted as if Romney had just praised Hitler, you must understand that his critics live in a world in which no one can ever be fired -- a world known as "the government."
Romney's statement about being able to fire people was an arrow directed straight to the heart of Obamacare. Talking about insurance providers, he said:
"I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn't give me a good service that I need, I want to say I'm going to go get someone else to provide that service to me."
Obamacare, you will recall, will be administered by the same people who run the Department of Motor Vehicles. They will operate under the same self-paced, self-evaluated work rules that have made government offices the envy of efficiency specialists everywhere. And no one will be able to fire them -- unless they're caught doing something truly vile and criminal, such as stealing from patients in nursing homes.
Oops, I take that back: Government employees who rob the elderly also can't be fired. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that, after a spate of burglaries at a veterans hospital in California several years ago, authorities set up video cameras to catch the perpetrators. In short order, nurse's aide Linda Riccitelli was videotaped sneaking into the room of 93-year-old Raymond Germain as he slept, sticking her hand into his dresser drawer and stealing the bait money that had been left there. Riccitelli was fired and a burglary prosecution initiated. A few years later, the California Personnel Board rescinded her firing and awarded her three-years back pay. The board dismissed the videotape of Riccitelli stealing the money as "circumstantial."
But surely we'll be able to fire a government employee who commits a physical assault on a mentally disturbed patient? No, wrong again. Psychiatric technician Gregory Powell was working at a government center for the mentally retarded when he hit a severely disturbed individual with a shoe so hard that the impression of the shoe's sole was visible on the victim three hours later. A psychologist who witnessed the attack said the patient was cowering on the couch before being struck. Powell was fired, but, again, the California Personnel Board ordered him rehired….
Wherever there is government, there is malfeasance and criminality -- and government employees who can never be fired.
In 2010, 33 employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission -- half making $100,000 to $200,000 per year -- were found to have spent most of their workdays downloading Internet pornography over a five-year period. One, a senior lawyer at SEC headquarters in Washington, D.C., admitted to spending eight hours a day looking at Internet pornography, sometimes even "working" through his lunch hour. Another admitted watching up to five hours a day of pornography in his office. Not one of the porn-surfing employees of the SEC was fired……
These are the people who are going to be controlling your access to medical services if Obamacare isn't repealed. There will be only one insurance provider, and you won't be able to switch, even if the service is lousy (and it will be).
Obamacare employees will spend their days surfing pornography, instead of approving your heart operation. They can steal from you and even physically assault you. And they can never be fired. That's one gargantuan difference with "Romneycare" right there: If you don't like what your insurer is doing in Massachusetts, you can get a new one.
Now, wouldn't you like to be able to fire people who provide services to you?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48749
Tony Blankley, a noted conservative commentator, Ronald Reagan speechwriter and former editorial page editor of The Washington Times, died late Saturday, leaving a legacy of significant analysis that bridged politics and culture with finesse, optimism and a sense of history. He was 63 and had been battling stomach cancer. “His father had been the accountant for Winston Churchill. Tony grew up with this deep passionate commitment, that I think he got from his dad, for freedom,” Said Newt Gingrich, “Tony was a very special person. He was more than a great professional. He was a great human being...”
______________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"Government becomes big by having big ambitions for supplanting markets as society's primary allocator of wealth and opportunity. Therefore it becomes a magnet for factions muscular enough, in money or numbers or both, to bend government to their advantage. The left's centuries-old mission is to increase social harmony by decreasing antagonisms arising from disparities of wealth -- to decrease inequality by increasing government's redistributive activities. Such government constantly expands under the unending, indeed intensifying, pressures to correct what it disapproves of -- the distribution of wealth produced by consensual market activities. But as government presumes to dictate the correct distribution of social rewards, the maelstrom of contemporary politics demonstrates that social strife, not solidarity, is generated by government transfer payments to preferred groups. ... Not only does redistributionist government direct wealth upward; in asserting a right to do so it siphons power into itself.... Government uses redistribution to correct social outcomes that offend it. But government rarely explains, or perhaps even recognizes, the reasoning by which it decides why particular outcomes of consensual market activities are incorrect. ... People are less dissatisfied by what they lack than by what others have. And when government engages in redistribution in order to maximize the happiness of citizens who become more envious as they become more comfortable, government becomes increasingly frenzied and futile."
-George Will
"Mitt Romney's victory in Iowa is underappreciated. It was a well-run campaign and no one thought the day of the Ames straw poll, in August, that it would happen. The victory of Rick Santorum is a pundit-humbler: No one saw that coming even six weeks ago, except perhaps Mr. Santorum. The Iowa results almost perfectly reflect the Republican Party, which, roughly speaking, is split into three parts -- libertarians, social conservatives and moderate conservatives, who went for Ron Paul, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Romney respectively. The three parts of the party have been held together by agreement on three big issues: spending (which must be cut), taxing (which must be reformed), and President Obama (who must be removed). These three issues have force. Taxes and spending are the ties that bind, the top and bottom crust that holds the pie together. They're the reason the party is still the party, and not the splinter groups. The third element, Mr. Obama, is this year equally important. But there's no denying the Republicans are in a brawl, and it is becoming ferocious."
-Peggy Noonan
“Conservatives are fractured, split and mad at each other, brawling like Democrats. There’s only one man who can unify the movement. Fortunately for the Grumpy Old Party, Barack Obama is available, ready and eager. By mid-March, we’ll have muddled through most of the primaries and caucuses (cauci?), and by then the Republicans will know who their nominee will be, even if he won’t be crowned until the party meets in convention assembled in Tampa, Fla., in late August. Soon the cannibalism will abate, and the fun will begin. The venom will be aimed at the president, who will fire back”
-Wes Pruden
“There still exists a possibility that, come Jan. 20, 2013, we could have a Republican Senate and House, and a Republican president. But there is also a possibility that a Goldwater-Rockefeller-type family bloodletting could sunder the party and kick it all away.”
-Pat Buchanan
_______________________________________________________________________________
ISLAM
Federal agents arrested a Florida man described as having extremist jihadist beliefs who wanted to blow up a target in Tampa and create "terror" in victims' hearts. "I want to do something terrifying," he said, according to a federal complaint, "like one day, one night, something's going to happen. Then six hours later, something else." Sami Osmakac, 25, was taken into custody after an FBI sting operation in which he tried to buy explosives, at least 10 grenades, Uzis and an AK-47, authorities said.
A group of Muslim men in the UK handed out leaflets calling for homosexuals to be 'punished' and given the death sentence.
A mother accused of murdering three of her daughters and her husband’s first wife in an honor killing recently testified in an Ontario court in Canada.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/13/when-muslim-moms-kill/
_________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
It may be a mild winter down here, but record snow in Anchorage as Alaskan communities run out of shovels following 27ft snowfall.
Companies that supply gasoline and diesel fuel will pay $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury for failing to use a special type of biofuel additive that does not now exist. “Penalizing the fuel suppliers demonstrates what happens when the federal government really, really wants something that technology is not ready to provide.”
________________________________________________________________________
THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Conservatives are savaging Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for their attacks on Mitt Romney’s years at the private-equity firm Bain Capital. The attacks from Gingrich and Perry, whose presidential campaigns are on life support, are meant to resonate in South Carolina, the next state on the GOP calendar and a place hit hard by the economic downturn. Yet in slamming Romney as a corporate raider, the two candidates fighting for their party’s right-wing might have done what Romney never seemed capable of: rallying conservatives around the former Massachusetts governor’s campaign. The influential Wall Street Journal editorial page denounced the criticism as “crude and damaging caricatures of modern business and capitalism” on Tuesday, saying that “desperate” GOP candidates “sound like Michael Moore.” Rush Limbaugh said Monday of Gingrich’s criticism that “you could have read this in an Occupy Wall Street flier.”
Newt says there is “good” capitalism (Apple) and “bad”(Bain) capitalism. Huh???
Well, we saw this a mile away. In less than a day, the Newt Gingrich attack on capitalism has failed miserably to elevate Gingrich or to make Mitt Romney a less-desirable nominee. The reaction is nearly uniform. A longtime GOP campaign operative and Romney supporter told me, “Newt’s just dynamiting bridges behind him on the way out of town now. The entire party from top to bottom sees it. Everyone knew he was volatile, but using a Michael Moore hit-job on capitalism just confirmed it.”
A survey finds that 58 percent of Republican primary voters want more presidential choices, while just 37 percent say they are satisfied with the current field.
Ken Blackwell: “Why We Need A Constitutional Conservative Candidate”
http://cnsnews.com/node/497286
Gallup: Mitt Romney is the now the only candidate that a majority of conservative and moderate/liberal Republicans nationwide see as an "acceptable" GOP nominee for president. Conservative Republicans are more likely to say Romney would be an acceptable nominee than either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/151961/Majority-Conservatives-Romney-Acceptable.aspx
History lesson: The Hundred Year GOP War. “Once upon a time… a long, long, loooonnnnnnnnng time ago in a political galaxy far away… the fight between Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich began. Specifically, it was 1912 -- a long 100 years ago -- when Republicans William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt launched the first intra-Republican Party war between conservatives and moderates. Or, as TR himself-styled the latter, "progressives." That first fight was a doozy.
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/01/10/the-hundred-year-gop-war/
___________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
“Why Boeing's Not in Kansas Anymore” In the end, the Pentagon's 'price-shootout' strategy to break the impasse over the battle for the Air Force refueling-tanker contract drove jobs out of Wichita.
R. Emmett Tyrrell: “Thank You, God, For Tim Tebow”
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/01/12/thank-you-god
Chinese officials love their cars — big, fancy, expensive cars. A chocolate-colored Bentley worth $560,000 is cruising the streets of Beijing with license plates indicating it is registered to the Communist Party headquarters. The armed police, who handle riots and crowd control, have the same model of Bentley in blue. And just in case it needs to go racing off to war, the Chinese army has a black Maserati that sells in China for $330,000. "Corruption on wheels is an accurate description of this problem,"
______________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
GET YOUR FREE RIGHT WING HANDBOOK (PDF) NOW!
The top 19.5 quotes from the Republican debates
Good framework for a platform: “Leaders of over 100 conservative organizations and tea party activists we have come together to reaffirm the principles of constitutional limited government and economic freedom and our belief in a strong national security and traditional American values. We advocate a principle-based strategy focused on four fundamental policy areas, each of which is supported by a majority of our fellow citizens: growth, family, strength, and accountability. We urge those seeking public office to pay particular attention to the following important issues:”
http://www.conservativehq.com/article/5930-conservative-consensus-2012
Impressed by the effectiveness of the liberal Center for American Progress, a group of conservative journalists and operatives are preparing to engage in their own sincerest form of flattery. The Center for American Freedom’s goal is to wage a well-funded assault on the Obama White House and the liberal domination of partisan online media. The group also will have a campaign-style war room directed by two former heads of the Republican National Committee’s impressive research operation. And CAF's media-monitoring unit will attack unfair reporting at MSNBC, just as Media Matters has done to Fox News.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71099.html#ixzz1ib7i8A1f
____________________________________________________________________________
LATE-NITE
Leno: According to the tabloids, John Edwards is going to marry his mistress, Rielle Hunter. Which means, of course, now he has to find a new mistress, and the whole thing starts again…..In Saturday night's Republican debate, Jon Huntsman spoke Chinese. Why Chinese? If you want to reach the American people, you’ve got to speak Spanish……A group calling itself the Courage Campaign is trying to win support for a millionaire tax by running an ad showing Kim Kardashian. They want the Kardashians to pay more. This is part of the plan to raise taxes on the dumbest 1 percent.
_____________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-C. S. Lewis
"The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment."
-Ronald Reagan
posted by gary at
3:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home