op ed review 8/26
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
Less than a week before the Republican convention begins,
the race for the White House is a virtual tie. According to a Fox News poll of
likely voters, the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan ticket receives the backing of 45
percent, while the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket garners 44 percent.
Paul Ryan propelled Mitt Romney to a four-point lead over
President Obama in Michigan.
Mitt Romney has opened up a 1-point lead in the key
battleground state of Wisconsin,
according to a poll released Tuesday.
President Barack Obama could lose his home state of Illinois in November, a
new poll shows.
Former NY Jets and Oakland Raiders star Burgess Owens tells
blacks not to vote for Obama.
In the most shocking survey this election cycle, a poll
released today finds Mitt Romney leading President Barack Obama by 14
percentage points among likely Florida
voters.
According to the latest Gallup data, Mitt Romney
enjoys an 11-point advantage among voters age 65 and older.
In July Romney outraised Obama in all but 11 states and all
9 of the swing states.
In 2008 Barack Obama carried 54% of the Catholic vote. Today
only 27% of Catholics support Obama. There are over 77 million Catholics in the
United States.
The world's biggest bookseller has created a heat map to
highlight whether Republican or Democrat slanted books are proving most popular
in each of the country's 50 states. The heat map shows that books classified
right wing are outselling Democrat style books in 44 of the U.S.'s 50 states. Even the
traditional Democrat stronghold of California
is seeing greater Republican sales.
A shocking development is rocking the Obama campaign, as a
reliably supportive media outlet has published a cover story with the shocking
caption, "Hit the Road, Barack: Why We Need a New President." This
from Newsweek, a magazine which all too recently published a cover depicting
Mr. Obama with a rainbow colored halo and the caption "The First Gay
President." Even more important than the devastating content of the cover
story is where it was published. Newsweek is published by Tina Brown, long a
fixture of the media social scene, a trendsetter. The cover story represents a
serious breach in the cofferdam erected around Obama and the progressive cause.
It constitutes recognition that this particular emperor actually has no
clothes.
First Lady Michelle Obama this week
is serving as guest editor for iVillage.com, NBC’s “community of online women”
that offers sexually explicit material, including graphic sex tips from
prostitutes, “20 kinky things you SO can do,” and a list of “naughty”
apps for mobile devices.
The Obama Justice Department has an affirmative action
program to recruit attorneys and staff who are dwarfs or who have “psychiatric
disabilities” or “severe intellectual disabilities.”
“Where Our $500 Million Went: Solyndra Glass Tubes Used as
Modern Art”
A billboard has appeared along I-35 in North Texas. The ad depicts two men in camouflage holding
weapons. The text next to the picture, in a military style font, says “The
Seals removed one threat to America,”
a reference to the killing of Osama bin Laden. It continues, “Remove the other
in November.”
The gold standard has returned to mainstream U.S. politics
for the first time in 30 years, with a “gold commission” set to become part of
official Republican party policy. The move shows how five years of easy
monetary policy — and the efforts of congressman Ron Paul — have made the
once-fringe idea of returning to gold-as-money a legitimate part of Republican
debate.
As Republican platforms have since 1984, the Republican
National Platform being drafted in Tampa,
Fla., this week calls for a human
life amendment to the U.S. Constitution and for legislation to make it clear
that the 14th Amendment protects unborn children.
The GOP is turning what some see as a presidential slight
aimed at business owners and entrepreneurs into a theme for a night of the
Republican National Convention next week, titling Tuesday night’s session “We
Built This!
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/08/21/gop-convention-session-be-themed-we-built#ixzz249cVykCS
U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., will speak during
the opening night of the Republican National Convention in Tampa next Monday.
“How many government
workers does it take to fix a broken faucet? Answer: more than 200. First, you
need dozens to fill out paperwork. Then, you need someone to change the
horseshoes of the department's imaginary horses. Then -- Wait. Horseshoes?
Sadly, it's not a joke. The Mackinac Center's Jarrett Skorup reports: Despite having no
horses, the water and sewerage department for the city of Detroit employs a horseshoer. Yet even with a
department so bloated that it has a horseshoer and no horses, the local union
president said it is "not possible" to eliminate positions.”
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told The Daily Caller
that he is “very proud” of the Economic Recovery Act of 2009 that put 65,000
people to work with $48 billion in federal funds for the Department of
Transportation, amounting to $738,461 per job.
“Conservative Offers $20,000 to Anyone Who Can Produce
Obama’s College Transcripts”
________________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Investor’s Business Daily Editorial 8/21
The battle is on between entrepreneurship and crony
socialism, between candidates who believe innovative risk-takers create jobs
and an administration that believes all blessings flow from the government. By
President Obama's logic, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps didn't really win all
those medals on his record-setting run. The credit should go to those who built
the pools he trained in and filled them with water.
Building on the reaction to President Obama's disparagement
of entrepreneurs and businessmen large and small, the GOP at next week's
Republican National Convention will dedicate Tuesday night to the theme of
"We Built This!" Speakers will include Sher Valenzeula, a Latina candidate for lieutenant governor in Delaware. Her campaign
website notes she and her husband started an upholstery business that makes
padding for baseball umpires and military vests.
"Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American
system that we have that allowed you to thrive," the president famously
has said of business owners. "Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If
you've got a business — you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
According to Obama, those of you who thought that those
bridges and roads were built with the tax dollars paid by businesses and the
people they employ were sadly mistaken. The GOP hopes to capitalize on the
justified anger of those who made personal sacrifices and put long hours into
building their businesses.
This disdain for the individual and the American system of
free enterprise designed to let everyone reach the limits of his or her talents
and ambitions should be the overarching theme of the 2012 presidential
campaign. This is the president who, in a speech delivered at Osawatomie, Kan.,
in December, argued that while a limited government that preserves free markets
"speaks to our rugged individualism" as Americans, such a system
"doesn't work" and "has never worked" and that Americans
must look to a more activist government that taxes more, spends more and
regulates more.
In Obama's America,
success is not to be applauded and encouraged; it must be punished. Wealth is
not to be created, but to be redistributed. If you succeed, it's to someone else's credit; if you fail,
it's someone else's fault.
President Obama has been fundamentally transforming America
into a nation of wagon-riders rather than wagon-pullers. Entrepreneurs and
risk-takers, those who designed and built the wagon, are denigrated as the evil
1%. But Obama has forgotten one thing: that to share prosperity, prosperity
must first be created, and through taxation and regulation he has steadily
reduced the incentives to do so.
“It's stunning for an immigrant from a socialist
country to hear in the speeches of Democratic Party leaders platitudes taught
in socialist countries. Even more stunning is how they resonate with people
born in the free world. At the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th
calls for "equality," "fairness," "sacrifices for
collective good" and "social justice" aroused communist
revolutionaries in Russia
and ushered in the U.S.S.R. They demonized and obliterated any religion that
interfered with government authority. They erased individualism and
entrepreneurship from society. Animosity among ethnic groups was insidiously
cultivated…..For more than 100 years, old and tired socialist propaganda
brought out the worst in societies: envy, hate, intolerance and disrespect for
human life, just as these traits have increased in the last four years in the
U.S. The U.S.
is not 19th century tsarist Russia,
but it is being transformed into something far different from the "land of
the free.”
“To defeat Obama, the Romney-Ryan duo must contrast our
great Legacy of Liberty with the oppressive socialist doctrines advocated by
the Left. They must energize the largest conservative grassroots movement in
history and enlist the support of American Patriots from all walks of life.
They must alert our countrymen that we are on the downside of the fatal cycle
of democracy and that the only way to circumvent the certainty of tyranny is to
restore constitutional integrity. Romney-Ryan must cast their campaign in the
mold of Reagan, who simply asked, "Are you better off now than four years
ago?" and they must follow it up with a bold free-enterprise plan for
economic recovery. They must boost American morale, and speak plainly about
Obama's failed socialist regime. They must pledge to end Obama's distorted
vision of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America." They must not "pivot toward the
center," as was the case with failed "establishment Republican"
presidential candidates John McCain in 2008 (we issued the same advice then),
Bob Dole in 1996 and George H.W. Bush in 1992. The Republican "status
quo" didn't cut it then, and it won't cut it this time. Nor will the
campaign theme, "We're not Obama."
_____________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"On the campaign trail, Barack Obama's signature
definition of 'success' is the government bailout of General Motors. 'I said I
believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American
auto industry has come roaring back,' he told an audience in Pueblo, CO
[recently]. 'Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just
in the auto industry, but in every industry.' That pronouncement should send a
shiver up the spine of every American, due to an inconvenient reality:
according to Forbes Magazine, GM is likely headed for bankruptcy all over again…...
In this particular case, it is quite likely the president is saying exactly
where he intends to take America
in the next four years should he be re-elected."
-Arnold
Ahlert
“This election is a
test, not just of the opposing candidates but of the voting public. If what
they want are the hard facts about where the country is, and where it is
heading, they cannot vote for more of the same for the next four years."
-Thomas Sowell
“…..as the days run down on the Obama
presidency, expect every last absurd, offensive and despicable attack to be
mounted. There just isn't anything else left, and desperation is never
gracious.”
-Hugh Hewitt
"Amid the dazzling bounty of the marketplace, it's easy
to take the benefits of markets for granted. I can go to a foreign country and
stick a piece of plastic in the wall, and cash will come out. I can give that
same piece of plastic to a stranger who doesn't even speak my language -- and
he'll rent me a car for a week. When I get home, Visa or MasterCard will send
me the accounting -- correct to the penny. ... Government, by contrast, can't
even count votes accurately. Yet whenever there are problems, people turn to
government. ... There is nothing government can do that we cannot do better as
free individuals -- and as groups of individuals working freely together. Without
big government, our possibilities are limitless."
-John Stossel
"Floyd Corkins, a volunteer for the last six months at
the D.C. Center
for the LGBT Community, marched into the Family Research
Center with a gun and
serious ammunition, denounced FRC's policy positions and shot a security guard
in the arm before being subdued. Another hate crime, but this time against,
perhaps, the pre-eminent pro-family organization in America. CBS gave the story 20
seconds. NBC spent 17 seconds. Imagine a volunteer for the Family Research
Council marching into some gay group's headquarters with a gun, and after
shouting his opposition to the homosexual agenda, opened fire and wounded a
guard before being subdued. Never mind evening news. This would be breaking
news! and for days there would be seemingly endless coverage of continued
conservative hatred. ... Whether it's vandalism at Chick-fil-A or rapes in Occupy Wall Street
camps, these networks simply cannot find 'news' in liberal violence of any kind.
... These same media outlets pounce on allegations of conservative hatred, even
when there isn't a scintilla of evidence. The Oklahoma City bombing was caused by hatred
from right-wing talk radio. The Aurora,
Colo., killer was a member of the
tea party. So, too, was the man who shot Gabby Giffords. On and on it goes; and
over and over it turns out not to be true."
-L.
Brent Bozell
______________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
Carbon emissions in the U.S. have hit a 20-year low due to
a supposedly environmentally unfriendly drilling technique that has created an
abundance of cheap natural gas. The free market, it seems, does it better than
the EPA. Environmentalists find themselves between shale rock and a hard place
after a little noticed technical report documented how the natural gas boom
caused by the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has actually helped the
environment in a major way while also creating jobs and economic growth.
http://news.investors.com/article/622858/201208201902/fracking-drops-carbon-emissions-to-new-low.htm
Another billion dollar taxpayer boondoggle: Ethanol as government energy policy has been
an economic and environmental bust. There’s little debate: it inflates motor
fuel prices, while compromising the environment. And that was before this
summer’s draught reducing corn and wheat supply.
_____________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
Republican delegates arriving in Tampa for the convention
this week will likely find one thing more oppressive than the humidity: hordes
of motley Occupiers, political puppeteers, Teamsters, Code Pink activists
dressed as giant female body parts, open-borders extremists, vegan Marxists,
and tattooed anarchists, all assembling for their quadrennial temper tantrum.
One major target is the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, and
anything ever associated with him. Plans include a tent city called
“Romneyville” and protests against any companies assisted by Romney’s old firm,
Bain Capital.
An Occupy organizer admitted over the weekend that the goal
of his protest group was to "overthrow the capitalist system and build
communism." So the cat's out of the bag again on this bunch. Where is the
outrage? The true agenda of the Occupy movement has been revealed — it's a
totalitarian one. Billing itself as a spontaneous people's revolution and
embraced by the media and Democrat political establishment, Occupy is really a
destructive band of thugs whose goal is the violent demise of democracy.
Remember how the far left in America has said since the rise of
the Tea Party that the right is awash in "violent rhetoric"? What
about the proposition to kill the Boy Scouts like one would kill a rabid dog?
That is what a columnist for The Atlantic has implied. James Hamblin, the
magazine's health editor, proclaimed his desire to kill Boy Scouts based on his
distaste for their recently re-affirmed policy of refusing to admit openly gay
members.
_____________________________________________________________________________
ISLAM
As the Muslim Brotherhood takes control of Egypt:
“…blatant and apparently rising physical and verbal molestation of women
in public spaces throughout Egypt
that is discouraging their participation in civic life.”
___________________________________________________________________________
BOOKS, FILM
Thomas Sowell: Years,
and sometimes decades, pass between my visits to movie theaters. But I drove 30
miles to see the movie “2016,” based on Dinesh D’Souza’s best-selling book,
“The Roots of Obama’s Rage.” Where I live is so politically correct that such a
movie would not even be mentioned, much less shown…..the movie “2016″
demonstrates how so many of Obama’s actions as President of the United States,
which D’Souza had predicted on the basis of his study of Obama’s background,
are perfectly consistent with that ideology, however inconsistent it is with
the rhetoric that gained him the highest office in the land.
“Anti-Obama Movie Stuns Hollywood For #3 position this
weekend.”
____________________________________________________________________________
ELECTION
“There’s really only one issue in the 2012 presidential
race; all the rest is trivia. That one issue is: Do you want to be in control
of your life, or do you want government to control your life? If you want to
keep control over your life, then do not re-elect Barack Obama to a second term
in the White House. Hold tight to your liberty. If, however, you want your life
defined, channeled and limited by Obama’s “we can’t wait” executive orders and
the bureaucratic rules of government agencies, then Obama is your guy.”
At 10:30 on Monday night, Ann Romney is scheduled to take
the stage at the Republican National Convention, in Act 1 of her husband’s
four-day introduction to the nation. But tens of millions of people will not be
able to watch. CBS plans instead to show a rerun of “Hawaii Five-O,”. Viewers
of NBC will see a new episode of “Grimm”. And ABC plans to show “Castle,” a
series about a best-selling mystery novelist who helps solve crimes. Advisers
to Mitt Romney, facing a blackout of the opening-night program they
fastidiously scripted to soften perceptions of the candidate, are angry.
The 63-year-old mother of five and grandmother of 18 has
embraced the homemaker image that Hillary Rodham Clinton so openly scorned.
A University
of Colorado analysis of state-by-state
factors leading to the Electoral College selection of every U.S. president since 1980 forecasts
that the 2012 winner will be Mitt Romney.
The key is the economy, say political science professors Kenneth Bickers
of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver. Their prediction model stresses
economic data from the 50 states and the District
of Columbia, including both state and national
unemployment figures as well as changes in real per capita income, among other
factors.
While the president and his minions play smear games against
the GOP, the economy is figuratively burning down…..But the president refuses
to deal with that mess until after the election (by then, we’ll be well on our
way to the recession). The irresponsibility is staggering.
____________________________________________________________________________
GOOD ADVICE
"Mr. Alexander, I'm pleased to note the Patriot
Team is taking a few days away. When they return, I hope they will challenge
the choice of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's VP. Neither Mr. Romney nor Mr. Ryan is
a conservative, and I fail to see much difference in the bottom line if they
are elected or Obama remains in office. The only conservatives are those who
act in agreement with the Constitution." --Disillusioned! in California
Alexander's
Reply: Both these men are solid Republicans, which is not
to say solid conservatives. However, if you "fail to see much difference
in the bottom line" whether Romney-Ryan or Obama-Biden are elected, then
that is a FAIL. If your suggestion was just hyperbole because you are disappointed
that the GOP ticket is not more conservative, then OK. However, if you conclude
that a Romney-Ryan ticket or an Obama-Biden ticket will make no difference to
the future of Liberty,
you are remarkably misinformed. Any Patriot who is sulking under the same
delusion, has flatly lost touch with reality. As I noted, it is time to unify
and DEFEAT Obama, not foment self-defeating disunity over the Romney-Ryan
ticket."
____________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
Confessions of an Ex-Liberal by
Here’s a list of the annual salaries and benefits earned by
the nation’s top labor officials. This
data is based on 2011 filings: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka – $293,750.
National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel – $460,060 Service
Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry – $290,334. American
Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee
– $512,489. International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa ,
Jr. – $372,489. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten –
$493,859.
The Washington Post's "On Faith" blog network has
joined the chorus of media outlets extolling the virtues of Islam. Kathleen
Duff of the Religion News Service, in an August 17 post, expressed her newfound
admiration for the holy book of Islam. In a glowing piece titled “What
Catholics Can Learn from the Quran,” Duff wrote: “This year during Ramadan –
the ninth month of the Islamic calendar when Muslims believe the Quran was
first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad – I was in solidarity with my Muslim
sisters and brothers throughout the world by reading the Quran……” When “On Faith” publishes a piece titled
“What Muslims Can Learn from the Bible,” this line of thought might be more
plausible. But such inter-faith dialogue would not be politically correct at
the Post.
________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
On this website, you can check if all your friends
and family are registered to vote. Then,
you can do one of three things:
-email them a Voter Registration form
-email them an encouragement to share the website with
others
-print a paper copy of a Voter Registration form to
give/mail to them.
www.registerONE.org
“We are pleased to announce the launch of fpiw.org/vote,
which is your one stop voter registration place in Washington State.
One in seven people who think they're registered to vote actually aren't.
And there are millions more who know they aren't, but should be. So....we've
made it idiot proof to make sure you are registered to vote and also make sure
your friends are as well.”
Democrats are furious about this Reuters photo: President Blockhead?
“Call Me Maybe” performed by
US Army Infantry Soldiers in Kunar
Province, Afghanistan.
Directed, filmed, and edited by the troops as a morale boost for our Soldiers
here and our families/FRG back home.
Powerful ad. “Will
you vote the values that will stand the test of fire?”
____________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
"The American dream is not that every man must be level
with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to
become whatever God intends he should become."
-Ronald Reagan
"It is error
alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."
-Thomas Jefferson
posted by gary at
7:40 AM
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