op ed review 8/5
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
With less than 100 days until the election, Governor Mitt
Romney is in the launch position for a vigorous fall campaign with the stars
aligning for success in November….Gallup tracking poll shows the Governor in a
dead heat with President Obama, tied 46 percent even among registered voters.
And this is after a negative TV blitz of immense proportions unleashed by the
Obama campaign against Romney. However, Rasmussen's tracking poll of "likely
voters" reveals Romney beating Obama 49-44 percent with only 4 percent
undecided.
Unemployment ticked up one-tenth of a percent to 8.3%. We’ve
now gone 42 consecutive months with the unemployment rate above eight
percent."
Among President Obama's second-term plans: An expansive, de
facto amnesty program for illegal aliens via both executive order and
interagency directives linked with a reduction in the capabilities of the U.S.
Border Patrol.
The Obama administration released illegal immigrants who
went on to commit more crimes, including charges of 19 murders, 3 attempted
murders and 142 sex crimes, the House Judiciary Committee said in a report
Tuesday. All told, the nearly 47,000 illegal immigrants the administration was
notified of but declined to deport between 2008 and 2011 under its Secure
Communities program had a recidivism rate of 16 percent, the committee said.
The number of Americans receiving food stamps has exploded
and taxpayers are paying for it. The General Accounting Office found that as
many as 473,000 households receiving food stamps in 2010 were actually not
eligible for the benefit. Up until a few
weeks ago, the Department of Agriculture aggressively recruited recipients with
print and radio ads. The USDA went as far as to suggest that local nutrition
assistance programs throw bingo parties to get more older Americans to sign up.
The Obama for America Campaign, the Democratic National
Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party are suing the critical swing state of Ohio to strike down a
law that makes it easier for members of the military to vote.
Clint Eastwood makes
Mitt Romney's day. The Oscar-winning director and longtime movie star says he's
endorsing the Republican presidential candidate. Eastwood tells The Associated
Press that he's backing Romney because, in Eastwood's words, "I think the
country needs a boost."
About 582,000 people promised to go to a Chick-Fil-A
location on Wednesday and order something for Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day.
The war over chicken sandwiches escalated as gay rights
advocates revealed plans for a 'Same Sex Kiss Day' at Chick-fil-A to counter
the hundreds of thousands of people who lined drive-through lanes and filled
dining rooms at the restaurants across the nation on Wednesday. The fast food
chain said it enjoyed record-setting sales thanks to 'Chick-fil-A Appreciation
Day,' which seemed to achieve its goal of backing the company's 'Christian
principles' by asking supporters to vote with their feet and their dollars.
With homosexual “marriage” initiatives on the ballot in four
states in November, turnout will be critical for the base of both political
parties. The liberal outburst over Mr. Cathy’s espousal of traditional families
only helps drive conservatives to the ballot box. Democrats should worry about
alienating middle America.
A group of conservative black pastors are responding to
President Obama’s support of same-sex marriage with what they say will be a
national campaign aimed at rallying black Americans to rethink their
overwhelming support of the President. “I think liberals are missing a vital
point in their blind hatred of Chick-fil-A….Being against gay marriage is not
being anti-gay.”
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is sponsoring a bill to make
English the official language of the United States – a law he said will
help “bind” Americans together at a time when the Obama administration is
trying to create divisions between people.
Texas'
drift toward the Tea Party brand of conservatism continued Tuesday when lawyer
Ted Cruz scored a surprisingly easy win over David Dewhurst in the Republican
primary runoff for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Cruz once was considered a long shot to take down well-heeled Lt. Gov. David
Dewhurst - the favorite of the party establishment and Hutchison's heir
apparent. But he steadily gained in the polls during their bare-knuckles
campaign brawl, and his lead opened up as soon as the earliest returns were
posted.
“It Begins:… Federal Government Sues to Gain Control of
Southern State’s Water Supply”
In an email to supporters, the DNC is leading a petition
drive asking folks to sign their names saying they approve of the gay marriage
plank.
The media’s double standard when it examines the wealth and
privilege of the two presidential candidates was on display again this week.
The analysts of haute couture and its intersection with politics were silent
when First Lady Michelle Obama showed up to meet the Queen of England in an
very, very, very, very expensive ($6800) jacket. But in May, the media were
ready to erect a guillotine after they saw Ann Romney, the wife of GOP
presidential candidate Mitt Romney, appear on television in a blouse that cost
about one-seventh as much ($990) as Mrs. Obama’s attire.
When President Barack Obama blocked the Keystone Pipeline,
Republicans said the move would encourage Canada
to pursue oil deals with China
instead of the United States
and cede a massive chunk of North American oil assets to the communist nation.
Now, with China's state-run oil company poised to cut a $15.1 billion deal with
Canadian oil company Nexen, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi
(D-CA) are in full backpedal mode.
________________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Eric Golum,
Washington Times, 8/3
One of the more messianic moments of the 2008
presidential campaign came when Michele Obama promised that her husband would
heal us all. Only Barack Obama could help us all "fix our souls. Our souls
are broken in this nation." Four years later, it has become more apparent
than ever that it is President Obama with a broken soul. His presidency
collapsing around him, the true colors of the man have come to light. What we
see now is not pretty.
Even most of Mr. Obama's critics in the beginning
felt he was basically a nice guy not up to the job. He was a good, decent,
well-intentioned man with some incorrect ideas. It seems that analysis was a
bit too generous. President Obama has decided that the only way to cling to
power is to obliterate Mitt Romney from a humanity standpoint. Nothing is off
limits. The Democratic briefing book that read "kill Romney" is on
the verge of being taken literally. How else does one explain the scorched
Earth campaign being waged by the candidate who entered American presidential
politics with flowery prose about "hope," "change we can believe
in," and "Yes, we can?"…..In the last three years he has pitted America against
each other. He has divided this nation based on class, race, and gender. Now
his surrogates are preparing to demonize Mr. Romney in a manner that makes the
late Joseph McCarthy look cherubic by comparison. Nothing is off limits when
the Chicago way
takes over.
Governor Romney has been called a felon. His wife has
been attacked. Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has taken the Democratic
Party down deep into the gutter by bringing up Governor Romney's late father.
He played the "dead card". The other day Mr. Reid said about Romney
that "His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son." No amount
of context washes away the stain of these vile comments. This is what the
Democratic Party of today has become. This is Barack Obama's America.
Some will say that Harry Reid's comments (like
everything else on Earth) are not Barack Obama's fault. Yes, they are. Barack
Obama is the head of the Democratic Party. Harry Reid is one of his top
lieutenants.……Mr. Reid, far from realizing the error of his ways, doubled down
and claimed that an unnamed source insists that Mitt Romney is a tax cheat. Is
the left so far gone that anonymous innuendo should be allowed to destroy
another human being? Where is Mr. Reid's humanity? Where is President Obama's
courage? In the case of both men, there is none. Winning at all costs matters
more than any pretense of decency. A couple of weeks ago people were tragically
shot in Aurora, Colorado. President Obama gave lip service
to us all being better people.
He never meant it.
Rather than admit the vile behavior of the left, they
will insist that "both sides do it." This is false. In a nation of
300 million people, there may be some private citizens who traffic in hate on
the right. Those people are not members of our federal government. Those on the
left spreading hate are their leaders. This is how Nancy Pelosi can accuse Republicans
of "exploiting" Jews. This is how Debbie Wasserman-Schultz can offer
a new destructive political atom bomb every week. This is how every
conservative can be labeled a racist, sexist, bigoted homophobe not for doing
or saying anything, but for merely being. It is called ideological bigotry, and
it defines President Obama to his core.
This is the real Barack Obama. He is an angry,
destructive individual willing to ruin anybody to retain power just for the
sake of power itself. A real man would condemn the attacks on Governor Romney
that go beyond policy. Politics may not be beanbags, but it does not have to be
hand grenades either. Mr. Romney would never traffic in such hate speech. Mr.
Romney is a good man, and good men don't do that.
It was Lindsey Graham who said of Bill Clinton during
the impeachment hearings that "The White House is a Bully Pulpit, but it
should never be occupied by a bully." President Obama is a bully.
Expecting him to behave respectfully toward his political opponents is impossible
because bullies are what they are for a reason. Even worse, Mr. Obama has
others do his dirty work for him. Like MacBeth and Lady Macbeth, Mr. Obama may
never be able to wash the stain off of his hands. He may very well maintain
power, but his soul appears to be gone forever. Maybe he never had one.
In 2008 Candidate Obama ran on change. In 2012, it is
he who must change. It is his soul that is broken. Mitt Romney's father would
be very proud of what his son has become. As for Harry Reid and Barack Obama,
the dreams of their fathers may have become a nightmare. Unlike them, I know
that is not for me to judge. Look in the mirror, Mr. Obama. Look what you have
become. Even a man who loves himself as much as you do, when nobody else is
looking, could not possibly like what he sees.
Mr. Obama may win another election, but the man
staring back at him in the glass still knows who and what he really has become,
and perhaps always was.
_____________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“A substantial number of clueless and/or self-entitled
Americans are on board, and nothing assuages their sense of clueless
self-entitlement more than the notion that someone else is not paying their
'fair' share. Understand how remarkable that kind of thinking is. Not only have
such Americans been alleviated of the guilt and shame of living off someone
else's effort, they have been told they have every reason to be self-righteous
about it. Barring a sea change -- or a watershed election -- thoughtful
Americans must face a sobering reality: the ideological bankruptcy of
progressivism leads directly to the economic bankruptcy of the nation.
Progressives will continue to lie and tell the nation it isn't so. Unfortunately
for all of us, the math never lies."
-Arnold
Ahlert
"By now the script should be familiar. A bombing or a
mass shooting occurs and the media immediately look for a simple cause.
Invariably, they turn to talk radio or some other conservative pit of
'intolerance.' ... What is always left out of this familiar scenario is an
in-depth discussion of evil. Politicians and commentators almost never speak of
evil as something that resides deep inside the human heart. All humans possess
the capacity for evil. While it rarely rises to the level of mass murder, the
capacity for doing great harm to other human beings lurks within each of us.
This is what theologians mean when they speak of a 'fallen' humanity. Violent
movies like 'The Dark Knight Rises' do not make all people emulate the Colorado shooter,
anymore than a movie about love causes people to love one another. ...
Sometimes there are no 'solutions' that can forestall an evil act. ... Calling
on [a] Higher Authority is the proper and perhaps only counterforce to this and
other expressions of true evil."
-Cal Thomas
___________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
A new study shows that temperature data gathered in the United States
have overstated the global warming problem because data collection points were
located too close to concrete, asphalt, air conditioning heat exchangers,
roadways and airport runways. “Spurious doubling of climate data”
“Have a look at this chart. It tells you pretty much all you
need to know about the much-anticipated scoop by Anthony Watts of Watts Up With
That? What it means, in a nutshell, is that the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – the US government body in charge of
America's temperature record, has systematically exaggerated the extent of late
20th century global warming. In fact, it has doubled it. Is this a case of
deliberate fraud by Warmist scientists hell bent on keeping their funding gravy
train rolling? Well, after what we saw in Climategate anything is possible.”
The Republican National Committee research team posted an
email on Tumblr, purportedly from Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet, which refers to
the Obama administration as “The Bank Of Washington." Solyndra became the
poster child for green cronyism after it received a questionable $535 million
federal loan guarantee and went bankrupt shortly afterward.
_____________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
“Liberals serve up full plate of hate in attack on
restaurant”
The vile, hate-filled messages started showing up soon after
Mitt Romney and the national press corps left Brian Maloney’s truck repair shop
in Roxbury. “It was incredible,” Maloney tells the Herald. “It was crude,
abusive, mindless garbage.” Maloney hadn’t committed a crime, but to some
Democrats and liberals he had done something far more heinous: He had dared to
criticize President Obama. “It was pretty sick,” the 69-year-old Maloney says
of the flurry of more than a dozen voice messages and emails, some of them too
repulsive to repeat. All of them were anonymous, of course.
It’s not every day
that left-leaning academics admit that they would discriminate against a
minority. But that was what they did in a peer-reviewed study of political
diversity in the field of social psychology…..”Usually you have to be
pretty tricky to get people to say they’d discriminate against minorities.” More
than a third of the respondents said they would discriminate against the
conservative candidate. One respondent wrote in that if department members
“could figure out who was a conservative, they would be sure not to hire them.”
“Obama sits in that Oval Office
today thanks to four factors: the American voter, a scandalously biased media,
a skillful election strategy charted by David Axelrod, and the careful
nurturing of Valerie Jarrett. And most remarkable, Axelrod's and Jarrett's
backgrounds and mentors connect to Obama's background and mentor in a most
intriguing way. It's a stunning story, hard to believe……”
“Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) is the activist Left’s number one
congressional target this election cycle because he poses an existential threat
to progressivism, a prominent professional left-wing organizer suggests.”
Donate to Allen West here: https://www.allenwestforcongress.com/contribute/
____________________________________________________________________________
ISLAM
A Sudanese woman accused of adultery has been sentenced to
death by stoning and is being held shackled with her six-month-old baby in
jail, activists said on Wednesday, in the second such sentence in the past few
months in the country.
In a speech published on his website Thursday, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the ultimate goal of world forces must be
the annihilation of Israel.
__________________________________________________________________________
BOOKS, FILM
What Stanley Kurtz has accomplished in his new book “Spreading
the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities”, is nothing
less than the complete exposure of President Barack Obama’s secret plans for
his second term in office — plans that in reality amount to an assault on the
values, well-being ,and quality of life of the very middle-class voters he
claims to represent. The unfortunate title — not an attention-grabber in
bookstores —does not covey the breadth of his research…..
Wednesday, Aug. 1, marks the compliance deadline for the
Obama administration's contraception mandate. Employers must offer anyone not
deemed to be a "religious employee" — using the administration's
narrow definition — insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and
abortion services, or pay a $2,000 penalty per employee. It was this unprecedented
action that motivated conservative crusader Phyllis Schlafly and journalist
George Neumayr to blow the whistle on what they call the "war on
religion" coming out of the White House. Together Mrs. Schlafly and Mr.
Neumayr have authored a startling new book, "No Higher Power: Obama's War
on Religious Freedom". Mrs. Schlafly, one of America's best-known pro-family
activists, made her mark on the conservative movement in 1964 with her first
book, "A Choice Not An Echo," which helped propel Barry Goldwater to
victory at the Republican National Convention. She has remained a force for
family values ever since.
____________________________________________________________________________
ELECTION
Political scientist Douglas Hibbs looks at two factors when
forecasting presidential elections: a) per capita real disposable personal
income over the incumbent president’s term, and b) cumulative U.S. military fatalities in
overseas conflicts. And he’s predicting a near-landslide win for Mitt Romney
over Barack Obama, with Obama losing by about as big a margin in 2012 as he won
back in 2008.
Democrats' biggest concern isn't the economy; it's whether
Obama has already peaked. There are numerous reasons to believe it's true. If
true, there are rapidly diminishing opportunities for the Administration to
reverse it, and a growing list that could accelerate it.
On Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” on Monday night, Dick Morris
predicted that his old boss, former President Bill Clinton, will work behind the
scenes to undermine President Barack Obama’s reelection bid.
“Senate landscape ripe for GOP takeover in November”
Mitt Romney has once again reached the 50% mark of support
in Missouri.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state
finds Romney earning 50% of the vote, while Obama receives 44% support.
“Daniel Pipes’s judgment about the Middle East is as good as
anyone’s, so I was interested to see what he thought about Mitt Romney’s Jerusalem speech. In a
word, he was impressed. “Mitt Romney…delivered a stem-winder of a speech to the
Jerusalem Foundation today, packing emotional support with frank policy
statements. The contrast with Obama could hardly be more dramatic.”
___________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
“To Those Who Want To Redistribute What I’ve Earned” by Charlie
Daniels.
Dispelling gun myths: Perpetuating untruths about firearms with
the Colorado
tragedy
The term “civil
rights” has become sacrosanct in the political discourse. It has become
interchangeable with “correct” and a rhetorical bludgeon with which to bloody
opponents of “social justice.” To call something “a civil rights issue” is to
end the argument. Health care. Marriage. Education. Jobs. All have been evoked
as civil rights. In so doing, proponents of a new affirmative action hope to
paint their opposition as bigots, because popular sentiment holds that only a
bigot would oppose a civil right. This is another corruption of the language,
most egregious because of its effect upon public policy and the way in which
force is applied in people’s lives. Not all civil rights are good. In fact,
when they are crafted in opposition to the inalienable rights recognized in the
Declaration and protected by the Constitution, they are downright evil.
By resisting almost any change aimed at improving our public
schools, teachers unions have become a ripe target for reformers across the
ideological spectrum. Even Hollywood,
famously sympathetic to organized labor, has turned on unions with the
documentary "Waiting for 'Superman'" (2010) and a feature film,
"Won't Back Down," to be released later this year. But perhaps most
damaging to the unions' credibility is their position on sexual misconduct involving
teachers and students in New York
schools, which is even causing union members to begin to lose faith.
Andrew Breitbart loathed the "institutional left,"
and what he called "the Democrat media complex." A son of Brentwood
who cut his sharp online incisors working alongside blogging pioneers Matt
Drudge and Arianna Huffington, Breitbart went on to forge an eponymous website
and persona as one of the fiercest voices of the right. His mission appeared
cut short March 1, when he died of heart failure. Breitbart was just 43. But an
unlikely crew of friends and associates — his oldest childhood friend, a pair
of Harvard-educated lawyers, a financier/filmmaker who served in the Navy and a
musician pal who reinforces the fallen leader's voice as the website's
"minister of culture" — scarcely paused after the loss. Just three
days later, with the blessing of Breitbart's widow, Susie, they launched a
redesigned Breitbart.com website. In the months since, Team Breitbart has
worked feverishly — with up to 100 posts a day on "verticals" dubbed
Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Peace — to make the site
the go-to destination for conservatives. "We are going to be the Huffington
Post of the right," said Steve Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart
News Network. "That is our focus every day."
________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
A new visual from the "Face the Facts USA," a
non-partisan election project from George
Washington University,
shows the federal deficit has risen significantly under President Barack Obama,
and that the government is increasingly spending money it doesn't have. In
every second of 2011, for example, the government spent $114,253—even though it
was only taking in $73,043 in revenue.
It’s hard to find a good conservative voting guide for the Washington State primary. But you could go to the “Progressive voters
guide” and vote against all their recommendations.
New Romney ad with Olympic gold
medalist Kristi Yamaguchi
____________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
"The prosperity
of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to
be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national
wealth."
-Alexander Hamilton
posted by gary at
11:55 AM
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