Saturday, November 24, 2012

op ed review 11/25



THIS WEEK’S NEWS
More Americans will use food stamps to buy their Thanksgiving dinner this year than ever before,

An analysis by Breitbart News has found that the number of individuals on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of 24 states and the District of Columbia.

Fresh off his reelection, President Obama is asking his supporters to complete a survey that asks the people being polled to check off which “constituency groups” they identify with – there are 22 groups listed but none for “whites” or “men.”
Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz proudly brags that the Democratic party is “majority minority and female.” While the Republican Party “got whiter and more male”.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Friday that Congress should stop placing legal limits on the amount of money the government can borrow and effectively lift the debt limit to infinity.

Is The Obama EPA Running Its Own Black-Ops Program?

Top Republican senator ditching Norquist anti-tax pledge

A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law. Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant.

It is only two weeks since his re-election, and his second term remains two months away, but Barack Obama is already blundering again on the world stage, with the kind of gaffes that would have been plastered on the front page of The New York Times if they had been committed by George W. Bush when he was in the White House.
How Cambodia´s first lady mocked President Obama with a handshake greeting typically reserved for servants

God bless Texas.  After the election this month, in which a Democratic incumbent hung onto the presidency while gaining fewer votes than his first election, there was plenty of bragging about the outcome from the Left. Some claimed that deep-red Texas might become a swing state in the very near future, but TNR’s Nate Cohn throws a big deluge of cold water — and math — on that bet:  Despite favorable Latino turnout and support, Obama did worse in Texas than he did four years ago and lost by a decisive 16-point margin.

As Operation Pillar of Defense launches into its sixth day, a clear hero has already emerged: Iron Dome. Since the operation began, Iron Dome has intercepted more than 300 rockets launched at Israel with a stellar success rate of 85 percent. The anti-missile system has become a huge source of pride for Israelis, both because of the lives it has undoubtedly saved and because the technology is homegrown.
“This is the defense system Ronnie wanted for us. The left hooted. Now we don't have it.”

Jobless foreigners are being forcibly ejected from Belgium following a public outcry at a massive surge in immigration, it was revealed yesterday. Belgian authorities have introduced a law allowing the withdrawal of residency rights from any newcomers remaining unemployed for six months after arriving in the country. The crackdown is being seen as a huge turnaround for the country that is home to many EU institutions and was previously seen as one of the most welcoming nations in Europe for migrants.

Big labor feels its oats:  Is the United States becoming another France, with daily strikes not a bug but a feature? Sure looks like it, with a surge of union actions in the wake of Obama´s re-election.

An atheist group at Dartmouth College is planning an event aimed at skewering the reputation of the late Mother Teresa.

Death of Twinkies: A Union Contract Hit.  Workers were asked to take an 8% pay cut and pay 17% of their health-care costs instead of zero. Welcome to the club, guys.  For this, they would have received 25% ownership of Hostess plus $100 million of Hostess debt to be paid back to the unions. But the bakers wouldn’t budge….
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Alan Azkler  11/23
Obama won re-election in one of the worst economic periods in American history. Collectively the GOP brain trust is correct in their analysis of why Romney lost yet has missed the most fundamental point. The new America Culture just didn't feel good voting Romney…Rush Limbaugh believes it's difficult to beat Santa Claus. Ann Coulter believes the country has reached the tipping point. Laura Ingram believes the loss was the fault of those running the Romney campaign. Bill O'Reilly, "Romney lost because he was an establishment Candidate and it's not a traditional America anymore. "Sean Hannity believes "It's time to start nominating disciplined, principled, conservatives; men and women will who will defeat their opponents, not themselves." Newt Gingrich, "We were clearly wrong on a whole range of fronts." Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal attributed Romney's loss to a lack of "a specific vision that connected with the American people." Sen. Scott Brown, "We need to be a larger-tent party." Mitt Romney believed "The Obama campaign was following the old playbook of giving a lot of stuff to groups that they hoped they could get to vote for them and be motivated to go out to the polls"

Contrary to what is believed by the GOP leadership and conservative talking heads, the devastating loss of the presidency was not tied to a failure to expound the virtues of conservative values widely held by the majority of Americans.  We have to promote conservative values to a new American culture that needs to feel good about voting conservative. We cannot make them vote conservative because it's the right thing to do. We need to attract the attention of the culture so they are ready to hear the conservative narrative.

In the last election, Republicans and Mitt Romney came across as the scolding parent to an audience of adolescents. Romney, while preaching to adult conservatives, told the liberal children it's time to get out of bed, brush your teeth, put on your Sunday best because we are going to Church and that's final. The electorate heard an overbearing parent telling them they must grow up; get to work, and work hard to make a better life.
And the RNC brain trust wonders why this message failed to pierce the cultural ear buds? OMG, Romney not BFF.  How did this cultural shift happen?

Government monopoly of public education has facilitated a cultural shift since the era of the Great Society. Schools teach students to feign rational approaches to problem solving and filter decisions through emotions. How does it make you feel implementing your solution? Public education rewards effort over results, because it is not fair that students have different skills or abilities -- it's not your grades that count but how you feel about your attempts to pursue them! History is no longer about facts but is taught from an emotional perspective. America enslaved Africans to farm land stolen from the indigenous people. You shouldn't feel good about that nor should you be proud to be American.

Obama wooed voters with emotional focus-group tested messages, allowing them to accept the abysmal failure his presidency. Voters re-elected him because it felt good to vote for him, again. Overview of the DNC message, "vote for us because you should be free to do what you want when you want to do it!" No worries, the government will be there to provide for your needs and get this we will make those overbearing parents pay for it!

Romney's candidacy was the perfect representation of what a Reagan Conservative should be. He lost because America's cultural base has shifted from a self-reliant, God, Family, and Country culture to a nation of dependency looking to the government to socially provide and legislate fairness. America's populace is willing to trade liberty for social security. Hence any candidate preaching conservative values does not resonate with this New American Culture.

The RNC needs to accept that we have a culture of adolescents remaining there well into their 30's, and be knowledgeable of the cultural differences with the Hispanic, Black and Asian communities. Successfully broadcasting conservative values in a culturally specific message that allows each demographic to feel good about their voting decision is a winning strategy. Successful candidates have to make the electorate aware that conservative values are fair and compassionate, changing how the new culture perceives them.

Conservatives believe all American's should have unlimited opportunities in a robust flourishing economy. All voters are welcome in our tents who want the freedom to choose their destiny. Our opponents are the party that wants you to believe you can do whatever you want without consequences, as long as you follow the government rules -- clearly an oxymoron.

Conservatives really do understand people want to have the freedom to make their own decisions and pursue happiness, we get that. We call it liberty. We believe that nobody likes an overbearing parent or overreaching government telling you what you can and cannot do.  We have solutions that are fair for all American's. Vote with us because when you are ready to succeed, you and all Americans will have great opportunities.

The RNC should spend a few million on anthropologists to study the new culture, determine why they vote, and promote a message to attract them. With the electorate ready any conservative candidate will succeed in 2016.



Also worth reading this week, Cal Thomas is pessimistic, Michael Ledeen sees a silver lining

Cal Thomas      Nov 8
Great nations and proud empires have always collapsed from within before they were conquered from without.
President Obama's re-election mirrors the self-indulgent, greedy and envious nation we are rapidly becoming…..The central message coming out of the election seems to be that we are no longer the America of our Founders, or even the America that existed during World War II, which produced our "greatest generation." Instead, the election validates the enormous cultural shift that has been taking place since the '60s when a countercultural bomb was dropped on society, producing moral fallout that continues to this day……….Young people are taught in public schools, at major universities, on television and in movies, that every life choice is acceptable and every tenet open to interpretation……No one has to be personally responsible. No education; no motivation; no life plan? No problem. The government will take care of you……….Other signs of cultural decay are accepted with little notice. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40 percent of babies born in America are born to unmarried women. Shrug. Abortion clinics continue to operate. Yawn……..

Michael Ledeen  11/21
….Inevitably, the “America is doomed” sermon is preached in many places, both by prophets who welcome it, and by those who dread it.  Lots of true believers in the American Revolution are currently whining that all is lost, that the counterrevolutionaries have won an irreversible victory, and that we should either trim our sails and adopt the multiculti doctrines, or emulate the heroes of Red Dawn and take to the hills, fully armed, and fight back a la Davy Crockett…..Somebody should tell the garment-renderers and sackcloth-and-ashes crowd that we’ve been through a lot worse than this, and recovered well enough to save the world……..Here’s my little message to the deep thinkers:  in this life, there is no final victory.  Enemies abound.  We defeated the two monster totalitarian forces of the twentieth century, and we’re now under attack from the great jihadi totalitarians of the new century.  We can certainly win.  In the course of that fight we will make lots of mistakes, and we will have some very bad leaders.  If we’re up to it, and if we’re lucky, we’ll also get some great leaders……As for the moaning and keening Republicans, you’ve got an amazing number of governors, and some of them are doing spectacularly well.  The Dems are stuck with New York, Massachusetts, and California, who incarnate true blue doctrines, and are in a mess.  Events are likely to demonstrate the failure of blueness in this country, as they have abroad.  So stick to your principles and don’t try to be “more like them.”  Nobody needs pseudo-blues, if people want to vote left, they’ll vote for the real thing, not you-pretending-to-be-them-except-cuter.

Ann Coulter:  Most Americans don’t realize that, decades ago, the Democrats instituted a long-term plan to gradually turn the United States into a Third World nation. The country would become poorer and less free, but Democrats would have an unbeatable majority! Under Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 immigration act, our immigration policy changed from one that replicated the existing ethnic population to one that strictly favored unskilled immigrants from the Third World. Since 1968, 85 percent of legal immigrants have come from what is euphemistically called “developing countries.” We can’t admit computer scientists from Spain fleeing their failing socialist nation because we have to make room for a recent Senegalese immigrant’s brother-in-law with no skills but great needs. Jonas Salk’s parents would be unable to immigrate to America today. But the good news is: Rich liberals and soulless businessmen have no trouble finding cheap busboys, gardeners and nannies…….
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"'Welcome to USA.gov,' a website maintained by the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), bills itself as the 'primary gateway for new immigrants to find basic information on how to settle in the United States' -- featuring a prominent section for new immigrants about how to access government benefits. 'Depending on your immigration status, length of time in the United States, and income, you may be eligible for some federal benefit programs,' the Web page reads. ... The DHS page offers links to government websites that explain how to access benefits including food stamps, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, Medicare, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the 'official website with information on all available federal benefit programs.' ... WelcometoUSA.gov also boasts to immigrants that '[f]ree public education for children is one reason many immigrants come to the United States.' ... A Republican Budget Committee staffer noted that the issue is not only the offerings without eligibility, but also the fact that the government is providing immigrants visas with the expectation that they will avail themselves of government assistance."
                           -Caroline May
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BOOKS, FILM
“Two of the most interesting stars in the world of conservative broadcasting have newly published books timed for the for the Christmas season.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/conservatives_using_alinskys_rule_number_5.html#ixzz2Cxuv7j29
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ISLAM
 “Tel Aviv bus hit by bomb; Hamas celebrates”

IBD editorial:  Israel Vs. Hamas Is Civilization Vs. Savagery

This clip from Fathi Hamad, the Hamas Interior Minister in Gaza, is a few years old, but all too relevant in this current conflict, as he boasts of Hamas’ willingness and even eagerness to use children and the elderly as human shields. “For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land.

Krauthammer: Hamas "Very Adept At the Pornography Of Grief"

Islamic Jihad deputy chief Ziyad Nahala said on Sunday in an interview with Egyptian television that all of the organization´s weapons came from Iran.

“Leader of California Taliban cell arrested yesterday was US Air Force veteran”
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LEFTIST WATCH
Liberal economist Paul Krugman calls for a return to 91% tax rates on the wealthy.

Forget all that turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, today should be a day of fasting and atonement for American “sin.” That’s according to Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Jensen, known for his hard-left politics, also calls Thanksgiving a “white-supremacist holiday.”

The commentators at Fox News will love this one. In 2001, San Francisco became the first city in the country to cover the cost of sex change surgeries for transgender city employees. In 2007, it became the first city in the country to provide health care for all uninsured residents through its Healthy San Francisco program. Now, San Francisco is combining those firsts into yet another pioneering move by becoming the first city in the country to cover the cost of gender reassignment surgeries for its uninsured residents.
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ARTICLES
The GOP Turnout Myth: What matters is how the GOP did in the battleground states. And there? Mr. Romney beat Mr. McCain's numbers in every single battleground, save Ohio. In some cases, his improvement was significant. ……what ought to scare the GOP is this: Even with higher GOP turnout in key states, even with Mr. Obama shedding voters, Democrats still won. Mr. Obama accomplished this by tapping new minority voters in numbers that beat even Mr. Romney's better turnout…..consider Ohio, where Mr. Romney won independents by 10 points. This lead mattered little, though, given that black turnout increased by 178,000 votes, and the president won 96% of the black vote. Mr. Obama's margin of victory there was 103,000…… it would take relatively modest minority-voter shifts toward Republicans to return the party to a dominating force. The GOP might see that as the enormous opportunity it is, rather than a problem. The key to winning turnout is having more people to turn out in the first place.

Exit polls from the 2012 election show that Mitt Romney would have lost Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Hampshire even if he had received 100% of the Hispanic vote in those states. This undercuts the notion that Republicans will not win national elections unless they moderate their stances on issues like amnesty and the DREAM Act to court more Hispanics. Hispanics still do not make up a significant number of voters in some of the country´s most important swing states…..

……Moreover, because Hispanics favor Democratic positions on a wide range of big issues having nothing to do with immigration, supporting liberal immigration reform will not win many Hispanic votes. Given these realities, I see no political case, from a Republican point of view, for supporting a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. To contrary, supporting such reform looks something like an act of political suicide.”

At Yale University, you can be prevented from putting an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on your T-shirt. At Tufts, you can be censured for quoting certain passages from the Quran. Welcome to the most authoritarian institution in America: the modern university—"a bizarre, parallel dimension."  The latest was last week at Fordham University, where President Joseph McShane scolded College Republicans for the sin of inviting Ann Coulter to speak.

Grover Norquist:  Standing in stark contrast to the outcome of the presidential and U.S. Senate races, Republicans strengthened their control of state capitols on Nov. 6. The GOP went into 2012 with unified control of the governor’s mansions and legislatures in 24 states and will come out with full political control of 25 states. Democrats will head into 2013 with a disadvantage at the state level, having total control of just 13 states.

Max Boot:  The latest Gaza war is only a few days old, but already one conclusion can be drawn: missile defense works. This is only the latest vindication for the vision of Ronald Reagan who is emerging as a consensus pick for one of the all-time great U.S. presidents. For it was Ronald Reagan who made missile defense a major priority for the U.S. and our allies.

But none of his colleagues can compete with the media acclaim cascading over Chief Justice John Roberts after his solo decision upholding Obamacare last June. The editors of Esquire have included Chief Justice Roberts in their December "Americans of the Year" issue, praising his "nimbleness.”  The Chief Justice also made the Atlantic Monthly's list of "Brave Thinkers" of 2012, by which they mean thinkers who agree with the Atlantic's liberal editors. The Chief Justice gets credit for "maintaining the Court's legitimacy" with a ruling "both brave and shrewd."

When government gets bigger, big business typically benefits at the expense of smaller competitors, consumers, and taxpayers. Obamacare is demonstrating this rule.

Thomas Sowell on unions:  “Unions Kill The Goose That Made Hostess Brands Gold”
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/111912-633985-unions-dont-always-benefit-workers.htm#ixzz2CjXGjRl9
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES

Electoral map:  Which direction did each state move and by how much?  “We figured four years of a bad economy and liberal disillusionment with Hopenchange combined with a powerful conservative zeal to beat him would mean a redder map this time. And … it was redder, in nearly every state. Just not red enough.”

From the “greatest collection of Civil war photography in existence.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2237476/Civil-War-era-photograph-collection-displays-dignity-young-men-join-battle.html#ixzz2D6A0Fe4c

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WISE WORDS
“When I took up my little sling and aimed at Communism, I also hit something else...the forces of that great socialist revolution, which, in the name of liberalism, spasmodically, incompletely, somewhat formlessly, but always in the same direction, has been inching its ice cap over the nation for two decades.
                       -Whitaker Chambers, “Witness”

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
                    -Winston  Churchill

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion of their soundness and sobriety of understanding are above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsel of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power on the will and appetite is placed somewhere…and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. Is it ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free: their passions forge their fetters.”
                      -Edmund Burke

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