op ed review 1/27
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
President Obama averaged 49.1% job approval during his first
term in office, among the lowest for post-World War II presidents. Only Jimmy
Carter and Gerald Ford had lower job approval averages.
“Inauguration Crowd Lackluster; Smelled of Marijuana……at
times seemed more interested in their cell phones than his speech.”
“Outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent roughly
seven hours on the Hill fielding statements lauding her brilliance, praise for
how many miles she has flown around the world, and the occasional question
about Benghazi.
Remember that? The timeline of who decided to blame a movie, when and why, is
at the center of the Benghazi
cover-up. But very few Republicans and no Democrats bothered to ask her about
it….”
“Aided by a ridiculous format, she outfoxed most of
the Republicans with ease. Meanwhile, the Democrats, almost uniformly, seemed
singularly interested in celebrating Mrs. Clinton as a global diva who somehow
manages to carry the burden of her awesomeness with humility and grace. If
smoking were still allowed in the Capitol, one could easily imagine her
removing a cigarette from a gold case and tapping it nonchalantly on the
witness table, and the entire Democratic caucus leaping over their desks for
the chance to light it for her..”
VDH: We learned today
from Secretary Clinton — “What difference, at this point, does it make?” — that
the actual causation and circumstances of the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi are not so
important…
Never mind protecting America, now it’s all about
entitlement and fairness: Defense Secretary
Leon Panetta said that whether they are male or female "everyone is
entitled to a chance" to become a combat soldier in a military that will
now adopt "gender neutral" standards.
Women in Combat 'Part of Another Social Experiment,' Says
Retired Army General William G. Boykin, the former head of the U.S. Special
Forces Command, says infantry and other front-line units are no place for
women, and it has nothing to do with their courage or capabilities.
Get ready
for “mommies in body bags”
In a case freighted with major constitutional implications,
a federal appeals court on Friday overturned President Obama’s controversial
recess appointments from last year, ruling he abused his powers and acted when
the Senate was not actually in a recess. The three-judge panel’s ruling is a
major blow to Mr. Obama. The judges ruled that the appointments he made to the National
Labor Relations Board are illegal, and the board no longer has a quorum to
operate. But the ruling has even broader constitutional significance, with the
judges arguing that the president’s recess appointment powers don’t apply to
“intrasession” appointments — those made when Congress has left town for a few
days or weeks.
France's
richest man moves to Belgium
and takes multi-billion pound fortune with him 'to avoid new socialist
super-tax'
Tiger Woods admits he left California because of high tax rates after
rival Phil Mickelson apologizes for saying he may quit West Coast
Dems introduce bill to ban the sale of 150 types of
firearms, including some rifles and handguns, and includes a national gun
registry.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/278993-report-feinstein-to-introduce-assault-weapons-ban-thursday#ixzz2IvL4GADY
“Assault Weapons Ban Lacks Democratic Votes to Pass Democratic Senate”
As Washington
prepares for a political battle over the Obama White House's proposals to curb
gun violence a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the NRA is more
popular than the entertainment industry.
“The President has found a winning formula to push through
his extreme policy views: campaign, grow support, give the appearance of action
and fund raise off pseudo-action. The President is now applying this campaign
tactic to gun control, giving the appearance to America that he is taking action to
protect children from madmen.”
President Obama’s top political aide used an Inauguration
Day interview to sketch out a provocative political strategy intended to split
the Republican Party in time to impact the 2014 midterm elections
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he believes the primary
goal of President Obama’s second term is to “annihilate the Republican Party.”
Pay to play? President
Obama’s reelection campaign formally announced its rebirth as “Organizing for
Action,” a tax-exempt 501(c)4 on Sunday. With that designation, the group is
able to accept unlimited donations and is not required to disclose the
identities of those donors, though OFA says they will do so. Wal-Mart, Lockheed,
Citi, Microsoft, and others will be encouraged to contribute.
FBI investigating New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez
for sleeping with underage Dominican prostitutes
“Reagan´s boyhood home could become a parking lot for Obama´s library”
“Members of the RNC….are deeply divided over
what ails their party. On one end of the spectrum are those who stress
the GOP’s failure to appeal to Hispanics and other minorities, arguing that the
party must make fundamental changes to broaden its appeal. On the other
end are those who stress the GOP’s failure to master even the basics of voter
turnout in the last election, along with the flawed candidacy of Mitt Romney,
arguing that the party does not need to change its principles or message so
much as learn the turnout and messaging techniques used so successfully by the competition.”
“California´s Hispanic population
to outnumber whites by end of 2013”
The last time America had a gun-control debate
was the early 1990s, and it was followed by the great two-decade-long decline
in American crime. The irony is that gun control had very little to do with
that decline. William Bratton did. Serving as New York City´s top cop for 27
months from 1994 to 1996, he helped turn around a violent, crime-ridden city
with policies that later were adopted nationwide and across the globe. (Snip)in
a recent chat he puts the gun debate in the context of policies that really
have made America
safer.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Walter Williams
1/2/13
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., in the wake of the Newtown, Conn.,
shootings, said: "The British are not coming. ... We don't need all these
guns to kill people." Lewis' vision, shared by many, represents a gross
ignorance of why the framers of the Constitution gave us the Second Amendment.
How about a few quotes from the period and you decide whether our Founding
Fathers harbored a fear of foreign tyrants.
Alexander Hamilton:
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be
properly armed," adding later, "If the representatives of the people
betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion
of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms
of government." By the way, Hamilton
is referring to what institution when he says "the representatives of the
people"?
James Madison:
"(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed, which the
Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... (where) the
governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
Thomas Jefferson:
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from
time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take
arms."
George Mason, author
of the Virginia Bill of Rights, which inspired our Constitution's Bill of
Rights, said, "To disarm the people -- that was the best and most
effectual way to enslave them."
Rep. John Lewis and
like-minded people might dismiss these thoughts by saying the founders were
racist anyway. Here's a more recent quote from a card-carrying liberal, the
late Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey: "Certainly, one of the chief
guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and
respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. ... The right of
the citizen to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government,
one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but
which historically has proven to be always possible." I have many other
Second Amendment references at http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/quotes.html.
How about a couple
of quotations with which Rep. Lewis and others might agree? "Armas para
que?" (translated: "Guns, for what?") by Fidel Castro. There's a
more famous one: "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be
to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors
who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own
downfall by so doing." That was Adolf Hitler.
Here's the gun
grabbers' slippery-slope agenda, laid out by Nelson T. Shields, founder of
Handgun Control Inc.: "We're going to have to take this one step at a
time, and the first step is necessarily -- given the political realities --
going to be very modest. ... Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half
a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in the United States
-- is going to take time. ... The final problem is to make the possession of
all handguns and all handgun ammunition -- except for the military, police,
licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs and licensed gun collectors
-- totally illegal" (The New Yorker, July 1976).
There have been
people who've ridiculed the protections afforded by the Second Amendment,
asking what chance would citizens have against the military might of the U.S.
government. Military might isn't always the deciding factor. Our 1776 War of
Independence was against the mightiest nation on the face of the earth -- Great Britain.
In Syria,
the rebels are making life uncomfortable for the much-better-equipped Syrian
regime. Today's Americans are vastly better-armed than our founders, Warsaw
Ghetto Jews and Syrian rebels.
There are about 300
million privately held firearms owned by Americans. That's nothing to sneeze
at. And notice that the people who support gun control are the very people who
want to control and dictate our lives.
_____________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“President Obama’s inaugural address was a lurch to the left that scratched the
itch so many of his followers have had for four years…….American households had better
get ready for higher power bills as Obama unleashes regulators in pursuit of
new penalties for electric companies. Businesses should hunker down and expect
that lawyers will assault them with new workplace requirements as new
grievances are discovered. Politically, the battle lines are being drawn, and
the president is offering a vivid contrast. Now the Republicans have to do
their part to offer smart policy and solutions. The left can wallow in their
tiresome old slogans — I keep waiting for “Workers of the world, unite!"
to return to the political stage. Rather than blurring the distinction between
Republican and Democratic solutions, the 2014 elections could be shaping up as
a classic battle between the old left and a new generation of conservatives.”
- Ed Rogers
“Forget $16.5 trillion in national debt. Forget
trillion-dollar deficits. Forget government hyper-spending's toll on the
private sector. ... [Margaret] Thatcher warned that socialists 'always run out
of other people's money.' The president has made it clear he is nowhere near to
being finished pursuing collectivism in the name of individual freedom."
-Investor's
Business Daily
“The last year has been a tough one for conservatives. The hope that four
years of failed policy would be enough to repudiate the liberal/progressive
ideology of the Obama administration ended when the majority of the American
public voted to maintain their entitlements -- so long as someone else paid for
them. And the conservative response to the debacle has been for the various
factions within the movement to declare war on each other. It's time for conservatives to give serious
thought to what they believe and how they can make a more persuasive case that
conservative principles offer the best path for America. Conservatives have to
do more than invoke small government, lower taxes and protection of the family.
They have to explain the principles on which such policies are based and why
those principles are more likely to fulfill the promise of life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness on which the nation was founded. “
-Linda Chavez
__________________________________________________________________________
FILM
Matt Damon’s anti-fracking movie “Promised Land” is flopping
at the box office.
________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
“As a state senator in Illinois, Obama gave a radio interview in
which he described the Constitution as defective. He lamented that courts did
not “break free” from an originalist reading of it as a “charter of negative
liberties.” He implied that if he had written the Constitution he would have
made it a charter of positive liberties: “It says what the states can’t do to
you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say
what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.” The
fulfillment of that vision — combined with the invention of new rights to gay
marriage, free contraceptives, and so on — is what he meant by “fundamentally
transforming” the country. His inaugural address was a pledge not to protect
the Constitution but to undo it as he seeks to enact what he considers positive
liberties.”
________________________________________________________________________
GUN CONTROL
Thousands of gun advocates gathered peacefully last Saturday
at state capitals around the U.S. to rally against stricter limits on firearms,
with demonstrators carrying rifles and pistols in some places while those
elsewhere settled for waving hand-scrawled signs or screaming themselves
hoarse. The size of crowds at each location varied - from dozens of people in South Dakota to 2,000 in New York. Large crowds also turned out in Connecticut, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Washington state. Some
demonstrators in Olympia, Wash.,
Phoenix, Salem, Ore., and Salt
Lake City came with holstered handguns or rifles on
their backs.
A 17-year-old boy who shot his sister and mother said that
watching horror movie Halloween gave him the idea because he was ´amazed at how
at ease the boy was during the murders and how little remorse he had´.
As debates about guns and gun rights in America rage,
truly to understand the gun, one needs to look at its history. The story of the
gun is a fascinating and riveting look not only at history, but also at
science, business, politics, justice, and morality. Throw in a great deal of
ingenuity, a good deal of heroism, and a small dose of romance, and the story
of the gun is the world´s greatest tale of human invention.
Newt Gingrich “Well, I think
it’s amazing that we’re having all this discussion about gun control: The
president’s hometown, Chicago, is the murder
capital of the United States.
Over 500 people were killed there last year. Vice President Biden doesn’t seem
to want to go there. I’m trying to get the House Republicans to hold hearings
there. It’s illegal to have all the guns that are killing people in Chicago. If gun control
works, Chicago
ought to be safe.”
In an article describing how the National Rifle Association
became a political force to reckon with, the Washington Post
's Joel Achenbach, Scott Higham and Sari Horowitz show us how it was done.
1. Be firm in advancing your convictions and welcome
controversy. "They are absolutist in their interpretation of the Second
Amendment. The NRA learned that controversy isn't a problem but rather, in many
cases, a solution, a motivator, a recruitment tool, an inspiration."
2. Don't try to be all things to all people. "The group
has learned the virtues of being a single-issue organization with a very simple
take on that issue. The NRA keeps close track of friends and enemies, takes
names and makes lists. In the halls of power, it works quietly behind the
scenes. It uses fear when necessary to motivate supporters.
3. When the old order needs changing, change it:
3. Clean House when you need to. Don't ignore your membership and their
concerns and change leaders who go wobbly, but don't go off and become some
fringe organization.
4. Choose spokesmen who effectively communicate your
position in words that strike a responsive chord in listeners:
5. Don't be afraid to just say no to people who want you to
compromise your principles for their political advantage.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/the_democracy_initiative_a_coup_in_plain_sight.html#ixzz2IWrGSpHi
________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
Let’s pretend that in the spring of 2012 Grover Norquist of
Americans for Tax Reform, John Engler of the Business Roundtable, Tim Phillips
of Americans for Prosperity, and Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle
Association began to organize an assembly of right-leaning groups. Let’s pretend
that in the months since there had been not one but two meetings where
these luminaries joined with representatives of Christians United For Israel,
the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Tea Party
Express, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and the American Petroleum
Institute to discuss strategy and promote a series of “structural reforms” that
would make it easier for them to advance conservative goals in Congress. How
much press coverage would be devoted to this fictive cabal?.........is it not
unreasonable to assume that our pretend meeting of the vast right-wing
conspiracy would attract far more scrutiny than was devoted to the actual,
real-life, believe-it-or-not inaugural meetings of the progressive “Democracy
Initiative”? …The rest of what is too generously called the “mainstream media”
has not said a word…….. outlets were distracted by the glitzy baubles of
nomination fights and gun control. About this major story of coordination and
concerted spending among powerful lobbies, however, the press had little to
say.
Glory be, it’s Obama’s inauguration day! And for some of his
followers, it´s nothing less than a religious event. Fox News (who else?)
reports that mega Obamaphiles are handing out posters in the streets of DC that
claim Obama’s coming was predicted by the Bible. The proclamation says that
“Barack” is a Hebrew word that means “flash of lightning” and Hussein means
“good and handsome.” Put ‘em together and what have you got? “Barack was
destined to be a good and handsome man that would rise like a flash of
lightning to win victory in a battle against overwhelming odds.”
When Federal Aviation Administration officials grounded
Boeing´s fleet of 787 Dreamliner commercial jets last week due to unexplained
battery fires, one of President Obama´s favorite green energy technologies got
another black eye.
Wait a minute….didn’t they support it? “Universities Slash Teachers´ Hours to Evade ObamaCare”
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