op ed review 2/10
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
According to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, President Obama
was completely aloof from the events in Libya on September 11. He neither
asked nor ordered anything. He did not respond to information sent to the White
House. He was not involved at all, during the seven-plus-hour attack that
resulted in the deaths of four American government employees, including an
ambassador.
It would have been nice to know this before the
election: “The president was not
involved, and did not wish to be involved, in the communications and
decision-making processes of that day. An ongoing terrorist attack on his
administration's diplomatic mission in a volatile region on the eleventh
anniversary of September 11, 2001 was not considered worthy of his direct involvement.”
The idea that anyone who refuses to disclose his sources of
income from foreign governments and organizations could be confirmed as
Secretary of Defense is ludicrous, even in the surreal Age of Obama…..one of the
reasons that President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel,
has not turned over requested documents on his sources of foreign funding is
that one of the names listed is a group purportedly called “Friends of Hamas.”
There’s just something about Nancy Pelosi and Islam. As
Front Page reported last year, Nancy Pelosi hired Faiz Shakir from Think Progress,
despite his troubling past, which included aiding in fundraising for a
terrorist front group, to be her senior adviser and Director of New Media. Now
Pelosi has appointed Nadeam Elshami as her Chief of Staff.
Good news/bad news:
“Obama Approval Sinks After Reelection, Hillary Clinton Is Most
Popular National Figure,”
President Obama's health care law will push 7 million people
out of their job-based insurance coverage — nearly twice the previous estimate,
according to the latest CBO estimates.
The Duke of Edinburgh is a climate skeptic and
has invited Britain’s
best-known global warming heretic to give a lecture at Buckingham Palace.
Last month the BBC “froze him out” when he dismissed global warming as
“poppycock”.
Prepare for this if you don’t get with the program: “The Oregon attorney general’s office is
investigating a bakery after a lesbian couple filed a complaint alleging that
the owner discriminated against them when he declined to make a wedding cake
for their same-sex “marriage.”
Bruce Willis says he's against new gun control laws that
could infringe on Second Amendment rights.
“The GOP would
potentially be helping to give millions more Democratic-leaning Latinos the
right to vote. A Pew Hispanic Center
study last year showed there were 24 million eligible Hispanic voters in the United States
and about 16 million Hispanic kids who will be eligible to vote when they turn
18. Pew’s polling in October showed
70 percent of registered Hispanic voters identify or lean toward Democrats,
while 22 percent favor the GOP — a 48-point Democratic advantage.”
Grover didn’t get that memo:
Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist says that large-scale
immigration is good for America
and the Republican Party — and that critics of easy immigration should get out
of the way.
Donald Trump blasted GOP efforts to clear the way for 11
million illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens, mocking the party
for thinking that its bipartisan effort will boost Hispanic support.
A new poll released by the Center for Immigration Studies
shows the majority of likely voters simply want illegal immigrants to head back
to their home countries. A new poll using neutral language — and avoiding the
false choice of conditional legalization vs. mass deportations — finds that
most Americans want illegal immigrants to return to their home counties, rather
than be given legal status.
A Virginia
appellate court ruled that a prison trampled on an inmate’s constitutional
rights by refusing to pay for the felon’s sex change operation — a procedure
costing about $20,000.
Looking for a free sex change operation? Enroll at Brown University.
Come August, the school will offer coverage in its student health care plan for
the procedure.
President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security care
more about “special interests” in the Democratic campaign base than the lives
of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the ICE union boss told
Congress.
In the strongest indication yet that the next member of the
Bush dynasty is planning a 2016 presidential run, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
Tuesday agreed to appear at the upcoming CPAC convention, long considered the
first step to running for president.
The Boy Scouts of America have announced it will not
make any decision on its membership policy until its annual meeting in May. One
of those leading the charge to change the policy to allow homosexuals as
leaders is AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. “It is time for Stephenson to resign from the BSA board.”
The battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party
has begun. On one side is the Tea Party. On the other side stand Karl Rove and
his establishment team, posing as tacticians while quietly undermining
conservatism. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the “biggest donors
in the Republican Party” have joined forces with Karl Rove and Steven J. Law,
president of American Crossroads, to create the Conservative Victory Project.
The Times reports that this new group will dedicate itself to “recruit seasoned
candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right
conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts ..”
Rove´s American Crossroads has started a new group to make
sure the 2014 Senate races produce zero Todd Akins. But it turns out some
conservatives like Rove less than Akin.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Dennis Prager
1/8
On the last day of
2012, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen inadvertently clarified two huge
matters regarding the left.
The first was the
ignorance about conservatives and conservatism that permeates the left. The
second was the primary reason decent people identify with the left: the
effective caricaturing and demonizing of the right. Were it not for caricature
and demonization, most otherwise intelligent and decent people would not be on
the left.
This is what Cohen
wrote in his column, "Republicans Adrift:" "It is conservatism
that is both intellectually exhausted and nearly indefensible. It is the
movement of the ideologically ossified, of gun zealots and homophobes, of the
immigrant-phobic and the adamantly selfish. It insists that government must be
small (an impossibility!), education must be local (a stupidity) and that debt,
no matter what the reason, is immoral and reckless. The movement has lost its
reliable monster. Godless communists have been replaced by the church ladies of
Planned Parenthood. History giggles."
This caricature of
conservatism was penned not by some anonymous contributor to the comments
section of MoveOn.org, but by a longtime liberal columnist of the Washington
Post. Let's begin:
"Intellectually
exhausted and nearly indefensible. It is the movement of the ideologically
ossified ... "
All one has to do to
show how ignorant this description of conservatism is to cite the names of the
two conservative columnists at Cohen's paper, the Washington Post: George Will
and Charles Krauthammer. Are these men "intellectually exhausted" and
"ideologically ossified"? Are their views really "nearly
indefensible"? I mean no insult when I say that the intellectual gap
between the columns of those two conservatives' and the columns of their
liberal colleagues is quite substantial.
Even outside the
Washington Post, where are the liberal Charles Krauthammers and George Wills?
Or the liberal intellectual equivalents of Daniel Henninger and his colleagues
at the Wall Street Journal; or Jonah Goldberg and his colleagues at National
Review? And what about Commentary and the Weekly Standard? Are they, too,
"intellectually exhausted"? And name one black liberal thinker who
inhabits the same intellectual universe as Tom Sowell, Walter Williams, Shelby
Steele, Clarence Thomas or Larry Elder, just to name a few black intellectual
giants of the right.
"... of gun
zealots and homophobes, of the immigrant-phobic and the adamantly
selfish." I have never attended an
NRA meeting, let alone been a member, but I happen to think that it is a good
thing when good people are armed. Am I "gun zealot"? And if there are
"gun zealots," are there not "anti-gun zealots"? Or is
zealotry a conservative monopoly? That I suspect is exactly what Cohen believes
-- just as he undoubtedly believes that there are religious zealots but no
secular zealots.
As for "immigrant
phobic," Cohen got carried away here, too. Virtually every prominent
conservative voice wants an increase in immigration - of legal
immigration, of people who can contribute to America's development. It is illegal
immigration that conservatives oppose. Is that distinction too subtle for Cohen
to appreciate?
"Adamantly
selfish" may be Cohen's corker. Conservative Americans give more charity
and volunteer more time than liberal Americans (controlling for income level).
On what possible basis, then, does Cohen make the charge -- as false as it is
defamatory -- that conservatives are "adamantly selfish?"
Conservatism
"insists that government must be small (an impossibility!) ..." America has
been great in large measure precisely because it has understood that the bigger
the government, the smaller the citizen. Moreover, the real
"impossibility!" is not small government but the left's ever bigger
government. It is neither economically nor morally sustainable, as we are
seeing both in Europe and here in America.
"... and that
debt, no matter what the reason, is immoral and reckless." This is just
demagoguery. Conservatives have little problem with manageable debt: a level of
debt that does not rob from future generations, and debt that does not jeopardize
America's
supremacy in the world. And "no matter what the reason" is almost a
lie. It depends entirely on the reason. The last time we had the debt
percentage of the GDP we have now was World War II -- and conservatives believe
that was a fine reason to get into debt, just as the Cold War was.
"The movement
has lost its reliable monster ... Godless communists." What an admission by a leading liberal --
first, that communism was not a real evil, just a "reliable monster"
for conservatives, on a par with "church ladies of Planned
Parenthood." Second, that "Godless" is a joke, not a real threat
to the moral foundations of society -- as if the death of Christianity in Europe didn't lead to Fascism, Nazism and Communism.
"History
giggles." This is pure leftism.
Since Karl Marx, the left has believed with religious certitude that its views
are inevitable. "Scientific socialism" Marx called it. Everything
opposing the left will end up in the dustbin of history, said Lenin.
We'll see if history
giggles at Cohen or Krauthammer.
http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2013/01/08/richard-cohen-explains-conservatives-n1483114
_____________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"The key to the progressive 'ratchet,' as it is often,
correctly, called, is that no step forward may ever be retraced. ... The key to
the success of Western socialism's 'progress' is not the periodic lurches
toward the abyss. It is the art of effective stalling. All of today's political
and moral outrages will be rationalized with a shrug tomorrow: 'What difference
-- at this point -- does it make?'"
-Daren Jonescu
"Not one of the past federal amnesties was associated
with a decline in illegal immigration. Instead, the number of illegal aliens in
the U.S.
has tripled since 1986. The total effect of the amnesties was even larger
because relatives later joined amnesty recipients, and this number was
multiplied by an unknown number of children born to amnesty recipients who then
acquired automatic U.S.
citizenship. ... You want 'comprehensive immigration reform'? Start with
reliable adjudications, fully cleared backlogs, consistent interior
enforcement, working background checks for the existing caseload, and efficient
and effective deportation policies that punish law-breakers and do right by
law-abiders."
-Michelle Malkin
__________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
The current debate over guns has revealed the National Rifle
Association as an “insane organization,” New York Times economist Paul Krugman
said on Sunday.
____________________________________________________________________________
ISLAM
A Saudi preacher who tortured his five-year-old daughter to
death has been released after agreeing to pay a ´blood money´ fine.
A Saudi cleric has called for all female babies to be fully
covered by wearing the face veil, commonly known as the burka, “for their own
protection” “Burkas for babies”
________________________________________________________________________
GUN CONTROL
Gun owners lampooned President Obama as Elmer Fudd after the
White House released a photo — in the middle of a fierce national firearms
debate — of the commander-in-chief shooting clay targets at Camp
David over the summer. While the president’s shooting skills were
being mocked, his own gun-control allies privately fretted that Obama risked
being ridiculed as a phony for suddenly trying to portray himself as a friend
of sportsmen and hunters.
“Seven Reasons Why it´s a Photoshop”
Media Follows Obama´s Orders to Mock Skeet-Gate Skeptics
________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
“The
other day, I learned that President Obama has canceled our Mars Rover
explorations, along with all other planetary missions. NASA´s science mission
chief just quit in disgust, and who can blame him? Apparently, even robots´
lives are too precious for us to risk these days, so America is giving up the
thrill of discovering space…..Here´s a quick list of some things we´re giving
up these days, with little more than a shrug: Making babies (lowest birth rate
since 1920). Saturday mail delivery. The Constitution. Hostess Twinkies (though
there´s a ray of hope for them)…….”
Ann Coulter: “Having
just lost an election, many Republicans are anxious to remake our party in the
image of Democrats. The theory seems to be that whatever we’re doing isn’t
working, so we better change everything. But in fact, whatever Republicans did
in 2012 — other than an overly long primary fight — worked amazingly well,
given the circumstances. In a detailed analysis of the 2012 election, William
A. Galston, a fellow with the liberal Brookings Institution, makes a number of
fascinating observations that Republicans would do well to consider before
embracing amnesty, abortion, gay marriage and Beyonce. In my analysis of his analysis, the single
most important factor in the election was simply that Obama was an incumbent.
As Galston notes, beating an incumbent president is a feat that has happened
only five times since the turn of the last century. Republicans have done it
only once……(lots of data)…Last year, Republicans had to
run against an incumbent with a unified party and a unified media 100 percent
behind him, and they had to do it after waging their own bitter, endless
primary fight, providing a wealth of sound bites for Obama TV ads. Still, Obama
did worse than nearly any other incumbent who has won re-election. Indeed, had
the election been held a week earlier, Obama probably would have lost. Stop running scared,
Republicans. It makes you look like Democrats.”
The crisis of conservatism on both sides of the pond. “The agony of the US Republicans, engulfed by an existential crisis since
the second term victory of Barack Obama, reminds me so much of the UK
Conservatives’ similar crisis after the accession of Tony Blair to power in
1997. That victory ushered in a
three-term Labour hegemony. The Tories, aghast at the inversion of the natural
order by which they assumed they had a divine right to rule, looked in
bewildered mortification upon the upstart Blair whom they found it impossible
to dislodge -- and arrived at precisely the wrong conclusion about both
conservatism and British society. It was a fundamental error that I believe the
Conservative Party is still making – and if they aren’t careful, the US
Republicans will fall into the same trap.”
Conspiracy corner:
“DHS Insider: Obama’s cyber warriors preparing for collapse”
_________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Sunday, February 3, is the 100th anniversary of the
ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, which makes it the one hundredth
birthday of the income tax. Americans for Tax Reform commemorated the occasion
by publishing a few fun facts about the income tax. Among other interesting
statistics, the initial top tax bracket was only 7 percent, and it didn’t kick
in until income reached a whopping $11.6 million in 2013 dollars. Only 358,000
people had to fill out 1040 forms at first, because the standard family
deduction was an adjusted $93,000.
Breathtaking photos of Earth from space:
Mock & load! Web jokers Photoshop
Obama pic
The REAL face of Richard III: King who died in battle at 32
is brought back to life with reconstruction of 500-year-old skull found beneath
council car park
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2273703/The-face-Richard-III-Reconstruction-reveals-slain-king-500-years-killed-battle.html#ixzz2K2WH2a7o
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
LATE NITE
Leno: The state of Washington is now looking for a marijuana
consultant now that marijuana is legal up there. I think this is one of those
green jobs President Obama is always talking about……. Some Democrats in
Congress are now trying to change the marijuana laws, making it legal so it can
be taxed and increase revenue. Is that what the government's come down to now?
We're selling drugs to pay off our debts? When did Uncle Sam become Scarface?
Letterman: Women will be in combat now. Finally, someone in
the tank who´ll stop and ask for directions.
______________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
"The price for this freedom at times has been high, but
we have never been unwilling to pay that price. ... It is time for us to
realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams.
We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do
not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe
in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing."
-Ronald Reagan
"The only good
bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's
good-bye to the Bill of Rights.”
-H. L. Mencken
"To do evil a
human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good."
-Alexander
Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)
posted by gary at
11:59 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home