op ed review 6/23
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
“Barack Obama Bombs in Berlin: a weak, underwhelming address from
a floundering president”
“Obama to Berliners: Ich bin ein awful speaker”
Over the course of just one month, President Obama´s
approval rating in the CNN/ORC poll has dropped a full 8 points to just 45%,
his lowest rating in eighteen months
A growing number of Americans
believe that senior White House officials ordered the Internal Revenue Service
to target conservative political groups, according to a new national poll.
The decision to keep U.S. personnel in Benghazi with substandard security was made
at the highest levels of the State Department by officials who have so far
escaped blame.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appears to have
lied to the Senate when he said there was never a “stand down” order during the
Benghazi attack.
Even as reports break about the
size and scope of the National Security Agency’s vast data storage center in Utah, new details are emerging about a second massive NSA
center in San
Antonio, Texas.
The American people are growing increasingly concerned about
reports of domestic spying. And Congress isn’t sure how to respond.
FBI director admits domestic use of drones for surveillance
A former intelligence analyst says that the intelligence
community has ordered surveillance on a wide range of groups and individuals,
including high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats.
Senators on Tuesday rejected building the 700 miles of
double-tier border fencing Congress authorized just seven years ago, with a
majority of the Senate saying they didn’t want to delay granting illegal
immigrants legal status while the fence was being built. The vote broke mostly
along party lines, though five Republicans, including Sen. Marco Rubio and the
rest of the bill’s authors, voted against the fence, and two Democrats voted
for it.
Allen West Threatens To Challenge Marco Rubio In 2016
Primary
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) launched a national petition on
Thursday to stop the Senate Gang of Eight's amnesty bill and send Washington a
"strong signal" of the grassroots opposition to the bill.
Obama runs immigration bill from the White House, according
to new report.
The Supreme Court on Monday
struck down an Arizona
law that required people registering to vote in federal elections to show proof
of citizenship.
Local Governments Reeling Under ObamaCare Costs
Signs of ObamaCare´s failings mount daily, including soaring
insurance costs, looming provider shortages and inadequate insurance exchanges.
Yet the law´s most disturbing feature may be the "death panel”…
A new 253-page Obamacare rule requires state, federal and
local agencies as well as health insurers to swap the protected personal health
information of anybody seeking to join the new health care program.
America’s
Catholic bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention joined forces, calling on
Congress to pass bills that would exempt companies and nonprofits from the
contraception insurance coverage mandate in President Obama’s health care law.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered military workplaces
searched for materials “degrading or offensive” to women.. What’s degrading or offensive is open to
interpretation. The Navy will even
inspect its bathrooms.
House Republicans
made their most concerted effort of the year to change federal abortion
law with legislation that would ban almost all abortions after a fetus reaches
the age of 20 weeks.
A state senator from Louisiana
who recently announced his departure from the Democratic Party to become a
Republican says the party of President Obama is one of “overseers.” State Sen.
Elbert Guillory released a video Sunday explaining his reason for leaving the
Democrats: African Americans should quit
exchanging self-reliance for the “allegiance of overseers” through government
programs that are intended not to help people, but to control them. He said in
his video message that Democrats push a social justice and welfare aid strategy
to manage citizens, not help them from poverty.
Hidden camera catches wireless company employees passing out
'Obama phones' to people who say they'll sell them for drugs, shoes, handbags and
spending cash. The 'Lifeline'
free-cell-phone scheme cost $2.2B last year alone, all of it from fees added to
the phone bills of paying customers. (you are paying for it)
Democrats in Washington
are starting to shift from the Obamas to the Clintons. Hillary Clinton has already racked
up a couple of endorsements for the 2016 presidential race — and she hasn’t
even announced she’s running yet.
The Girl Guides (girl scouts in the UK) have
dropped "God" from their Girl Guides´ Promise. In a multicultural and
individualist age, the thinking goes, the movement should pledge "to be
true to myself and develop my beliefs". None of that guff about God and
country. It´s now all about "Me" and the anything goes spirituality.
Hindu, Druid, New Ager, Muslim, Christian: everything´s the same these days.
We´ve seen it elsewhere. Druids and Christians are accorded equal rights in the
workplace: when a Druid employee, say, wants time off to go to Stonehenge for the Solstice, the boss must treat her the
same…..
“Christendom’s Greatest Cathedral to Become a Mosque”.
Hagia Sophia — Greek for “Holy Wisdom” — was for some thousand
years Christianity’s greatest cathedral.
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
The Consequences of
Liberalism, Christopher Chantrill, 6/17
Here we are at the
midpoint of the Obama years, assailed on every side by looming consequences of
liberal hubris and liberal corruption. But the Obama Scandals don't get me all
riled up with partisan outrage. What's the surprise? If liberals in the media,
in the academy, and in politics stigmatize conservatives as monsters, racists,
sexists, homophobes, why be surprised that little Lois
Lerner (at the IRS) wants to please her teacher?
Why wouldn't the
Democrats want to do immigration reform and never mind the consequences to
low-paid Americans? It's heads I win if it passes and Democrats get another 10
million votes or tails you lose if it fails and everyone from President Obama
to Chris Matthews gets to blame the anti-Hispanic Republicans for the disaster.
It's misleading to
say that the social consequences of the welfare state are
"unintended." We know what the liberal welfare state does to people. I
occasionally rile up my liberal friends by noting that a century ago the rich
were fat and the poor were thin, but today the rich are thin and the poor are
fat. Same with work. Back then the poor worked all the time; today the rich
work all the time. Liberals don't like to hear stuff like that. But look at the Current Population Survey, shows that, of the
29.5 million households in the U.S.
with no earners, fully 15 million are in the lowest income quintile. But there
are 46 million U.S. households
with two earners or more. One million are in the lowest income quintile and 18
million are in the highest income quintile. Imagine that: If you have two or
more earners in the family there's a 40 percent chance it will put you into the
top 20%.
Let's say it again.
In a household where nobody works you have a 50 percent chance of being in the
bottom 20%. In a household where two or more people work you have a 40 percent
chance of being in the top 20%.
Things are pretty
frustrating for conservatives right now. You could get really discouraged. But
when the clouds are threatening and the world is dark
it is well to remember how battles are won. They are won by the side that gives
up last. That's why Jonah Goldberg's recent column "Freedom: The Unfolding
Revolution" is such a ray of sunshine. Liberals think that their
government programs are the "wave of the future," writes Jonah, but
they are dead wrong. Their politics, whether class politics for the working
class or today's identity politics of race and gender, is nothing more than
"gussied-up tribalisms, anachronisms made gaudy with the trappings of
modernity, like a gibbon in a spacesuit." Adds Jonah: “The only truly new
political idea in the last couple thousand years is this libertarian idea,
broadly understood. The revolution wrought by John Locke, Edmund Burke, Adam
Smith, and the Founding Fathers is the only real revolution going. And it's
still unfolding.”
How did this
libertarian idea get started, two thousand years ago in the Axial Age? It was
based on the notion of individualism, the responsible self, people thinking and
acting for themselves and forming new associations rather than going along to
get along with the tribe. Why did the West do this first, and not India and China, civilizations far richer and
sophisticated than the European? According to Max Weber it was because Western
city dwellers broke away from tribalism and, as individuals, formed new kinds
of association in the cities while in India
and China
they did not.
In India the caste system and in China the
ancestor cult kept people from trusting each other in the city. They looked to
their caste or clan outside the city for identity and protection. They could
not bring themselves to burst the bonds of caste and clan to trust their fellow
citizens in the city.
It is the
responsible individual that created the modern world, and it is liberals, with
their politics of identity and victim-hood, that are turning the clock back to
a primitive age of tribalism. They are reinventing caste with their rage for
credentialism, and reviving clan with their multiculturalism and race-card
politics. It makes complete sense that liberals sneer at the responsible
individual, the busy bourgeois, the independent householder, the church member,
and harass them. The bourgeois middle class with its businesses, its
adaptability, its families, its work and its savings represent the existential
threat to liberal power and its curdling tribalism.
We know full well
the consequences of liberalism. They are manifesting themselves before our eyes
in Chicago's bloodbath and Detroit's bankruptcy.
Why weren't you
harassing those guys, Lois? Because
if you could just have saved one life...
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/the_consequences_of_liberalism.html#ixzz2WxMRw6Pq
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“Berlin
hadn’t seen bombing like this since the allies turned the city into a wasteland
in the spring of 1945. This week the
bomb was the bomber himself, and when the day was done, the legend of the
irresistible eloquence of Barack Obama lay in shreds and tatters. The allies
required 363 raids between 1942 and 1945 to level the city, while President
Obama leveled himself with only one.”
-Wes
Pruden
“Leftists repeatedly invoked their "If it saves one
life" maxim to promote gun-grabbing legislation, but when it comes to
protecting the life of an unborn baby, the mantra is, "If it
inconveniences one woman..." Thus, in the world of the
"progressive," imaginary constitutional rights trump life, but rights
that are actually enumerated do not.”
-Mark Alexander
__________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
It was tough choosing between
“Ecofeminist Ecosocialism in Action: Perspective on Contemporary Movements for
a Planet Beyond Capitalism” and “Sarte Re-visited in a Time of Crisis,” two of
the highlights of the 2013 Left Forum. But somehow I managed. The Left Forum is
the preeminent socialist confab in the United States, bringing together
leftists of all stripes since 1981 for three days of panels, lectures, and more
panels. So many panels…..
_________________________________________________________________________
BOOKS
“Lincoln
Unbound: How an Ambitious Young
Railsplitter Saved the American Dream—and How We Can Do It Again” by Rich Lowry. Abraham Lincoln’s vision of an
upwardly mobile society that rewards and supports individual striving was
wondrously realized. Now, it is under threat. To meet these challenges,
conservative columnist Rich Lowry draws us back to the lessons of Lincoln. It is
imperative, he argues, to preserve a fluid economy that makes it possible for
individuals to thrive and live the American dream.
James O´Keefe is back to muckraking, with a new book and
fresh "Obamaphone" scandal as the "Ashton Kutcher of the
Conservative movement" reaffirms his commitment to guerilla journalism.
________________________________________________________________________
SECOND AMENDMENT
Anti-gun rally in San
Bernardino attracts 3 people.
Frustrated by an increase in petty crime, residents of an Oregon neighborhood have
decided to arm themselves instead of calling the police. Residents have put up
fliers advertising their new policy.
´This is a Glock Block,´ the fliers read. ´We don´t call 911.´
???? Eighth-Grader Who Refused to
Remove NRA Shirt Could Face Year in Prison
______________________________________________________________________
CONSERVATIVE STRATEGY
If you want to start a fight with a room full of liberals,
insist that Barack Obama is the worst president in recent history. The blowback
about George W. Bush and Iraq
will drown you out, but here’s a way to quiet the crowd: Insist that Obama’s
second term is the worst term in recent presidential history. There can be no
argument there. Each week hits a new low point, and the only debate is about
which moment was the worst.
Hey, Dad. If you’re going to send your kid to a public
school or a state run university, then you’ve got to teach your child not to
just sit there in class, like a nice boy, and take whatever propaganda the
“progressives” shove down their pie hole. The Conservative/traditionalist is
the rebel of our day. “The Man” and “The Machine” on campus to rage against is
not stodgy traditionalism, but rank socialism and its moral and political
vacuity.
_______________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
Frank Miele: The
so-called “comprehensive immigration reform bill” is just the latest turn of
the screw in the ongoing campaign to fundamentally transform America into a
socialist republic. Sadly, it may just be a matter of time before Congress
surrenders its responsibility to protect our country and passes this bill,
almost certainly resulting in a new America that will be less affluent,
less secure, less educated and less relevant, but certainly more international
in character.
He didn't think he would give a speech. For quite some time,
Roy Costner IV was second among his classmates, and didn't realize an extra
class raised his grade point average enough for him to be the valedictorian of Liberty High School's Class of 2013. But when the honor was bestowed on him, and
he was asked to give the traditional valedictory speech, Costner didn't want to
waste this opportunity to acknowledge the most important influence in his life:
his Christian faith. There was a problem.
Liberty High
School is a small public school in Pickens County, South Carolina,
and the County's Board of Education had been targeted over the past year by
activist atheists from Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF)
for praying at their meetings. The
(legally void) threats from FFRF had their intended effect, and the school
board voted to suspend traditional prayer at their gatherings. For good
measure, the board also decided to eliminate religious references at
graduation.
For many years, the networks have done a sloppy job of
comparing "conservatives" around the globe. As the Berlin Wall fell,
the "conservatives" became the communists who wanted to keep their
grip on power and not give way to democracy. That´s hardly comparable to
American conservatives. On Saturday night, CBS News was doing this sloppy dance
on the elections in Iran.
From London,
reporter Elizabeth Palmer declared all the candidates to succeed Ahmadinejad
were the Islamist equivalent of the American Tea Party movement:
____________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Revealed: the top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data
without a warrant
5 Uses for your old computer monitor
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Systems/Modules/5_Uses_for_your_old_computer_monitor.aspx
___________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be
happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us
in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established
rules."
-Thomas Jefferson
______________________________________________________________________
LATE NITE
Fallon: Last week Obama asked China´s president to stop
spying on Americans. And the Chinese leader responded, "You first."
Conan: Everyone please turn off your phones. I’ve got some
jokes I don’t want the government to hear.
Leno: Yesterday the FBI admitted they do use drones on U.S. soil for
domestic surveillance. The FBI's Robert Mueller told Congress that he does
sometimes use drones, but he said the good news is that these drones are made
in America,
by Americans, to spy on Americans…… President Obama's approval rating has
dropped eight points over the past month, down to 45 percent, his lowest rating
in over a year. Obama's vowing to find out whose approval he's lost, track them
down using their email and phone records, and personally win them back……This
day marks the 42nd anniversary of the war on drugs. Today our partners in Mexico observed
it with a moment of silence followed by hours of laughter.
posted by gary at
5:09 PM
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