op ed review 2/9
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
A Congressional Budget Office analysis predicts that the
Obamacare will shrink the work force by the equivalent of more than two million
full-time positions, providing Republican opponents fresh lines of attack and
putting Democrats on the defensive.
The spin machine sprang into action in the wake of the CBO’s
new report. The White House (and their press agents at the New York Times who
ran the headline “Freeing Workers from the Insurance Trap” and described the
law’s “liberating” impact) tried to portray projections of job losses stemming
from ObamaCare as good news for those lucky people who will no longer have to
put up with the drudgery of – for example, working – to win health care insurance.
Conservatives said the bigger fundamental issue highlighted
in the report is one familiar to the welfare state — that taxpayer-funded
government subsidies provide disincentives for full-time work.
Republican leaders eyeing immigration reform have been
shaken by new polling that shows a majority of their supporters oppose
immigration reform, the Dream Act and citizenship. “The leadership should run
from this one,” said a key House leadership advisor. 58 percent of Republicans
oppose “providing a legal way for illegal immigrants already in the United States to become U.S. citizens.”
“Rep. Raul Labrador said House Speaker John Boehner should
lose his leadership post if he pushes forward with immigration reform this
year”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/5/rep-raul-labrador-boehners-speakership-risk-over-i/#ixzz2sXa14GV1
Wednesday morning at a small meeting of conservative House members
called the Conservative Opportunity Society, the topic was
immigration—specifically, John Boehner…."We pushed the Speaker hard to
understand that until the border is secure, it doesn´t make sense to even
discuss reforms, and the Speaker FINALLY CAME TO OUR SENSES.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/06/How-The-Tea-Party-Cornered-Boehner-On-Immigration
Seven seconds of total silence. The nation's top intelligence officials have
answered the question countless times over the past year and a half, but they
seemed stumped during a House hearing Tuesday when a Florida congressman asked
them one more time: "Can anybody at the table tell us when somebody will
be held responsible for the murders in Benghazi?"
According to recently declassified testimony of the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. military regards itself as legally
barred from going after the perpetrators of the Benghazi attacks (and,
presumably, others who attack Americans) unless they are affiliated with
al-Qaeda. The Obama administration’s parsing of words to deny al-Qaeda’s direct
involvement effectively precludes a military response in these situations. In other words, because President Obama, for
political reasons, is locked into the story that al Qaeda wasn’t directly involved
in the Benghazi
attack, the military is powerless to strike back. This despite Obama’s promises
during the 2012 presidential campaign to bring justice to the perpetrators.
First it was the Justice Department’s career prosecutors;
now it’s FBI agents. The federal employees responsible for fighting crime are
simply unable to digest the anti-law enforcement slop being served up by their
boss, Attorney General Holder. The FBI’s beef is with the selection of Debo
Adegbile as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. The FBI
Agents Association’s opposition is based on the way in which Adegbile defended,
and led the cheers for, cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
A former member of Michael Bloomberg’s gun control group
admits that the group’s objectives are outright confiscation of firearms from
law-abiding citizens.
Media analyst Mark Dice has once again documented how many
young Americans are completely disconnected from reality, capturing California college
students signing a fake petition to imprison all legal gun owners in
concentration camps and even to have them executed. “We just want to make sure
we disarm the citizens. We can trust the government to be the only ones with
guns.” Dice said to students on campus in San
Diego, while they unquestioningly signed the petition
to “repeal the Second Amendment.”
An invigorated National Rifle Association is planning a
massive ground game to win Republican control of the Senate,
New Obamacare rules:
you are required to tell them about your race and ethnicity, or you
won’t see the doctor.
“Well, in my many years of cataloging British free speech
outrages this has to be the most absurd case I’ve come across. Per the
Telegraph: A British magistrate has issued an extraordinary summons to the
worldwide leader of the Mormon Church alleging that its teachings about mankind
amount to fraud. Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints has been ordered to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court
in London next
month to defend the church’s doctrines including beliefs about Adam and Eve and
Native Americans. …”
“Coca-Cola Super Bowl Ad Stirs Controversy With Multilingual
Singing Of ‘America The Beautiful’” After it aired, many took to various
social networking sites to express their outrage at the song being performed in
any language other than English.
SNL Producer: “Republicans Are Easier for Us (to mock) than
Democrats…….Democrats tend to take it personally; Republicans think it’s
funny.”
A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood was recently
hosted at the White House for a meeting with President Barack Obama, prompting
an outcry from critics of the global Islamist organization.
The best quarterback in NFL history was dismantled by one of
the best game plans in Super Bowl history. This, upon further review, is the
story of Super Bowl XLVIII.
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Phyllis Schlafly 2/3
People come to America because it is a remarkable
oasis of freedom, prosperity, and opportunity. Conservatives recognize that the
principal reason for our unique abundance is our constitutional restraint on
the power of government. As Thomas Jefferson said, “In questions of power, let
no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the
chains of the Constitution.”
Maintaining this system requires the public to support
limited government. In a new report, Eagle Forum details how immigration is
fundamentally changing the electorate to one that is much more supportive of
big government.
By itself, the annual flow of 1.1 million legal immigrants
under the current system will create more than 5 million new potential voters
by 2024 and more than 8 million by 2028…..The influx of these new voters would
reduce or eliminate Republicans’ ability to offer an alternative to big
government, to increased government spending, to higher taxes, and to favorite
liberal policies such as Obamacare and gun control.
There is nothing controversial about the report’s conclusion
that both Hispanics and Asians, who account for about three-fourth of today’s
immigrants, generally agree with the Democrats’ big-government agenda. It is
for this reason that they vote two-to-one for Democrats. The 2008 National
Annenberg Election Survey found that 62 percent of immigrants prefer a single,
government-run health-care system. The 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election
Study found that 69 percent of immigrants support Obamacare. Pew also found
that 53 percent of Hispanics have a negative view of capitalism, the highest of
any group surveyed. This is even higher than the 47 percent among
self-identified supporters of Occupy
Wall Street…..
While it seems that much of the Republican-party leadership
has not actually looked at the policy preferences of immigrants, everyone else
who has looked at the polls comes to the conclusion that significant majorities
of immigrants and their children are big-government liberals. The New York
Times’ Washington
bureau chief admitted last year that “the two fastest-growing ethnic groups —
Latinos and Asian-Americans — are decidedly liberal.” As University of Alabama
political scientist George Hawley observes, “Immigrants are well to the left of
the American public on a number of key issues.” He also makes clear that
“liberalizing immigration will liberalize the U.S”….
Immigration in general — not race — is the issue. The
limited data for other immigrants — including Europeans and Muslims — indicate
that they, too, generally hold views well to the left of the average American
voter. In fact, as discussed in our new report, for reasons largely outside the
control of conservatives, immigrants and their children gravitate to left-wing
parties in almost all Western countries. The problem for conservatives is not
race or ethnicity but immigration as such…..
Those supporting a big increase in legal
immigration point to the successful assimilation of Great Wave immigrants
(roughly 1880 to 1920). But that wave was followed by a slowdown of immigration
from the 1920s to the 1960s, which allowed newcomers to assimilate, learn our
language, and adapt to our unique system of government. Also, Great Wave
immigrants arrived before the rise of the grievance industry and identity
politics…….
The generally liberal views of today’s
immigrants do not mean they are bad people. Most immigrants are hard working
and love their families, and many are religious. Many hard-working Americans
not of recent-immigrant origin who are devoted to their families also want to
expand government. Nevertheless, platitudes about immigrants’ being hard
working does not make them conservatives when it comes to the size and scope of
government. While Republicans should do a better job of outreach, immigrants’
generally liberal views should not be trivialized as something that can be
overcome by the right 30-second TV or radio ad or by running candidates with
Asian or Hispanic backgrounds. These may help, but the political values and
preferences of the immigrant community are sincerely felt and not easily
changed.
Conservatives should appeal to immigrants
without sacrificing our principles. One way to do this is to argue that
defeating the Gang of Eight bill, with its amnesty and doubling of legal
immigration, would benefit the nearly 60 million American citizens (many of
them immigrants) who are not working. If employers really are having
trouble finding workers, the private-enterprise solution should be to raise the
pay! A tight labor market is the best anti-poverty program. A reduction in
immigration would also take pressure off our already overloaded health-care
system and schools, and it would facilitate the assimilation of immigrants
already here.
Our new report makes clear that for
conservatives, there is no issue more important than reducing the number of
immigrants allowed into the country each year. If legal immigration is not
reduced, it will be nearly impossible for conservatives to be successful on the
issues we care about.
If the Republican Party is to remain a
party that is conservative and nationally competitive, it must defeat amnesty
and any proposed increases in legal immigration. Further, we must work to
significantly reduce the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country
from the current level of 1.1 million a year. There is nothing inevitable about
immigration. The level and selection criteria can be changed by Congress.
Looking at the political motivation of the
groups pushing higher immigration and amnesty, it’s obvious that the Democrats
promote large-scale immigration because it produces more Democratic votes. If
the Republican Party is to remain conservative and nationally competitive, it
must defeat amnesty and proposed increases in legal immigration.
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“Republicans have convinced themselves that Hispanics are a
‘natural’ constituency for their party because they are hard workers, religious
and family-oriented. … According to Pew, 53 percent of babies born to Hispanic
immigrants are to single mothers, about twice the rate of whites. As for
Republican ‘family values,’ Pew found a majority of Hispanics, 53 percent,
support same-sex marriage. … In a recent column, Phyllis Schlafly, a
conservative political analyst, cited an American National Election Study that
asked Hispanics their views about the free market vs. big government solutions
to problems. Schlafly noted, ‘Only 17.9 percent of Hispanics responded
"the less government the better,” and 85.3 percent said “a strong
government involvement is required to handle economic problems.”’ This is not
the profile of a future Republican voter…..“
-Cal Thomas
Another view: “If
the Republican Party becomes the party of nativists, it will die. If the GOP
defines itself primarily by what it is against, it will lose Hispanics, but
also young people, women, suburbanites and the business community.”
-Linda Chavez (http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23217)
“The Washington ruling
class understands that the exercise of religion as a living, breathing 24/7
reality – as opposed to once-a-week worship – is perhaps the most significant
threat to the expansion of government and its spreading control over our lives.
Government’s intimidation of competing institutions therefore necessitates an
assault on their values as well.”
-Ken Blackwell
________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
Sheila Jackson Lee: Writing executive orders for Obama to
sign is ‘our number one agenda’.
________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
The Keystone Pipeline, which has been studied for more than
five years, will be studied some more. A State Department study was generally
thought to be the conclusive and it has now been delivered. But we are told by
the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, that there is more studying to
be done.
Even the liberal Washington Post is tired of the
stonewalling: “Environmentalists have
drawn a line in the sand on the Keystone XL pipeline. It’s the wrong line in
the wrong sand, far away from any realistic assessment of the merits — as yet
another government analysis has confirmed.”
Of all the media-savvy decisions that our friends in the
alarmists’ camp have made in recent years, the finest was to change their
branding. “Global warming” is a clear hypothesis, subject to investigation and
to criticism; “Global cooling,” likewise. But “climate change”? Now that is
beautifully and efficaciously ambiguous — less an ironclad prediction and more
an ersatz Rorschach test onto which anything and everything can be projected.
Will the overselling of climate change lead to a new
scientific dark age? That’s the question being posed in the latest issue of an
Australian literary journal, Quadrant, by Garth Paltridge, one of the world’s
most respected atmospheric scientists.
________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
What should conservatives do next about the Orwellian
intimidation of political opponents using the IRS? Here is a partial action
plan…..
Inside the IRS
Krauthammer: “The
Health care myths we live by”
“America
long ago lost her will to live. Historically, trespassing into another people’s
territory could bring violence. And nations the world over secure their
borders, sometimes at the end of a gun fondled by an itchy finger. But not the US. We place
water stations in the Arizona
desert for thirsty trespassers, offer driver’s licenses and in-state tuition
for them, and now a Supreme Court justice has opined that calling illegal
migrants "criminals" is insulting. I don’t know, what do you call
someone who broke the law? "Legally challenged"?”
VDH: In the last two
weeks, we learned that Bashar Assad has dismantled only 5 percent of his WMD
arsenal, despite President Obama’s soaring rhetoric to the contrary. Russia violated a long-observed agreement with
the U.S.
about testing missiles. Iran’s
take on the negotiations over its bomb program bears no resemblance to our
interpretation. Chinese officials now happily leak fantastic stories about
using their military to punish Japan.
All that is trumped by veiled threats from the Sunni
Gulf monarchies, terrified of Iran, to buy a bomb or two from Pakistan……
“News that Obamacare would cause the economy to shed 2.3
million jobs is being greeted with jubilation by some quarters…..The word’s not
“unemployment”. That’s a distortion. CBO
said some Americans would work less or leave their jobs if they can get health
insurance outside the workplace. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature. Employment is
a prison, didn’t you know? Nancy Pelosi exults that breadwinners now can escape
the confines of “job-lock”.
Dr. Kristin Held recently wrote a letter to insurance
company Aetna cancelling her partnership with
them, stating that she can neither morally nor effectively treat her patients
under the regulations enforced by Obamacare
“This morning, conservative activist and radio host Dana
Loesch was a guest host with the ladies of ABC´s The View……Ms. Loesch showed up
and discussed, amongst other things, why she switched from being a liberal to a
conservative. In case you didn´t know, Loesch was a liberal, campaigned for the
Clintons, was
an active College Democrat, and did opposition research. "I was a mean
one," she said. Yet, when she became a mother, Loesch´s views shifted
dramatically….”
Five Ways Reagan Nostalgia Misleads Conservatives
____________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
House Republicans have set up a new website focused on the Benghazi attack and the
circumstances surrounding it that promises to bring the facts about the deadly
assault “straight to the American people.”
___________________________________________________________________________
LATE NITE
Leno: The Olympics
start Friday and Russia's
implementing the most intensive security in Olympics history. The government
will monitor every email. They will monitor every social media message and they
will listen in on every phone call. In fact, people are now comparing Russia to the United States. That's how bad it
is.
posted by gary at
12:25 PM
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