op ed review 3/30
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
Nearly six in 10 people disapprove of President Obama´s job
performance in a new poll by the Associated Press.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/201852-ap-poll-disapproval-of-obama-hits-59-percent
Public support for Obamacare hits new low: 26%
Gallup
Poll Predicts Dem Midterm Wipeout
Nate Silver, the former New York Times statistician who
successfully predicted every state in the 2012 election, now predicts that the
GOP has a roughly 60% of retaking the Senate in the 2014 midterms.
One of the nation´s leading Democratic pollsters and
strategists is urging embattled House and Senate incumbents to abandon their
defense of Obamacare and instead pledge to “fix it.”
To help the Obamacare image, top Obama advisor Valerie
Jarrett, is in Hollywood
to get Obamacare written into movie and TV scripts.
“Valerie Jarrett and the Chicago communists”
California
officials will use Obamacare to register new democrats, er, voters. “…the state will send voter registration
cards to nearly 3.8 million Californians who have applied for health
insurance..”
“Obamacare as Election Turnout Machine”
President Obama is seeking to abolish the Tomahawk and
Hellfire missile programs that experts say have helped the U.S. Navy maintain
military superiority for the past several decades.
U.S.
Seniors Have Realigned With the Republican Party. Seniors move from a reliably Democratic to a
reliably Republican group.
But here’s a bad omen:
Hillary Clinton has the edge over potential 2016 Republican challengers
in swing state Virginia,
according to a new poll.
Rand Paul builds 50-state network, courts mainstream support for
presidential bid.
Anti-gun California
Democrat State Senator Leland Yee was arrested and charged
with arms trafficking in exchange for campaign contributions. Yee worked with a
San Francisco gangster known as "Shrimp
Boy" and he offered a $2 million arms deal -- including automatic rifles
and shoulder-fire missiles -- to Islamic rebels in the Philippines. “The hypocrisy is
astounding, as Yee was also a repeat offender when it came to introducing
anti-gun legislation in California,
including a ban on all types of semiautomatic guns….We suppose this also
means Nancy Pelosi will retract her endorsement of Yee.”
ABC, CNN, MSNBC and PBS on Wednesday and Thursday all
covered the "shocking" corruption involving the Democratic mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina. Yet, while
talking about the tens of thousands of dollars in bribes he sought, none of
these networks identified Patrick Cannon´s political party. Only a Fox News
host referred to him as a Democrat.
“…a crime wave is sweeping the nation, and everyone in this
out-of-control mob has a D after their names, even if most of the media are
loath to report it.”
Facing a firestorm of protest, the prominent Christian
relief agency World Vision reversed a
two-day-old policy change that would have allowed it to hire Christians in
same-sex marriages in the US.
Pew poll: 78% of
Americans Favor Proof of Citizenship Before Being Allowed to Vote
The Department of Justice under Eric Holder has done nothing
to Melowese Richardson 410 days after she admitted on camera that she committed
multiple federal felonies by voting six times for President Obama’s reelection.
Federal law makes it a felony to vote more than once for President.
She worked for and sat on the board of a group that received
an Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant.
A civilization in decline: Aborted babies incinerated to
heat UK
hospitals. The remains of more than 15,000
babies were incinerated as 'clinical waste' by hospitals in Britain with some used in 'waste to
energy' plants
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Paul Kengor 3/27/14
A rudderless Republican Party, afraid to assert itself in
the face of a rising liberal/progressive onslaught. A confident Democratic
Party in the White House, undermining the nation, its economy, and its foreign
policy, with timid Republicans feckless in response. A battle for the heart of
the GOP and the next presidential nomination among conservative Republicans and
liberal Republicans.
Sound familiar? Of course. But I’m not just talking about
March 2014. I’m also talking about March 1977, when a genuine conservative
Republican named Ronald Reagan surveyed the political landscape and saw
something hauntingly similar. Reagan resolved to do something about it, and he
laid out that vision 37 years ago, at CPAC, the annual Conservative Political
Action Conference. What Reagan said in that speech remains crucial for
conservatives and the Republican Party today.
Ronald Reagan began speaking at CPAC in 1974, its first
gathering. He addressed the faithful 13 times through his final year in the
White House. But perhaps his most vigorous defense of conservative thinking
came in his remarks delivered on February 6, 1977, his 66th
birthday.
Reagan began by explaining his view of conservatism: “The
common sense and common decency of ordinary men and women, working out their own
lives in their own way—this is the heart of American conservatism today.
Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from willingness to learn, not
just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before.”
Conservatism rests on time-tested principles worth
conserving and preserving for the best of the country, its culture, its people.
Said Reagan: “The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based
on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation
or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind. When we
conservatives say that we know something about political affairs, and that we
know can be stated as principles, we are saying that the principles we hold
dear are those that have been found, through experience, to be ultimately
beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations—found
through the often bitter testing of pain or sacrifice and sorrow.”
Reagan told the CPAC brethren that he believed the “old
lines” dividing social and economic conservatives were “disappearing.” He hoped
the time had come “to present a program of action based on political principle
that can attract those interested in the so-called ‘social’ issues and those
interested in ‘economic’ issues.”
Reagan insisted that a “conservative majority” could emerge
from within the fractured Republican Party to win back the White House and America. This
would require, he said, an adherence to “political principle” and to
“principled politics.” What sort of
principles? In my new book on Reagan conservatism, I lay out 11 clearly
identifiable principles of Reagan conservatism: Freedom, Faith, Family, Sanctity and dignity of
human life, American exceptionalism, The Founders’ wisdom and vision, Lower taxes, Limited government,
Peace through
strength, Anti-communism, Belief in the individual
Those principles worked for Reagan, and there’s no reason to
suspect they wouldn’t work again. They are timeless and time-tested. They are
not only a prescription for a conservative platform, but they draw a perfect
contrast to progressivism….How successful was that plan? In 1980, pursuing a
bold, unapologetic conservative agenda, Reagan won 44 of 50 states against an
incumbent president. Four years later, he won 49 of 50 states. He won those two
elections by a combined Electoral College margin of 1014 to 62. He twice won states
like California and Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And when he was finished,
liberalism was dead for a generation. Now liberalism is back, in the form of
what it’s calling “progressivism.” It can be defeated again.
As Reagan often said, freedom is always a generation away
from extinction. Each new generation needs to fight for it again. The fight can
be painful, but it needs to be fought nonetheless. It’s every generation’s
duty.
This should have special resonance for conservative Republicans
who, like Ronald Reagan, want to take their party in a conservative direction
as they endeavor to recapture the White House and re-change the nation. In his
ongoing messages to his fellow conservatives at CPAC, Reagan essentially told
them to be not afraid—that is, to be not afraid of conservatism, to not fear
who and what they are. “The time has come,” he confidently told them in
February 1977….
Reagan a decade earlier called it a “Time for Choosing.” A
time, he dramatically said, to preserve for America’s children “this, the last
best hope of man on earth.” “If we lose freedom here,” said Reagan, “there’s no
place to escape to.” Choosing wrong meant a long period of “darkness.” Reagan
believed that conservatism shined a light through the darkness.
“We can do it,” Reagan insisted. “This is not a dream, a
wistful hope…. I have seen the conservative future and it works.” It would be
easy to dismiss this as pie-in-the-sky in 2014, just as it seemed in 1977. But
Ronald Reagan made it work. He turned the tide. Why can’t it happen again?
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“The late H.L. Mencken’s description of health care
professionals in his day is just as appropriate today: ‘A certain section of
medical opinion, in late years, has succumbed to the messianic delusion. Its spokesmen
are not content to deal with the patients who come to them for advice; they
conceive it to be their duty to force their advice upon everyone, including
especially those who don’t want it. That duty is purely imaginary. It is born
of vanity, not of public spirit. The impulse behind it is not altruism, but a
mere yearning to run things.’”
=Walter
Williams
“Obama warned Russia
to leave Ukraine
alone or he would act to take a ‘toll on the Russian economy.’ Watch out guys.
Ruining an economy is something he knows something about.”
-Fred
Thompson
_______________________________________________________________________
BOOKS, FILM
Darren Aronofsky wrestles one of scripture's most primal
stories to the ground and extracts something vital and audacious, while also
pushing some aggressive environmentalism, in Noah…..the complete
omission of the name “God” from the dialogue, others for its numerous dramatic
fabrications and still more for its heavy-handed ecological doomsday messages, which
unmistakably mark it as a product of its time.
“God's
Not Dead” didn't have a massive marketing budget, a liberal A-list
star above the title or even the same number of screens most mainstream movies
receive. The film is still on pace to snare the fourth spot in the weekend's
box office chart in a very competitive frame. What it had in its corner--a
popular actor known for his work on TV's Hercules,
the presence of one of Duck Dynasty's
key stars and an unabashedly pro-faith message. The
Hollywood Reporter quickly dubbed it "propaganda," a term rarely
applied to movies with a left-of-center agenda.
Rick Santorum, in his new role as CEO of the film production
company EchoLight Studios, says there’s a message for both politicians and
viewers alike in the latest movie from the studio that is set to premiere this
Sunday.
_________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
In the minds of progressives, global warming is the devil
incarnate, responsible for everything bad. So naturally, with the world focused
on the mystery of Malaysia
370, it is time to blame global warming. Mother Jones Magazine took a break
from blaming free markets (maybe because Malaysia Airlines is government-owned)
to blame global warming for the inability to find the debris.
The National Institute of Scientific Research in Brussels has identified
global warming to be a significant contributor to erectile dysfunction.
Global warming ´deniers´ are as bad as ´Holocaust deniers´
because climate change is as "as certain as Auschwitz",
a Guardian columnist, Nick Cohen, has claimed.
The National Science Foundation awarded a grant of nearly
$700,000 in 2010 to a New York City
theater company so it could write and produce a play about climate change.
“Coldest October-March In The US In 102 Years”
Washington Post op-ed:
“Transit use remains disappointing because driving is too cheap.” They
mean that in a bad way. If there’s a story about “Transit,” they don’t mean
cars. Cars are just solipsistic carbon-barfing capsules that move selfish
people around. Transit means communal boxes, preferably on rails. When they
talk about transit options, they mean buses (ick!) and bikes (yay!) and
streetcars, which are romantic and sustainable and everyone takes them in Europe. Ergo: You there with the two-car garage — pony
up.”
“The just-published NIPCC reports may lead to a paradigm
shift about what or who causes current climate changes. All the evidence
suggests that Nature rules the climate – not Man…..”
________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
Ben Sherwood, the current president of ABC News who sits on
the advisory board of the George
Soros-backed Center
for Public Integrity, will take over as president of Disney/ABC television in
February of 2015.
Feminist Studies Professor to be Prosecuted for Assaulting
Pro-Life Student...
“Ban Bossy,” a new feminist campaign started by Facebook
Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, uses ancient surveys and misleading
facts to claim the word “bossy” hurts girls.
Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis wants schools
to teach social justice, not “consumerism,” she said in a video.
_______________________________________________________________________
ISLAM
Islamist group calls for assassination of the French
President.
Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria
have been ordered to target the Queen of England at British sporting events
such as Wimbledon and Cheltenham races. FA Cup
matches are also on the list of recommended events, with ´martyrdom bombers´
advised to detonate explosives at the final whistle.
Meanwhile, Islamic law is to be effectively enshrined in the
British legal system for the first time under guidelines for solicitors on
drawing up “Sharia compliant” wills.
______________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
While alarm bells are loudly ringing over the Common Core, a
much quieter, yet potentially devastating, coup is underway, enabling the
progressives to subvert secondary education. In classic leftist fashion, the
vehicle chosen to propagandize our youth into seeing America as a fundamentally racist,
unworthy, and unfair society in need of “fundamental transformation” revolves
around a wealthy non-profit organization that enjoys a near-monopoly on a
prestige-generating market niche. The Heartland Institute alerts us to what’s
going on, as the College Board Advanced Placement Examination is being turned
into a vehicle to denigrate American History.
Sowell: Recently
former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice added her voice to those who have
long been urging the Republican party to reach out to black voters. Not only is
that long overdue, what is also long overdue is putting some time — and, above
all, some serious thought — into how to go about doing it. Too many Republicans
seem to think that the way to “reach out” is to offer blacks and other
minorities what the Democrats are offering them.
Roger Simon: “As one
of the relatively few people (percentage wise) to have spent more than a decade
on both sides of our political divide, and also to have participated personally
in the civil rights movement in the South in the sixties, I am going to say
something that will be extremely controversial to liberals, indeed make them
hate me. Given all those years I spent on the two sides, I have observed
liberals to be vastly more racist than conservatives and libertarians. It isn’t
even close. During the time I was on the left, I heard many racially
disparaging comments by my associates either offered in confidence or as
off-hand remarks.”
“The Democratic Party’s War on Black People and How to
Counter It”
President Obama famously fills out an NCAA March Madness
basketball bracket ever year, but it’s nothing like the one recently circulated
by campus conservative activist Caleb Bonham. Mr. Bonham asked students at George Mason
University to fill out a
bracket ranking the “elite eight” Obama administration missteps, which he
called the “Obama March Madness Scandal Edition.” “Which scandal will win the
big dance?” says the YouTube video posted Friday by Campus Reform. The result
was a three-way tie between “IRS Targets Conservatives,” “If You Like Your
Plan, You Can Keep Your Plan,” and “NSA Collection of Citizens’ Email and Phone
_________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES & INFO
Campus Reform, a project of the Leadership Institute, is America's
leading site for college news.
The death of Jeremiah Denton, coming amid a vast American
retreat overseas, is being marked by hundreds of thousands who are watching the
video taken of him when he was a captive of the North Vietnamese communists. It
is one of the most astonishing film clips in American history….What the
youtube.com video above shows is Denton
stating that he gets “adequate food” and “adequate clothing” and “medical care
when I require it.”…Feature, though, Denton’s
eyes. He is blinking. Is it exhaustion? Or an old tic?... It turns out that the
crafty commander is blinking out in Morse code a one-word message:
T-o-r-t-u-r-e.
The horrific effect that drugs can have on addicts have been
highlighted in a series of disturbing pictures and video. The photographs show
American users of cocaine, heroin, oxy-codone and crystal meth in various
stages of addiction. The before shots all show healthy-looking individuals
prior to their becoming involved in substance abuse. The after shots show the
same faces with terrible, blotchy skin, gaunt and hardened features, wrinkled
skin and wild eyes.
Dozens of firms are invisibly tracking you online. Here´s how to hide from them
Editor’s note: this
is also a good product: https://adblockplus.org/en/firefox
Inside Queen
Michelle’s luxurious $8,400-a-night presidential suite in China
___________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
“It is sufficiently obvious, that persons
and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and
that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for
the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be
separated."
-James Madison, Speech
at the Virginia Convention, 1829
"The moment the idea is admitted into
society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is
not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny
commence."
-John Adams, A Defense
of the American Constitutions, 1787
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