op ed review 4/27
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
"According to a new poll, thirty-seven percent think
Obama lies ‘most of the time.’" Another 24 percent say he lies “some of
the time.”
Obama’s Staggering Record of Failure
Moving in with parents becomes more common for the
middle-aged The number of Californians
50 to 64 who live in their parents' homes has surged in recent years,
reflecting the grim economic aftermath of the Great Recession.
For many Americans, 'temp' work becomes permanent way of
life
Senators Denounce Obama for Threatening 'Entire
Constitutional System' By 'Nullifying' Immigration Laws
One-and-a-half billion hours of burdensome paperwork has
been added by the regulatory state since 2010, according to an analysis by
American Action Forum, which pegs the additional economic cost at $43.8
billion. The report finds, "In 2010, the nation's total paperwork burden
was 8.8 billion hours; today, it's more than 10.3 billion hours, an increase of
1.5 billion hours, despite the attempt at regulatory reform. For perspective,
it would take 786,000 individuals working full-time to complete the new
paperwork added since 2010."
In the budget proposal he presented to Congress last month, President
Barack Obama called for what would be the highest level of sustained taxation
ever imposed on the American people, according to the analysis published last
week by the Congressional Budget Office.
The Supreme Court has upheld a ban on using race in
admissions to Michigan´s public university.
“Hillary Clinton´s legacy as secretary of state is thin,
judging from a press conference Tuesday in which the State Department´s chief
spokeswoman couldn´t articulate any of the future presidential candidate´s
achievements on the job. She´s not alone, with experts of all political stripes
finding it difficult to bolster Clinton´s resume as America´s top diplomat. The
former secretary of state herself had trouble articulating any lasting
achievements from her tenure, during an April 3 appearance at the Women of the
World Summit in New York City.”
A group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and
think-tankers, conducted a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist
attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn´t
been helping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier.
In internal government documents with potential
repercussions for the 2016 presidential election, top officials at the U.S.
Agency for International Development repeatedly cited former Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton for setting into motion a policy to waive restrictions
on who could receive U.S. aid in Afghanistan, resulting in millions of dollars
in U.S. funds going directly into the coffers of Afghan ministries known to be
rife with corruption.
Oregon is set to become the first state to drop its ObamaCare
exchange and transition into the system managed by the federal government. The
decision follows months of severe technical issues that have made Oregon´s
marketplace one of the worst in the country.
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens supports
gutting the Second Amendment in order to remove any limit on government
infringements on the right of self-defense.
House Speaker John Boehner theatrically mocked his fellow
Republican Congressmen for being afraid to reform immigration policy when he
spoke Thursday before the Middletown Rotary Club in his home district.
Why the UN is a joke:
“Iran Wins Seat On UN Women´s Rights Commission”
We have work to do: “53%
Think Neither Political Party Represents the American People”
The mellow, "peace now," countercultural,
environmentally conscious “420” celebration deposited 10,000 pounds of garbage
on what is known as Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park, leaving volunteers and
park workers to clean up the mess. The pot smokers´ untidiness will cost the
city more than $10,000 in cleanup costs. “The immense load of empty bags of
chips, candy wrappers, and snack containers left behind was evidence that it
was indeed the remnants of weed smokers.”
IRS revokes conservative group’s tax-exempt status over
anti-Clinton statements
An obscure federal agency in charge of preventing strikes
has instead spent money promoting union membership and propping up public
sector unions.
Socialized medicine in the UK: “At least 1,000 hospital patients are dying
needlessly each month from dehydration and poor care by doctors and nurses,
according to an NHS study.”
Joe Biden thanks Ukraine for making him ´feel relevant
again´
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Why Does Nation
Tolerate A Habitual Liar As President?
Investor’s Business
Daily 4/23/14
Public
Trust:
Sixty-one percent polled say President Obama lies "some of the time"
or "most of the time" on matters of national importance. Americans
have to ask: Why do we let him get away with it? It's no surprise that a Fox
News poll of 1,012 registered voters last week found immense distrust of a
president whose main domestic initiative was based on a lie. The shock is that
the same poll found his disapproval level down to its lowest since last fall.
Asked,
"How often do you think Barack Obama lies to the country on important
matters?" 37% replied "most of the time" while 24% answered
"some of the time." Twenty percent said, "Only now and
then." The least popular response was "never," with only 15%
considering our president completely honest when he's speaking to the nation
about big things.
Not
only does this mean that 61% believe Obama to be a habitual liar, with most of
those believing that most of what comes from his mouth is a lie; it also means
that 81% think he has lied as president about important matters at least
occasionally. How could they not? For years, millions trusted him when he swore
that "If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the
doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too. The only change you'll see are
falling costs as our reforms take hold."
None
of that has been true, of course. Yet this same president only last May could
be found engaging in a near-self parody. "Don't let people confuse
you," he told a group of ObamaCare supporters in the East Room.
"Don't let them run the okey-doke on you. Don't be bamboozled."
Even
Richard Nixon was not this brazen. The nation was disgusted with Nixon's
offenses, and public pressure forced him from office. But this latest Fox poll
found that Obama's approval fell to 51% from the 53%-55% range of Fox's seven
previous polls. You have to go back to early October 2013, when it was 49%, to
find approval of Obama lower.
German
physician Anton Delbrueck, about 120 years ago, decided that a new
psychological classification — "pseudologia fantastica" — was
required after noting that some of his patients were incessant liars. Whether
that explains the last two Democrat presidents, today we might need a joint
psychological/sociological study of the mass tendency of the country to accept
systematic lying from the highest level of government.
The
researchers can start with the country's establishment media. Last week, White
House press secretary Jay Carney, interviewed at George Washington University,
remarked that during 2012 "probably the toughest interview" Obama was
subjected to was the one conducted by funnyman Jon Stewart. "Probably the
most substantive, challenging interview Barack Obama had in the election year
was with the anchor of 'The Daily Show,' " Carney said.
Not
"serious" TV interviewers such as Steve Kroft of "60
Minutes," whose questions of Obama in the heat of the 2012 campaign
included: "Where do you go to kind of sort things out on your own? And
when do you find time to just be alone with your own thoughts?"
Not
"Good Morning America's" Robin Roberts, who in May of that election
year, while using her interview to provide a nationally televised forum for
Obama's big switch on same-sex marriage — another broken promise — threw this
hardball: "Mother's Day. Sasha and Malia. Do you have plans for Mrs.
Obama?"
It is
disgraceful enough for the most prominent journalists to refuse to ask real
questions of the most powerful politician in the country because they share his
left-wing ideology. But when a large majority of the public recognizes a
president as a habitual liar, it is outrageous and entirely un-American for the
most powerful within the nation's press to let him get away with his lies, and
betray what they claim to stand for.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/042114-697792-poll-shows-huge-majority-tolerating-obama-as-liar.htm#ixzz2zjmXyyS8
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“It turns out that
when the Left inveighed against “imposing morality,” what it meant is that it
didn’t yet have the power to impose its own. Now that it increasingly does, the
old live-and-let-live pose is abandoned, and the purge is on. The Mozilla
episode is another indication that the regime of political correctness that
characterizes academia is infecting the American mainstream. It will bring with
it the same fear that haunts campus life. Fear of saying the wrong thing and
crossing the wrong people. Fear of retaliation for believing the wrong things. For
decades, we’ve heard from the Left about the need to fight authority and to
resist conformity. Now it is clearer than ever that it wants to wield the
former to impose the latter. Brendan Eich is probably not a culmination so much
as a sign of things to come.”
-Rich Lowry
_______________________________________________________________________
BOOKS
“The Little Green Book of
Eco-Fascism: The Left’s Plan to Frighten Your Kids, Drive Up Energy Costs, and
Hike Your Taxes!” by James Delingpole.
One reviewer writes: “Delingpole nails it yet again! He shows us that
communists have not gone away. They’ve merely changed tactics by promoting
socialism under the guise of Earth worship. The author brilliantly dismantles
the eco-religion of the Left and shows us that their true goal is to part us
from our money and freedom. Told in a very entertaining and witty manner, it is
a must-read for anyone who wants the truth behind the radical environmentalist
movement.
_________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
The decision to yet again delay the final permit for the
popular Keystone XL pipeline was made not in the White House or at the
StateDepartment, but in a posh private residence in the Sea Cliff neighborhood
in northwestern San Francisco. It was there on February 19 that former vice
president Al Gore and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the pilgrimage to
Tom Steyer´s home to kiss the ring of the hedge fund-billionaire turned
super-donor, in exchange for $400,000 that night and a promise of $100 million
more to come. Steyer´s sole demand? Stop the pipeline.
Steyer has pledged $100 million in the 2014 election cycle
to help Democratic candidates who oppose the Keystone pipeline and who favor
“green” energy over fossil fuels. Steyer claims to be a man of principle who
has no financial interest in the causes he supports, but acts only for the
public good. That is a ridiculous claim: Steyer is the ultimate rent-seeker who
depends on government connections to produce subsidies and mandates that make
his “green” energy investments profitable.
Support for building
the Keystone XL pipeline is now at its highest level ever. The latest Rasmussen
Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% of Likely U.S. Voters now at
least somewhat favor building the major oil pipeline from Canada to Texas,
while just 27% are opposed.
Even the Washington Post gets it: “The administration’s latest decision(on the
Keystone pipeline) is not responsible; it is embarrassing. The United States
continues to insult its Canadian allies by holding up what should have been a
routine permitting decision amid a funhouse-mirror environmental debate that
got way out of hand. The president should end this national psychodrama now,
bow to reason, approve the pipeline and go do something more productive for the
climate.”
The World's Resources Aren't Running Out: Ecologists worry that the world's resources
come in fixed amounts that will run out, but we have broken through such limits
again and again.
Do as I say, not as I do:
“Obama will burn more than 35,000 gallons of fuel on Earth Day, emitting
375 TONS of carbon dioxide.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2610431/Obama-burn-35-000-gallons-fuel-Earth-Day-emitting-375-TONS-carbon-dioxide.html#ixzz2zdg8V1K9
___________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
Thomas Piketty may not be a household name in this country
(yet), but the French economist who is updating Karl Marx has quite a following
at the White House and among thought leaders of the Democratic Party. In his latest book, Piketty warns that
modern-day capitalism leads to unsustainable levels of inequality. “The Democratic Party, especially the Obama
administration, has been in contact with us and using our findings for a long
time,” Piketty told AFP.
“What are the chances that Bernardine Dohrn, the wife of
Bill Ayres, and a principal signatory on the Weather Underground´s
"Declaration of a State of War" in May 1970 could be appointed as a judge
in a Federal Court?”
Washington Post hires ultra-liberal former union bully and
nobody bats an eye
________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
How did Harry Reid become so wealthy?
Suppose a scientific conference on cancer prevention never
addressed smoking, on the grounds that in a free society you can't change
private behavior, and anyway, maybe the statistical relationships between
smoking and cancer are really caused by some other third variable. Wouldn't
some suspect that the scientists who raised these claims were driven by
something—ideology, tobacco money—other than science? Yet in the current discussions about increased
inequality, few researchers, fewer reporters, and no one in the executive
branch of government directly addresses what seems to be the strongest
statistical correlate of inequality in the United States: the rise of
single-parent families during the past half century.
Funny story: PRUDEN:
Putting the ‘pee’ in Portland. No
reservoir of good will in Oregon water supply.
Boehner: As he moves
from lobbyists to the golf course, from press conferences to the tanning bed,
he remains oblivious to all that is around him. He has power, incredible power,
and yet to this day he has no understanding of the election that made it so.
Moreover, all around him are astonishing opportunities for him to be an
historic figure -- one who could and should be the man who did more than any
other single person in turning back the red tide of Obama. It’s all there for
Speaker of the House, and yet John Boehner manages to miss it all -- as he
guarantees his spot as the most spectacular failure in the history of Speakers
of the House. So seriously, just how dense is this guy?”
So now we know why the Democrats are adopting economic
inequality as their central issue: because their constituents, the people who
live under policies crafted by the left, are the ones who experience the
highest degree of income inequality in their own lives. That’s the upshot of a
recent study of income inequality organized by congressional district: “Across
the country, inequality is lower in Republican districts than in Democratic
ones” and is “highest in the New York City district of Representative Jerry
Nadler, a liberal Democrat.” Who has the congressional district with the least
income inequality? That would be Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann, who
represents suburban Minneapolis.
It’s an article of the faith of the Democrats that voter
fraud is nothing to worry about because it never happens. Kim Strach, the North
Carolina director of elections, has living proof — and some dead proof —
otherwise. She has identified 35,750 persons who voted in North Carolina
sharing a name, birth date and Social Security number with someone who voted in
another state in 2012. Another 81 North Carolinians voted after they died.
Ghosts have no constitutional rights, not yet, but Barack Obama and the
Democrats think rigor mortis need not keep voters from practicing good
citizenship.
_________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES & INFO
These Maps Destroy All Objections
To The Keystone Pipeline
In what can only be called a gracious historical act, a
newsreel archive company called British Pathé has uploaded 85,000 historic
films on YouTube—in high resolution, no less. The collection spans from 1896 to
1976 and there’s obviously a lot of great stuff to comb through that ranges from
politics to art to culture to sports. One video that has caught The Daily
Caller’s eye is the one below, in which American birth control activist
Margaret Sanger sternly demands that the women of the world have “no more
babies.”
____________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
“Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in
principle, is a species of vice.”
–Thomas Paine
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