Monday, August 31, 2009

CHICAGO POLITICS: IT IS NOT ABOUT IDEOLOGY. RATHER, IT IS ALL ABOUT, "WHO GETS WHAT, WHEN, AND HOW."
























"Public affairs go on pretty much as usual:
perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse
than there used to be..."
--John Adams

CULTURE
"Chicago politics is not about ideology.
It is about, 'Who Gets What, When, and How,'
to quote the inimitable Harold D. Laswell,
one of the outstanding political theorists of the last century.
The sine qua non of Chicago politics is power, getting it and keeping it.
Everything else is incidental.
Even corruption is a byproduct of power and is functional
only if it enables you to stay in power.
In Chicago politics, you don't make waves,
you don't back losers,
and you 'don't talk to nobody nobody sent.'
Chicago politics is always about hierarchy and centralization. ...
If you want to understand Obama's health care policy,
you need to start where Obama starts.
You need to start with Chicago.
You need to look at constituent interests.
Obama won in 2008 because, among other things,
he mobilized the electoral periphery.
He mobilized young voters and minority voters,
people who traditionally had a lower probability of showing up on Election Day.
Chicago politics is about mobilizing the vote.
'Vote early and often' is the city's sardonic refrain.
Obama needs his newly socialized base.
He needs them to keep coming to the polls.
In the vein of Chicago politics, he needs to deliver benefits to them.
Unrewarded, the electoral periphery will revert back to apathy.
Health care is a reward to this base of people who are on the economic
as well as political periphery. ... Obama understands that his objective is to provide his base with the spoils of power -- in this case insurance. ...
If all that Obama wanted were to insure those who fall between the cracks,
he could put them into the same wonderful program that
Congress created for itself by subsidizing their premiums.
This would neither require a thousand pages of legislation nor a new series
of bureaucracies.
But building a new power base resulting from the mobilization
of the political and economic periphery requires
redefining the nation's health problems as the nation's health catastrophe.
Health reform is Chicago politics on a national level."
--University of Cincinnati emeritus professor of political science Abraham Miller
INSIGHT
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. ... We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" --George Orwell, "1984"
FAITH AND FAMILY
"I only want the best for everyone. My beliefs in the Bible, and freedom and capitalism are only ideals that bless people. And, they worked real good from 1776 to 2008 ... with a hitch in the 60s where immorality, free love, the pill, drugs, divorce, and the breakup of the family started the thread of morality unraveling. You can't have a great country without the spirit of The Ten Commandments hovering in the hearts of its citizens. ... Our house was always immaculate and our front yard always had freshly mown grass. My father took us to church 3 times a week. ... My father taught me how to read when I was 5, so that when I started first grade I was the best reader. I skipped second grade. My father played the piano every night and taught us show tunes, and how to harmonize. My father taught us how to water ski. ... My father made us feel safe. He gave us confidence and a history and a future. ... Obama didn't have a father. Maybe that's why he sees the government as Daddy." --Big Hollywood blogger Victoria Jackson



GOVERNMENT
"'Choice, competition, reducing costs -- those are the things that I want to see accomplished in this health reform bill,' President Obama told talk-show host Michael Smerconish last week. Choice and competition would be good. They would indeed reduce costs. If only the president meant it. Or understood it. In a free market, a business that is complacent about costs learns that its prices are too high when it sees lower-cost competitors winning over its customers. The market -- actually, the consumer -- holds businesses accountable and keeps them honest. No 'public option' is needed. So the hope for reducing medical costs indeed lies in competition and choice. Today competition is squelched by government regulation and privilege. But Obama's so-called reforms would not create real competition and choice. They would prohibit it." --ABC's "20/20" co-anchor John Stossel
RE: THE LEFT
"Ultimately, the Left's 'scaled back' version of health-care reform will sprout other ominous features. For starters, we'll need armies of federal bureaucrats to draw up and enforce thousands of pages of new insurance regulations. And then we'll need some government muscle to enforce the individual and employer mandates -- everything from penalties, fees, and fines to the use of collection agencies and garnishment of wages. As candidate Obama himself said: 'Without an enforcement mechanism, there is no mandate. It's just a political talking point.' So there we have it: the slippery slope of health reform." --Heritage Foundation vice president Michael G. Franc
POLITICAL FUTURES
"After the lionization [of Ted Kennedy] is over; the casket is removed from the Capitol Rotunda, and the senator is laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery next to his brothers, the Democrats at the prodding of Rahm 'never waste a crisis' Emanuel will come out with a revised health care plan in honor of the late and 'great' Ted Kennedy. As Thomas Paine once wrote, 'these are the times that try men's souls', our elected Republican representatives in Congress are going to be tested. Will they be able to stand up to the vitriol sure to come if they oppose TeddyCare? Will they be able to overcome the wave of emotion during the Teddy hero-worship that will no doubt come from the Democrats and their public relations firm, the mainstream media? The Republican Party will no doubt crumble under the pressure if we the people are not there to man the ramparts of their crumbling spines. We conservatives are going to have to be the badge of courage our Republican Cowardly Lions are going to need in the days ahead." --columnist David Jeffers
FOR THE RECORD
"Ever notice how Henry Waxman's cherubic face pops up so often? Most recently, he's been in the news with his letter to 52 health insurance executives demanding that they cough up mountains of data about their compensation, expense accounts, retirement benefits, travel schedules, and shoe sizes. Okay, not that last item, but you get the drift here. Recipients of the Waxman letter -- which was co-signed by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-MI -- have no choice but to comply. So if Waxman -- who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee -- finds even the faintest whiff of scandal in the furthest corner of the health insurance industry, expect to be treated to the hollow spectacle of yet another congressional show trial. Soft tyranny is never so happy as when its beaming countenance is brightened by possession of a federal subpoena and the prospect of jail it poses for those who defy the order from on high to produce whatever is demanded." --Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott
features a raised USMC logo and "The Few, The Proud" direct embroidery on the upper brim.

LIBERTY
"There is now just one group of people exempt from President Obama's worldwide ban on torture: the men and women of the CIA. By authorizing Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to determine whether a full criminal investigation of CIA employees and contractors is warranted for the manner in which they interrogated captured terrorists, the President has thrown his power and support behind those far-left ideologues -- in Congress and elsewhere -- who believe that the CIA is a bigger threat to our country than al Qaeda. ... Look hard at everything President Obama has said and done -- [last] week's attack on the CIA, his banishment of the phrase 'Global War on Terrorism' and its replacement with the milquetoast 'overseas contingency operations,' his apologetic Cairo speech, his seeming indifference to the recent bombings in Iraq, his unwillingness to seize the opportunity of the students' uprising in Iran to knock over that dangerous regime, his trashing of our special relationship with Israel, and all the rest including his longtime personal relationships with vicious America-haters like Bill Ayers and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- and the conclusion is inescapable: President Obama is throwing the switch from offense back to defense, and returning the US to its September 10 mindset." --author and former Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence (Reagan administration) Herbert E. Meyer
THE GIPPER
"Now more than ever it is vital that the United States not back down from its efforts to develop and deploy strategic defenses. It is technologically feasible, strategically necessary and morally imperative. For if our nation and our precious freedoms are worth defending with the threat of annihilation, we are surely worth defending by defensive means that ensure our survival." --Ronald Reagan
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
(To submit reader comments visit our Letters to the Editor page.)
"Thank you for your honesty in reporting after Ted Kennedy's death. As a Massachusetts resident, it appalled me that we continued to elect him to term after term, especially after he killed Mary Jo Kopechne. The fawning coverage has been nauseating since his death. Finally some truth about him." --Braintree, Massachusetts
"The greatest insult here is to those interred in National Cemetery who fought, bled and died for their country; they now shall be forced to spend eternity with a man of inherited privilege whose greatest achievement was to have spent nearly half a century suckling at the public teat." --Jupiter, Florida
"Let's see how much of the 'liberal lion's' wealth is given to all those liberal welfare programs he so espoused and supposedly had such affection for. Oh wait, he shifted the majority of his wealth to trusts and other shelters to shield it from the federal and estate taxes he was also so fond of! Typical leftist, liberal philanthropy: keep it for yourself, shelter it from government taxes, and instead take it from others for self-serving purposes." --Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania
"My office is near the Kennedy Library in Boston. Friday, the The New York Times reported, 'For the second straight day, immigrants, tourists and Bostonians alike stood in long, snaking lines around the presidential library -- some waiting hours for only a minute or so to view the closed coffin.' (Amazingly, it was draped with an American flag!) Indeed, Thursday evening, there were some folks lined up to see the casket. But I can tell you that Friday morning, the day the Times article was published, there were NO lines waiting to see the casket a couple hours after the library opened for visitors. There were lots of stanchions outside on this beautiful morning, but no crowd to control. Inside, there were about 15 visitors, four of whom were Park Rangers." --Boston, Massachusetts
THE LAST WORD
"With the Democrats getting slaughtered -- or should I say, 'receiving mandatory end-of-life counseling' -- in the debate over national health care, the Obama administration has decided to change the subject by indicting CIA interrogators for talking tough to three of the world's leading Muslim terrorists. Had I been asked, I would have advised them against reinforcing the idea that Democrats are hysterical bed-wetters who can't be trusted with national defense while also reminding people of the one thing everyone still admires about President George W. Bush. But I guess the Democrats really want to change the subject. Thus, here is Part 2 in our series of liberal lies about national health care. There will be no rationing under national health care. Anyone who says that is a liar. And all Democrats are saying it. (Hey, look -- I have two-thirds of a syllogism!) Apparently, promising to cut costs by having a panel of Washington bureaucrats (for short, 'The Death Panel') deny medical treatment wasn't a popular idea with most Americans. So liberals started claiming that they are going to cover an additional 47 million uninsured Americans and cut costs ... without ever denying a single medical treatment! Also on the agenda is a delicious all-you-can-eat chocolate cake that will actually help you lose weight! ... These are Trojan Horse bills. Of course, they don't include the words 'abortion,' 'death panels' or 'three-year waits for hip-replacement surgery.' That proves nothing -- the bills set up unaccountable, unelected federal commissions to fill in the horrible details. Notably, the Democrats rejected an amendment to the bill that would specifically deny coverage for abortions. After the bill is passed, the Federal Health Commission will find that abortion is covered, pro-lifers will sue, and a court will say it's within the regulatory authority of the health commission to require coverage for abortions. Then we'll watch a parade of senators and congressmen indignantly announcing, 'Well, I'm pro-life, and if I had had any idea this bill would cover abortions, I never would have voted for it!' No wonder Democrats want to remind us that they can't be trusted with foreign policy. They want us to forget that they can't be trusted with domestic policy." --columnist Ann Coulter

*****

THE PATRIOT POST. COM
Monday Brief
August 31, 2009
Vol. 09 No. 35
Veritas vos Liberabit -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander, Publisher,
for The Patriot's editors and staff.
************************************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
AT THE TIME OF HIS BIRTH
as required by the Constitution.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is not eligible to be President of the United States because – according to public admissions made by him – his “birth status was governed” by the United Kingdom. Obama further admits he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at birth.
Since Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was, if born in the state of Hawaii, a dual citizen, who – according to his own State Department – owed allegiance to the Queen of England and United Kingdom at the time of his birth – he cannot therefore be a “natural born” citizen of the US according to Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
His father, who did not live in the United States for more than a couple of years, was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of Barack’s birth and afterwards, AND further, as Barack himself admitted on his website during the 2008 campaign, Barack was therefore born SUBJECT TO THE GOVERNANCE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Here is a direct quote from Obama's "Fight the Smears/Fact Check" 2008 website:

‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources. BUT if you are really convinced of the value of the COLB (certificate of live birth) that Obama posted on his website, see this:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9830547/Sun-Yatsen-Certification-of-Live-Birth-in-Hawaii

Also, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all through his mother if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens













Saturday, August 29, 2009

TED KENNEDY, NOT QUITE READY FOR PRIME TIME IN HISTORY


In this July 26, 1969 file photo,

Senator Edward M. Kennedy talks with newsmen

after leaving court house in Edgartown, Mass.,

where he received a two months

suspended sentence for failure to report

an accident in which a young woman was killed.

Wife Joan, 32, expecting her fourth child,

accompanied the senator,

and his brother-in-law, Stephen Smith,

is in the background, at right.

(AP Photo/Boston Globe, file)






























****************************************************************

The 'canonization' ceremonies are finally over.
The MSM and the left-liberals have adjourned their 'consistory' today
and now he has been consigned to his place in history.
I for one have no doubt that future writers,
freed from the heady air of Camelot will
breathe in a mind clearing view of his life
free from the sentiment and emotion
which characterized so much of the adulation
lavished on the Kennedys.
Mark Steyn, writing with the detachment
and objectivity that comes from not having
been a part of the era of Camelot
(he was living and working in Canada and Great Britain)
offers us an evaluation of Ted Kennedy's life
that will probably be more like history's verdict
than anything we read or hear today.

Jeff Jacoby offers us a comparison of
the two brothers:
JFK and Ted Kennedy.

- Leo Rugiens


***********

We are enjoined not to speak ill of the dead.
But, when an entire nation
– or, at any rate, its "mainstream" media culture –
declines to speak the truth about the dead,
we are certainly entitled to speak ill of such false eulogists.
In its coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's passing,
America's TV networks are creepily reminiscent
of those plays Sam Shepard used to write
about some dysfunctional inbred hardscrabble
Appalachian household where there's a baby buried in the backyard
but everyone agreed years ago never to mention it.
In this case, the unmentionable corpse is Mary Jo Kopechne,
1940-1969.
If you have to bring up the, ah, circumstances of that year of decease,
keep it general, keep it vague.
As Kennedy flack Ted Sorensen put it in Time magazine:
"Both a plane crash in Massachusetts in 1964 and
the ugly automobile accident on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969
almost cost him his life …"
That's the way to do it! An "accident," "ugly" in some unspecified way,
just happened to happen – and only to him,
nobody else.
Ted's the star,
and there's no room to namecheck the bit players.
What befell him was … a thing, a place.
As Joan Vennochi wrote in The Boston Globe:
"Like all figures in history
– and like those in the Bible, for that matter –
Kennedy came with flaws.
Moses had a temper.
Peter betrayed Jesus.
Kennedy had Chappaquiddick,
a moment of tremendous moral collapse."
Actually, Peter denied Jesus, rather than "betrayed" him, but close enough for Catholic-lite Massachusetts. And if Moses having a temper never led him to leave some gal at the bottom of the Red Sea, well, let's face it, he doesn't have Ted's tremendous legislative legacy, does he? Perhaps it's kinder simply to airbrush out of the record the name of the unfortunate complicating factor on the receiving end of that moment of "tremendous moral collapse." When Kennedy cheerleaders do get around to mentioning her, it's usually to add insult to fatal injury. As Teddy's biographer Adam Clymer wrote, Edward Kennedy's "achievements as a senator have towered over his time, changing the lives of far more Americans than remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne."
You can't make an omelet without breaking chicks, right? I don't know how many lives the senator changed – he certainly changed Mary Jo's – but you're struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the basic equation: How many changed lives justify leaving a human being struggling for breath for up to five hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy's Oldsmobile? If the senator had managed to change the lives of even more Americans, would it have been OK to leave a couple more broads down there? Hey, why not? At the Huffington Post, Melissa Lafsky mused on what Mary Jo "would have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history … Who knows – maybe she'd feel it was worth it." What true-believing liberal lass wouldn't be honored to be dispatched by that death panel?
We are all flawed, and most of us are weak, and in hellish moments, at a split-second's notice, confronting the choice that will define us ever after, many of us will fail the test. Perhaps Mary Jo could have been saved; perhaps she would have died anyway. What is true is that Edward Kennedy made her death a certainty. When a man (if you'll forgive the expression) confronts the truth of what he has done, what does honor require? Six years before Chappaquiddick, in the wake of Britain's comparatively very minor "Profumo scandal," the eponymous John Profumo, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for War, resigned from the House of Commons and the Queen's Privy Council and disappeared amid the tenements of the East End to do good works washing dishes and helping with children's playgroups, in anonymity, for the last 40 years of his life. With the exception of one newspaper article to mark the centenary of his charitable mission, he never uttered another word in public again.
Ted Kennedy went a different route. He got kitted out with a neck brace and went on TV and announced the invention of the "Kennedy curse," a concept that yoked him to his murdered brothers as a fellow victim – and not, as Mary Jo perhaps realized in those final hours, the perpetrator. He dared us to call his bluff, and, when we didn't, he made all of us complicit in what he'd done. We are all prey to human frailty, but few of us get to inflict ours on an entire nation.
His defenders would argue that he redeemed himself with his "progressive" agenda, up to and including health care "reform." It was an odd kind of "redemption": In a cooing paean to the senator on a cringe-makingly obsequious edition of NPR's "Diane Rehm Show," Edward Klein of Newsweek fondly recalled that one of Ted's "favorite topics of humor was, indeed, Chappaquiddick itself. He would ask people, 'Have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?'"
Terrific! Who was that lady I saw you with last night?
Beats me!
Why did the Last Lion cross the road?
To sleep it off!
What do you call 200 Kennedy sycophants at the bottom of a Chappaquiddick pond? A great start, but bad news for NPR guest-bookers! "He was a guy's guy," chortled Edward Klein. Which is one way of putting it.
When a man is capable of what Ted Kennedy did that night in 1969 and in the weeks afterward, what else is he capable of? An NPR listener said the senator's passing marked "the end of civility in the U.S. Congress." Yes, indeed. Who among us does not mourn the lost "civility" of the 1987 Supreme Court hearings? Considering the nomination of Judge Bork, Ted Kennedy rose on the Senate floor and announced that "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit down at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution."
Whoa! "Liberals" (in the debased contemporary American sense of the term) would have reason to find Borkian jurisprudence uncongenial but to suggest the judge and former solicitor-general favored resegregation of lunch counters is a slander not merely vile but so preposterous that, like his explanation for Chappaquiddick, only a Kennedy could get away with it. If you had to identify a single speech that marked "the end of civility" in American politics, that's a shoo-in.
If a towering giant cares so much about humanity in general, why get hung up on his carelessness with humans in particular? For Kennedy's comrades, the cost was worth it. For the rest of us, it was a high price to pay. And, for Ted himself, who knows? He buried three brothers, and as many nephews, and, as the years took their toll, it looked sometimes as if the only Kennedy son to grow old had had to grow old for all of them. Did he truly believe, as surely as Melissa Lafsky and Co. do, that his indispensability to the republic trumped all else? That Camelot – that "fleeting wisp of glory," that "one brief shining moment" – must run forever, even if "How To Handle A Woman" gets dropped from the score. The senator's actions in the hours and days after emerging from that pond tell us something ugly about Kennedy the man. That he got away with it tells us something ugly about American public life.
---
Things only a Kennedy could get away with
And by not calling his bluff on Chappaquiddick,
Americans became complicit in it.
byMark Steyn
Syndicated columnist
Friday, 28 August 09

******************

'Kennedy' once meant 'tax-cutter'
by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
August 30, 2009
http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6157/kennedy-once-meant-tax-cutter

HIS NAME WAS KENNEDY.
He was the preeminent figure in the Democratic Party.
And he was a resolute supply-side tax-cutter.
"It is a paradoxical truth," he once told the Economic Club of New York, "that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now." What he had in mind, he said, was not "a 'quickie' or a temporary tax cut." He wanted nothing less than "an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes."
Those were not the words of Senator Edward Kennedy.
The speaker – in December 1962 --
was President John F. Kennedy,
and his ringing call for tax cuts was no anomaly.

In a televised address from the Oval Office four months earlier, JFK had called high tax rates a danger to "the very essence of the progress of a free society: the incentive of additional return for additional effort." In his 1963 State of the Union message, he said his first priority was "the enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in federal income taxes." In the speech he was scheduled to deliver to the Texas Democratic State Committee on Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy planned to report proudly: "We have proposed a massive tax reduction, with particular benefits for small business."
In recent days, Ted Kennedy has been justly acclaimed as a lion of the Democratic Party. But how different the party mourning Kennedy today is from the one that first nominated him in 1962!
The reversal on taxes is one vivid example. When Ted Kennedy entered the Senate in 1963, JFK was leading a campaign for sweeping tax relief that would eventually slash the top marginal rate by a huge 21 percentage points, from 91 to 70. But Democrats have long since become the party that resists lower taxes. In our era, it has been Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush who have championed JFK-style rate cuts -- cuts that Democrats now condemn as "tax breaks for the wealthy."
On civil rights, too, there has been a sea change.
Liberal Democrats in the 1960s upheld the colorblind ideal -- the conviction that Americans should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Far from supporting racial quotas and preferences, civil-rights Democrats of that generation flatly rejected them. Senator Hubert Humphrey famously vowed that if anyone could find anything in the 1964 Civil Rights Bill that would compel employers to hire on the basis of race or national origin, "I will start eating the pages one after another, because it is not in there." In a 1963 press conference, President Kennedy explicitly opposed racial preferences: "We are too mixed, this society of ours, to begin to divide ourselves on the basis of race or color."
But in the years that followed, as such preferences became entrenched in hiring and education, liberal Democrats became their doughtiest supporters. Senator Kennedy was "a leader in congressional efforts to preserve federal affirmative action," his Senate website notes. When the Supreme Court ruled against the racial classification of schoolchildren in a 2007 case -- "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," the court frankly advised -- Kennedy blasted the decision as one that "turns back the clock on equality."
Especially dramatic has been the Democratic Party's metamorphosis on foreign affairs.
"There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future: Let them come to Berlin," declared President Kennedy, a staunch Cold Warrior, in his great Berlin Wall speech in 1963. "There are some who say, in Europe and elsewhere, we can work with the Communists: Let them come to Berlin." But by 1987, when another American president journeyed to Berlin to challenge Moscow to "tear down this wall," such muscular anti-Communism had all but vanished from Democratic Party thinking.
JFK likewise spoke for mainstream Democrats when he asserted that America would "pay any price, bear any burden" to spread freedom and democracy in the world. He was a hawk who pressed for higher defense spending and American military superiority. The Democratic Party of more recent years -- the party of "come home, America" and a nuclear freeze -- was one he wouldn't have recognized.
All political parties alter over time, of course. Today's Republican Party is not a carbon-copy of Eisenhower's: It is more internationalist, more religious, more Southern. But a resurrected Eisenhower would still recognize the GOP, and still command its esteem.
The Democrats' transformation has been much more profound. Over the course of Ted Kennedy's long Senate career, his party's ideological center shifted hard to the left. It goes without saying that a JFK today could never be the Democrats' candidate for president. The question is, would he still be a Democrat?
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe. To follow him on Twitter, click here.)

******************

08/29/2009 (12:23 pm)

Excusing the Politically Correct

by Phil Weingart
PlumbBobBlog.com

I have avoided the entire Edward Kennedy discussion, choosing instead to pray for the man’s soul. I detested his politics; I was incensed by his involvement in besmirching the reputation of Judge Robert Bork; I heard good things about his personal treatment of employees and constituents; his family has a big house a few miles from where I’ve been living for the past 2 years; he had a reputation as a philanderer and a drunkard; he was a well-liked power broker in the US Senate. That’s how much I know of the man, and I feel I’ve already said too much about a man whose funeral is proceeding even as I write this. He should rest in peace.

However, I’m incredulous after having read this misguided editorial by Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune, who wants us to consider what a shame it would have been if the accident at Chappaquiddick had been the subject of a 21st-century-style media feeding frenzy.

This disgusting piece implies that if it had taken place today, the media would have gone berserk over the accident, turning it into a circus and, in the process, ending Kennedy’s political career. It then simply assumes that nobody disagrees that the remainder of Kennedy’s life was such an unmitigated boon to the public good that we all would have been worse off for his career having ended.

250px-chappaquiddick_bridge1What astounds me is how clueless Zorn is about the protection of privilege in America, particularly Democrat privilege, and how this protection by the press makes a mockery of the central requirement of a free society that every citizen must be equal before the law. The unequal treatment before the law rides on an awful inversion of morality: the bizarre notion that if a man’s politics are Democratic enough, no moral malfeasance, no matter how horrific, is sufficient to offset his virtue. Virtue is defined as “supporting Democratic party initiatives.”

It’s the same blindness that was exhibited as it was becoming embarrassingly obvious that President Clinton was a pathological liar, a perjurer, a grafter, and possibly even a serial rapist. Democrats simply closed their ears and eyes. How could somebody who supported welfare, ecology, and women’s rights be considered morally bad? He is such a good man, simply by virtue of his politics!

This substitution of political correctness for moral character is evil, and undermines our republic.

There is no legitimate doubt that Kennedy avoided serious investigation into the accident by virtue of the fact that he was, in effect, royalty. Whether there ought to have been a conviction, or even an arrest, is completely beside the point; there ought to have been an investigation, and there would have been… except that in Massachusetts, Kennedys are not the subject of investigations, because they’re Kennedys.

There are valid reasons to object to the manner in which media turn a tragedy into a circus. However, the process serves to ensure that no party is exempt from public scrutiny, and eventually from the law. Kennedy did plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, arguably because there was no way to avoid the public knowing that he had done so. He was sentenced to 2 months in prison, but the sentence was immediately suspended by the judge. Appropriate press attention could have served to ensure that a proper investigation took place.

So public scrutiny, and particularly press scrutiny, is a necessary goad to produce appropriate legal action, and protects our liberties — when applied in a fair and impartial manner.

The fact is, however, that press attention has long since ceased to be applied fairly and impartially.

In fact, it has become disturbingly common, in modern America, for Democrats generally to believe they are above the law, with good reason. Republicans who get charged with a crime step down; Democrats never do, and the press protects them. Try to imagine what a Lexis-Nexis search of the mainstream media articles would reveal of the $90,000 in Representative Jefferson’s freezer (D, La), the bribery tapes capturing Representative Jack Murtha (D, Pa) making deals, Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D, Ca) shuffling of more than $1 billion in defense contracts to her husband’s company, Senator Harry Reid’s (D, Nv) profiting from land scams, or dozens of the scandals instigated by President Bill Clinton (try to find a discussion of the possible graft in declaring the Grand Escalante Staircase a national park, for instance). Compare them to the unhinged attempts to tie Abu Graib to high public officials who had nothing to do with it (43 days on the front page of the New York Times), the number of mentions of the Abramoff scandals, the coverage of possible indictments of Tom Delay, who, so far as we can tell, is guilty of no crime, and the unspeakable savagery aimed at Sarah Palin, who has not even committed the public appearance of a crime. The truth is, we rely almost entirely on conservative blogs and talk radio for information regarding violations of the law by Democrats, whereas the least foible of any Republican becomes a front-page story and headlines the 6 o’clock news. The Chappaquiddick accident would never become a feeding frenzy unless the Senator were a Republican.

tk-diagram3This is not to say that there has never been an instance of Republicans currying favor so as to avoid prosecution; it happens. However, the imbalance between the way Democrats and Republicans treat felons within their ranks is stark, and makes it clear which party is currently a danger to the rule of law.

One wonders whether Mr. Zorn, or any other Democrat, would so blithely ignore possible disagreement over the value of a politician’s public service if that politician were not of their party. And then one realizes, there is no need to wonder; Ronald Reagan’s death did not benefit from this same assumption of positive feeling, and the deaths of such figures as Tony Snow and Jerry Falwell were used as excuses for rage-filled diatribes against the right. No, in the modern press, liberals are saints, and conservatives, devils. Consequently, the irresponsible killing of a young woman is treated as an unfortunate accident simply because the man who committed it has the right politics in the eyes of reporters. In such an environment, where correct politics are the only publicly-accepted measure of virtue, it is only a matter of time before a legislature passes laws to outlaw conservatism. Liberty is not safe where morality is measured by political correctness.

Zorn’s editorial is nonsense. If he has so little regard for equal protection and so little awareness of how he’s savaging it, he would serve the public better if he kept his mouth shut. However, it is because the law he treats as meaningless still has some power that he retains the right to publish his opinion. He may learn, soon enough, that if he continues to saw the limb of equal protection, it will not be conservatives alone who fall from the tree of liberty; it will be everybody, including himself.



******************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
AT THE TIME OF HIS BIRTH
as required by the Constitution.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is not eligible to be President of the United States because – according to public admissions made by him – his “birth status was governed” by the United Kingdom. Obama further admits he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at birth.
Since Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was, if born in the state of Hawaii, a dual citizen, who – according to his own State Department – owed allegiance to the Queen of England and United Kingdom at the time of his birth – he cannot therefore be a “natural born” citizen of the US according to Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
His father, who did not live in the United States for more than a couple of years, was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of Barack’s birth and afterwards, AND further, as Barack himself admitted on his website during the 2008 campaign, Barack was therefore born SUBJECT TO THE GOVERNANCE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Here is a direct quote from Obama's "Fight the Smears/Fact Check" 2008 website:

‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

Also, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all through his mother if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens













Friday, August 28, 2009

OBAMACARE IS DEAD! LONG LIVE OBAMACARE! A CYNICAL, BUT REALISTIC, APPRAISAL OF HOW AMERICA WILL END UP WITH OBAMACARE

Health Care Political Cartoons By Michael Ramirez

I could feel it in my bones; Obamacare is dead, but Obamacare is alive - the walking dead.
Like a zombie, Obamacare refuses to die!
The townhall meetings have done their job; when the politicians return to Washington
following their summer recess they will abandon the features of the House bills
that the American voters find most objectionable: the government option, end-of-life counselling, rationing, etc.
I just know that the Obamacrats will not give up that easily.
They will craft a new bill that contains none of deadly viruses
that killed the four House bills, but the House and Senate, with
the help of naive/gullible Republicans will craft a bill that will
facilitate the future revision of the new law
and the insertion of some of those objectionable provisions
dressed in new costumes.

Leave it to Charles Krauthammer to layout the scenario
that will give us the zombie Obamacare brought back to
life more horrible in practice than ever.


**********

Obamacare Version 1.0 is dead.
The 1,000-page monstrosity
that emerged in various editions
from Congress was done in by widespread
national revulsion not just at its expense and intrusiveness
but also at the mendacity with which it is being sold.
You don't need a PhD to see that
the promise to expand coverage and reduce costs
is a crude deception,
or that cutting $500 billion from Medicare
without affecting care is a fiction.

But there is an exit strategy.
And a politically clever one,
if the Democrats are smart enough to seize it.
(1) Forget the public option. Whatever the merits, and they are few, it is political poison. It dies by the Liasson Logic, the unassailable observation by NPR's Mara Liasson that there are no liberal Democrats who will lose their seats if the public option is left out, while there are many moderate Democrats who could lose their seats if the public option is included.
(2) Jettison any reference to end-of-life counseling. People see (correctly) such Medicare-paid advice as subtle encouragement to voluntarily refuse treatment. People don't want government involvement in a process they consider the private province of patient, family and doctor. The Senate is already dropping it. The House must follow.
(3) Soft-pedal the idea of government committees determining "best practices." President Obama's Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research was sold as simply government helping doctors choose the best treatments. But there are dozens of medical journal review articles that do just that. The real purpose of such councils is ultimately to establish official criteria for denying reimbursement to less favored (because presumably less effective) treatments -- precisely the triage done by the NICE committee in Britain, the Orwellian body that once blocked access to a certain expensive anti-blindness drug until you went blind in one eye. (NICE: the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.)

(4) More generally, abandon the whole idea of Obamacare as cost-cutting. True, it was Obama's original rationale for creating a whole new entitlement at a time of a sinking economy and a bankrupt Treasury. But, as many universal-health-care liberals complain, selling pain is poor salesmanship.
(5) Promise nothing but pleasure -- for now. Make health insurance universal and permanently protected. Tear up the existing bills and write a clean one -- Obamacare 2.0 -- promulgating draconian health-insurance regulation that prohibits (a) denying coverage for preexisting conditions, (b) dropping coverage if the client gets sick and (c) capping insurance company reimbursement.
What's not to like? If you have insurance, you'll never lose it. Nor will your children ever be denied coverage for preexisting conditions.
The regulated insurance companies will get two things in return. Government will impose an individual mandate that will force the purchase of health insurance on the millions of healthy young people who today forgo it. And government will subsidize all the others who are too poor to buy health insurance. The result? Two enormous new revenue streams created by government for the insurance companies.
And here's what makes it so politically seductive: The end result is the liberal dream of universal and guaranteed coverage -- but without overt nationalization. It is all done through private insurance companies. Ostensibly private. They will, in reality, have been turned into government utilities. No longer able to control whom they can enroll, whom they can drop and how much they can limit their own liability, they will live off government largess -- subsidized premiums from the poor; forced premiums from the young and healthy.
It's the perfect finesse -- government health care by proxy. And because it's proxy, and because it will guarantee access to (supposedly) private health insurance -- something that enjoys considerable Republican support -- it will pass with wide bipartisan backing and give Obama a resounding political victory.
Isn't there a catch? Of course there is. This scheme is the ultimate bait-and-switch. The pleasure comes now, the pain later. Government-subsidized universal and virtually unlimited coverage will vastly compound already out-of-control government spending on health care. The financial and budgetary consequences will be catastrophic.
However, they will not appear immediately. And when they do, the only solution will be rationing. That's when the liberals will give the FCCCER regulatory power and give you end-of-life counseling.
But by then, resistance will be feeble. Why? Because at that point the only remaining option will be to give up the benefits we will have become accustomed to. Once granted, guaranteed universal health care is not relinquished. Look at Canada. Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we.
---


Obamacare: The Only Exit Strategy
By Charles Krauthammer
THE WASHINGTON POST
Friday, August 28, 2009
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
****************



BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
AT THE TIME OF HIS BIRTH
as required by the Constitution.

His father, who did not live in the United States for more than a couple of years, was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of Barack’s birth and afterwards, AND further, as Barack himself admitted on his website during the 2008 campaign, Barack was therefore born SUBJECT TO THE GOVERNANCE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Here is a direct quote from Obama's "Fight the Smears/Fact Check" 2008 website:

‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

Also, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all through his mother if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens







Thursday, August 27, 2009

TED KENNEDY, LION OF THE LEFT, WHO LEFT PRIVATE VIRTUE AT HOME WHEN HE RAN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE


Lion of the Left

"The foundation of national morality

must be laid in private families. ...

Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private,

and public virtue is the only foundation of republics."

--John Adams

Teddy Kennedy















Have you ever attended a funeral service

out of respect for a friend or colleague, and left perplexed

as to whom the eulogy was referring?

Just once, I would like to go to a service for some disreputable rogue

and have a clergyman deliver a eulogy that was faithful

to the facts rather than full of fiction.

(Hopefully, that won't be my own!)

I am certainly not suggesting that we should stand

in judgment of any man,

for that is the exclusive domain of our Creator.

However, we should never abandon our responsibility

to discern right from wrong.

On that note, Edward "Teddy" Kennedy

(22 February 1932 -- 25 August 2009)

died this week at age 77.

Kennedy spent the last 47 of his years as a senator,

having been perpetually re-elected

by the people of Massachusetts.

This made him the third-longest serving senator --

behind Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Strom Thurmond (R-SC) --

in that chamber's august history.

Of course, a fawning Leftmedia will inundate us

with non-stop coverage of Kennedy's life,

featuring interviews with his political sycophants up to,

and probably well after, his interment at National Cemetery.

The airways and printed pages are already sodden

with accolades, mostly framing the senator's life

as one of great personal tragedy but great public success.

Let's take a look at both.

Kennedy was born into great wealth, privilege

and political influence, the fourth son and ninth child

of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.

He never worked a day in a private-sector job,

and like his brothers before him,

he owed his political career to his father's

considerable political machinations.

But, the mainstream media's reference to TK's life

as one punctuated by personal tragedy is an understatement.

Before the age of 16, he had suffered through the death

of his brother Joseph Kennedy Jr. (his father's heir apparent),

who died when his B-24 bomber exploded over

Surrey, England, during World War II, and the death

of his sister Kathleen Agnes Kennedy,

who died in an airplane crash in France.

In 1941 his father ordered a lobotomy for Ted's sister,

Rosemary Kennedy, then age 23,

because of "mood swings that the family found difficult

to handle at home."

The procedure failed and left Rose mentally

incapacitated until her death in January 2005 at age 87.

Ted, like his brother John,

developed a reputation as a serial womanizer in college.

Unlike his Ivy League brothers, however,

Ted was kicked out of Harvard for cheating,

though allowed to return a few years later to complete

his undergraduate degree.

Thanks to some election-night manipulation of returns

by Old Joe, JFK was elected president in the closest race

of the 20th century (49.7 percent to Richard Nixon's 49.5 percent).

That paved the way for TK's victory in a 1962

U.S. Senate special election in Massachusetts.

The thrill of victory was brief, however.

On 22 November 1963, during a political visit to Dallas,

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

In June 1964, Ted Kennedy was flying with friends

on a private plane that crashed on a landing approach,

killing the pilot and a Kennedy staffer. Kennedy survived but suffered severe injuries.

On 4 June 1968, Robert Kennedy,

then a candidate for the Democrat Party's

nomination for president,

was assassinated after a Los Angeles political event.

The political baton then went to Teddy,

the last of the four Kennedy brothers,

but his alcohol abuse and philandering

would keep the presidency out of reach.

In 1969, on one of his infamous junkets to "the island"

(Martha's Vineyard and Chappaquiddick),

Kennedy's moral lapse would cost a young staffer her life,

and would cost him any chance of becoming president.

On the night of 18 July, Kennedy left a party

with an attractive young intern en route to a private secluded beach

on the far side of Dike Bridge.

Kennedy lost control on the single-lane bridge

and his vehicle overturned in the shallow tidal water.

(Note: I drove across this bridge in a large 4x4 truck a few years after this incident,

and it was not difficult to keep it out of the water

-- but then, I was not intoxicated.)

Kennedy freed himself from the vehicle l

eaving his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne

to suffocate in an air pocket inside the overturned car.

After resting at the water's edge,

he walked back to the party house,

and one of his political hacks took him back to his hotel.

Nine hours later, after sobering up

and conferring with political advisors and lawyers,

Kennedy called authorities to report the incident.

Kopechne's body had already been discovered.

With the help of Father Joe's connections,

Kennedy was charged only with leaving the scene of an accident.

In his testimony, he claimed,

"I almost tossed and turned...

I had not given up hope all night long that,

by some miracle, Mary Jo would have escaped from the car."

He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve two months in jail --

sentence suspended.

With Joan, his pregnant wife of 10 years, and their three children

by his side, he claimed that charges of

"immoral conduct and drunk driving" were false

and he was promptly re-elected to his second full Senate term

with a landslide 62 percent of the vote.

However, his responsibility for the death of Kopechne

would all but disqualify him from ever holding national office.

Indeed, the moral composure of the nation differs significantly

from that of his Massachusetts supporters and defenders.

Kennedy's political advocacy swung evermore to the left

in the years that followed, and his personal conduct led the way.

In January 1981, Joan announced she had had enough,

and they divorced.

Two Senate terms later, Kennedy was partying

at the family's Palm Beach compound with his nephew,

William Kennedy Smith, who was charged with the rape

of Patricia Bowman during that evening.

The Kennedy machine was able to undermine Bowman's

charges by assassinating her character ahead of the trial.

Not surprisingly, Kennedy was an ardent backer

of his friend Bill Clinton after the latter lied

about sexual encounters with a subordinate

White House intern in 1998.

In turn, Clinton awarded Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom,

which, along with the Congressional Gold Medal,

is the highest civilian award in the U.S.

It is designated for individuals who have made

"an especially meritorious contribution

to the security or national interests of the United States,

world peace, cultural or other significant

public or private endeavors."

Setting aside all of his personal tragedies,

what about the tributes and rave reviews of

Kennedy's public life, his success as a legislator?

According to Barack Obama,

"Our country has lost a great leader,

who picked up the torch of his fallen

brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insists,

"No one has done more than Senator Kennedy to educate our children,

care for our seniors and ensure equality for all Americans.

Ted Kennedy's dream of quality health care for all Americans

will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid adds,

"Ted Kennedy's dream was the one for which

the Founding Fathers fought and for which his brothers sought to realize.

The Liberal Lion's mighty roar may now fall silent,

but his dream shall never die."

Oh, really?

Kennedy has a very long legacy of legislative accomplishments,

but not one of them is expressly authorized by our Constitution,

that venerable old document he has repeatedly pledged

by oath "to support and defend."

Kennedy's long Senate tenure was, in fact, defined by hypocrisy.

For example, consider that this fine Catholic boy's

advocacy for abortion and homosexuality was second to none.

In regard to Operation Iraqi Freedom,

consider his claim during the Clinton years:

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein

is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

A few years later, with his cadre of traitorous leftists at his side,

Kennedy claimed, "The Bush administration misrepresented

and distorted the intelligence to justify a war that

America should never have fought."

Who can forget Kennedy's outrageous 2006 inquisition

into the integrity of then Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito?

In 1987 when Ronald Reagan nominated Alito

to be a U.S. District Attorney, Kennedy's vote was among

the Senate's unanimous consent. And when Sam Alito was

nominated for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1990,

he again received Kennedy's vote and unanimous consent from the Senate.

But after impugning Alito's character in his Supreme Court hearings,

Kennedy blustered, "If confirmed, Alito could very well fundamentally

alter the balance of the court and push it dangerously to the right."

Of course, Kennedy was an expert at "borking" judicial nominees.

Indeed, he is responsible for the coining of the term.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated an exceptional jurist,

Robert Bork, to the Supreme Court. During Bork's confirmation hearings,

Kennedy proclaimed, "Robert Bork's America is a land in which

women would be forced into back-alley abortions,

blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police

could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids,

schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution,

writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the

Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be

shut on the fingers of millions of citizens." Despicable.

No agenda was more sacred to Kennedy than opposing

Constitutional Constructionists in order to convert the

Judiciary into what Thomas Jefferson called the

"Despotic Branch" stacked with jurists who subscribe

to the notion of a so-called "Living Constitution".

But among über-leftists like Kennedy,

there is perhaps no greater hypocrisy than the fact that they are among

the wealthiest of Americans but pretend to be

advocates for the poor.

Of course, they never give up their opulent trappings

and lifestyles while pontificating what is best for the masses.

(I have written on the pathology associated with this hypocrisy

under the label "Inheritance Welfare Liberalism, or "rich guilt" if you will.)

And there is a long list of Kennedy legislation that has proven disastrous.

Second only to the looming disaster of his pet nationalized

health care promotion, Kennedy led the charge for the

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, ending

quotas based on national origin. He argued,

"[O]ur cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually.

The ethnic mix of our country will not be upset. ..

.[T]he bill will not inundate America with immigrants from

any one country or area..."

How did that one turn out?

Kennedy also had some dangerous dalliances with the Soviets

in 1983, endeavoring to undermine Ronald Reagan's hard line

with the USSR. Fortunately, his efforts did not prevail.

But Kennedy did have one thing in common with his older

brothers: He had powerful oratorical skills.

At the 2004 Democrat Convention to elect his lap dog,

John Kerry, Kennedy, who wrote the book on political

disunity, declared to delegates, "There are those who

seek to divide us. ... America needs a genuine uniter --

not a divider. [Republicans] divide and try to conquer."

Fortunately, the American people weren't buying his rhetoric --

at least not until the 2008 convention, when Kennedy joined

Barack Obama's "hope 'n' change" chorus:

"I have come here tonight to stand with you to change America....

For me this is a season of hope --

new hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many,

and not just for the few -- new hope.

And this is the cause of my life --

new hope that we will break the old gridlock

and guarantee that every American -- north, south,

east, west, young, old -- will have decent, quality health care

as a fundamental right and not a privilege."

Predictably, and before the man has even been laid to rest,

there is already a rallying cry from Ted Kennedy's grave:

The Left and their mainstream media talkingheads

are exhorting us to fulfill the late senator's misguided

mission to nationalize health care. (I checked, and the

Constitution doesn't authorize this either.)

As I contemplate the life of Ted Kennedy, I am left with two primary conclusions.

First, Ted Kennedy was no JFK.

In his 1961 Inaugural Address, John Kennedy said famously,

"My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you --

ask what you can do for your country."

Ted Kennedy inverted that phrase to read,

"Ask not what you can do for your country,

ask what your country can do for you,"

and in the process, turned the once-noble Democrat Party on end.

Second, a man who can't govern his own life

should never be entrusted with the government of others.

One of our most astute Founders, Noah Webster, wrote,

"The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities. ...

In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide.

Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate --

look to his character."

In Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the

English Language, the first use of "government"

is defined in terms of self-government,

not the body of those who govern.

Despite the Left's insistence that private virtue

and morality should not be a consideration

when assessing those in "public service"

(unless, of course, they are Republicans),

the fact is that the two are irrevocably linked.

Finally, in 1968, when Ted Kennedy delivered

the eulogy for his brother, Robert, he said,

"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death

beyond what he was in life..."

I would hope that whoever is slated to deliver

Ted Kennedy's eulogy follows that advice

because we do a disservice to him and our country

to suggest Kennedy was anything more than he was.

I do not know who will bestow his final tribute,

but I do know it will not be Mary Jo Kopechne.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US

Alexander's Essay – August 27, 2009

******************




BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
AT THE TIME OF HIS BIRTH
as required by the Constitution.

His father, who did not live in the United States for more than a couple of years, was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of Barack’s birth and afterwards, AND further, as Barack himself admitted on his website during the 2008 campaign, Barack was therefore born SUBJECT TO THE GOVERNANCE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Here is a direct quote from Obama's "Fight the Smears/Fact Check" 2008 website:

‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

Also, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all through his mother if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens











THE HUFFINGTON RIPOSTE OFFERS A RIPOSTE TO AN ARTICLE ON RIPOSTE




Chicago Literary Scene Examiner

g.










What sort of cultural forces conspire to tip a word

from the obscurer entries in the dictionary

to becoming mainstream lexicon?

"Tipping point" is a good example,

a phrase introduced to popular culture

by Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling book of the same name.

The phrase has been around for much longer, of course,

but Gladwell tipped it into the public's widespread conscience.

So it is with the word "riposte".

I've been hearing it more and more lately

but today was the proverbial tipping point.

I read it in this review in the Washington Post (paragraph 6):

"But even if some people took consumer goods,

Solnit offers the best riposte I've encountered:..."

OK, a journalist using it to review a book.

Definitely part of the literati.

Then, a few hours later, I heard it on the radio on

NPR's All Things Considered for the

My Guilty Pleasure feature,

where the essayist is comparing Jaws

the movie to Jaws the book.

Again, it was used by an author,

who you expect to use words

beloved by fellow word nerds.

Obviously, the literati is enamored with this word

but at what point did it become popularized?

Could it be from posting as

in blogging and reposting

as in reblogging and every one's

caught up in all words post?

Hmm, tenuous at best.

I will offer that it may be my ignorance

moreso than widespread riposte-ing.

A quick Google turns up The Huffington Riposte,

"offering a conservative counterbalance

to the extreme left liberalism

of The Huffington Post."

I'm not kidding.

From a guy out of Texas.

I told you I wasn't kidding.

There's also the Canadian Riposte Journal,

which hasn't been updated

in a year and a half.

I might be getting off track.

There are plenty of gaming sites that use it

in its more esoteric meaning:

"[fencing] a quick return thrust following a parry."

That's from my trusty weighty

New Oxford American Dictionary.

It also says: "RIPOSTE

(just forget the E and you'll pronunce it right)

n. a quick clever reply to an insult or criticism."

Ooh. Now I like it too.

I'm sure I'll get plenty of chances to use it,

especially after this post.

Comments

Leo Rugiens says:

Thanks for the notice, 'left-handed' though it may be!
As the creator and editor of The Huffington Riposte
I cannot help but wonder if you, Robert Duffer,
are a 'guy from Chicago?'
Frankly, in view of the present standing Chicago
has in the estimation of the American public,
I would rather be a guy from Texas.

August 27, 4:32 PM