Tuesday, December 6, 2011

IS HABEAS CORPUS REALLY DEAD?

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Martial Law: The Fix Is In

http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/

Monday, 05 December 2011

The new Martial Law Bill which affirms the detention of American citizens indefinitely without due process of law passed the Senate 93-7.
Habeas corpus just got knifed in full daylight, left to bleed in the cracks of the Capitol commingling with the blood of patriots who died for this country.  The blood drawn like butter by Senate vampires drooling and gurgling with delight, appetites satiated… for now.  Their ecstasy whisps through depraved neurons as their spit foams upon the very name of freedom.
And while there are hints Obama may veto it, my opinion is that the bill has been set up with the sole purpose of having him do just that. 
This bill is a gift to Obama in that it will allow him to look like a true man of the people after he does veto it.  But the bill is simply reflective of alleged powers already granted.  So the veto won’t change anything.  It will only make him look more Presidential for when he finally does use the already existing draconian measures to detain or kill anyone he wants.
Please see Empire Burlesque’s article on this, and all of the links:
“We’ve been mourning the death of the American Republic here (and at other venues) for many years now, since Congress surrendered its Constitutional responsibilities  with the “Enabling Act” it passed on September 14, 2001, giving Bush a blank check for “all necessary and appropriate force” against any organization or individual that he alone declared was somehow connected to the Sept. 11 attacks. Three days later, Bush then declared that he had the right to kill anyone on earth anytime he felt like it and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it.”
I see a lot of bitching and whining now, but how many of you were doing the same routine when Bush was President?
MARCO RUBIO’S SLANTED POSITION ON SB 1867.
Rubio erroneously claims that the bill does not deny habeas corpus to US citizens:
“In particular, some folks are concerned about the language in Section 1031 that says that this includes “any person committing a belligerent act or directly supported such hostilities of such enemy forces.”  This language clearly and unequivocally refers back to Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or its affiliates.  Thus, not only would any person in question need to be involved with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or its surrogates, but that person must also engage in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror in order to be detained under this provision.  There is nothing in this bill that could be construed in any way that would allow any branch of the military to detain a law-abiding American citizen if you go to the local gun store or grocery store.”
Bunk!  Notice Rubio’s qualifier “to detain a law-abiding American citizen”.  What about citizens who break the laws protesting?  What about peaceful demonstrations of civil disobedience?  What if citizens dispute that the conduct even breaks the law?  This guy should never get near the White House (and he’s not eligible).  His statement above is so blatantly misleading, I can only wonder if he anticipates being drunk with power should the country continue its ignorance of the natural-born citizen clause and one day elect him.
Acts of Congress are interpreted by the courts directly pertaining to the words used in the act itself, and not by the speeches of big brother doublespeak cheerleaders such as Rubio.  Mr. Rubio is an attorney who knows better.  His statements above are not naive, nor are they stupid.  They are carefully crafted doublespeak from a rising star in the political scene who knows how to skillfully crap from both sides of his mouth.
Let us examine the relevant provisions:
SEC. 1031. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE.
    (a) In General- Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war.
First note the title, “Affirmation of Authority”.  This bill is simply elucidating the powers already held by the President.  It “affirms” his authority, but such an affirmation is not necessary if he already has the authority.  So whether this bill passes or not, the President still has the authority to carry out the things mentioned in this bill.  Therefore, this is simply a dog and pony show, and if Obama does veto it, he still has the power to do anything the bill states.
If Obama were truly a man of the people, besides vetoing this bill, he would push through a bill which renounces all of the power that this ugly bill “affirms”.  Until such a law is enacted, his veto, like this bill, changes no law already in effect.
You can see this more clearly in Sec. 1301(e):
(e) Authorities- Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities, relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
Now let’s turn to Sec. 1032(b)(1):
(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
That sounds re-assuring, doesn’t it?  Except for one thing, folks.  It only applies to “this section”.  The protection against military detention pertains only to section 1032.  It does not apply to Section 1031 which lists various forms of restraint.  If the military detention prohibition for US citizens from Section 1032 applied also to Section 1031, there would be no need for both sections to contain separate provisions for “covered persons”.  But 1031 and 1032 are independent sections and the prohibition against detention of US citizens does NOT apply to those citizens detained under 1031, which provides:
    (1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”
While “military detention” is the specific form mentioned in 1032Section 1031 affirms the authority of detention generallyThis includes non-military detention.  Such detention could be potentially in a FEMA or DOD concentration camp.  Those are civilian divisions and detention therein is not military detention.  However, Section 1031(c)(1) provides for indefinite detention of anyone including US citizens, and this section does not include the prohibition against military detention in 1032.  Therefore, 1031 provides for both military and non-military detention of US citizens.
Rubio knows this and his comments are parsed carefully in this regard.  It’s so very creepy how these bastards cast their legislative spells.  Rubio didn’t lie.  He simply used a language most citizens don’t understand or even know exists – federal doublespeak, or fedspeak.  This is how they stand there with a straight face.  It’s not a lie, but it acts just like one.  When Bill Clinton said, “It depends on what the meaning of is is…”, he was talkin’ fedspeak.
As you will see from his insidious delicate parsing, Rubio knows all too well that the two sections work independently.  First he referred specifically to 1031(b)(2):
“(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”
Covered persons under this act include a “person who… supported al-Queda, the Taliban, or associated forces…including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities…“  If the statute used the word “and” here, instead of “or“, then Rubio might have a point on this issue.  But the word “or” clearly indicates that a person is guilty of violating the act even if that person has not “directly supported” the hostilities of al-Qaeda, the Taliban etc.  The statute only requires a belligerent act, it does not require the person to be a part of al-Qaeda or to directly support al-Qaeda.  Indirect support is enough according to the statute.
Words matter.  The definition of  “belligerent” includes:  “a warlike or aggressively hostile nature, condition, or attitude.”
Therefore, if you are a person who has publicly expressed a spirited dis-belief in the official 911 story, it can be argued that you have exhibited a hostile attitude about the official story.  If you don’t believe al-Qaeda was ultimately responsible for the towers falling, and that the government has covered up truth – ie, that the towers fell as a result of a controlled demolition – the government might assert that you have supported al-Qaeda.
If you doubt al-Qaeda’s ability to have pulled this atrocity off, then the government might argue that you are defending al-Qaeda.  Your statement/blog may qualify as a belligerent act even though you have never expressed any direct support of al-Qaeda.  Under this construction, you could truly hate al-Qaeda, but if the belligerent act appears to support al-Qaeda in any way, that may be enough to trigger the statute.
But this statue isn’t limited to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.  It also covers anyone who substantially supported “associated forces” engaged in “hostilities” against the US or its coalition partners.
The normal definition of “hostilities” includes, “opposition or resistance to an idea, plan, project“.  Therefore, speech is a form of hostility under this statute.  But so is thought.  As the statute is written, even singular mental opposition to an idea, plan, or project qualifies as hostilities.  Nebulous terms are chosen by these legislative vampires to be purposely evasive and universally inclusive.
I don’t really give a crap what the statute was meant to cover, Mr. Rubio.  I care what it does, in fact, cover.  One thing we have learned as a nation is that judges are more than capable of fitting meaning into statutes which lay persons could never imagine in their wildest dreams.  Moreover, the rule of statutory construction in our courts looks first to the meaning of the words used in the statute, and there is a presumption that the words mean what they say.  I have given you a clear example of how the words in this statue could be used against those expressing doubt in the official 911 story.  But that’s only one example.  We don’t know who “associated forces” covers as well.  And the bill includes no statutory definition of “hostilities” either.
And finally, this statute is so poorly written that one possible construction of it could include any belligerent act not tied to al-Qaeda or the Taliban at all.  The words, “including any person who has committed a belligerent act”… may refer back to subsection (b), and not to the first part of subsection (2).  By this I mean that covered persons referred to in (b) are listed in (2), and these include those involved with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but perhaps also any person who committed a belligerent act.  It’s not hard to imagine some court crafting just that meaning if they wanted a person bad enough and this was the only way to ensnare him.
The wording of this statute sucks.  And Marco Rubio’s cheerleading for it also sucks.  I do not trust this guy at all because of his statements on this issue.  He’s learned the DC doublespeak well, has this one.  The forked tongue force be strong with him.  Watch him parse without abandon as he carefully works his magic concerning Section 1032:
“Section 1032 of this bill concerns a smaller group of people who Congress feels are required to be detained by the US military because people who fit within this criteria are a more serious threat to our national security.  Any person detained under Section 1032 must be a member of, or part of, Al-Qaeda or its associates AND they must have participated in the planning or execution of an attack against the US or our coalition partners.  Simply put, the application of this detention requirement is limited to Al-Qaeda members that have tried to attack the US or its allies.  However, this detention requirement is clearly limited by a clause that states that the requirement to detain does not extend to US citizens or lawful permanent residents.”
He’s very careful here to limit his discussion in this paragraph to Sec. 1032, while 1031 is avoided.  This is because 1031 is the section which truly guts habeas corpus, not 1032.  These gargoyles in DC speak a language designed to accomplish mis-direction with the eloquence of Houdini.
Habeas corpus is at the heart of the nation.  It literally means, “You may have the body”.   And it’s got 93 daggers stuck in it today.
This Martial Law affirmation comes on the heels of the Congressional Research propaganda I wrote about in my last report.  Two alarms have gone off.  Be warned, America… martial law is coming.
Obama will probably veto the bill, but like I said above, the bill is only an affirmation of existing powers.  His veto will not change those pre-existing laws.  The veto will make him look like a good guy, so that when Obama does reach for these horrific powers, those who support him will point back to this veto to show that he was always against suspension of habeas corpus, etc.  But the excuse will then surface that, “an emergency we simply did not foresee has come to pass and the President must now use all of his powers to defeat the enemy”.
This is a dog and pony show.  Nothing happens without these federal freaks knowing about it first.  Martial law is coming and they are setting up the script now.
I do pray that reams of tin foil are my inheritance for posting this alarming missive.  Please, oh Lord, let me wear the blessed tin foil hat of shame and take this burden from our nation.  Let me live in ridiculous splendor accepting with glee the blogosphere’s tomatoes launched at my head forevermore.
Unfortunately, my read on this hand of poker… is that my prayer is not going to be answered.
Leo Donofrio, Esq.
[See commenting rules here.]

3 Responses to “Martial Law: The Fix Is In”

  1. naturalborncitizen Says:
    Judge Napolitano covered sb 1867 tonight on Fox… confirmed that indefinite detention of American people was in the bill and that the Senate snuck this past us. He was really unhappy about this and did a good job of explaining that habeas corpus was basically dead.
    For those who doubt the Bush connection to this just follow the links in the article.
  2. naturalborncitizen Says:
    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/terrorism/july-dec01/jr_09-14.html
    This states the “use of force” resolution… which makes “harboring” “such organizations or persons” responsible for 911 available for execution… But the definition of “harboring” includes:
    “To entertain or nourish (a specified thought or feeling): harbor a grudge.”
    Therefore, again, if you “harbor” the idea that al-Qaeda did not bring down the Towers… one might be covered under the resolution. Like I said, the terms of these draconian measures are purposely nebulous.
    Then there’s the Patriot act as well. My point was that since 911 the government has been issuing these directives with nebulous language that is designed with catch alls to ensnare who they like.
    Measures with implications that would involve the indefinite detention of US citizens are unconstitutional.
    A case involving the meaning of the word “harbor” could happen. If they want you bad enough, they will use these vague orders as best they can.
    This is America and I don’t give a crap how bad the alleged crime is… citizens are entitled to due process of law. Either the system works or it doesn’t… for all crimes. If a person is a terrorist, we have laws to convict them and we have a jury system. Our system is as good as it gets. These measures seem to indicate that the government does not believe in the jury system and that it can’t be trusted. Too damn bad. This is the US and citizenship means total control of the US Constitution, not draconian paranoid measures which avoid the Constitution.
    Bush is guilty of this rape of habeas corpus and he does not get a pass from me. I realize that many people who support this blog do not agree. But the people trying to destroy this nation are grateful that you don’t agree.
    Leo
  3. naturalborncitizen Says:
    Also, keep in mind the title of this act… it simply “affirms” existing powers… those powers do exist and they existed before Obama. The act, as worded, is only declaratory of existing legislation and executive orders. Some of the powers were enabled before Bush as well as those enacted just after 911.

LET'S HAVE MORE BUONO FORTUNO

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I love Marco Rubio!  He has all the qualifications to be President of the United States some day, except that he is probably not eligible because his father was not a citizen of the United States when Marco was born and therefore he is not a Natural Born Citizen within the meaning of Article II of the United States Constitution.   For that reason alone I welcome the addition of Luis Fortuno to the list of possible future candidates for the Presidency.

- Leo Rugiens

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Fortuño Favors the GOP

Puerto Rico's Republican governor would be a fine choice for vice president.


He's young, dynamic, and well-spoken. As a Republican vice presidential nominee, he could help with Latino voters in 2012.

And he's not Marco Rubio.

His name is Luis Fortuño, and he's part of a rising generation of Republicans pushing pro-growth, small-government agendas. Like many of these men and women, Mr. Fortuño is a governor. What makes him striking is that he's governor of an American territory, Puerto Rico, rather than an American state.

"I'm flattered," says Mr. Fortuño when a reporter pitches the vice presidency to him. "But what I've done in Puerto Rico hasn't been about my own re-election or advancement. It been about doing what I think is right."

Spend any time with Mr. Fortuño, and you will learn that high on his list of doing what's right is ensuring government lives within its means. When he was elected governor in 2008, one out of three Puerto Ricans were working for the government. When he was sworn in, there wasn't enough money to meet the payroll. In response, Mr. Fortuño cut spending and 20,000 government workers, provoking angry protests.

The governor stood his ground. Earlier this year, he signed a bill slashing individual and corporate taxes—and he says there's much more to do. For example, because Puerto Rico is not connected to the U.S. electric grid, it gets 68% of its electricity from oil (against about 1% for the U.S.), making its economy especially vulnerable to high oil prices. Just last week, Mr. Fortuño won a huge victory when the Army Corps of Engineers issued a favorable preliminary ruling on a natural-gas pipeline that would run 92 miles from southern Puerto Rico toward San Juan.


mcgurn1206
Yet as historic as he may be for Puerto Rico, Mr. Fortuño offers even greater possibilities for the Republican Party. Ever since JFK's 1961 speech about transforming the Western hemisphere, just about every U.S. president has spoken of paying more attention to our own backyard. In that enterprise, few vice presidents would come with Mr. Fortuño's experience in the region—or the ability to speak about free markets in a way that resonates with our neighbors to the south.


For his part Mr. Fortuño notes he's only one of many Latino Republicans in public life today. He points to Florida's Sen. Rubio, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez as just a few of the rising stars. Latino voters, he says, are hard working and patriotic, noting that Puerto Ricans serve in greatly disproportionate numbers in the U.S. military.


"We Republicans don't have to run away from our principles," he says, "but we don't have to sound anti-Hispanic either." By that he means talk about immigration should be focused on fixing the legal system—not complaining about those who come seeking opportunity.


Of course, a Fortuño vice presidential nomination is not without its possible downsides. For all the governor's reforms, Puerto Rico's economy continues to struggle. (Ronald Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher also had some grim years before their own economies picked up.) The murder rate is approaching record levels, largely because a crackdown on America's southern border is pushing much of the deadly drug and weapons trade through the Caribbean.


Though there's no constitutional prohibition against Mr. Fortuño's serving as U.S. president or vice president—Puerto Ricans have been American citizens since 1971—perhaps the biggest issue is simply that the governor is not well known here. In our media-driven age, that means he would likely face a ferocious public vetting like the one directed at Sarah Palin when she was announced as John McCain's running mate. In other words, some of the same things that are exciting about a Fortuño VP nomination could make it a distraction.


Then again, the payoff is potentially much higher than the risks. It is no dismissal of Marco Rubio (who has said he's not interested in the VP slot) to observe that, as a Puerto Rican, Mr. Fortuño might enjoy greater appeal among the broad Latino community than a candidate from a traditional GOP constituency such as Cuban-Americans. In short, he might inspire a critical and fast-growing demographic to give the Republican Party another look.


In a 2012 contest where the big question is the proper size and reach of government, Mr. Fortuño would more than hold his own. Still, when asked point-blank about whether he'd accept a vice-presidential nod, Mr. Fortuño talks about any number of things: the attraction of an opportunity-driven society, the mistake of equating Latinos with Big Government, the aspirations that all Americans share.


But he doesn't say "No."

A WONDERFUL DEMONSTRATION OF WHY OBAMA STYLE SOCIALISM MUST FAIL

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 When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
Is this man truly a genius?

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.



The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).



After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.



The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.



As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.



To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.


It could not be any simpler than that. (Please pass this on)



 
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.



 
These 5 sentences areall applicable to this experiment:



1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.



2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.



3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.



4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!



5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Monday, December 5, 2011

AN ANALYSIS OF NEWT GINGRICH'S NEW POPULARITY

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Strange Newt Respect








by James Taranto

THE BEST OF THE WEB TODAY/ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE

Monday, 05 December 11

Will Newt Gingrich be the next president of the United States?


Back in the spring, when his campaign seemed to be imploding in hilarious fashion (if you go to the link, be sure to read the last item as well as the first), it was a question nobody was asking. Over the past few weeks, however, Gingrich has become either the main GOP challenger to front-runner Mitt Romney or the front-runner in his own right.



Among the four states with the earliest nomination contests, Romney leads only in New Hampshire. (As Nate Silver notes, Romney also had a comfortable Granite State lead a month before the 2008 Iowa caucuses, but he went on to lose to John McCain.) Gingrich is now up in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida. Let's focus on the last, since it's a crucial swing state with 29 electoral votes.



Last week a survey of likely Republican primary voters from Public Policy Polling, a respected Democratic firm, found Gingrich ahead in Florida with 47%, to just 17% for Romney. Herman Cain, now an ex-candidate, took 15%, and nobody else topped 5%.



The same firm's general-election poll of registered voters however, gives Romney the advantage as an opponent to President Obama. The president leads the former Massachusetts governor by just 45% to 44%, "and given that the undecideds skew largely Republican he'd probably lose to Romney if the election was today," declares the PPP press release. But Obama leads Gingrich 50% to 44%. Among independents, Romney leads Obama by a point, whereas Gingrich trails the president by seven.
PPP declares: "This Florida poll is just one more piece of evidence: if the Republicans actually want to beat Obama they need to nominate Romney, love him or not."



That seems to us wildly overconfident, both in Obama's political strength and in the predictability of an election that is still 11 months off. Even so, we agree with PPP to the extent that we would say Romney is the safer candidate for the GOP because more independents see him than Gingrich as an acceptable alternative.



To be sure, Gingrich convinced many Republicans to give him a second look, mainly by performing very well in debates as Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain were flaming out, and Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry failing ever to ignite. Why? The answer is not entirely obvious.



The main Republican objection to Romney is that he is inconstant, and thus not a true conservative. But is Gingrich really any better in this regard? In the past he has endorsed the individual mandate for medical insurance and even made a global-warmist video with Nancy Pelosi in which the two ex-speakers share a love seat!



Gingrich has cited his record as speaker, during which he led the House in producing welfare-reform legislation, balanced budgets and a cut in capital gains taxes. But Gingrich was the beta to Bill Clinton's alpha, and all of these measures were in the service of Clinton's positioning himself as a centrist. When Clinton and Gingrich clashed over the budget in 1995-96, Clinton won handily (unlike the much weaker Obama, who started losing confrontations with Congress before the GOP even took over the House).

 botwt1205


The next president? Just maybe.


It seems to us that Gingrich's appeal to the primary electorate is best explained by reference to an earlier period in his career: 1989-94, when he was House minority whip. He was an extremely effective insurgent leader, helping to bring down two Democratic leaders, Speaker Jim Wright and Majority Whip Tony Coelho, by calling attention to their ethical problems.



As the Orlando Sentinel reported in May 1989, just after the latter announced his departure: "House Democratic whip Tony Coelho said Sunday that Republican whip Newt Gingrich was trying to destroy the Democrat-controlled House in order to rebuild it with a GOP majority." Five and a half years later, mission accomplished.



It seems to us that what has appealed to Republicans about Gingrich in this year's debates has been his willingness to challenge the assumptions of the (usually) liberal moderators. In one of the best examples, noted by NewsBusters.org, the ex-speaker "schools" Scott Pelley of CBS on the laws of war.



As it happens, Gingrich was defending the Obama administration for having killed al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki. The point, however, is that he was aggressive in refusing to accept Pelley's smug presumption of its own moral and intellectual superiority--a presumption that rankles conservatives, that is very common among the leaders of cultural institutions, and that Obama very much personifies.



Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller summarizes it as well as we've seen anybody do:
A lot of people I talk to can't fathom why Newt Gingrich is actually winning. The latest narrative--and I think there's truth in it--is that voters are hungry for someone who will "take it to Obama." Clearly, Gingrich's debating ability is key. Republicans are champing at the bit to see him debate Obama. But I think this urge is deeper than a desire to simply watch him beat up or attack the president rhetorically--they also want him to intellectually flatten him--to out-debate him.



The left has a different set of explanations for Gingrich's rise. Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman says it's because GOP voters are "totally clueless" and "committed to demonstrably false beliefs." E.J. "Baghdad Bob" Dionne says the "Republican establishment" has "sold its soul to the Tea Party" and "sat by silently as extremist rhetoric engulfed the GOP." Krugman colleague Charles Blow says it's because the GOP is "bankrupt of compassion and allergic to accuracy."



While these statements are all foolish and obnoxious, they fit right into our thesis. Gingrich is popular among conservatives because he refuses to be browbeaten by liberal bullies. One can easily imagine him bringing out the least attractive qualities of Obama, who does not like to be challenged.



On the other hand, it could backfire. Gingrich has a tendency to bully back rather than respond with weary condescension à la Ronald Reagan ("there he goes again"). He may need to modulate his tone if he is to win over those skeptical independents.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

WANT TO SEE MY I.D? SURE, NO PROBLEM, HERE IT IS!

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BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA LOVES AIR FORCE ONE

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As a matter of fact, he seems to spend more time in Air Force One than he does in the White House!


Michael Ramirez Cartoon

Michael Ramirez Cartoon

Michael Ramirez Cartoon

HOW (NOT) TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

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Frank's sneering insults won't be missed

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
December 4, 2011




 
BARNEY FRANK may be the only member of Congress who has ever made headlines for not acting like a jerk.
When the longtime Massachusetts representative found himself last year facing -- for the first time in decades -- a surprisingly strong Republican challenge, journalists noticed something strange: He wasn't being as nasty as usual. He wasn't responding to questions with his trademark put-downs. He wasn't condescending to critics with quite as much sneering contempt.
"Barney Frank reinvents himself as a nice guy," wrote Jonathan Strong in a story for The Daily Caller. The Boston Herald's Margery Eagan, "bracing to get hammered" when she asked Frank some questions, was amazed when, instead of insulting or berating her, he answered her questions "almost diplomatically."
But Frank's unwonted restraint vanished on election night. In what may have been the most graceless victory speech in US congressional history, he savaged the Herald, accused Republicans of engaging in "vituperation [and] anonymous smears," and proclaimed his re-election "a victory for a concept of government which eschews anger and vitriol."
Which was quite a proclamation, coming from someone who is as renowned for his invective and browbeating as for his liberalism and smarts. When Frank eventually goes to his eternal reward – and I wish him many more years of activity and good health – it's safe to assume that the words "He eschewed anger and vitriol" will not be engraved on his monument.
Frank said last week that he plans to retire when his current term ends at the end of next year. That made him the 24th House incumbent to announce that he won't seek re-election. But only in Frank's case did the media coverage include printing roundups of his "oftentimes acerbic comments," or collecting tweets from "the many journalists who have felt his wrath," or posting a greatest-hits reel of Frank on the House floor, belittling and excoriating his Republican colleagues.
Politics and passion have always gone together, and all other things being equal, a quick-witted congressman with strong views and the ability to defend them is preferable to a colorless drudge. No one has ever doubted Frank's intelligence or wit, and it isn't only liberals who could appreciate his gift for wry retorts. ("My colleagues on the other side have decided to adopt a Marxist idea," he said during one House debate. "The Marx in question, of course, is Chico.")
But it's one thing to be a quotable curmudgeon. It's something quite different to be a bully.
Frank has long been "one of the most notorious bullies" on Capitol Hill, remarked Dana Milbank in The Washington Post. The Massachusetts Democrat will be remembered not just for his left-wing politics or as the first openly gay member of Congress, but also for his "gratuitous nastiness," as Milbank put it – the public tongue-lashings, the spiteful mockery, the caustic abuse of aides, the almost routine willingness to tell people how stupid they are. This isn't just impatience; Frank plainly takes a certain pleasure in publicly humiliating his victims. It isn't hard to find stories of Frank berating someone to the point of tears. But I have never heard of him apologizing for it afterward.

Michael Ramirez Cartoon 
Ironically – or maybe it's just human nature – Barney Frank has no trouble condemning in others the ugly behavior to which he so often resorts. He has been unsparing toward Newt Gingrich, for example, describing him as having "made a career out of attacking people around here and trying to rip them apart." I have heard him caution his allies on the left about the importance of "showing a bit of respect for cultural values with which you disagree," and admonishing them not to "call people bigots and fools just because you disagree with them."
But when Frank – who often condemns the sour tone in Washington and Congress -- was politely asked on NBC's "Today" show last week whether he might have contributed to the bitterness in the Capitol, his answer was no. Instead, he nastily scolded the anchor for her "negative approach."
Frank, who has been my congressman for nearly 30 years, comes from a family of outspoken, opinionated, liberal Democrats. His sister, Ann Lewis, was a senior Democratic Party strategist and an adviser in the Clinton White House, while their mother, the late Elsie Frank, was president of the Massachusetts Association for Older Americans. Over the years, as it happens, I had the opportunity to participate in debates or other public forums with each of them. In my experience all three were skilled advocates, quick on their feet and passionate in their views. But neither Mrs. Frank nor her daughter felt it necessary to make cutting insults about anyone's intelligence, or to treat a disagreement about politics as an excuse for vituperation.
I wish I could say the same about their son and brother.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe. His website is www.JeffJacoby.com).

Saturday, December 3, 2011

BRAVO, HERMAN CAIN !

!!!!



Meet Herman Cain



I have just finished watching the live broadcast from Atlanta of Herman Cain’s announcement that he is ending his campaign for the presidency of the United States.  While I am disappointed that he has ended his campaign, I was not surprised.  I was not surprised because he faced, even aside from the damage done by the accusations of various women, an uphill battle to generate the millions of dollars in campaign contributions that are necessary to win the nomination of either political party for the presidential race.


Herman Cain’s announcement also came as no big surprise to me because, in addition to the problem of raising the large sums of money necessary for continuing his campaign for the presidency, Herman Cain faced the continuous expressions of doubt from the media and even among conservative pundits about his possession of knowledge about the details of foreign policy that other candidates who have been involved in national politics possessed.   To me that was something good.  He made his success in the business world not by knowing all about Libya or Uzbekistan but by knowing a lot about the American economy and finance.  On the day that a man receives the nomination for the presidency he is inundated with foreign policy details on a daily basis in the security briefings every presidential candidate receives.  If Herman Cain is anything, he is a fast learner.

The disappointment for me in Herman Cain’s announcement is that had he been nominated for the presidency it would have been a good thing for the nation to have a truly black candidate, Herman Cain, campaigning against a half-black candidate, Barack Hussein Obama.  Even though it was the party of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party, that ended slavery and fought for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it gets no credit for that.  On the contrary, even though it was the Democrat Party that perpetuated Jim Crowism in the South, Democrats are identified in the media with black Americans.   Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson had to literally twist the arms of Democrats in Congress to get the necessary votes to pass the Civl Rights Act os 1964.  Herman Cain’s candidacy would have robbed the Democrats of their constant shrill accusation of racism against conservatives in general and Republicans in particular.

It was a further disappointment for me in that I believed that even though Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan of tax reform would have never been adopted by Congress in its entirety, Herman Cain as President would have exerted sufficient pressure on Congress to cause it to enact significant reform of our absurdly flawed tax code.


Friends have asked me who I hoped would eventually be the Republican candidates for presidency and vice-presidency in November 2012.  I told them that I would be happy with either a CAIN-GINGRICH ticket or a GINGRICH-CAIN ticket.  Since the former is not longer a possibility I still have hope for the latter.   Anyone who watched the Lincoln-Douglas style debate recently between Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich could not help but notice the warmth of the relationship between these two men.  I do not believe that Newt Gingrich could make a better choice for his running mate than Herman Cain.  And, as long as Vice-President Cain avoids bird hunting in the style of Dick Cheney he would make a good Vice-President.  In his announcement today Herman Cain said that he would shortly be endorsing one of the other Republican candidates.  I have no doubt that he will be endorsing Newt Gingrich.  Newt Gingrich is a man of 1,000 plans.  To the extent that any Vice-President can exercise a restraining influence on a President, I would like to believe that Vice-President Herman Cain would be able to keep President Gingrich from soaring off into the stratosphere of planning.

As far as the accusations that have been made against Herman Cain are concerned.   I have to believe that he is telling the truth when he says that there was no sexual involvement by him with those women.  Involvement yes, of a personal and business nature, but not sexual.  I doubt that Gloria Cain would still be strongly supporting his Plan B if he had been guilty of  sexual misconduct.

As a candidate for the presidency, and even more as President, Herman Cain has been at a disadvantage in defending his honor.  Now he no longer suffers from that disadvantage.  One sure way to prove his innocence would be to file a defamation of character lawsuit against any of these women, especially the one accusing him of a 13-year relationship with the implication that it was also sexual in nature.  As a candidate for the presidency Herman Cain could not afford the publicity of such a civil lawsuit.   Now he is free to sue. 


It will be interesting to watch Herman Cain as he undertakes his Plan B campaign.
America can only be the better for it.








Wednesday, November 30, 2011

DON'T TREAD ON ME, ULESS YOU WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT

!!!!

Treadmarks

by Mark Steyn
National Review
November 28, 2011


Whenever I write in these pages about the corrosive effect of Big Government upon the citizenry in Britain, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere and note that this republic is fairly well advanced upon the same grim trajectory, I get a fair few letters on the lines of: “You still don’t get it, Steyn. Americans aren’t Europeans. Or Canadians. We’re not gonna take it.”


I would like to believe it. It’s certainly the case that Americans have more attitude than anybody else — or, at any rate, attitudinal slogans. I saw a fellow in a “Don’t Tread on Me” T-shirt the other day. He was at LaGuardia, and he was being trod all over, by the obergropinfuhrers of the TSA, who had decided to subject him to one of their enhanced pat-downs. There are few sights more dismal than that of a law-abiding citizen having his genitalia pawed by state commissars, but him having them pawed while wearing a “Don’t Tread on Me” T-shirt is certainly one of them.


Don’t get me wrong. I like “Don’t Tread on Me.” Also, “Don’t Mess with Texas” — although the fact that 70 percent of births in Dallas’s largest hospital are Hispanic suggests that someone has messed with Texas in recent decades, and fairly comprehensively.


In my own state, the Department of Whatever paid some fancypants advertising agency a couple of million bucks to devise a new tourism slogan. They came up with “You’re Going To Love It Here!,” mailed it in, and cashed the check. The state put it up on the big “Bienvenue au New Hampshire” sign on I-93 on the Massachusetts border, and ten minutes later outraged Granite Staters were demanding it be removed and replaced with “Live Free or Die.” So it was. Americans are still prepared to get in-your-face about their in-your-face slogans.


No other nation has license-plate mottos like “Live Free or Die.” No other nation has songs about how “I’m proud to be a Canadian” or “Australian” or “Slovenian” — or at least no songs written in the last 20 years in a contemporary pop vernacular. And yet, underneath the attitudinal swagger, Americans are — to a degree visiting Continentals often remark upon — an extremely compliant people.


For example, if you tootle along sleepy two-lane rural blacktops, the breaks in the solid yellow line are ever farther apart. One can drive for miles and miles without an opportunity to pass. Unlike the despised French surrender monkeys, Americans are not to be trusted to reach their own judgment on when it’s safe to pull out and leave Gran’ma eating dust. Odd. But these days what can Americans be trusted with? You may have noticed those new lime green pedestrian signs sprouting across the fruited plain, in many cases where no pedestrian has been glimpsed in years. Some new federal regulation requires them to be posted wherever pedestrians are to be found, or might potentially be found in the years ahead. I just drove through Barre, Vt., which used to be the granite capital of the state but, as is the way, now offers the usual sad Main Street of vacant storefronts and non-profit community-assistance joints and whatnot. For some reason, it has faded pedestrian crossings painted across the street every few yards. So, in full compliance with the Bureau of Compliance, those new signs have been stuck in front of each one, warning the motorist of looming pedestrians, springing from curb to pavement like Alpine chamois.


Getty


The oncoming army of lurid lime signs uglies up an already decrepit Main Street. They dominate the scene, lining up in one’s windshield with the mathematical precision of Busby Berkeley’s chorines in Gold Diggers of 1935. And they make America look ridiculous. They are, in fact, double signs: One lime green diamond with the silhouette of a pedestrian, and then below it a lime rectangle with a diagonal arrow, pointing to the ground on which the hypothetical pedestrian is likely to be hypothetically perambulating. The lower sign is an exquisitely condescending touch. A nation whose citizenry is as stupid as those markers suggest they are cannot survive. But, if we’re not that stupid, why aren’t we outraged?


What’s the cost of those double signs — 300 bucks per? That’s the best part of four grand we don’t need to have wasted on one little strip of one little street in one small town. It’s not hard to see why we’re the Brokest Nation in History: You can stand at almost any four-way across the land, look in any direction, and see that level of statist waste staring you in the face. Doesn’t that count as being trod on? They’re certainly treading on your kids. In fact, they’ve stomped whatever future they might have had into the asphalt.


A variant of my readers’ traditional protestation runs like this: “Americans aren’t Europeans, Steyn. We have the Second Amendment, and they don’t.” Very true. And Vermont has one of the highest rates of firearms ownership in the nation. And Howard Dean has a better record on gun rights than Rudy Giuliani. Or Chris Christie. But one would be reluctant to proffer the Green Mountain State as evidence of any correlation between gun rights and small government.


If I’ve sounded a wee bit overwrought in recent columns, it’s because America is seizing up before our eyes. And I’m a little bewildered by how many Americans can’t see it. I think about that chap at LaGuardia with “Don’t Tread on Me” on his chest, and government bureaucrats in his pants. And I wonder if America’s exceptional attitudinal swagger isn’t providing a discreet cover for the shriveling of liberty. Sometimes an in-your-face attitude blinds you to what’s going on under your nose.

IT TAKES ONE (OR A FORMER ONE) TO KNOW ONE

!!!!



Up from Leftism
A visit with the historian Eugene D. Genovese

BY JAY NORDLINGER

THE NATIONAL REVIEW, November 14, 2011


‘The first time my name appeared in the New York Times, I was described as ‘an obscure associate professor,’” says Eugene D. Genovese. “I’ve always thought of myself that way.” He’s the only one who does. Genovese is an American historian, specializing in the Old South. In 2005, Benjamin Schwarz, an editor at The Atlantic, described him as “this country’s greatest living historian.” One could certainly make an argument. Genovese is definitely one of the smartest and most interesting people around. He made a spectacular journey from left to right: from Communism to anti-Communism, from faith in Marx to faith in God. He made this journey in tandem with his wife, another historian, the late Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.

........

But Communism wasn’t all fun and games, as Genovese would be the first to tell you. In 1994, he wrote this terrible truth: “At the age of fifteen, I became a Communist, and, although expelled from the party in 1950 at age twenty, I remained a supporter of the international movement and of the Soviet Union until there was nothing left to support.” In his living room, Genovese explains to me something about his younger self: He was under no illusion that Stalin wasn’t killing people left and right. It was simply that he had “absorbed the notion that this was a period we had to go through,” in order to form a more perfect union, so to speak. People have a tremendous capacity to rationalize, especially when infected by ideology.

........

In coming years, Genovese would win the highest honors in his profession. First came the Bancroft Prize, for his quickly canonical book Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. Then came the presidency of the Organization of American Historians. In rising to this position, Genovese made a little history himself, because he was the first Marxist president of the organization. But as the years wore on, he moved rightward, until the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire forced a major, decisive reexamination.

In 1994, he published a bombshell of an essay in Dissent magazine. (I quoted from it earlier.) The essay was called “The Question,” and the question derived from Watergate: “What did you know, and when did you know it?” What did you know about the atrocities of the Communists, and when did you know it? Genovese wrote that “in a noble effort to liberate the human race from violence and oppression we broke all records for mass slaughter, piling up tens of millions of corpses in less than three-quarters of a century. When the Asian figures are properly calculated, the aggregate to our credit may reach the seemingly incredible numbers widely claimed. Those who are big on multiculturalism might note that the great majority of our victims were nonwhite.”

.......

It was a stroke of luck, or a stroke of grace, that Genovese and his wife, Betsey, moved to the right and moved toward religion — Catholicism, specifically — at the same time. Neither left the other behind. “We had different temperaments,” says Genovese, “but our brains were almost as one. We very rarely disagreed on things.” One disagreement, whether intellectual or temperamental, was on Wagner’s music: She hated it, he loves it.

In the field of politics, the two once thought that America could have a different kind of socialism, a socialism consonant with the American traditions of liberty and democracy. They came to the conclusion, however, that this was impossible. Oppression was baked into the socialist cake. Genovese is unwilling to call himself a free-marketeer, believing that the “logic” of the free market “leaves an awful lot of people in the gutter.” But he would support most free-market measures, because “the alternatives are dreadful.”

........

One issue he is perfectly firm on is abortion: He is against. So was Betsey, the creator of the leading women’s-studies department in the country, no less. (It was at Emory.) In 2009, Genovese published a beautiful little volume called Miss Betsey: A Memoir of Marriage. He writes, “She gagged on abortion for a simple reason: She knew, as everyone knows, that an abortion kills a baby.”

........

Turning to the president of the United States, I ask Genovese to classify him for me. What is Obama? A McGovernite, a social democrat, a socialist, a pinko, a red? Genovese says that Obama is redder than people suspect, even his conservative adversaries. Obama’s instinct, he says, is to take the most radical position he can get away with. What’s more, he is “probably the vainest president I can remember, and the least competent. What surprised me was the incompetence. The first time I laid eyes on this guy — I heard him make a speech — I said, ‘He’s a demagogue.’ One more. More skillful than most. I mean, he is clearly a good speechifier. I say ‘speechifier’ because, in a classical sense, an orator he’s not. You just have to read Demosthenes and Cicero to know what an orator is. He ain’t it. Churchill yes, him no. And furthermore he butchers the English language. Gets away with it. But he does.”

All his life, Genovese had been hoping for a black president and a woman president. So, “we got a black president — thanks a lot.” Still, Genovese allows, Obama’s election was an historic occasion, symbolizing the huge progress we have made as a country. I ask whether he is hopeful or depressed about the future for black Americans. He regrets that he is more depressed than hopeful. “Look,” he says (and he begins a great many sentences with “Look”): “They have a thoroughly corrupt leadership, and I don’t just mean the politicians, I mean the intelligentsia too.” He cites Cornel West, who, he says, had the choice to be a serious and useful scholar or a rabble-rousing clown, and went down the wrong path.

........

Here at his home in Atlanta, Genovese continues to work. He has just come out with a book started jointly with his wife and finished by him: Fatal Self-Deception: Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South. He has no e-mail, fax machine, or cellphone. He has a home phone, whose number is unlisted. He follows baseball, he watches Fox News. He gets along fine, as near as I can tell.

And there is a heroic aspect about him. Writing about Genovese in 1995, William F. Buckley Jr. said, essentially, that the 20th century — the bloodiest on record — was a hard teacher. Genovese had learned his way through. “Is this learning to be compared with ‘learning’ that the earth is round, not flat? No, because the physical features of the earth are not deniable. But it is different in the social sciences. Everything is deniable, or ignorable.” The terrible costs of Communism and its cousins, including socialism, Genovese could not deny or ignore. He said goodbye to a Left that had loved him and lionized him. His truth-telling exposed him to their total wrath and condemnation. Genovese is not only brilliant, he is brave. A hell of a lot of fun, too.



Friday, November 25, 2011

A LILY-LIVERED NINNY WHOM EVERYONE THINKS IS A FEROCIOUS RIGHT-WING BASTARD

!!!!

DEFINING DOWN THE DEFINER OF CIVILIZATION
Request of the Week
November 23, 2011

Dear Mark,
With the Second Coming of Newt, I'm reminded of your circa '99 political obituary where you sent him off in style. Your piece had me in stitches then, and thinking of it today still brings on a chuckle. If you're wondering which column to which I'm referring, search your library for "grim platter of meats", or something to this effect. I would love to read it again, ideally before the media declares a new front runner in the GOP race.
Glenn Kennedy
George Town, Cayman Islands

MARK SAYS: My pleasure. It was actually not 1999 but the November 14th 1998 of The Spectator - a few days after the Republicans (in the Year of Monica) lost five seats in the election, and Newt resigned as Speaker. And "grim platter" was actually "Teutonic plates". But otherwise you were pretty close. A lot has changed over 13 years, not least Joe Scarborough's protestations of fealty, and the appeal of Barney Frank's lisp, but Newtworld remains refreshingly unspoilt by progress, and the latter parts of this piece - the bit about the lily-livered ninny passing himself off as a right-wing bastard - still seem pertinent.

We're running our Request of the Week a day early this week, because of Thanksgiving tomorrow and just in case Newt self-detonates in the next 24 hours. But don't forget, we're here every Thursday dusting off the archives. If you've a favorite column - or even a favourite column - you'd like us to reprise, drop me a line here. Meanwhile, here's me on Newt from the Speccie 13 years ago:

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

'Gingrich - primary mission,' wrote the fledgling Newt in a reminder to himself in December 1992. 'Advocate of civilisation. Definer of civilisation. Teacher of the rules of civilisation.' So far, so good. But, at this point, a touch of self-doubt sets in: 'Leader (possibly) of the civilising forces.'
Sadly, it was not to be.

Today, Newt Gingrich is Loser (undoubtedly) of the '98 election. Stunned to find someone in Washington going down even faster than Monica, President Clinton generously saluted the Speaker as a 'worthy adversary'. Alas, the Democrats' House Leader Dick Gephardt, cruising past Newt's bullet- riddled body in the gutter, couldn't resist reversing back over it: 'I hope that whoever succeeds Newt Gingrich as Speaker will immediately begin the process of repairing the damage that was wrought on this institution over the last four years.'

Whoa, steady on! Before we confine the Great Definer and Supreme Advocate to the trash can of history, it's worth remembering what the House of Representatives was like in the long-past pre-Newtian era of four years ago. After 40 years of Democratic control, it was a stinking sewer of corruption - not just who-paid-whose-bill-at-the- Paris-Ritz piffle, but rampant, systemic corruption.

At the House bank, for example, Congressmen could write cheques for vast sums of cash, regardless of whether they had any funds to cover them. In Britain, where cheque-bouncing and extravagant overdrafts are routine, that might not seem a big deal. But, over here, if you bounce a cheque for 12 bucks to the general store, they pin it up over the register and the whole town knows. Do it again and you'll get 30 days in the county jail. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a story about a fellow whose entire life was ruined because in his youth he passed one bad cheque. Yet, under a system that prides itself on checks and balances, Congressmen could write all the cheques they want regardless of their balances. In the House post office, they could wander in with a $10,000 contributor's cheque, buy a 29¢ stamp and get $9,999.71 change. My postmistress won't let you do that.


But the most telling symptom of the moral decay under one-party rule was a simple one: the laws Congress passed on behalf of the people applied to all the people - except them. They were exempt from their own legislation. In 1994, the then Speaker Tom Foley, a Democratic Congressman from Washington State, was suing his own electors because they'd been impertinent enough to pass a ballot proposition mandating term limits for the Representatives. His crony, Dan Rostenkowski, had an even more fundamentalist view of the perks of office: they found furniture from the House in the basement of his home in Illinois.


Newt and the new Republican leadership ended those scams: legislators, like any other citizens, are now bound by the law of the land; Rostenkowski went to gaol and Foley to a richly deserved political oblivion; whatever else may be said about Newt's tenure as Speaker, you no longer have to nail down the furniture.


Instead, it was nailing down Newt that proved the problem. About a week before the 1994 Republican landslide, I was on a radio show where someone mentioned a poll showing that over 50 per cent of the American people had never hear of Newt Gingrich. 'I wish I could say the same,' muttered a Democrat pundit. In 1994, no one voted for Newt; some voted for the 'Contract With America', and a lot voted against the Democratic incumbents and the Washington establishment.
Newt deserves credit for his bold strategy that year and for his much derided 'Contract', of which most proposals (welfare reform, a balanced budget, etc.) were savaged by Democrats at the time, yet almost all of which have since been co-opted by the President. In his humbler, non-Definer of Civilisation moments, he saw himself as another Churchill, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria ... But I think, in these media-conscious times, the most appropriate comparison would be with the creators of a hit TV show - say, James Brooks and Allan Burns, who cooked up The Mary Tyler Moore Show. They invented a superb vehicle, but they didn't make the mistake of putting themselves in it: brilliant as they might be, no one would want to see The Brooks and Burns Show every night of the week; they want to see perky, sunny Mary. Newt's mistake was to muddle a congressional election with the Miss America pageant: he was convinced people loved him. Like that other pudgy, greying boomer in the Oval Office, he thought everything had to be about him: all Newt, all the time.


Shortly after he became Speaker, his staff circulated a five-page document of interconnected projects under the heading 'Newtworld'. Newtworld proved to be one of those theme-parks nobody wants to visit - and who can blame them? At Newtworld, what you mostly get is lots of Newt, at great length. A couple of years ago, I happened to be on a discussion panel presided over by Mrs Thatcher. In the moments before the debate began, rather than waste her time yakking with me, she cast an eye over an upcoming Newt speech that one of his aides had asked for her thoughts on. She took up her pen and scored through one line, then another. 'Even the best speeches can lose a line or two' I mumbled, nervously glancing at my own address. She scored through the rest of the paragraph, then down to the foot of the page, and over on to the next. When she'd eventually finished, she called over the lady from Newt's political action committee, and handed her the replacement text for the deleted portions: one short sentence. Poor Newt. He was never that disciplined. He was fond of movements and 'Movement Planning Proposals', but he couldn't resist moving from movement to movement. He's responsible for more movements than a crate of Ease-O-Lax: from 'The Triangle of American Progress' to the 'Caring Humanitarian Reform Movement' to 'The America That Can Be' to the 'Citizens' Opportunities Movement' to 'Renewing American Civilisation'.


If you're wondering what 'The Triangle of American Progress' is, relax: pretty soon it had evolved into 'The Four Pillars of American Civilisation', which in turn expanded into the 'Five Pillars of the 21st Century'. The collected brainstorms of Newt sound like a cross between T.E. Lawrence and the numerologically obsessed Fruit of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan who claims that once a month he's taken up into a spacecraft floating above earth to commune with the spirits of deceased African-Americans. Aside from his 'Five Pillars', Newt had the 'Four Great Truths', the 'Nine Zones of Creativity', the 'Fourteen Steps to RAC' (see Renewing American Civilisation above), the Four Can'ts, the Five Cs, the Four Tops, the Jackson Five, the McGuire Sisters, and on and on.


The Democrats demonised Newt as an extreme right-wing crazy. They were right - apart from the 'extreme' and 'right-wing', that is. Most of the above seem more like the burblings of a frustrated self-help guru than blueprints for conservative government. For example, Pillar No. 5 of the 'Five Pillars of American Civilisation' is: 'Total quality management'. Unfortunately for Newt, the person who most needed a self-help manual was him - How to Win Friends and Influence People for a start. After last week's election, Republicans have now embarked on the time-honoured ritual, well known to British Tories and Labour before them, of bickering over whether they did badly because they were too extreme or because they were too moderate. In Newt's case, the answer is both. He spent the last year pre-emptively surrendering on anything of legislative consequence, but then, feeling bad at having abandoned another two or three of his 'Fourteen Steps to RAC', he'd go on television and snarl at everybody in sight. In so doing, he betrayed Item No. 8 of his 1997 Movement Planning Proposal:
'We are FOR rather than AGAINST.
'We are Inclusive rather than Exclusive . . .


For Republicans it was the worst of all worlds: a lily-livered ninny whom everyone thinks is a ferocious right-wing bastard. In the 1996 presidential race, the Democrats ran commercials attacking not Dole but 'Dole-Gingrich'; in congressional campaigns, the bland, anonymous face of some unexceptional Senator or Representative would suddenly be electronically morphed into the satanic smirk of Newt. In the days before the Speaker decided to pull the Five Pillars down around his head and hurl himself down the Fourteen Steps, Texas Governor George W. Bush was telling friends that he was almost certainly going to run for president, but that, if he did, he wanted to win or lose on his own merits and not because the Democrats tagged the campaign 'Bush-Gingrich'. Newt had movement proposals for every subject but one: likability. It's clear from his 45-minute non- farewell address on Monday that he still hopes to run for the White House in 2000, but he has an insurmountable obstacle: the American people will never warm to him.


At the Congressional level, likability is becoming a major problem for the GOP. Late on election night, I switched on ABC to find, for the Republicans, Senator Orrin Hatch and House Majority Leader Dick Armey and, for the Democrats, Barney Frank. For most people, Congressman Frank's name conjures up, if anything at all, a hazy memory of a long-ago scandal about a gay prostitution ring being operated from his premises. In purely objective terms, he's a faintly creepy old queen with a lisp, but, next to Senator Hatch, a stiff-necked Mormon, and Armey, a dim bruiser with a sore head, he seemed by far the most relaxed and non-off-putting. The Republicans are still looking for their Mary Tyler Moore: Americans like their leaders on the sunny side.


Bob Livingston, the new Speaker, doesn't fit that bill. Except for occasional explosions, he's as boring as a ledger. But these days non-exciting is in, and Mr Livingston has promised 'to make the trains run on time'. In contrast to Mussolini-era deployments of the term, this is a mere figure of speech: it seems to be beyond either party to make Amtrak, the country's federally funded, ramshackle passenger rail network, run on time. But, that said, he'll be lower-key than his predecessor, which means that when Governor Bush or some other non-congressional Republican wins the presidential nomination, they'll be the party's undisputed leader and not merely Newt's sidekick.


Meanwhile, everything's back to normal: on Monday, Justice Department officials interviewed the President about alleged 'soft money' fundraising abuses, and the Supreme Court ruled against him on the questions of testimony from government counsel and Secret Service agents. Life goes on - except without Newt - lost in the Bermuda Triangle of American Progress. 'It has', declared former Christian Coalition head honcho Ralph Reed, 'shifted the Teutonic plates'. Maybe he meant Tectonic, maybe not. Maybe he saw Newt as some grim Teutonic platter of cold meats that the public was never going to find any more appetising: the wurst was yet to come.


Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough, formerly one of the 1994 Gingrich revolutionaries, nailed his colours to the new mast. 'I'm a George W. Bush Republican,' he says. 'I don't know what that means, but I'll know it when I see it.'

        
 SteynOnline.com




Steyn's Greatest Hits
DEFINING DOWN THE DEFINER OF CIVILIZATION
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
YOUR HYPERVENTILATION STATION!
A MOAT TOO FAR
THE WILL OF THE PERSSONS

$500,000,000,000 IS NOT ENOUGH TO SATISFY DEMOCRATS

!!!!
 
If only pigs really could fly

 
By Wesley Pruden
The congressional super-duper, new-and-improved deficit committee, organized to enable Congress to do what it was sent to Washington to do, failed.
Or, in the spirit of the holiday season, “faileth.” Handel should write an appropriate oratorio. The talk-talk has gone on long enough. It’s the fault of the Republicans, of course. We have the word of dozens of pundits, correspondents and other bearers of “news.” If only the troglodytes would raise taxes, the planets would come together in perfect alignment, all the smooth places would have been made plain and everyone would live happily ever after.


If only. If only there was no profound (insert word “partisan” here) and angry disagreement over how to find a detour from the road to financial oblivion. If only the Democrats would agree to cut the size of government. If only the Republicans would agree that big government is the answer. If only pigs could fly.
Sen. Pat Toomey offered to support new revenues of $500 billion. Exactly who’s being obstructionist?

toomey


But they can’t, and neither can the partisan divide be bridged by a pontoon, however well meaning the pontoon men may be. Money is only part of what the debate is fundamentally about. Big government, designed to grow ever bigger with the turning of the seasons, is what the modern Democratic Party is all about. The Democrats are committed to building a bigger trough. The Republicans are committed to dismantling troughs. It’s all in the DNA.


President Obama is not to blame. He is a true believer in the European model of the welfare state. Everybody who was listening learned that three years ago. The fact that the European welfare states are crashing is irrelevant to him; true believers are never rattled by facts, not even facts that slap them in the face like a cream pie. The opportunity to impose a failing welfare state on America is what drew him to the presidency in the first place. The congressional elections last year, the Republican rout that Mr. Obama rightly called a “shellacking” of his party, made no impression, either. The results were all about cutting taxes and dismantling government, but not to Mr. Obama. Those elections were merely a few pebbles in the road to Utopia.


The president, with a con man’s confidence in the sound of his own voice, is, in the observation of the Wall Street Journal, “making it clear that he is running for re-election on a platform of consolidating the expansion of government of his first two years and raising taxes to finance it.” He makes everything clear to anyone listening, threatening to veto any cuts in government spending unless he gets $1 trillion in new taxes. This put a deal on the table that he knew the Republicans had to refuse.


The game continued, with Republicans offering “revenue increases”—in the spirit of the game, we don’t call taxes by their rightful name—far short of what Mr. Obama insisted he must have. When Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania offered to support new revenues of $500 billion, the Democrats said no. It was a trillion dollars or nothing doing. So who’s being obstructionist?


Everyone knows that unless someone does something, everything will be swallowed by one of those black holes from outer space. Health-care costs, which already consume 3.7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, will take almost twice that by the year 2020. Democrats are determined not to reform any of that. Who will still be in Washington then? The distance to 2020 might as well be measured in light years. Next year is the short run, where Washington measures all. In the long run, as Winston Churchill famously said, there is no long run.


Mr. Obama, who understands that you can’t survive very long if you betray the people who put you at the public trough, knows very well that the Republicans, many of them beholden to Tea Party voters who sent them to Washington, couldn’t take his deal even if they wanted to, so soon after winning office on an iron-clad, cross-their-hearts-and-hope-to-die promise of no new taxes. And die they would.


You don’t have to have such a long memory to recall what happened to George Bush the Elder. He lit up the skies above the Republican National Convention in New Orleans with his famous invitation to “Read my lips: no new taxes.” A nice majority of Americans did read his lips, and soon he was no longer the president. Lip-reading is even more popular now.



Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.
 

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

NEWT STARTS TALKING AND NEITHER HE NOR ANYBODY ELSE KNOWS WHERE HIS TONGUE WILL TAKE US

!!!!



A JABBERWONKY WITH A FLAVOR


By Wesley Pruden,  editor emeritus of The Washington Times.



Now it’s Newt’s week to be the new and improved temporary seasonally impermanent flavor for the Republican primary campaign. He’s entitled to his week in the front row. Republicans are big on taking turns, which is why they occasionally nominate sad-sacks like Gerald Ford, Bob Dole and John McCain.


It’s difficult to imagine Newt Gingrich actually carrying the Republican banner to war with Barack Obama. The two of them would expend enough unnatural gas to resolve the energy crisis. Newt’s rise in the polls, impressive in context but nothing like the arc of a meteor, suggests only that nobody is happy with the menu at the Republican soup kitchen.


Or anybody’s else’s. Two prominent Democratic has-beens suggested Thursday that Barack Obama abandon his attempt to win a second term and turn everything over to the nanny, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.


Newt starts talking and neither he nor anybody else knows where his tongue will take us.


“He should abandon his candidacy for re-election in favor of a clear alternative, one capable not only of saving the Democratic Party,” write Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas Schoen in the Wall Street Journal, “but more important, of governing effectively and in a way that preserves the most important of the president’s accomplishments. He should step aside for the one candidate who would become, by acclamation, the nominee of the Democratic Party.”


This is not original silliness. A bunch of Democrats couldn’t decide by acclamation to go to the bathroom. Mr. Caddell was the chief pollster and seer for Jimmy Carter, after all, and he’s been riding this horse now for more than a year. It’s a version of the narrative we always get at this point in the presidential election cycle. We’re close to the end of the cafeteria line, and they’re out of roast beef and nobody’s happy about what’s left, the chicken and dumplings (mostly dough and not much chicken), or even worse, two kinds of fish (with lots of fish). So everybody dreams of sirloin steak.
There’s no institutional memory in the mainstream media; every tornado, every earthquake, every flood, drought and swarm of locusts is new, catastrophic and without precedent in the history of man. The pundits and political correspondents run out of everything but gas about this time, so it’s time to peddle the story that this time there’s no Snow White, only the dwarfs.


The story is writ large in this Republican campaign, where a succession of men have ridden in on white horses—Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Newt Gingrich—to save us from the bland and boring villain Mitt Romney. Each of them looked good until someone looked closely, and then it was time to find someone, anyone, else. Newt, the perfesser with an inexhaustible vocabulary who drowns his message in a tidal wave of blah blah, will have, if precedent holds, at most three weeks at the top.

The flavor will be gone by Christmas. Newt carries enough baggage to require about three weeks to sort through the baggage again—his failed marriages, his messy divorces, his sweetheart lobbying contracts, his misalliances with Hillary Clinton on health care and Nancy Pelosi on global warming.
Newt’s problem is his mouth. He starts talking and neither he nor anybody else knows where his tongue will take us, whether it’s to a rich little nugget of Civil War history or a poetic riff on women’s beach volleyball as metaphor for American exceptionalism. Newt, like Hubert Humphrey, is a jabberwonky. This may explain how he got into his serial marriages. But could he be trusted with national-security secrets? Might he start talking at a summit and give them away without thinking? He could be our first president without a security clearance.


Newt’s gift for harsh bloviation appeals to the ruffian who lurks deep in the American soul. When he calls the chairman of the Federal Reserve “corrupt,” scorns Barack Obama as the “food stamp president” and says if we start putting people in jail we should “start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd,” thousands cheer. No president talks that way but that’s the way most of us think.
But here’s what will happen. The Republicans will nominate a candidate (the betting here is that it will be Mitt Romney, boring and bland nothwithstanding). The Democrats and Mr. Obama will proceed with their best shot, a campaign of unrelenting class warfare. Both sides will get behind their man, as they always do. Next November 9 we’ll wake up stuffed with all that sirloin, and with a newly elected president.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

NATURAL BORN CITIZEN

!!!!

For three years now I have been a reader of Leo Donofrio's blog,
Natural Born Citizen.  My admiration for Leo Donofrio is very great indeed!  He is a lawyer based in New Jersey.  He has been fighting the battle to prove that Barack Hussein Obama is not and never has been eligible to be president of the United States of America.  His efforts have been nothing short of heroic.  I strongly recommend that if you love the United States of America and are concerned about the rule of law as the basis for protecting all of our rights under the Constitution of the United States you should become a regular reader of Leo Donofrio's blog, as I am.  Here is the link to his blog:


http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/

-  Leo Rugiens

Saturday, November 19, 2011

COMPARE YOUR HOUSEHOLD'S FINANCES WITH THE NATION'S FINANCES

!!!!



This is pretty explanatory.

Remember the out cry stemming from S&P's down grade of the
US credit worthiness? 

Well lets have a closer look!

This really makes it easy to see What is happening.

Current status ........

• U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000

• Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000

• New debt: $1,650,000,000,000

• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

• Recent budget cut: $38,500,000,000

Now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a Household Budget:

• Annual family income: $21,700

• Money the family spent: $38,200

• New debt on the credit card: $16,500

• Current outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

• Total budget cuts: $385

When it is broken down like this, it makes it easier to see how much trouble we are in !!!!!

Now read on and cry because you have a good reason too.

Check these statistics!

This list represents the percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You know what the private business sector is -- a real life business, not a government job. 


Here are the
percentages.

T. Roosevelt...........38%
Taft.........................40%
Wilson ...................52%
Harding...................49%
Coolidge.................48%
Hoover ...................42%
F. Roosevelt............50%
Truman...................50%
Eisenhower.............57%
Kennedy..................30%
Johnson...................47%
Nixon.......................53%
Ford.........................42%
Carter......................32%
Reagan....................56%
GH Bush...................51%
Clinton ....................39%
G.W. Bush................55%

And the winner is:

Obama............... 8%


This helps to explain the incompetence of this administration: only 8% of them have ever worked in private business!

That's right! Only eight percent---the least, by far, of the last 19 presidents! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business? They know what's best for GM, Chrysler, Wall Street, and you and me?

How can the president of a major nation and society, the one with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one? Or about jobs when he has never really had one? And when it's the same for 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers? They've spent most of their time in academia, government, and/or non-profit jobs such as "community
organizers." They should have been in an employment line.



"One of the penalties of not participating in politics is that you
will be governed by your inferiors." Plato
.