Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Just say no to Government Motors and Obamacars
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Today's bankruptcy filing by GM will see the end of a once-great car company and the birth of a federal government-union partnership dressed up as a business.
Governments can do very few things well and almost nothing efficiently.
A government -run car company is not only very unnecessary, it's a deeply dismaying prospect. And not primarily because it won't make good cars at competitive prices, though almost certainly neither the new GM or the new Chrysler will do so. History tells us these ventures are highly unlikely to succeed.
The DNA of America is coded with private enterprise and individual risk-taking and reward.
The idea of the government owning businesses of any sort is not merely bad economics, it is terrible government. Buying a GM or a Chrysler is consenting to a massive leftward lurch in the American form of government, a "buying-into" a bought up company, and one gobbled up in a series of transactions which pummeled the private investor while protecting the pols and their union supporters.
Any American who values their traditions of free enterprise and political freedom will urge the federal government to disinvest itself from these companies immediately.
Buy Ford. Buy anything that isn't owned and operated by the federal government. You don't have to buy one that costs not just your cash, but also your commitment to free enterprise and all the benefits that flow from it.
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The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M.
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WASHINGTON — It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.
But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry..
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Little Green Cars
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Instead of putting the failed car enterprise into bankruptcy six months ago -- where Carl Icahn or Wilbur Ross could have bought it -- the Bush administration chose Bailout Nation. Under Team Obama, that bailout has morphed into full-scale government ownership. Twenty billion dollars of TARP money is already waisted in GM, with another $50 billion on the way. And that number could easily double unless GM car sales miraculously climb back to 14 million this year. That's highly unlikely, with sales presently hovering around 9 million a year.
In other words, taxpayers are not going to get their money back.
And with CAFE mileage standards ratcheting up -- all while GM is going down -- Team Obama's green vision for the economy will soon be crystal clear. With President Obama in the driver's seat, we're going to get little green two-door cars that most folks won't want to buy.
Even worse, UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger has made it plain that his powerful union won't let these cars be manufactured in low-cost non-union plants overseas. The result? Obama's little green cars are going to be unprofitable, as well. [That's ok, now that it's government owned, taxpayer subsidies will be no problem.]
But it's the bigger picture that has me most concerned. What does actually having a Government Motors say about the direction of the United States?
I won't lose my faith in this country's long-term future. But the issue of how much damage we sustain before returning to the policies of free-market economic growth is very much on my mind.
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Coming toYour Garage: :Le Car
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Finally, Americans can start moving forward—albeit in small, unsafe, state-mandated, subsidized pieces of junk. We all remember a time when we drove around in nearly any variety of automobile desired. Well, thank goodness we're getting past that kind of anarchy.
Rejoice, my fellow citizens, in the forthcoming automobile emissions and efficiency standards, even if they happen to add more than $1,000 to the cost of your average car...
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Small Cars Kill
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President Obama's push to force Americans into smaller cars ignores one big problem -- small cars are less safe than big cars.
Ignoring this fact will cost lives. Mr. Obama announced new miles-per-gallon regulations on May 19 that mandate that automobiles achieve 42 mpg by 2016...
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9/11 families angered by US support for Saudis
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Relatives of Sept. 11 victims say they're angry that the Justice Department is supporting the Saudi royal family's bid to be removed from a 9/11 lawsuit. The families of some victims have accused the royal family of financially backing terrorist groups that carried out the 2001 attacks.
The Justice Department filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday. It supports the Saudis' argument that the royal family as a sovereign state cannot be sued in a U.S. court. Bill Doyle's son was killed at the World Trade Center. He says the Obama administration's court filing undermines the nation's fight against terrorism...
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Barack Obama is blind to his blunders over Islam
The new President's approach discourages change in Middle Eastern countries that need it most
For the past week or so, the Middle East has been abuzz with speculation about Barack Obama's “historic address to the Muslim world” to be delivered in Cairo on Thursday.
Obama is the first major Western leader, after Bonaparte, to address Islam as a single bloc, thus adopting the traditional Islamic narrative of dividing the world according to religious beliefs. This ignores the rich and conflict-ridden diversity of the 57 Muslim-majority nations and fosters the illusion, peddled by people such as Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Islam is one and indivisible and should, one day, unite under a caliphate.
By adopting the key element of the Islamist narrative, that is to say the division of humanity into religious blocs, Mr Obama also intends to send a signal to the Middle East's nascent democratic forces that Washington is abandoning with a vengeance George W. Bush's “freedom agenda”... [snip]
In an address to university students in Cairo in 2005, Condoleezza Rice explained the “Bush doctrine” in these terms: “For 60 years, the United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East - and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course.”
That different course transformed the US from a supporter of the status quo to an active agent for change - including the use of force to remove two obnoxious regimes in Kabul and Baghdad. It also coerced traditional Arab states to adopt constitutions, hold elections, grant women the vote, ease pressure on the media, and allow greater space for debate and dissent.
Mr Obama has started scrapping that policy in the name of “political realism”, the currently fashionable phrase in Washington... [snip]
In trying to prove that he is not George Bush, Barack Obama has committed big mistakes on key issues of foreign policy. His Cairo address, and his “one-size-fits-all” Islam policy, is just the latest. It encourages Islamists and ruling despots, discourages the forces of reform and change and, ultimately, could produce greater resentment of the United States among peoples thirsting for freedom, human rights and decent governance.
[Recommended > ]
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Israel and Egypt Lose Faith in Obama
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During his first four months in office, President Barack Obama has demonstrated remarkably little leadership on Iran. This has significantly undermined our position in the Middle East, where states have lost confidence in the Obama administration and - as a consequence - are formulating new, unilateral strategies in anticipation of continued Iranian uranium enrichment.
In this vein, Israel has issued the latest signal that it is serious about executing a preemptive strike on Iran - with or without U.S. support. Yesterday, it launched the biggest civilian defense drill in its history, with police, local authorities, emergency services, and civilians engaging in a series of exercises to plan for a variety of attack scenarios - including non-conventional missile strikes. The signal that Israel is trying to send to Iran - and the U.S. - is very obvious: “We are prepared for any counterstrike that might follow our own attack on Iranian nuclear sites, and therefore possess ample freedom of action for hitting Iran if we deem it necessary.”
Remember: the current Israeli government already has significant public support for attacking Iran - public support that remains quite strong even if the Obama administration maintains its opposition to such an attack.
Egypt is also planning for the likelihood that the administration won’t inhibit Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In a statement released on Sunday, a spokesperson for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced that, “With regard to attempts to say Iran is a common danger, President Mubarak’s and Egypt’s priority is on the Palestinian issue.” Egypt’s strategic thinking is clear: if Iran is to become a nuclear state, its best option is to ensure that Israel is significantly weakened via the peace process, and thereby prevented from engaging Iran in armed (and perhaps nuclear) conflict.
Or, to put it another way, Egypt is shrewdly calculating that its interests are better protected with one regional power than with two - and it has noticed that the Obama administration is more eager to take a hard line with Israel than with Iran, despite Cairo’s own distaste for the latter.
Of course, if the Obama administration actually believes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more destabilizing than a nuclear Iran, it will embrace Cairo’s sudden priority on the peace process. However, it will then have to contend with the increasing possibility that a well-prepared and determined Israel will take matters vis-à-vis Tehran into its own hands.
For this reason, the Obama administration’s lack of resolve on Iran is paving the road towards utter disaster.
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Israel to US: Stop favoring the Palestinians
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Barak Ravid writing in Haaretz reports:"We're disappointed," said one senior official. "All of the understandings reached during the Bush administration are worth nothing."
Another official said the U.S. administration is refusing every Israeli attempt to reach new agreements on settlement construction."The United States is taking a line of granting concessions to the Palestinians that is not fair toward Israel,"
The Israeli officials attributed the unyielding U.S. stance to the speech Obama will make in Cairo this Thursday, in which he is expected to deliver a message of reconciliation to the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Obama, the master straddler, has no place to hide on the Israeli-Palestinian question and he will find that he will get no favors from the Arabs simply for showing empathy toward the Palestinians by taking a hardline stance against the settlements.
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Malaria, Politics and DDT
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In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria.
But earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease.
The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result...
[The organization is a net liability - past time to cut our losses.]
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Geithner tells China its dollar assets are safe
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday reassured the Chinese government that its huge holdings of dollar assets are safe and reaffirmed his faith in a strong U.S. currency.
His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home....
[Even students know better.]
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Tales of the new American nomenklatura
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The new ruling elite of America consists of those favored by government power. You can forget about working your way up via honest hard work. The fruits will be confiscated, and given to those with political sway.
It is a situation familiar to residents of the former Soviet Union, where the term nomenklatura (members of a list) was applied to describe the plutocrats who ruled that society and lived lavishly without benefit of huge personal wealth.
The fate of UAW members versus bond holders in the wreckage of Chrysler Corporation is one illustration of the benefits of membership, even junior membership, in the nomenklatura.
But it is at the upper reaches of the American nomenklatura, among office holders and senior bureaucrats, that we see how cushy life gets, even as the economy tanks. While the rest of us worry about having enough money to retire on or affording braces for our kids, the American nomenklatura are insulated from such mundane issues... [snip]
Taxpayers are being asked to do with less, because of the economic crisis. How about government's ostensible leaders actually leading -- by example?
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Illinois Senate votes to raise state income tax
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Springfield - The Illinois Senate late Saturday narrowly approved a 67-percent hike in the state income tax and imposed $1 billion in new sales taxes, dramatically reshaping the Statehouse’s budgetary stalemate.
No Republicans voted in support of the measure.
[During a time of recession. It matters who you vote for.]
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145% Beer-Tax Hike
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Washington - Drunk on power and dazed by ambition, members of Congress have stumbled upon a novel way to keep their spending binge rolling -- and leave American taxpayers with the hangover.
Under a Senate proposal, Congress would raise the federal excise tax on beer by 145 percent to more than $3 a case. Uncle Sam also would snatch an additional $7 on a case of wine -- a staggering increase of 233 percent ...
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POLL: 18% Favor National/VAT Sales Tax, 68% Oppose
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To raise additional money for the government, just 18% of Americans nationwide favor a national sales tax or VAT. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 68% oppose such a tax.
Democrats strongly support a national sales tax to provide universal health insurance coverage. Republicans are opposed by a three-to-one margin, and those not affiliated with either major party are opposed two-to-one.
A plurality of Americans would support a national sales tax if it meant getting rid of the federal income tax: 43% favor that trade-off, but 38% are opposed. Pluralities of Republicans and unaffiliateds like the idea, while a plurality of Democrats are against it.
Forty-eight percent (48%) say a national sales tax is fairer than an income tax while 26% hold the opposite view. The sales tax is viewed as fairer by 52% of Republicans, 49% of unaffiliateds and 44% of Democrats.
[BUT unless we unambiguously tell them not to, they'll move forward with it anyway.]
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Despite Obama's optimism, economic outlook remains grim
,"Across America, recovery is under way,"
Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement accompanying a 28-page progress report.
However, Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, was more cautious in his "State of the Economy" review to the House Budget Committee last week."The economy will stop contracting and resume growing during the second half of this year," ... "but the hardships caused by the recession will persist for some time."
The CBO report found that through April only about $19 billion in stimulus funds has been spent.
In addition, Elmendorf predicted, unemployment is expected to peak at 10.5 percent in the second half of next year. Last month's rate was 8.9 percent, up from 8.1 percent in February, when the stimulus became law.
The number of unemployed increased by 1.26 million during the past two months to 13.7 million.
The administration's report Wednesday was nonetheless upbeat...
[And so the media coverage will be...]
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The Geography of Carbon Emissions
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No American city is among the top 50 cities in the world for air pollution according to the World Bank. (1) Another list, ‘The Top Ten of the Dirty Thirty,' compiled by the Blacksmith Institute of New York compared the toxicity of contamination, the likelihood of it getting into humans and the number of people affected. Places were bumped up in rank if children were impacted. [arbitrary bs, but] No US or European sites made the list.
Sites in China, India and Russia occupied six of the top ten spots. Some examples: at Linfen in Shanxi province-the heart of China's coal industry-industrial and automobile emissions put the health of 3 million people at risk. At Sukinda in the state of Orissa in India, 2.6 million people face the hazards of one of the world's opencast chromite mines. And in Dzerzhinsk, Russia, 300,000 people are exposed to toxic by-products from chemical weapons. (2)
Have you heard about this? Probably not. But there's more.
Another report states that seven of the world's ten most polluted cities are in China. Of the ten cities in the world with the highest levels of air pollution, three are in India. (3). There are more reports but by now you probably get the point. Note that no US city has been mentioned. Steven Hayward in discussing the Blacksmith report makes an observation that could well apply to all of these documents: "Not surprisingly the media and green campaigners in the United States completely overlooked this report." (4)... [snip]"The combined carbon dioxide emissions from the 850 new coal-fired power plants that China and India are building between now and 2012 are five times the total [global!] savings of the Kyoto accords. So you can put in all those curly light bulbs and drive all the Priuses you want: India just ate that for breakfast and China will eat the next round of conservation for lunch." (7)
Although China receives the most attention, it is not the only Asian nation where this concern is present. India is also growing rapidly, and its major cities experience particulate levels often eight to ten times higher than the worst American cities. India is the fourth-most coal dependent country in the world and has enough reserves to last for the next 100 years. Carbon emissions in India are rising faster than nearly every other country on the planet. Between 1980 and 2006, India's carbon output increased by 341%, compared to 321% for China, 103% for Brazil 238% for Indonesia and 272% for Pakistan. (9)
Peter Huber sums this up quite well:"Cut to the chase. We rich people can't stop the world's 5 billion poor people from burning the couple of trillion tons of cheap carbon that they have within easy reach. We can't even make any durable dent in global emissions-because emissions from the developing world are growing too fast, because the other 80 percent of humanity desperately needs cheap energy, and because we and they are now part of the same global economy. What we can do, if we're foolish enough, is let carbon worries send our jobs and industries to their shores, making them grow even faster, and their carbon emissions faster still." (6)
References...
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China pans US over climate demands
Beijing - A leading Chinese strategist on climate change has declared ''there will be a deal at Copenhagen'' to replace the Kyoto Protocol, but he has belittled the carbon-reduction proposals of the Obama Administration and the Rudd Government as inadequate.
''China is not at all impressed with Obama ... Obama's statements are certainly insufficient and his demands for developing countries are unrealistic.''
[I.e., they're going to play on his global vanity to get even more self-limiting constraints on US while they do virtually nothing.]
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Climate Change Law Would Bolster U.S. Role at Global Warming Talks
The Obama administration today acknowledged that its ability to play a leading role at international climate change talks later this year will be dictated largely by how quickly Congress acts on global warming legislation.
"The president has been very clear that he wants to re-establish the United States as a leader on the issue of climate change,"Carol Browner, the president's adviser on energy and climate change issues, told an energy conference ...
[Beautiful. He's going to enslave our children so he can be a big man at the podium come party time.]
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The Affirmative-Action Aristocracy?
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One wonders whether affirmative action and diversity preferences are any more predicated on past collective suffering? If so, why has the UC university system in the past tried to find insidious ways of limiting Asian "overrepresentation" (given ample bias against Chinese and Japanese), or why is a Barack Obama, of half-African ancestry, a beneficiary of efforts to offer recompense to those of the African-American experience?
No need to cite the obvious — a Travis Thornberry living in Bakersfield, part of the Oklahoma Diaspora, poor and without educated parents, is entitled to no affirmative-action execmptions, but perhaps an illegal alien who crossed the border yesterday does become a "minority" by the very loose association with the Mexican-American experience? So we use increasingly baffling circumstances to dictate who and who is not deserving of special consideration.
Seeking a racial identity in "diversity" has become like Marxism in the old Soviet Union — a doctrine that everyone praises, while privately realizing that it has devolved into a useful tool for careerist advancement...
[As usual with VDH, Recommended > ]
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Healthcare groups detail cost-containment plans
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The six interest groups that promised President Obama last month they would vastly reduce national healthcare spending put some meat on the skeleton of their plan Monday.
In a three-page follow-up letter to Obama and 25 pages of proposals, health insurers, physicians, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers and a labor union say - stop.
Anyone missing from the list? Oh yeah, consumers.]
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The Crisis of the Disappearing Educated Male
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Over the past couple of decades, the male-female ratio on campuses has been changing dramatically. Women outnumber men by a 4-3 ratio on college campuses. Men currently make up only 43 percent of college graduates. According to USA Today, "currently 135 women receive bachelor's degrees for every 100 men." That imbalance, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Education, "is expected to widen in the coming years."
In short, many today acknowledge that there is a crisis of the disappearing educated male.
The "2nd Conference on College Men" at the University of Pennsylvania featured sessions examining the implications of negative comments about men that are prevalent on college campuses and the sexist campus activism of participants in the nation's 500 college gender studies departments. The conference program, attended by about 100 professors and student affairs personnel, exposed some unpleasant facts: men are "underrepresented" in academic programs and campus leadership activities.
Some experts claim that the imbalance begins in the public schools, where recess and physical education are being cut. More active boys are at a disadvantage, they say, when there is no outlet for their energy and restlessness. In addition, Title IX programs have hurt men's athletics with the less profitable men's sports being cut (over 400 men's collegiate athletic teams have been cut since Title IX went into effect) in order to fund women's programs. According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), "for every new women's athletic slot created between 1992 and 1997, 3.6 male athletes were dropped."
Is it any wonder that men are avoiding today's college campuses?
Hostility toward men and masculinity begins in daycare and increases each year thereafter. Sexual harassment training and policies have created an uncertain environment, if not a hostile one, where men have to watch their every word and action lest it be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Some experts criticize a campus "worldview that sees things only in terms of oppressors and the oppressed." Typically, the few campus men's studies programs are designed to push an anti-masculinity agenda.
The negative implications are enormous... [snip]
Actually, the solution is much simpler: create an environment starting in kindergarten that teaches children to respect masculine traits. To do otherwise is to discriminate against our sons and brothers.
[The guy's nuts - men are society's enemy, everybody knows that.]
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400,000 Petition Pelosi, Reid for Vote on Broadcaster Freedom Act
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Today the Media Research Center’s Free Speech Alliance (FSA) will deliver nearly 400,000 petitions – combined with thousands of calls and faxes - to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urging them to allow a full, fair stand-alone floor vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Act (BFA). "Free speech on the radio airwaves remains in peril so long as the FCC is just a 3-2 vote away from reinstating the mis-named 'Fairness' Doctrine," ... "remains a threat to free speech as long as elected officials like Pelosi and Reid... refuse to give the Broadcaster Freedom Act a vote."
The Free Speech Alliance (www.FreeSpeechAlliance.us) is made up of sixty-seven (67) organizations representing millions of Americans dedicated to defending free speech against a return of the Censorship Doctrine or any other assault on the First Amendment and talk radio. National talk show hosts Lars Larson and Rusty Humphries have also been heavily involved in the petition effort.
The full June 1 press release is posted below:
[And thanks to those of you who joined me in signing.]
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"Hold stand-alone floor vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Act"
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
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May Posterity Forget You Were Our Countrymen
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There is something about D.C. that saps the will and dulls the intellect of conservatives. Prolonged exposure makes them fretful and risk-averse, even timid with controversial issues. Rather than standing on the fundamental values that define American conservativism such as fiscal restraint, limited government, low taxes and free markets, they sidestep and tap-dance, befuddled by the "bi-partisan" opiates peddled by Socialist Democrats.
Socialist calls for "bipartisanship" are a trick conservatives fall for again and again, a tool they use to undermine us; they do not pretend to follow it. So why do we listen to political traitors like Colin Powell or fence-sitting bureaucrats like Tom Ridge? Why do we give the advice of "big tent" moderates any credence? Because our opponents tell us to, and, like fools, we listen.
It is fashionable in elite Republican circles to turn up your nose when Limbaugh is mentioned, he is so embarrassingly proletarian, so annoyingly common, and he has no Ivy League pedigree. He is "divisive," he is "offensive," he is "polarizing;" in short; he is a hell of a lot more effective than the gang in charge that let the opposition define the issues and the debate.
When you don't fight back, you lose.
Either you believe in your principles or you do not. If not, you might as well go the way of the wretched Arlen Specter. You fight honorably, but you fight to win, because the alternative is a failed America. There is not much time, 2010 is our last chance.
Once the trillions in stimulus fill the Democrat party coffers and cement their cronies into government, the nation is theirs, and just like the title on James Carville's newest book proclaims, ‘40 More Years, How The Democrats will Rule the Next Generation,' we will be powerless to stop the destruction of our institutions.
And yes, Carville used the word Rule. Not serve the nation, not govern, not lead, but rule... [snip]
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"
Samuel Adams
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Liberal Blogs/Radio Quickly Link Doctor’s Murder to Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck
"A so-called Pro-Life activist took, cowardly, the life of doctor George Tiller, this sunday, while he was attending to a church service. I bet Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the other will praise the killer since "he only killed a liberullllllll" according to them..."
The incredible leap from the death of George Tiller, to three leading conservative talk show hosts is shocking to people who make their home here on Earth.
More stunning is that this posting was allowed to present the statement - "he only killed a liberullllllll" according to them - as if it is a quote drawn from one of their shows.
I would challenge the author, Lauren Monica, or anyone at the Daily Kos to present an audio copy of any of these conservative talk show hosts in which they heap praise upon a killer because, "he only killed a liberullllllll".
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Oppression Liberators Need not Apply
This is a job announcement from the website of one of America’s top inner-city public charter schools located in Oakland, California (no kidding):
“AIPCS is always in search of teachers and staff who are smart, ambitious, and
motivated to teach inner-city youth. We are looking for hard working people who
believe in free market capitalism to join our family at AIPCS.
“AIPCS believes in setting a high standard for ALL students regardless of race, ethnicity, language, economic standing, etc.”
“Multi-cultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots, and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply.”
“If you believe ‘hard work’ is the key to academic success for minority students, poor students, and all other students, we encourage you to submit the following documents by fax or email.”
Let me get this straight. An inner-city public charter school job announcement specifically discriminates against the following applicants: socialists, multiculturalists, “ultra liberal zealots, and college-tainted oppression liberators.”
Takes your breath away doesn’t it? In a time when white conservatives have been viciously abused for merely thinking along these lines, the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland openly and courageously protects its young students from America’s mostly harmful liberal educrats. The result is a flourishing academic environment that produces some of California’s top scores and manages to send its students to places like MIT and Cornell.
Although AIPCS started out in the late 90’s with a multicultural and Native American motif its lagging performance changed when the school was taken over in 2000 by Ben Chavis, a Lumbee Indian who tossed out the “basket weaving” in his words and decided to go traditional. In a recent Los Angeles Times story, Chavis demonstrates little patience for teachers who make the classroom an ideological bully pulpit instead of a place where the kids come first:
"You think the Jews and the Chinese are dumb enough to ask the public school to teach them their culture?"
Chavis, in other words, has exposed a nasty little secret the liberal educrats would like to keep well-hidden. Here it is: compassionate teachers are those who are hard on their students and who train the kids to be independent and successful. Selfish teachers are those who arrest the development of young minds by using the classroom to affirm their own political beliefs. In short, one group thinks about others and the other group thinks about power.
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Family Axes Wedding Plans, Egyptian Cuts Off Penis
[Only under blue-humor because I've no idea where else to put it...]
A 25-year-old Egyptian man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family, police reported Sunday. After unsuccessfully petitioning his father for two years to marry the girl, the man heated up a knife and sliced off his reproductive organ, said a police official.
[I pride myself in being in a minority (these days) in standing on principle even when it costs me something - but, but --- damn. Death before dishonor but --- damn. {that's about as eloquent as I can be - sorry.} --- {damn}]
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