By David Harsanyi
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Democrats will often get irritable when some clingy philistine refers to Obamacare as "socialized medicine." It's simply not a precise phrase for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In any event, it's not socialized yet, you ignoramuses! Progress doesn't happen overnight. No worries, though, recent signs portend that Obamacare will give us the state-run plan we proles deserve.
A new study published in McKinsey Quarterly claims that in 2014, the provisions of Obamacare will induce 3 in 10 employers to "definitely or probably" stop offering health coverage to their employees. And we can only assume the companies have had the good sense not to read the legislation.
Sure, the president promised we could keep our insurance if we liked it. But why would you want to be mixed up with pitiless corporations that focus on profits, anyway? Obamacare courageously forces states to implement concocted "exchanges" so that someone much smarter than you can pick participants, regulate prices and keep an eye on things. Sounds like a vigorous marketplace. It's only a wonder that more Americans aren't clamoring for government-run supermarkets, smartphones and dating exchanges, as well.
You'll also recall that the un-socialized system allowed 20, 30, 40 million (please feel free to come up with any number you'd like; The New York Times won't care) people to go uninsured. Medicare's chief actuary estimated that 400,000 would sign up for these high-risk pools before Obamacare kicked in. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the budget would be able to handle 200,000, and others claimed that the program would need eight times the funding to meet demand. This was the driving reason for Obamacare. But as Megan McArdle of The Atlantic points out, just as with the exchanges, folks have been standoffish, with only about 18,000 people signing up.
Victory, right? The success of a government handout is always measured by how little Americans need to use it, right? Well, judging from the food stamp administration's actions, that would be a big no. What this probably calls out for is more public service announcements or a wider net. Hey, we'll just get some toffee-nosed yacht jockeys to offset the cost.
That's not to say there aren't people out there who really need support. The president has generously handed out nearly 1,400 Obamacare waivers to the neediest among us. About 20 percent of them have been awarded to an upmarket district in San Francisco that, by pure chance, is represented by Nancy Pelosi. Others, such as the AARP and local unions, had demanded we pass Obamacare so they could not take part in it immediately.
We'll also soon be hearing more about the lawsuits challenging Obamacare's individual mandate. Randy Barnett, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center, recently asked, "If Congress can impose this economic mandate on the people, what can't it mandate the people to buy?" Everything and nothing. And that's the beauty of it.
And let's not forget it was Obama, the newfound holy savior of Medicare, who pinned the key cost control component of health care reform on Medicare through his Independent Payment Advisory Board, or what bitter righties call a rationing board.
Rationing boards. Political favors. Lies. Coercion. Broken promises. Precedents that can force us to buy about anything. It might not be socialism, technically speaking. But really, what's not to like?
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Leftist Lies and the Media That Enable Them
By Robert Knight
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
You might have seen the vicious Mediscare video by now entitled “America the Beautiful.” If you haven’t, you should. It’s from folks who just the other day were chanting the mantra of “civility.” It’s a taste of what the left will be serving up as 2012 approaches.
As the song “America the Beautiful” plays, a man in a dark suit with a likeness to Republican Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) pushes an elderly woman in a wheelchair down a sidewalk. The message on the screen informs us that the Republican Medicare reform proposal will “privatize” Medicare. The man diverts to a steep path as the woman’s smile turns to terror. She fights as he pushes her faster. He then dumps her headfirst off a cliff, which we see clearly from the front. The only thing missing is a vampire giving her a hickey on the way down.
Not since Barry Goldwater was smeared in 1964 with the famous "little girl with daisy and mushroom cloud" TV ad has there been such bald-faced character assassination.
The ad was produced by The Agenda Project, a leftist group that earlier made a similarly nasty Tea Party video whose title includes the f-word, and also "Hate Begets Hate", a hateful assault on public figures who oppose the Cordoba House Mosque at Ground Zero in New York City. That one has little Muslim girls crying and being comforted while photos of big, bad (and even some liberal) politicians are quoted. This is propaganda at its rawest. No, wait. They topped it with that lady pushed over a cliff.
The good news is that the left knows that more and more Americans are onto them. So they’re resorting to more desperate tactics. The bad news is that, absent a traditional press corps to keep them honest, they’re still getting away with it. But their days may be numbered. A rising class of conservative sleuths such as Lila Rose, Hannah Giles, James O’Keefe, CNS News reporters, the Washington Times’ Kerry Pickett and author Ben Shapiro are using the new media to great advantage, exposing Planned Parenthood, Hollywood and lying liberal politicians.
The playing field has never been fair. The Left has a broader palette from which to color public opinion. They can use truth if that works, or lies if that works. As Karl Marx said, “the ends justify the means.”
Conservatives have to tell only the truth for a couple of reasons. First, there's the commandment not to bear false witness. When you lie, you’re messing with God Almighty, not just the people you’re fooling. This is not something that most secular leftists lose sleep over. Second, if you’re a conservative, you wouldn't get away with it. The media would pursue it mercilessly instead of ignoring it or covering it up.
Over the years, leftist lies and media complicity have done enormous damage. In 1931, New York Times Moscow Bureau Chief Walter Duranty parroted Soviet propaganda while Joseph Stalin systematically starved, shot and tortured to death his opponents. Duranty, who won the Times’ first Pulitzer Prize in 1932, looked the other way when Stalin in 1932-1933 forcibly starved to death millions of Ukrainians. Duranty even went so far as to denounce reports of famine by other journalists. British reporter Malcolm Muggeridge, who reported on the famine for The Guardian, called Duranty "the greatest liar I have met in journalism." Stalin went on to murder millions more in Russia, and Franklin Roosevelt referred to him as "Uncle Joe."
Twice, the Pulitzer board has refused to rescind the award despite pleas from Ukrainian groups and a recommendation to do that from an independent report solicited by the New York Times and given to the board. You have to wonder what it would take.
Sometimes, the nature of the crime is reckless denial. Like Obama declaring that under Obamacare, we can keep the health coverage we have now.
Or Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Barney Frank telling a House committee in 2004 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in no danger: "I don’t see anything in this report that raises safety and soundness problems." Other Democrats accused the Bush Administration of bad motives and even racism for demanding more accountability.
Later, after the "affordable" mortgage-driven housing bubble burst in 2008, driving the economy into the worst recession since the Great Depression, Democrats blamed private "greed" and lack of government oversight. Of course, people can be spectacularly wrong without intending to lie. But either way, why is Barney Frank continuing to make financial policy for the United States?
Sometimes a technically true statement can function as a lie, such as the misleading caption on an Associated Press photo of Sarah Palin during her visit to Haiti in December 2010. Palin’s daughter Bristol is adjusting some strands of her mother’s hair. Here’s how the caption reads: “Sarah Palin, center, has her hair done during a visit to a cholera treatment center .…” This implies that she brought a hairdresser in her entourage, flaunting her before the stricken Haitians. Can anyone say "Marie Antoinette?"
Finally, the mother of all lies was hatched at the U.S. Supreme Court about the circumstances of the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade (1973). Norma McCorvey, who was “Jane Roe,” had not been raped as she had alleged. She revealed this in her 1994 autobiography, I Am Roe. Meanwhile, the Roe decision, combined with the Doe v. Bolton ruling the same day, has destroyed the Declaration of Independence’s guarantee of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for more than 50 million unborn aborted children and caused harm to millions of women. It’s also done enormous damage to the rule of law, with the majority of justices in Roe ignoring the constitutional division of authority and applying what Justice Byron White’s Doe dissent termed “raw judicial power.”
From pushing fictional elderly ladies over cliffs, misreporting atrocities, distorting research and fudging the facts in landmark cases, the left marches on, confident that the media will not look too closely, ask too many questions or stop acting like cheerleaders.
Conservatives and, it is hoped, honest liberals, will need to be more aggressive and have faith that telling the truth is the right thing to do. We have it on good authority that "the truth will make you free."
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
You might have seen the vicious Mediscare video by now entitled “America the Beautiful.” If you haven’t, you should. It’s from folks who just the other day were chanting the mantra of “civility.” It’s a taste of what the left will be serving up as 2012 approaches.
As the song “America the Beautiful” plays, a man in a dark suit with a likeness to Republican Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) pushes an elderly woman in a wheelchair down a sidewalk. The message on the screen informs us that the Republican Medicare reform proposal will “privatize” Medicare. The man diverts to a steep path as the woman’s smile turns to terror. She fights as he pushes her faster. He then dumps her headfirst off a cliff, which we see clearly from the front. The only thing missing is a vampire giving her a hickey on the way down.
Not since Barry Goldwater was smeared in 1964 with the famous "little girl with daisy and mushroom cloud" TV ad has there been such bald-faced character assassination.
The ad was produced by The Agenda Project, a leftist group that earlier made a similarly nasty Tea Party video whose title includes the f-word, and also "Hate Begets Hate", a hateful assault on public figures who oppose the Cordoba House Mosque at Ground Zero in New York City. That one has little Muslim girls crying and being comforted while photos of big, bad (and even some liberal) politicians are quoted. This is propaganda at its rawest. No, wait. They topped it with that lady pushed over a cliff.
The good news is that the left knows that more and more Americans are onto them. So they’re resorting to more desperate tactics. The bad news is that, absent a traditional press corps to keep them honest, they’re still getting away with it. But their days may be numbered. A rising class of conservative sleuths such as Lila Rose, Hannah Giles, James O’Keefe, CNS News reporters, the Washington Times’ Kerry Pickett and author Ben Shapiro are using the new media to great advantage, exposing Planned Parenthood, Hollywood and lying liberal politicians.
The playing field has never been fair. The Left has a broader palette from which to color public opinion. They can use truth if that works, or lies if that works. As Karl Marx said, “the ends justify the means.”
Conservatives have to tell only the truth for a couple of reasons. First, there's the commandment not to bear false witness. When you lie, you’re messing with God Almighty, not just the people you’re fooling. This is not something that most secular leftists lose sleep over. Second, if you’re a conservative, you wouldn't get away with it. The media would pursue it mercilessly instead of ignoring it or covering it up.
Over the years, leftist lies and media complicity have done enormous damage. In 1931, New York Times Moscow Bureau Chief Walter Duranty parroted Soviet propaganda while Joseph Stalin systematically starved, shot and tortured to death his opponents. Duranty, who won the Times’ first Pulitzer Prize in 1932, looked the other way when Stalin in 1932-1933 forcibly starved to death millions of Ukrainians. Duranty even went so far as to denounce reports of famine by other journalists. British reporter Malcolm Muggeridge, who reported on the famine for The Guardian, called Duranty "the greatest liar I have met in journalism." Stalin went on to murder millions more in Russia, and Franklin Roosevelt referred to him as "Uncle Joe."
Twice, the Pulitzer board has refused to rescind the award despite pleas from Ukrainian groups and a recommendation to do that from an independent report solicited by the New York Times and given to the board. You have to wonder what it would take.
Sometimes, the nature of the crime is reckless denial. Like Obama declaring that under Obamacare, we can keep the health coverage we have now.
Or Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Barney Frank telling a House committee in 2004 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in no danger: "I don’t see anything in this report that raises safety and soundness problems." Other Democrats accused the Bush Administration of bad motives and even racism for demanding more accountability.
Later, after the "affordable" mortgage-driven housing bubble burst in 2008, driving the economy into the worst recession since the Great Depression, Democrats blamed private "greed" and lack of government oversight. Of course, people can be spectacularly wrong without intending to lie. But either way, why is Barney Frank continuing to make financial policy for the United States?
Sometimes a technically true statement can function as a lie, such as the misleading caption on an Associated Press photo of Sarah Palin during her visit to Haiti in December 2010. Palin’s daughter Bristol is adjusting some strands of her mother’s hair. Here’s how the caption reads: “Sarah Palin, center, has her hair done during a visit to a cholera treatment center .…” This implies that she brought a hairdresser in her entourage, flaunting her before the stricken Haitians. Can anyone say "Marie Antoinette?"
Finally, the mother of all lies was hatched at the U.S. Supreme Court about the circumstances of the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade (1973). Norma McCorvey, who was “Jane Roe,” had not been raped as she had alleged. She revealed this in her 1994 autobiography, I Am Roe. Meanwhile, the Roe decision, combined with the Doe v. Bolton ruling the same day, has destroyed the Declaration of Independence’s guarantee of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for more than 50 million unborn aborted children and caused harm to millions of women. It’s also done enormous damage to the rule of law, with the majority of justices in Roe ignoring the constitutional division of authority and applying what Justice Byron White’s Doe dissent termed “raw judicial power.”
From pushing fictional elderly ladies over cliffs, misreporting atrocities, distorting research and fudging the facts in landmark cases, the left marches on, confident that the media will not look too closely, ask too many questions or stop acting like cheerleaders.
Conservatives and, it is hoped, honest liberals, will need to be more aggressive and have faith that telling the truth is the right thing to do. We have it on good authority that "the truth will make you free."
Bush Did It! Bush Didn’t Do It!
President Obama remains haunted by the specter of President Bush.
Victor Davis Hanson
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
During the 2008 campaign Barack Obama ran more against lame-duck President Bush than against his Republican opponent, John McCain. The campaign is now long over, and yet President Obama still seems haunted by the ghost of his predecessor. Last week, for example, he was railing at the Bush phantom, whom he blamed for his received economic mess. In the world of Barack Obama everything he inherited was someone else’s fault — unless he believes past policies offer him some advantage and thus are to be claimed as entirely his own.
The stock market is sliding. Gas and food prices are soaring. The housing market is as bad as it has been for the last three years. Unemployment is back over 9 percent. Economic growth is anemic. The national debt has risen $5 trillion in just three years. This year’s $1.6 trillion budget deficit is not stimulating anything but uncertainty and despair. Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable at present rates of payouts. Record numbers of Americans draw food stamps and unemployment insurance. An unpopular Obamacare has not even been implemented yet, and the administration has already granted 1,400 exemptions from it.
In other words, much as Jimmy Carter took the hard times of 1975–76 and turned them into the mess of high interest, high inflation, high unemployment, and high gas prices — while blaming the American people for their malaise — so too Barack Obama has made almost everything worse and is getting angrier at other people and events (the European meltdown, the Japanese tsunami, the Middle Eastern unrest) in the process.
The administration’s massive borrowing, new regulations, promised higher taxes, opposition to new oil leases and pipelines, takeovers (from GM and Chrysler to health care), and rhetorical assault on the successful in private enterprise have turned a bottoming-out recession into a near-permanent slump. Those with capital do not want to invest in new workers or equipment because they believe the president does not like them, in the sense that he will raise taxes to take away their hard-won profits, or will impose some sort of new regulation — like Obamacare or prohibitions against opening factories in right-to-work states — to make profits impossible. The result is that they have been for two years largely sitting out this “recovery,” as the economic witch-doctors — Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, Larry Summers — come and go.
Meanwhile, Obama serially faults the Bush policies of 2008, not his own of 2009–11 — something that becomes ever more difficult as the Bush administration’s average unemployment rate, GDP growth, deficits, and gas prices now seem not all that bad. And to the degree that economists fault Bush for the financial meltdown of 2008, they have cited his excessive federal spending, government intrusion into the housing market, and chronic budget deficits — just those areas where Obama has trumped Bush and turned his misdemeanors into felonies.
Sometimes Obama’s obsession with Bush’s ghost is more implicit. Take national security. He has quite boldly embraced and expanded all the Bush protocols he once trashed, largely because he has discovered that Guantanamo, tribunals, renditions, preventive detention, the Patriot Act, and Predator drones keep terrorists away from the United States. Yet to this day, Obama has not told the American people why renditions used to be bad and are now acceptable, or why the Bush Predator-drone program of targeted assassinations was wrong but needed to be quintupled. Instead, he makes it clear that a President Obama would have absolutely no patience with someone like a griping Senator Obama.
Obama has not changed the Bush-Petraeus plan for Iraq — but has never explained why he once denounced what he now advocates. Now the president has dropped his former multicultural reaching-out to the theocracy in Iran and the dictatorship in Syria. But again, what caused the reversion to the Bush-era distrust of these awful regimes? Has Obama matured in other areas, in the fashion that he recently confessed that his opposition to raising the debt ceiling in 2006 was the sort of irresponsible politicking that he now deplores in others?
When George Bush was president, promoting democracy was derided as an arrogant neoconservative imposition of our values onto different cultures. Now pushing democracy in the Arab world is called advocacy for human rights. Yet once more, Obama never explains why he channels the prior president’s policies without even the barest reference to his name.
Obama knows the media are invested in his success. Therefore he feels no urgency to explain to the public why policies enacted years ago deserve blame for their failures and receive no praise for their successes. It is almost as if Obama on some days claims, “Bush did it,” while on others insisting, “Bush didn’t do it.”
The young president, you see, cannot help it. He is haunted by the ghost of a president past.
Victor Davis Hanson
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
During the 2008 campaign Barack Obama ran more against lame-duck President Bush than against his Republican opponent, John McCain. The campaign is now long over, and yet President Obama still seems haunted by the ghost of his predecessor. Last week, for example, he was railing at the Bush phantom, whom he blamed for his received economic mess. In the world of Barack Obama everything he inherited was someone else’s fault — unless he believes past policies offer him some advantage and thus are to be claimed as entirely his own.
The stock market is sliding. Gas and food prices are soaring. The housing market is as bad as it has been for the last three years. Unemployment is back over 9 percent. Economic growth is anemic. The national debt has risen $5 trillion in just three years. This year’s $1.6 trillion budget deficit is not stimulating anything but uncertainty and despair. Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable at present rates of payouts. Record numbers of Americans draw food stamps and unemployment insurance. An unpopular Obamacare has not even been implemented yet, and the administration has already granted 1,400 exemptions from it.
In other words, much as Jimmy Carter took the hard times of 1975–76 and turned them into the mess of high interest, high inflation, high unemployment, and high gas prices — while blaming the American people for their malaise — so too Barack Obama has made almost everything worse and is getting angrier at other people and events (the European meltdown, the Japanese tsunami, the Middle Eastern unrest) in the process.
The administration’s massive borrowing, new regulations, promised higher taxes, opposition to new oil leases and pipelines, takeovers (from GM and Chrysler to health care), and rhetorical assault on the successful in private enterprise have turned a bottoming-out recession into a near-permanent slump. Those with capital do not want to invest in new workers or equipment because they believe the president does not like them, in the sense that he will raise taxes to take away their hard-won profits, or will impose some sort of new regulation — like Obamacare or prohibitions against opening factories in right-to-work states — to make profits impossible. The result is that they have been for two years largely sitting out this “recovery,” as the economic witch-doctors — Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, Larry Summers — come and go.
Meanwhile, Obama serially faults the Bush policies of 2008, not his own of 2009–11 — something that becomes ever more difficult as the Bush administration’s average unemployment rate, GDP growth, deficits, and gas prices now seem not all that bad. And to the degree that economists fault Bush for the financial meltdown of 2008, they have cited his excessive federal spending, government intrusion into the housing market, and chronic budget deficits — just those areas where Obama has trumped Bush and turned his misdemeanors into felonies.
Sometimes Obama’s obsession with Bush’s ghost is more implicit. Take national security. He has quite boldly embraced and expanded all the Bush protocols he once trashed, largely because he has discovered that Guantanamo, tribunals, renditions, preventive detention, the Patriot Act, and Predator drones keep terrorists away from the United States. Yet to this day, Obama has not told the American people why renditions used to be bad and are now acceptable, or why the Bush Predator-drone program of targeted assassinations was wrong but needed to be quintupled. Instead, he makes it clear that a President Obama would have absolutely no patience with someone like a griping Senator Obama.
Obama has not changed the Bush-Petraeus plan for Iraq — but has never explained why he once denounced what he now advocates. Now the president has dropped his former multicultural reaching-out to the theocracy in Iran and the dictatorship in Syria. But again, what caused the reversion to the Bush-era distrust of these awful regimes? Has Obama matured in other areas, in the fashion that he recently confessed that his opposition to raising the debt ceiling in 2006 was the sort of irresponsible politicking that he now deplores in others?
When George Bush was president, promoting democracy was derided as an arrogant neoconservative imposition of our values onto different cultures. Now pushing democracy in the Arab world is called advocacy for human rights. Yet once more, Obama never explains why he channels the prior president’s policies without even the barest reference to his name.
Obama knows the media are invested in his success. Therefore he feels no urgency to explain to the public why policies enacted years ago deserve blame for their failures and receive no praise for their successes. It is almost as if Obama on some days claims, “Bush did it,” while on others insisting, “Bush didn’t do it.”
The young president, you see, cannot help it. He is haunted by the ghost of a president past.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Accusation that Voter ID Is Racist Demeans Blacks
By Dennis Prager
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
While dining out last week, I periodically looked up at one of the television monitors to see the score of the first game of the NBA finals. As there was no sound on to interrupt diners' conversations, the monitor was in caption mode: One could read rather than hear the words spoken. At the conclusion of the game, an announcer was interviewing a member of the victorious Miami Heat players. I saw from the captions the player saying the words "they isn't."
Closed captions display the words spoken. They don't correct for poor grammar.
All I could think was: How can a grown man in America today say "they isn't" rather than "they aren't"?
First, how is it possible for anyone to graduate an American elementary school, not to mention a high school or, most incredibly, attend college, and leave with an inability to conjugate the verb "to be"?
Second, has anyone -- a parent or another relative, a teacher, a friend, a coach -- in that player's life ever corrected his grammar?
I assume that the answer to the second question is "No."
And I assume that the answers to both questions are related: The left, which dominates our culture and educational institutions, has too often lowered standards for black Americans. Even worse, it has declared that if you are black, "they isn't" is not only not to be corrected, but many in academia have declared it an acceptable form of English, i.e., Ebonics, or Black English.
It doesn't end.
I saw "they isn't" the same week the Democrats and others on the left virtually unanimously condemned all Republican attempts in state legislatures to pass legislation requiring voters to show a photo ID. The Democrats labeled it a means of "disenfranchising" blacks. Many Democrats compared it to Jim Crow laws.
"Jim Crow, move over -- the Wisconsin Republicans have taken your place," charged Wisconsin Democratic State Sen. Bob Jauch, referring to his state's new voter ID law.
It is hard to imagine a more demeaning statement about black America than labeling demands that all voters show a photo ID anti-black.
This is easily demonstrated. Imagine if some Democratic politician had announced that demanding a photo ID at the voting booth was an attempt to keep Jewish Americans from voting. No one would understand what the person was talking about. But why not? Jews vote almost as lopsidedly Democrat as do blacks. So why weren't Jews included in liberal objections to voter ID laws?
We all know the answer. Jews are generally considered intelligent and therefore no one would assume that obtaining a photo ID was demanding too much of even poor Jews (yes, there are poor Jews). Therefore, one can only infer that the argument that demanding photo ID for voting will disenfranchise many blacks suggests that many blacks lack the capacity to obtain a photo ID.
If that is not a legitimate inference, then only one other inference is possible: The argument is made solely in order to score political points by portraying black Americans as victims of Republican racism. Of course, that argument simply takes us back to the original question: Why does requiring a photo ID to vote prevent blacks from voting?
It is, however, effective. Calling Republicans racist has worked for half a century and will not be abandoned until it is universally recognized as the libel that it is.
What we have in both instances -- the poor grammar that too many blacks use and the argument that demanding a photo ID is too hard on blacks -- is not Republican racism. What we have are two more examples of the destructive consequences of leftist policies on black America.
It is difficult to overstate the negative impact making lesser demands on individuals, especially members of select groups, has on them. The message is as clear as day: We expect less of you. Why? Because we think less of you.
Do most of those on the left really think less of black Americans?
Given the lack of demands, given the rationalization for poor speech (before the left took over education, both blacks and whites spoke and wrote far better), given the advocacy of lowering standards for blacks from everything from civil service tests to college admissions and given other examples, it is hard not to conclude that many on the left really do think black Americans are not equally capable of excellence (outside of sports and entertainment). It is what George W. Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
If this is not the case, there are two other explanations.
One is guilt. White liberals are so filled with guilt over historic American maltreatment of blacks that they have somehow concluded that making the same demands of blacks as of all other Americans is somehow unfair.
The other is political opportunism -- portray liberals and their policies as the saviors of black Americans. Aside from its constituting cynical exploitation, the problem is that in order to portray oneself as another person's savior, one must portray the other as in need of saving.
Conservative Americans, on the other hand, actually believe there is no difference between black and non-black abilities, and therefore see only harm in depicting a substantial percentage of the black population as essentially incapable of obtaining a photo ID.
Which group has more respect for black Americans? The answer is obvious. And one day, most black Americans will know the real answer to that question. That will be the beginning of the final stage of black liberation, as well as the end of the Democratic Party as we now know it.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
While dining out last week, I periodically looked up at one of the television monitors to see the score of the first game of the NBA finals. As there was no sound on to interrupt diners' conversations, the monitor was in caption mode: One could read rather than hear the words spoken. At the conclusion of the game, an announcer was interviewing a member of the victorious Miami Heat players. I saw from the captions the player saying the words "they isn't."
Closed captions display the words spoken. They don't correct for poor grammar.
All I could think was: How can a grown man in America today say "they isn't" rather than "they aren't"?
First, how is it possible for anyone to graduate an American elementary school, not to mention a high school or, most incredibly, attend college, and leave with an inability to conjugate the verb "to be"?
Second, has anyone -- a parent or another relative, a teacher, a friend, a coach -- in that player's life ever corrected his grammar?
I assume that the answer to the second question is "No."
And I assume that the answers to both questions are related: The left, which dominates our culture and educational institutions, has too often lowered standards for black Americans. Even worse, it has declared that if you are black, "they isn't" is not only not to be corrected, but many in academia have declared it an acceptable form of English, i.e., Ebonics, or Black English.
It doesn't end.
I saw "they isn't" the same week the Democrats and others on the left virtually unanimously condemned all Republican attempts in state legislatures to pass legislation requiring voters to show a photo ID. The Democrats labeled it a means of "disenfranchising" blacks. Many Democrats compared it to Jim Crow laws.
"Jim Crow, move over -- the Wisconsin Republicans have taken your place," charged Wisconsin Democratic State Sen. Bob Jauch, referring to his state's new voter ID law.
It is hard to imagine a more demeaning statement about black America than labeling demands that all voters show a photo ID anti-black.
This is easily demonstrated. Imagine if some Democratic politician had announced that demanding a photo ID at the voting booth was an attempt to keep Jewish Americans from voting. No one would understand what the person was talking about. But why not? Jews vote almost as lopsidedly Democrat as do blacks. So why weren't Jews included in liberal objections to voter ID laws?
We all know the answer. Jews are generally considered intelligent and therefore no one would assume that obtaining a photo ID was demanding too much of even poor Jews (yes, there are poor Jews). Therefore, one can only infer that the argument that demanding photo ID for voting will disenfranchise many blacks suggests that many blacks lack the capacity to obtain a photo ID.
If that is not a legitimate inference, then only one other inference is possible: The argument is made solely in order to score political points by portraying black Americans as victims of Republican racism. Of course, that argument simply takes us back to the original question: Why does requiring a photo ID to vote prevent blacks from voting?
It is, however, effective. Calling Republicans racist has worked for half a century and will not be abandoned until it is universally recognized as the libel that it is.
What we have in both instances -- the poor grammar that too many blacks use and the argument that demanding a photo ID is too hard on blacks -- is not Republican racism. What we have are two more examples of the destructive consequences of leftist policies on black America.
It is difficult to overstate the negative impact making lesser demands on individuals, especially members of select groups, has on them. The message is as clear as day: We expect less of you. Why? Because we think less of you.
Do most of those on the left really think less of black Americans?
Given the lack of demands, given the rationalization for poor speech (before the left took over education, both blacks and whites spoke and wrote far better), given the advocacy of lowering standards for blacks from everything from civil service tests to college admissions and given other examples, it is hard not to conclude that many on the left really do think black Americans are not equally capable of excellence (outside of sports and entertainment). It is what George W. Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
If this is not the case, there are two other explanations.
One is guilt. White liberals are so filled with guilt over historic American maltreatment of blacks that they have somehow concluded that making the same demands of blacks as of all other Americans is somehow unfair.
The other is political opportunism -- portray liberals and their policies as the saviors of black Americans. Aside from its constituting cynical exploitation, the problem is that in order to portray oneself as another person's savior, one must portray the other as in need of saving.
Conservative Americans, on the other hand, actually believe there is no difference between black and non-black abilities, and therefore see only harm in depicting a substantial percentage of the black population as essentially incapable of obtaining a photo ID.
Which group has more respect for black Americans? The answer is obvious. And one day, most black Americans will know the real answer to that question. That will be the beginning of the final stage of black liberation, as well as the end of the Democratic Party as we now know it.
For The Sake Of The Republic, It’s Time To Hold The Mainstream Media Accountable
By Douglas MacKinnon
Monday, June 06, 2011
New York Democrat Anthony Weiner's tortured answers about his "Twitter-gate" episode and the mainstream media's at least initial reluctance to cover the story, speaks volumes not only about the No. 1 obstacle the GOP faces in trying to retake the White House in 2012. It also speaks to the No. 1 obstacle millions of like-minded Americans face as they fight to protect and preserve traditional values, the rule of law, common sense and our sovereign borders.
If you are a Republican, a conservative or an American who does believe in traditional values, you have met the enemy, and it's the mainstream media. Period. Don't take my word for it. Read the verbatim words of two liberal editors.
With regard to the highly negative, unfair and clearly biased treatment John McCain and Sarah Palin received in 2008, John F. Harris and Jim Vandehei, editors of the liberal paper Politico said:
"OK, let's just get this over with: Yes, in the closing weeks of this election, John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting hosed in the press, and at Politico. And, yes, based on a combined 35 years in the news business we'd take an educated guess — nothing so scientific as a Pew study — that Obama will win the votes of probably 80% or more of journalists covering the 2008 election..."
Obama got the votes of 80% or more of "journalists" covering the 2008 election. That in and of itself should be news, but is not. Instead, it's just one of many red flags waved in the face of Republicans, conservatives and those who believe in traditional values who in turn, dismiss this reality with a shrug of their shoulders while saying, "That's the way it is. That's the status quo."
Except it's not just the "status quo." It's a total and deliberate disregard for ethics that is literally jeopardizing the very well-being of our Republic.
It's one thing for the mainstream media to try their best to ignore the curious exploits of Anthony Weiner. It's quite another for them to purposely downplay or ignore our ticking debt-bomb, the unfunded public-employee pensions that are crippling our cities and states, the corrupt teacher's unions that put themselves well before America's children, our porous borders, home-grown terrorism and a host of other subjects which, if reported truthfully, would reflect poorly on their masters in the White House, the unions and the Democrat National Committee. Many in the GOP of today are fatally underestimating the power of today's mainstream media and how effective they can be in helping Team Obama win a second term. A myth has taken hold in the GOP: that because of the Internet, the explosion of conservative bloggers and the still-substantial power of talk radio, that the mainstream media have been marginalized. Bull-feathers. That's just ridiculous and is believed by those who don't have a clue about what real Americans have to deal with every day in their real lives.
The fact of the matter is that — precisely because of liberal ideology gone wrong — most Americans are stretched more thinly than ever before. As such, most don't have the time to read or track down their favorite conservative blogger or talk show to find out the "truth" about the harm the Obama White House is inflicting upon our nation.
Most Americans have to use their waking hours to work, feed their kids, work a second job, drive their kids to practice and sometimes work a third job. Knowing that, I believe that at least 80% of the American people still get about 80% of their "news" from the mainstream media — be that media the three major networks or the top 100 newspapers in the nation, media that are about 100% in the bag for President Obama.
The liberal mainstream media's reluctance to cover the Weiner story is the status quo. But it's also something much more. It's a timely reminder that their compromised and unprincipled behavior is putting us all in danger.
When do we finally accept and deal with that pervasive menace?
Monday, June 06, 2011
New York Democrat Anthony Weiner's tortured answers about his "Twitter-gate" episode and the mainstream media's at least initial reluctance to cover the story, speaks volumes not only about the No. 1 obstacle the GOP faces in trying to retake the White House in 2012. It also speaks to the No. 1 obstacle millions of like-minded Americans face as they fight to protect and preserve traditional values, the rule of law, common sense and our sovereign borders.
If you are a Republican, a conservative or an American who does believe in traditional values, you have met the enemy, and it's the mainstream media. Period. Don't take my word for it. Read the verbatim words of two liberal editors.
With regard to the highly negative, unfair and clearly biased treatment John McCain and Sarah Palin received in 2008, John F. Harris and Jim Vandehei, editors of the liberal paper Politico said:
"OK, let's just get this over with: Yes, in the closing weeks of this election, John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting hosed in the press, and at Politico. And, yes, based on a combined 35 years in the news business we'd take an educated guess — nothing so scientific as a Pew study — that Obama will win the votes of probably 80% or more of journalists covering the 2008 election..."
Obama got the votes of 80% or more of "journalists" covering the 2008 election. That in and of itself should be news, but is not. Instead, it's just one of many red flags waved in the face of Republicans, conservatives and those who believe in traditional values who in turn, dismiss this reality with a shrug of their shoulders while saying, "That's the way it is. That's the status quo."
Except it's not just the "status quo." It's a total and deliberate disregard for ethics that is literally jeopardizing the very well-being of our Republic.
It's one thing for the mainstream media to try their best to ignore the curious exploits of Anthony Weiner. It's quite another for them to purposely downplay or ignore our ticking debt-bomb, the unfunded public-employee pensions that are crippling our cities and states, the corrupt teacher's unions that put themselves well before America's children, our porous borders, home-grown terrorism and a host of other subjects which, if reported truthfully, would reflect poorly on their masters in the White House, the unions and the Democrat National Committee. Many in the GOP of today are fatally underestimating the power of today's mainstream media and how effective they can be in helping Team Obama win a second term. A myth has taken hold in the GOP: that because of the Internet, the explosion of conservative bloggers and the still-substantial power of talk radio, that the mainstream media have been marginalized. Bull-feathers. That's just ridiculous and is believed by those who don't have a clue about what real Americans have to deal with every day in their real lives.
The fact of the matter is that — precisely because of liberal ideology gone wrong — most Americans are stretched more thinly than ever before. As such, most don't have the time to read or track down their favorite conservative blogger or talk show to find out the "truth" about the harm the Obama White House is inflicting upon our nation.
Most Americans have to use their waking hours to work, feed their kids, work a second job, drive their kids to practice and sometimes work a third job. Knowing that, I believe that at least 80% of the American people still get about 80% of their "news" from the mainstream media — be that media the three major networks or the top 100 newspapers in the nation, media that are about 100% in the bag for President Obama.
The liberal mainstream media's reluctance to cover the Weiner story is the status quo. But it's also something much more. It's a timely reminder that their compromised and unprincipled behavior is putting us all in danger.
When do we finally accept and deal with that pervasive menace?
Obama Kills the War Powers Act
His views on the limits of executive power didn’t survive contact with the presidency.
Rich Lowry
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Somewhere, Richard Nixon is smiling. In 1973, he vetoed the War Powers Act, insisting that it was unconstitutional. Congress overrode him, but almost every one of Nixon’s successors has agreed with his assessment of the resolution.
It took Pres. Barack Obama, though, to rip the War Powers Act into little pieces and sprinkle it over his Libyan intervention like the confetti in a premature victory parade.
The thrust of the War Powers Act is clear enough: Sixty days after reporting the start of a military intervention, the president must secure congressional authorization or a declaration of war, or remove our forces. Presidents have typically acted “consistent with,” but not “pursuant to,” the law’s provisions — basically, humoring Congress while never conceding the law’s constitutional legitimacy.
President Obama is dispensing with all pretense. He’s simply ignoring the law. This is the kind of highhandedness that Dick Cheney was always accused of, although the Bush administration was old-fashioned enough to get prior congressional approval of its wars.
Obama launched the Libya War on his say-so, and doesn’t even want to bother to explain to Congress why the War Powers Act doesn’t apply to a conflict begun some 80 days ago. On Libya, the Obama administration is making a gigantic rude gesture to Congress and all the liberal professors and national-security experts who have made such a fetish of the War Powers Act through the years.
Before tangling with Moammar Qaddafi, Obama counted himself among their number. As a senator, he maintained, “The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
President Obama joins a long list of presidents going back to Thomas Jefferson whose views of the limits of executive power didn’t survive their first contact with the presidency.
President Obama isn’t doing his reputation for consistency or the legal theories of his supporters any favors, but he is paying a backhanded compliment to the Constitution. The War Powers Act is an excrescence on the American constitutional order that deserves to be the dead letter that President Obama is making it. The president’s inherent powers as commander in chief do not depend on affirmative acts of Congress.
What Congress can do is wield its own powers — most decisively, the appropriation of funds — to limit or end a military action. Of course, Congress usually refuses to do that, since it involves an action for which it could be held politically accountable. Predictably, the grand confrontation between the legislative and executive branches over Libya has been an instance of the cowardly fighting the disingenuous.
The Obama administration implausibly pretends that the president’s posture hasn’t changed on the War Powers Act. A spokesman argues that its briefings of members of Congress constitute compliance. But the resolution doesn’t call for collegial chats after 60 days. The administration’s other possible defenses — that Libya isn’t really a war, that it’s a piddling war, that we are “leading from behind” — don’t help, either. The act doesn’t make exceptions for small, euphemistic wars waged under NATO auspices by reluctant presidents.
If this were the Bush administration, Nancy Pelosi would be agitating for impeachment. Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman has written in despair that “Obama is breaking new ground, moving decisively beyond his predecessors.” At this rate, he notes, “history will say that the War Powers Act was condemned to a quiet death by a president who had solemnly pledged, on the campaign trail, to put an end to indiscriminate warmaking.”
History comes full circle. In the aftermath of Vietnam and the midst of Watergate, liberal Democrats passed the War Powers Act as part of a broad assault on presidential powers. The act reached the end of the line with a liberal Democrat in the White House, who wanted to avail himself of the full sweep of his powers. No doubt, Nixon wouldn’t just relish the result, but appreciate the irony.
Rich Lowry
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Somewhere, Richard Nixon is smiling. In 1973, he vetoed the War Powers Act, insisting that it was unconstitutional. Congress overrode him, but almost every one of Nixon’s successors has agreed with his assessment of the resolution.
It took Pres. Barack Obama, though, to rip the War Powers Act into little pieces and sprinkle it over his Libyan intervention like the confetti in a premature victory parade.
The thrust of the War Powers Act is clear enough: Sixty days after reporting the start of a military intervention, the president must secure congressional authorization or a declaration of war, or remove our forces. Presidents have typically acted “consistent with,” but not “pursuant to,” the law’s provisions — basically, humoring Congress while never conceding the law’s constitutional legitimacy.
President Obama is dispensing with all pretense. He’s simply ignoring the law. This is the kind of highhandedness that Dick Cheney was always accused of, although the Bush administration was old-fashioned enough to get prior congressional approval of its wars.
Obama launched the Libya War on his say-so, and doesn’t even want to bother to explain to Congress why the War Powers Act doesn’t apply to a conflict begun some 80 days ago. On Libya, the Obama administration is making a gigantic rude gesture to Congress and all the liberal professors and national-security experts who have made such a fetish of the War Powers Act through the years.
Before tangling with Moammar Qaddafi, Obama counted himself among their number. As a senator, he maintained, “The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
President Obama joins a long list of presidents going back to Thomas Jefferson whose views of the limits of executive power didn’t survive their first contact with the presidency.
President Obama isn’t doing his reputation for consistency or the legal theories of his supporters any favors, but he is paying a backhanded compliment to the Constitution. The War Powers Act is an excrescence on the American constitutional order that deserves to be the dead letter that President Obama is making it. The president’s inherent powers as commander in chief do not depend on affirmative acts of Congress.
What Congress can do is wield its own powers — most decisively, the appropriation of funds — to limit or end a military action. Of course, Congress usually refuses to do that, since it involves an action for which it could be held politically accountable. Predictably, the grand confrontation between the legislative and executive branches over Libya has been an instance of the cowardly fighting the disingenuous.
The Obama administration implausibly pretends that the president’s posture hasn’t changed on the War Powers Act. A spokesman argues that its briefings of members of Congress constitute compliance. But the resolution doesn’t call for collegial chats after 60 days. The administration’s other possible defenses — that Libya isn’t really a war, that it’s a piddling war, that we are “leading from behind” — don’t help, either. The act doesn’t make exceptions for small, euphemistic wars waged under NATO auspices by reluctant presidents.
If this were the Bush administration, Nancy Pelosi would be agitating for impeachment. Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman has written in despair that “Obama is breaking new ground, moving decisively beyond his predecessors.” At this rate, he notes, “history will say that the War Powers Act was condemned to a quiet death by a president who had solemnly pledged, on the campaign trail, to put an end to indiscriminate warmaking.”
History comes full circle. In the aftermath of Vietnam and the midst of Watergate, liberal Democrats passed the War Powers Act as part of a broad assault on presidential powers. The act reached the end of the line with a liberal Democrat in the White House, who wanted to avail himself of the full sweep of his powers. No doubt, Nixon wouldn’t just relish the result, but appreciate the irony.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Unsurprising Jobs Numbers
Obama’s anti-growth policies have sent a clear message to job creators.
Michael Barone
Monday, June 06, 2011
Last week, I noted that various forms of the word “unexpected” almost inevitably appeared in news stories about unfavorable economic developments.
You can find them again in stories about Friday’s shocking news, that only 54,000 net new jobs were created in the month of May and that unemployment rose to 9.1 percent.
But with news that bad, maybe bad economic numbers will no longer be “unexpected.” You can only expect a robust economic recovery for so long before you figure out, as Herbert Hoover eventually did, that it is not around the corner.
Exogenous factors explain some part of the current economic stagnation. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a slowdown in manufacturing. Horrendous tornados did not help. Nor did bad weather, though only a few still bitterly cling to the theory that it’s caused by manmade global warming.
But poor public policy is surely one reason why the American economy has not rebounded from recession as it has in the past. And political posturing has also played a major role.
Barack Obama and the Democratic congressional supermajorities of 2009–10 raised federal spending from 21 percent to 25 percent of gross domestic product. Their stimulus package stopped layoffs of public employees for a while, even as private sector payrolls plummeted.
And the Obama Democrats piled further burdens on would-be employers in the private sector. Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation bill are scheduled to be followed by thousands of regulations that will impose impossible-to-estimate costs on the economy.
That seems to have led to a hiring freeze. The Obama Democrats can reasonably claim not to be responsible for the huge number of layoffs that occurred in the months following the financial crisis of fall 2008. And Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did manage to help stabilize financial markets.
But while the number of layoffs is now vastly less than in the first half of 2009, the number of new hires has not increased appreciably. Many more people have been unemployed for longer periods than in previous recessions, and many more have stopped looking for work altogether.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the threat of tax increases and increased regulatory burdens have produced something in the nature of a hiring strike.
And then there is the political posturing. On April 13, Barack Obama delivered a ballyhooed speech at George Washington University. The man who conservatives as well as liberal pundits told us was a combination of Edmund Burke and Reinhold Niebuhr was widely expected to present a serious plan to address the budget deficits and entitlement spending.
Instead, the man who can call on talented career professionals at the Office of Management and Budget to produce detailed blueprints gave us something in the nature of a few numbers scrawled on a paper napkin.
The man depicted as pragmatic and free of ideological cant indulged in cheap political rhetoric, accusing Republicans — including House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, who was in the audience — of pushing old ladies in wheelchairs down the hill and starving autistic children.
The signal was clear. Obama had already ignored his own deficit-reduction commission in preparing his annual budget, which was later rejected 97–0 in the Senate. Now he was signaling that the time for governing was over and that he was entering campaign mode 19 months before the November 2012 election.
People took notice, especially those people who decide whether to hire or not. Goldman Sachs’s Current Activity Indicator stood at 4.2 percent in March. In April — in the middle of which came Obama’s GW speech — it was 1.6 percent. For May, it is 1.0 percent.
“That is a major drop in no time at all,” wrote Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal.
After April 13, Obama Democrats went into campaign mode. They staged a poll-driven Senate vote to increase taxes on oil companies.
They launched a Medi-scare campaign against Ryan’s budget resolution that all but four House Republicans had voted for. That seemed to pay off with a special election victory in the New York 26th congressional district.
The message to job creators was clear. Hire at your own risk. Higher taxes, more burdensome regulation and crony capitalism may be here for some time to come.
One possible upside is that economic bad news may no longer be “unexpected.” Another is that voters may figure out what is going on.
Michael Barone
Monday, June 06, 2011
Last week, I noted that various forms of the word “unexpected” almost inevitably appeared in news stories about unfavorable economic developments.
You can find them again in stories about Friday’s shocking news, that only 54,000 net new jobs were created in the month of May and that unemployment rose to 9.1 percent.
But with news that bad, maybe bad economic numbers will no longer be “unexpected.” You can only expect a robust economic recovery for so long before you figure out, as Herbert Hoover eventually did, that it is not around the corner.
Exogenous factors explain some part of the current economic stagnation. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a slowdown in manufacturing. Horrendous tornados did not help. Nor did bad weather, though only a few still bitterly cling to the theory that it’s caused by manmade global warming.
But poor public policy is surely one reason why the American economy has not rebounded from recession as it has in the past. And political posturing has also played a major role.
Barack Obama and the Democratic congressional supermajorities of 2009–10 raised federal spending from 21 percent to 25 percent of gross domestic product. Their stimulus package stopped layoffs of public employees for a while, even as private sector payrolls plummeted.
And the Obama Democrats piled further burdens on would-be employers in the private sector. Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation bill are scheduled to be followed by thousands of regulations that will impose impossible-to-estimate costs on the economy.
That seems to have led to a hiring freeze. The Obama Democrats can reasonably claim not to be responsible for the huge number of layoffs that occurred in the months following the financial crisis of fall 2008. And Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did manage to help stabilize financial markets.
But while the number of layoffs is now vastly less than in the first half of 2009, the number of new hires has not increased appreciably. Many more people have been unemployed for longer periods than in previous recessions, and many more have stopped looking for work altogether.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the threat of tax increases and increased regulatory burdens have produced something in the nature of a hiring strike.
And then there is the political posturing. On April 13, Barack Obama delivered a ballyhooed speech at George Washington University. The man who conservatives as well as liberal pundits told us was a combination of Edmund Burke and Reinhold Niebuhr was widely expected to present a serious plan to address the budget deficits and entitlement spending.
Instead, the man who can call on talented career professionals at the Office of Management and Budget to produce detailed blueprints gave us something in the nature of a few numbers scrawled on a paper napkin.
The man depicted as pragmatic and free of ideological cant indulged in cheap political rhetoric, accusing Republicans — including House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, who was in the audience — of pushing old ladies in wheelchairs down the hill and starving autistic children.
The signal was clear. Obama had already ignored his own deficit-reduction commission in preparing his annual budget, which was later rejected 97–0 in the Senate. Now he was signaling that the time for governing was over and that he was entering campaign mode 19 months before the November 2012 election.
People took notice, especially those people who decide whether to hire or not. Goldman Sachs’s Current Activity Indicator stood at 4.2 percent in March. In April — in the middle of which came Obama’s GW speech — it was 1.6 percent. For May, it is 1.0 percent.
“That is a major drop in no time at all,” wrote Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal.
After April 13, Obama Democrats went into campaign mode. They staged a poll-driven Senate vote to increase taxes on oil companies.
They launched a Medi-scare campaign against Ryan’s budget resolution that all but four House Republicans had voted for. That seemed to pay off with a special election victory in the New York 26th congressional district.
The message to job creators was clear. Hire at your own risk. Higher taxes, more burdensome regulation and crony capitalism may be here for some time to come.
One possible upside is that economic bad news may no longer be “unexpected.” Another is that voters may figure out what is going on.
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