Cigo Man Band in Croatia

Cigo Man Band

The Heart of the Matter

Sarah Palin Vs. Hugo Chavez by Lenny Cacchio

"We don't believe that human nature is perfectible; we're suspicious of government efforts to fix problems because often what it's trying to fix is human nature, and that is impossible. It is what it is. But that doesn't mean that we're resigned to any negative destiny. Not at all. I believe in striving for the ideal, but in realistic confines of human nature...

The opposite of a common-sense conservative is a liberalism that holds that there is no human problem that government can't fix if only the right people are put in charge. Unfortunately, history and common sense are not on its side. We don't trust utopian promises; we deal with human nature as it is."

–- Sarah Palin

---

"Those who want to go directly to hell, they can follow capitalism. And those of us who want to build heaven on earth, we will follow socialism."

-- Hugo Chavez.

---

"These quotes illustrate the stark contrast between two contradictory worldviews, that of classical conservatism and that of Modernism informed by a heavy dose of the Enlightenment. If you miss Palin’s point, much of the arguments of today’s world, and indeed of the conflicts of the history of Western Civilization, will escape you.

At its core the goal of the left is to bring a utopian kingdom to the world by the efforts of mankind alone. They don't think we need God to do it."

This post goes hand in hand with the one below. Their "heaven on earth" will be hell.

Behind the Rhetoric

Israel: Obstacle To Evolution By Douglas V. Gibbs

As ridiculous as it may seem, the fight over Israel is not about land. The Palestinian demand for Israel is not about gaining the land for Muslims, but about eliminating Israel from the face of the Earth.

Islamic Nations have repeatedly proclaimed that Israel will be destroyed. Their goal, from day one, has been a world without Jews. Unfortunately, their anti-Semitic rhetoric has not fallen on deaf ears. Progressives share a similar goal with Muslims. They also desire a world without Israel, but for different reasons.

This deserves to be read, because whether pursued consciously by progressives or whether they are under the veil of influence of demonic spirits (more likely), this is the way the world is headed and we are watching these events unfold before our eyes.

The Implications of a New Bombing Tactic

The "body bomb"

This bomb made it past several security points, presumably including the ubiquitous metal detectors. It took another person to trigger it with a cell-phone call, which makes it a little difficult to use in mid-air flights, which is perhaps why AQ used it for a political assassination attempt instead of a large-scale series of attacks on commercial airlines, like what they attempted in the UK with the liquid bombs or Richard Reid and his shoe bomb. Still, it won’t take long for AQ to create a work-around for the cell phone activation, especially after seeing the effect of this bombing.

Free Speech on Campus?

As long as it conforms to the very strict guidelines set forth by the politically correct, far left, thought police.



Dave Barry's Blog

Hydrogen Barackside

Liberals are Killing America

You know something is desperately wrong when Democrats will not permit the proposed bill to enjoy a grace period of 72 hours during which both the public and members of Congress can actually read it before a vote is taken.

Sometimes Differences Are Good

Sorry, but U.S. and Libya are different

Half a decade or so back, I wrote: "It's a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice cream and a quart of dog feces and mix 'em together, the result will taste more like the latter than the former. That's the problem with the U.N."

Read the rest, good stuff.

Pride Comes Before a Fall

All About Obama

Obama’s rhetorical method in international contexts -- given supreme expression at the United Nations this week -- is a moral dialectic. The thesis: pre-Obama America is a nation of many flaws and failures. The antithesis: The world responds with understandable but misguided prejudice. The synthesis: Me. Me, at all costs; me, in spite of all terrors; me, however long and hard the road may be. How great a world we all should see, if only all were more like...me.

It's only a matter of how many he is able to take with him when it all comes crashing down.

His Way or the Highway

Afterthoughts from the U.N. Address

A core attitude unites Obama's domestic and foreign-policy visions: Principled disagreements are not legitimate if they do not conform to the president's agenda, be it on health care domestically or global warming and nuclear disarmament internationally. Call it a progressive version of "if you're not with us, you're against us."

Plastic Smile Can't Work

This is amazing, and takes a lot of practice to get so consistent. Or maybe it's a cardboard cutout.

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Bonus, because I like it.

Good for Netenyahu

Saw the Netanyahu speech at the U.N. yesterday. He did well, but it seemed no one paid him any mind. The U.N. is an evil organization. Always on the wrong side.

"I wonder if Obama heard Netanyahu's speech, because it was a real teaching experience on right and wrong, good and evil, leadership and sucking up. And I noticed that those who were the most embarrassed by Obama were the most inspired by Benjamin Netanyahu." --Rush Limbaugh

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Suicide Bummer -"A SUICIDE bomber tried to kill a Saudi prince by detonating TNT hidden up his BACKSIDE."

Extremist Al-Asiri, who was on a local "Most Wanted" list, tricked his way into a meeting with him by saying he was turning his back on terror.

But the hiding place of his explosive fooled security checks as he went inside the prince's office in Jeddah.

It is believed to have been detonated electronically. Weapons expert and former soldier Mike Yardley said: "Hiding it in a body cavity was obviously an attempt to defeat scanners and detectors. Thankfully on this occasion the victim escaped because the bomber's body appears to have suppressed the force of the blast."

Backfired? That's funny.

People are so Gullible

They just want to believe so badly that Glenn is a bad guy. This whole incident is so funny, I saw this coming when I saw him boil the fake frog.

Reminds Me of Socialism

A bad idea that just keeps popping back up.



This clip is funny, Peter Sellers needs a bathroom.

Destiny: Fail

the Devil took Him up into a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

And he said to Him, All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.

And Obama said, "I've been waiting for this all my life! Yes! Yes! I will!"

Poor Obama doesn't know you can't make a deal with the devil, he will lose, and the American people will lose, too.

Have You Seen This?

This is one reason why my kids don't go to government screwels.



School-indoctrination video

Scientists Don't Lie

Senior professor resigns over falsified 'pure research'

"The reason why we are making it public now is to show that it never pays to cheat. It always comes out eventually."

As will the global warming lies.

Spirit of the Beast

Are Communists (or neo-Communists) Dangerous?

Neo-communism is a view whose members consider themselves "citizens of the world," not of America, and who therefore agitate for open borders and want the morally repulsive collection of autocracies, slaveocracies and kleptocracies called “the United Nations” to reign over us and the world.

A neo-communist is someone who believes that America is ruled by corporations who put “profit over people” — and thereby show that they don't understand either profit or people. A neo-communist is someone who is convinced that race, class, and gender hierarchies make it not only legitimate but necessary to describe America as a "white supremacist" society. Neo-communists believe that a revolution is necessary (if not opportune at the moment), that the Consitution is a disposable document, and that America's communist and Islamo-fascist enemies (Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Hizbollah, the PLO and Hamas), are freedom fighters or at least on the right side of the armageddon that faces us.

Why Newspapers are Failing

Scoop! Author Shown to Have Ties to Publisher!

So, on the one hand, we have Breitbart's scoop — a federally favored organization closely tied to the President is offering public money to subsidize child-sex slavery from the Third World — and, on the other, we have the Post's scoop — the people behind the scoop are revealed to have shadowy ties to their publisher.

This is why the Post is losing a buck ten per copy it sells. Putting aside its biases, it pursues them in ways that are portentous and unreadable — even if you agree politically. That's why even Americans who are interested in newspapers look elsewhere. It's nothing to do with new technology: U.S. newspapers are the dullest in the English-speaking world. If they had a care for their business, the Post wouldn't be "exposing" Breitbart, they'd be hiring him.

The I.R.S. had Ties with ACORN?

IRS severs ties with ACORN over scandal

The Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday it would no longer include ACORN in its volunteer tax assistance program. The program offered free tax advice to about 3 million low- and moderate-income tax filers this spring.

Yeah, we saw what kind of tax advice they were giving.

Now We Get a Better Picture

They're torturing me, Zelaya claims

Honduras' fallen leader told The Miami Herald he is being subjected to mind-altering gas and radiation -- and that 'Israeli mercenaries' are planning to assassinate him.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste. He is where he is voluntarily, he can just leave, cross through Mexico into the U.S. and Obama will make give him amnesty and make him a mental health czar.

There's No Bottom on that Bucket

Obama's Elusive Auto Insurance Analogy

Team Obama and the media continue to flail away at an auto insurance analogy in an attempt to sell Obama Care. It is almost funny how they seem not to understand even the most basic concept of insurance. Really guys, it's so easy even a caveman can do it.

'Milk it, baby – It's free money'

Processing Cash for Clunkers claims

Former White House aide Kathleen Willey was hired as an employee with Vangent Incorporated, a company that provides information technology management and business process outsourcing services to the public and private sectors. Its clients include federal agencies such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the U.S. Departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

This will get you steaming, what a waste.

Who's Educating Our Youth?

Change

Obama helping Putin restitch Iron Curtain

It is interesting to contrast the administration's "wise" diplomacy abroad with its willingness to go nuclear at home. If you go to a "town hall" meeting and express misgivings about the effectiveness of the stimulus, you're a "racist" "angry" "Nazi" "evilmonger" "right-wing domestic terrorist." It's perhaps no surprise that that doesn't leave a lot left over in the rhetorical arsenal for Putin, Chavez and Ahmadinejad. But you've got to figure that by now the world's strongmen are getting the measure of the new Washington. Diplomacy used to be, as Canada's Lester Pearson liked to say, the art of letting the other fellow have your way. Today, it's more of a discreet cover for letting the other fellow have his way with you. The Europeans "negotiate" with Iran over its nukes for years, and, in the end, Iran gets the nukes, and Europe gets to feel good about itself for having sat across the table talking to no good purpose for the best part of a decade. In Moscow, there was a palpable triumphalism in the news that the Russians had succeeded in letting the Obama fellow have their way. "This is a recognition by the Americans of the rightness of our arguments about the reality of the threat or, rather, the lack of one," said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma's international affairs committee. "Finally the Americans have agreed with us."

There'll be a lot more of that in the years ahead.

The (Non) Work Ethic

Work. Who needs it?

As I write, the US unemployment rate is just shy of ten per cent, which is high enough to have commentators alarmed. In the United Kingdom, there are five million grown-ups – or ten per cent of the entire adult population – who have not done a day’s work since Tony Blair’s Labour Party came to power in 1997. Are they “unemployed”? Not exactly. For most of that period, Britain was booming. It still is, by comparison with most places, which is why the dulcet tones of Slavic languages ring out from every coffee counter. But not a lot of Cockney. It would be truer to say those five million Britons are not so much without employment as without need of employment: They exist in a world in which “work” is an increasingly foreign concept. In one-sixth of British households, not a single family member works. One-fifth of British children are raised in homes in which no adult works.

Yellow Rat snake

James found this large Yellow Rat Snake on the road in front of our house Sunday morning. It showed no fear of him at all and did not try to get away. Eventually, it did get into a defensive posture, but didn't strike. It is a beautiful snake.

He Wasn't Technically Lying

Obama wasn't really lying when he said the new health care plan would not cover illegal immigrants because there won't be any illegal immigrants. He wants to legalize them.



The most broken part of the immigration system is the open border.

Pink Panther Strikes Again

The fun starts at 2:24.



This is so funny. Peter Sellers was a gem.

ACORN Again - San Diego

And how to traffic in illegal immigrants - underage girls.





House Votes to Strip ACORN of Federal Funding

The Defund ACORN Act prohibits any "federal contract grant, cooperative agreement or any other form of agreement (including a memorandum of understanding" from being awarded to or entered into with the group. It also prohibits federal funds "in any other form" from being provided.

Hope it's for real and that they can't just change the name and continue.

"The Life of the Land is Preserved in Righteousness."

How a Nation Dies by Ray Stedman

Surely there is one great fact everywhere revealed—in history, in nature, in Scripture. It is called "the law of retribution." Even an atheist, who does not believe in God at all, must admit that when he examines the laws of nature he is faced with the fact that one either obeys them, and lives, or disobeys them, and dies. There is no other alternative. All man's wisdom and adaptability must function within these inexorable limits. He is not at liberty to go beyond them. No one fools around with 10,000 volts of electricity, hoping to make up the laws of electricity as he goes along. The laws are already in force and he had better discover them before he goes much further.

So it is also with nations. Napoleon's cynical answer to someone who asked him whether God was on the side of France was: "God is on the side of the heaviest artillery." Then came the battle of Waterloo, the loss of his empire, and, finally, exile to St. Helena. There, chastened and humbled, he said, "Man proposes; God disposes." What Franklin saw so clearly and Napoleon learned so painfully is that nations, like individuals, can lose their right to exist. "The powers that be are ordained of God," (KJV) writes St. Paul in Romans 13:1, and J. B. Phillips translates 1 Corinthians 2:6 as referring to "the powers-that-be, who soon will be only the powers that have been."

The rise and fall of empires is, of course, the very stuff of history. We chronicle it in voluminous detail without actually understanding it. We record the flux of political and economic change which results in toppled thrones, violent or peaceful conquest, radical swings from world leadership to obscurity, and feel we have analyzed the underlying reasons for change. But political movements and economic pressures are as much effects as they are causes. The causes in turn which produce them are ill-defined and little understood, arising as they do from forces that operate in our essential humanity, and are, therefore, so close to us as to make detection difficult. For example, an unknown writer has said:

If a man does not believe in God, his own ego becomes the ruler of his life. Since there are no standards of right and wrong existing apart from himself, right becomes that which pleases him, and wrong that which does not minister to his own ego. Since he himself is the supreme consideration, life is restrained by nothing but his own wishes and easily reaches the conclusion that the best possible world is one in which his will is supreme. He therefore enforces it upon others to the limit of his ability. The denial of God thus becomes the seed from which totalitarianism develops.

Freedom is possible only if men believe in God and seek to do his will. William Penn was right when he said that if men will not be governed by God, they must be governed by tyrants.

In the face of history, it is hard to argue with that. One must not, of course, make the mistake of equating the widespread practice of religion with being truly governed by God." Religious totalitarianism is perhaps the worst kind of all; certainly it is the most deeply hated. But the religious tyrant is no more being governed by God than the iron-fisted atheist is. Pirate ships often flew the flags of lawful nations to deceive and disarm their intended victims, and even modern dictators are not averse to flying the flag of the church. But Senator Daniel Webster caught the essence of true government by God, in a speech made in 1847.

If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and his Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the Gospel is not felt through the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.

When Hawaii became the 50th State of the Union, she brought with her to statehood the motto she had adopted as a territory, reflecting her missionary beginnings: "The life of the land is preserved in righteousness." It sounds like a pious platitude, but it is actually a profound truth which should be taught in every classroom in the land. A widespread myth exists in our day that the foundation of our freedoms lies in the great documents that launched our national history: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But important as these may be as instruments of freedom, they are not the foundation of it. Freedom rests on the moral righteousness of each individual member of the nation. When individual righteousness fails on a large scale, laws lose their force, judges fail in their powers, enforcement becomes impracticable, and the Constitution itself is soon changed to reflect the currently acceptable level of morality.

There is no more accurate description of where the United States stands right now.

The Power and Danger of Iconography

Hat Tip: Rich

Two Posts, One Good Blog

Obama's Weakness

Babbin worries that Obama is clueless regarding the impending Iranian goal of producing enough fissionable material to make its own atomic bombs and nuclear tipped missiles. He reminds readers that, in June, Obama's Cairo speech "green-lighted Iran's nuclear program by saying, 'I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons.'"

Translation: The U.S., under Obama’s administration, will do nothing to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. "Weakened by anger and naivete," says Babbin, "Obama is incapable of dealing with Iran. On Iraq and Afghanistan, the news is no better."

Bin Laden is of the same opinion! Noting that Obama retained Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense from the Bush administration, bin Laden said, "Reasonable people knew that Obama is a powerless man who will not be able to end the war as he promised."

Keeping Americans in the Dark

Americans have figured out they don’t want Obamacare, but a regime that has its own agenda and intends to impose it on an unwilling public is not interested in the voice of the people.

If you think Obamacare is a nightmare or as Rush Limbaugh now calls it “crap legislation”, you have no idea what the Obama gang have in store for you. H.R.2454, the American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009, barely passed the House in June. It is also known as the Waxman-Markey bill and, most generally, as Cap-and-Trade.

It is a monstrosity that everyone, including its sponsors, agree is a massive tax on all energy use. The minute you walk in your home or apartment and turn on the lights, you will feel the impact of this bill. It is currently marinating in the Senate.

From Alan Caruba at Warning signs

Before/After Hurricane Ike Photos

One year after Hurricane Ike

Wow.

ACORN Worker: "I Can Kill People"

"I don't have a problem with that, Okay."

She basically confesses to premeditated murder of her husband in this tape, among other things.

This is the 4th tape so far.



What next?

You can watch the whole tape, unedited, here.

For Beth

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

2 Corinthians 5:1

Does Your Dog Bite?

This guy was funny.

ACORN Corruption Part 3 - Bad in New York

Senate votes to deny funds to ACORN - Hope it actually happens. No more taxpayer funds for ACORN. Not a penny more.

And ACORN wants to sue Fox News? For what? Reporting the story?

Kanye Interupts the President

Dana Loesch Interviews Andrew Breitbart

Does Anybody Here Remember Vera Lynn?

A lot of people are getting to know her music. Vera Lynn is back in the top of the album charts at the age of 92. Says Mark Steyn:

With one of Vera Lynn's two signature songs all but banned from the airwaves, the survivor, "We'll Meet Again" was imbued with a kind of pathos it had never had during the lowest moments of the Second World War. It came to symbolize simultaneously both Britain's wartime defiance and a resigned acceptance of remorseless decline.

Contrasts

Two pictures from the 9/12 Washington rally show a world of difference: Conservative Patriots v. Government Trough Feeders

Amazing.

"It's Time To Quarantine Washington DC"

If you can only listen to one, make it the second, but Glenn has some really good things to say in these videos. I heard this live Saturday and was very impressed, I knew I wanted to post this.

Organized Crime

This one is in Washington, the first was Baltimore.



Still waiting for Obama to throw ACORN under the bus, but not holding my breath. If Obama had an ounce of decency, he would resign and take his whole organization with him.

I hope they had the foresight to make more of these tapes and not stop at these two. I mean, two would normally be enough, but these aren't normal times.

On This Anniversary of 9/11

The United States is in more danger now than ever before, from within and without. Yet, I believe most people have no clue. I don't think 9/11 was so much a wake up call to the nation as it was just a terrible tragedy. Never again? Well, we don't want to step on any toes.

The United States is headed for disaster, this administration foolishly thinks it can control the "crisis" it is steering us into in order to further empower itself. It cannot. The fronts of this war from within are legion, and they are killing us, but very few of them are even on the radar. The enemy has taken the hill.

Our only hope lies in our return to God. Not likely to happen - historically improbable.

While the very mention of God may seem absurd to many Americans, the threat from outside our country's borders is decidedly unfunny. If you believe the people who brought us 9/11 are finished you are seriously mistaken.

Is another 9/11 set to unfold?

The man who predicted 9/11 is worried that its sequel is imminent.

"Muslims that I talk to say things like, 'America thinks they're safe now. They've forgotten about 9/11. But watch, Daniel. Stay near your TV. It's going to be bigger than 9/11,' " he said.

Hill said the next terrorist attack will involve suitcase nuclear bombs that will be detonated in small, low-flying two-seater private airplanes manned by men hanging onto the belief that, like the 9/11 hijackers, they are about to die as martyrs and enter paradise.

He is not alone in suggesting such a scenario. A 2007 book, "The Day of Islam," spells out the details, as do any number of Internet sites about a plot called "American Hiroshima."

"I'm a Muslim," he says. "I'm a special ops expert, I'm a terrorist and I've lived among Muslims. I fought the Russians with the same guys we're now fighting in Afghanistan. I met Osama. I volunteered to assassinate him. I know (the enemy) so well because I've worked, slept and prayed alongside them for years. I've become one of them. I know their nature, I know their culture, I know how they think. I can quote the Koran like a Southern Baptist minister can quote the New Testament. I know these are people who do not tire, who do not quit. There are odds this won't happen, but they aren't big odds."

I think we owe it to the memory of those lost on 9/11/2001 to not let it ever happen again. I also think those in charge of our defense, on the hill, in Washington, don't take the threat seriously. In fact, I know they don't. I know by their actions. Ignore the words, watch what they do, or, more correctly in this case, what they don't do.

What Socialism Brings to a Community

The United States of Newark

The traditionalist community was rooted in family, faith, nation and yes, free enterprise. With some cultural variations, all of the city's ethnic groups, black and white, adhered to the traditionalist model.

To break down the traditionalist society and turn it into a socialist one, the architects of the socialist experience attacked the one real bulwark against socialism, the family, and they had remarkable success.

Meet Your New Regulatory Czar

Senate Confirms Obama's Pick for Regulatory 'Czar'.

As regulatory czar, Sunstein will review and provide guidance for draft federal regulations at different federal agencies. It is a wide-ranging and largely unrestrained position in the executive branch.

Irrationality

A communist has profaned the presidency

While individuals in accord with my thinking might enjoy what I articulate, and the open-minded may gain clarity from it, nothing I nor anyone else asserts is going to sway the dedicated progressives, socialists and Marxists against whom our nation now struggles. That sort of fundamental transformation of mind can only have its genesis in trauma or revelatory experience of a magnitude beyond human design, such as that which occasionally reforms a lifelong criminal or substance abuser. The core beliefs of these individuals are so deeply irrational and their devotion to same so perverse that it is difficult not to ascribe them to either psychological pathology or demonic influence.

Add to that the cultish dedication of President Obama's supporters, which remains truly disturbing. I've spoken with people who couldn't have cared less about any given president throughout their adult lives, but who lose their minds when someone makes a claim they consider unseemly pertaining to this president.

One of the most distressing things characterizing these people is the ability they have developed for utterly dehumanizing those whom they perceive as their opposition. This phenomenon has been very soberly and widely discussed in the public arena, particularly since World War II; we have realized that it's a lot easier to march someone you don't consider human into a gas chamber.

The wild-eyed, shrill, ardent supporters of President Obama and his policies now openly advocate the liberal infusion of Marxism into our political process, a course that has resulted in more deaths than the Nazi pogroms in other nations. They routinely express sympathy for and defend the rights of radical Islamists, people who would rape them and slit their throats without a nanosecond's hesitation. Multimillionaire Hollywood directors produce films elevating Marxism and tyrants, while denigrating capitalism and America – and they are lauded as artistic geniuses.

If this is not irrationality, what is?

ACORN Has Got to GO!!!

No more government funding. Get them off the census and out of our lives forever. We have a criminal organization in bed with the United States government, not to mention the President. The United States cannot exist like this. Next thing you know we'll have cops taking bribes to let you out of a ticket. And don't think there aren't people who would prefer that. I've long thought we were on our way to 3rd world status, the transformation is all but complete now.





If there is to be any hope for this country, ACORN must go.

More at biggovernment.com

Also read Acorn Outdoes Itself

Glenn Talks About Cass Sunstein

Who?



You can't afford NOT to know.

We Need a Public Option Everything!

I’m from the government and I’m here to help you

The government has taken over the auto industry, banking, and is looking to take over health care.

But has the government done enough?

You have to read that, it's very funny.

They Have Become What they Hated

Asks Camille Paglia:

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.

But affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them. Why? Is it because the new professional class is a glossy product of generically institutionalized learning? Independent thought and logical analysis of argument are no longer taught. Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it's invisible. The top schools, from the Ivy League on down, promote "critical thinking," which sounds good but is in fact just a style of rote regurgitation of hackneyed approved terms ("racism, sexism, homophobia") when confronted with any social issue. The Democratic brain has been marinating so long in those clichés that it's positively pickled.

Get the Government Out of the Way!

Liberal lies about national health care, Part 4

Only national health care can provide "coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job" – as Obama said in a New York Times op-ed.

This is obviously a matter of great importance to all Americans, because, with Obama's economic policies, none of us may have jobs by year's end.

The only reason you can't keep – or often obtain – health insurance if you move or lose your job now is because of ... government intrusion into the free market.

You will notice that if you move or lose your job, you can obtain car and home insurance, hairdressers, baby sitters, dog walkers, computer technicians, cars, houses, food and every other product and service not heavily regulated by the government. (Although it does become a bit harder to obtain free office supplies.)

Federal tax incentives have created a world in which the vast majority of people get health insurance through their employers. Then to really screw ordinary Americans, the tax code actually punishes people who don't get their health insurance through an employer by denying individuals the tax deduction for health insurance that their employers get.

Meanwhile, state governments must approve the insurers allowed to operate in their states, while mandating a list of services – i.e. every "medical" service with a powerful lobby – which is why Joe and Ruth Zelinsky, both 88, of Paterson, N.J., are both covered in case either one of them ever needs a boob job.

If Democrats really wanted people to be able to purchase health insurance when they move or lose a job as easily as they purchase car insurance and home insurance (or haircuts, dog walkers, cars, food, computers), they could do it in a one-page bill lifting the government controls and allowing interstate commerce in health insurance. This is known as "allowing the free market to operate."

Plus, think of all the paper a one-page bill would save! Don't Democrats care about saving the planet anymore? Go green!

Tim Conway

It's Only Words

If Obama's not stupid...

The most important thing about what anyone says are not the words themselves but the credibility of the person who says them.

The words of convicted swindler Bernie Madoff were apparently quite convincing to many people who were regarded as knowledgeable and sophisticated. If you go by words, you can be led into anything.

No doubt millions of people will be listening to the words of President Barack Obama tomorrow night when he makes a televised address to a joint session of Congress on his medical-care plans. But, if they think that the words he says are what matters, they can be led into something much worse than being swindled out of their money.

One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation's medical care before the August recess – for a program that would not take effect until 2013!

Whatever President Obama is, he is not stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical-care legislation was to deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the legislation goes into effect for years – more specifically, until the year after the next presidential election?

Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012 before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be.

Unfortunately, this way of doing things is all too typical of the way this administration has acted on a wide range of issues.

One Down, Many to Go

The Enemy Within

Senate must raise debt ceiling above $12 Trillion

The Senate must move legislation to raise the federal debt limit beyond $12.1 trillion by mid-October, a move viewed as necessary despite protests about the record levels of red ink.

We would be better off paying Congress to go on a permanent vacation, America is safer without them.

Where are the World's Smallest Violins when You Need Them?

The Lamentations of the Elite

The Jones mess brings up a larger issue. Americans were assured that with the ascendance of Barack Obama we would evolve beyond race. Yet in the last ninth months it is almost as if precisely the opposite has occurred — but with a strange twist. The country has been serially lectured about race from some of the most privileged Americans in the country. Columbia law grad elite Eric Holder accused the country of cowardice for its reluctance to speak about race. Harvard-law alum Barack Obama accused the Cambridge police of profiling and acting stupidly in taking elite Harvard professor Skip Gates down to the station after his screaming invective episode. Harvard-law educated Michelle Obama explained Justice Sotomayor’s unease at Princeton by comparing her own ordeal there. Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Charles Rangel who had serially dodged his tax obligations claims that white angst explains his IRS problems. New York governor David Paterson blames his sinking polls on white racism, more prominent than ever in the age of Obama. Now Yale law graduate Van Jones claims smears did him in. The list could be easily expanded.

What we are seeing is a very unfortunate turn of events in which racism is now the guaranteed retreat position once many prominent African-American elites find themselves in controversy. The problem is that the rest of the population of all races and classes looks at this privileged cohort and does not really detect bias or ill-treatment in their past or present circumstances, but rather remarkable tolerance and race-blind attitudes, as exemplified by their career successes.

Get Up, Stand Up!

The American people stood up and demanded answers. Instead of providing them, the Administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness. I continue to be amazed by the power of everyday Americans to initiate change in our government through honest questioning, and judging by the other radicals in the administration, I expect that questioning to continue for the foreseeable future. --Glenn Beck

Keep the pressure on.

Why are You Dressed as a Tiger?

Why Van Jones Had to Go: Exposing the Left's Family Secrets

The real reason Jones had to go was not his ideas per se. He thinks the way President Obama thinks. Jones had to go because his presence in the administration revealed so much about how the left operates – and these are supposed to be closely guarded family secrets.

Read on.

World's Smallest Horse

One of the greats!

Jack Webb Lectures Obama

David Horowitz on Radicals in the White House

Say Hello to My Microscopic Friends!

Opposing Evil

"A few years ago, while looking for a good read, I came across a book by Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler. It turned out to be better than I thought it would be and I quickly read through it. I am not sure why, but events of recent weeks brought back to mind a question I had never quite resolved. How was it possible for a nation that had reached the highest educational and cultural levels to be taken over by a power so evil that it beggars the imagination? Somehow I had not realized that eight of the greatest universities ever established in Europe were in Germany, and they were all founded before Columbus sailed the voyage that discovered the New World. By 1776, when Americans were just deciding whom they were, the great German universities were 300 years old. Then I thought of the giants of music who arose in that world, men such as Bach and Beethoven, and the mystery only deepened."

The Opposite Administration

Stop Bullying Honduras

The Obama administration has effectively turned Zelaya into a symbol of democracy. He is exactly the opposite.

This administration takes the wrong stand on everything. If it's right, they call it wrong, if it's wrong, they call it right. If it's Marxist, they call it democratic. If it's American, they call it evil.

Tired of the B.S.?

Yeah...I'm Tired of it too

Tired of what? The health care debate, that's what. I'm with you .. I'm weary of the debate as well. That, though, is just what the left wants' They would love nothing more than to see the public's intense interest in their attempt to put our health care system under government control wane.

You have to stay on task, people. The left is very patient. After their earlier attempt - HillaryCare - failed in 1993 they sat back and waited. They knew they would have another shot at nationalized medicine .. and that chance came with Democrat control of Washington on January 20, 2009. The left will never give up their dream of government-controlled health care, and you can never give up fighting it.

Why is control of health care so important? No - it has nothing to do with making sure that all Americans have affordable health care. The best way to make health care affordable in this country is to bring in the all-time champion of meeting consumer needs ... the free marketplace. The left wants nothing to do with the free market though. When the free market works its magic it does nothing to empower government or the party in control of government. Look at it this way: If the private sector is doing a good job of delivering health care services to the bulk of the American people, the Democrats won't be able to use one of their favorite campaign themes when an election rolls around. They won't be able to say "Vote for the Republicans and they'll take your health care away." You, knowing that you receive your health care from the free marketplace, would see that campaign rhetoric as complete absurd.

The only thing Democrats have to sell to you in an election is government. They are the party of government. Big government - bigger government. Democrats never sell freedom. Expanding the government's grip on our economy only serves the left's quest for power .. it certainly does nothing for the people. Have you seen the evidence that government health care would be better than that delivered by the private sector? No, me neither.

He Said It

Speech to Students 'Paid Political Advertising'

"The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.' "

Blood Money

Abortion is one of the reasons America is taking a nose dive. That blood cries out for justice.


Hat Tip: La Shawn Barber

Liars, Crooks and Thieves

Rangel Plays Race Card, Says Obamacare The Victim

"Some Americans have not gotten over the fact that Obama is President of the United States. They go to sleep wondering, 'how did this happen?'"

Not because of race - Rangel completely misses the point. Completely. He would probably say that he embraces the teaching of Martin Luther King, too. What a joke. He's just trying to divert attention away from all his problems. He's another congressman who should be in jail.

Business as Usual in Washington

Economic Illiterates in Washington by John Stossel

The economic illiterates in Washington are so impressed with the "success" of Cash for Clunkers that they're readying Cash for Clunker Appliances. The ludicrous "stimulus" bill gave $300 million to the Department of Energy to provide rebates for 10 types of appliances that have been rated energy efficient.

Before government extends Cash for Clunkers to more products, it might be a good idea to examine the original. The fact that Washington and the buyers who took advantage of Cash for Clunkers are gaga is hardly evidence that it was in the public interest.

It wasn't.

And John Stossel on health care:



I posted that video before but it's worth another look.

Dog Training with Zak George

The Government Can

Timmy the Narcoleptic Bowler

The Key is to be Consistent

We Should Train Our Politicians Like We Train Our Dogs

Dogs and politicians need rules, boundaries, and limitations.

Hope and...

Change