Conservative Review |
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Issue #142 |
Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views |
September 6, 2010 |
In this Issue:
Five Steps President Obama Can Take To Help Our Economy Create Jobs by John Boehner
By Michael O. Leavitt
Glenn Beck's Happy Warriors By James Freeman
Our distracted commander in chief
By Charles Krauthammer
If Conservative Media Reported Events Like The New York Times Does: Obama's Oval Office Address on the Iraq War by Jeffrey Jena
Why No Amount of Reporting Can Hurt Sarah Palin
The former Alaska governor is insulated from the media in a way that other politicians can only dream about. From Newsweek Magazine.
New Normal: America in Decline
Too much happened this week! Enjoy...
The cartoons come from:
If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).
Previous issues are listed and can be accessed here:
http://kukis.org/page20.html (their contents are described and each issue is linked to) or here:
http://kukis.org/blog/ (this is the online directory they are in)
I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 2 or 3 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).
I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.
I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.
And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, always remember: We do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).
Glenn Beck held a faith rally in Washington D.C.
President Obama gives an Iraq speech to mark the end of combat missions in Iraq by American soldiers. This speech morphs into a speech on the economy of the United States.
Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi and Hezam al Murisi, who were on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Amsterdam, were detained and questioned by Dutch authorities after U.S. officials found a cell phone taped to a Pepto Bismol bottle and a knife and box cutter in checked luggage connected with the men.
The official identified the men as. Al Soofi had a Michigan address, the official said, but it was not immediately clear where the two men were from.
Rabid left-wing eco terrorist James Jay Lee is shot dead at Discovery Channels headquarters while holding hostages because his ideas for a TV show were ignored.
The Dodd-Frank financial reform act will force companies to disclose regularly the ratio of the median annual pay of all their employees to that of their chief executive.
The U.S. state department turns in a report to the Human Rights division of the U.N. concerning Arizona and possible human rights which may be violated by their attempts to control their borders.
The U.S. submits another report to the U.N. suggesting that the inability for some workers to organize is a human rights violation. Most of those who are determined to violate human rights are those who behead others, practice genocide, or are involved in human trafficking.
Chicago Dentist begins running personal ad to elect Hillary Clinton in 2012.
Jan Brewer has a several second pause in her introductory remarks for a debate, and some news outlets are treating this as one of the most significant events in her campaign.
The Department of Justice has recently filed 2 lawsuits against Arizona—one to stop the Arizona immigration law and another against Sherrif Joe Arpaio. They have just filed a 3rd lawsuit against AZ. In this most recent lawsuit, Justice officials said Maricopa Community colleges discriminated against nearly 250 noncitizen job applicants by mandating that they fill out more documents than required by law to prove their eligibility to work. That violated the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, the department said.
Haaretz . Com says Muslim leaders are seriously talking about abandoning the Ground Zero Mosque plans.
CraigsList removes its adult services section.
Liberals:
Ed Schultz: “Hold it right there! I could get every union group in this country. I could get every progressive group in this country. The main bloggers. This could be the Ed march. Folks, 300,000 people on the heels of 6 months promotion—that ain’t no big shakes.” Beck’s “Restoring Honor” gathering was marked as the 5th or 6th largest gathering in D.C. in history.
Jimmy Breslin in Harper’s Magazine article: “All day on television yesterday you had the aimless babbles of this Beck, who looks like he eats Bibles.” And, even less coherently, he writes: “Then what was it, only a couple of years later, when the skies screamed nameless revenge and hurled James Earl Ray into Memphis to shoot Martin Luther King and that night, when riots broke out everywhere, I sat with Andrew Young in a musty room in Memphis and he talked so quietly about the madness of the air people were breathing. The identical madness that was in Los Angeles where it built another stadium for murder. And all day yesterday, while they squalled and broke out poor Jesus at rallies to help them promote race and baseline dumbness, many could barely wait for September 11th, when they can act as owners of the place where the World Trade Center stood. Look around; they say they are victims but they appear to be just another mob trying to take us apart.”
Mary Landrieu: “So Glenn Beck has to go back and look at the facts because he is preaching a gospel that doesn’t exist today and never will; we follow the gospel, [brother and New Orleans Mayor] Mitch [Landrieu] and I, of Jesus Christ, and we know what to do.”
Imam Rauf: “When you try to bridge a relationship between any two sides where there have been a tension reaching such a level, one of the things which you have to explain to each side is why the other side feels angry. Whether it’s, you know, marital counseling between the husband and the wife, you have to explain to the husband actions that he has done which in the perception of the wife has offender her and vice versa.”
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "If the leaders of the region do not have the guts, then the people of the region are capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene."
The pro-government crowd chanted back: "Death to America. Death to Israel."
John Cusack tweet: "I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES ORDICK ARMEYAND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS."
Time Magazine article headline: “What's Good About Rising Unemployment” (that’s right; no question mark)
Lizz Winstead, co-founder of The Daily Show and alumna of the late Air America Radio, said, on Ed Schultz's radio show yesterday: “Ed, I've always wished that somebody would invent, maybe you and I could go into business and do this, if somebody would invent, you know those shock collars that you put on the dog? (Schultz laughs) That when they bark they get jarred? If we could make one that actually fact-checked and we just put it around Glenn Beck's neck and when he spoke (pause), or just fake tears, if it could detect when tears were actually crocodile tears, and then you just get electrocuted by the water and jarred, like, that would be awesome! Force him to wear it.” Of course, this is only a joke.
Kathleen Sebelius "Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn't, so, we have a lot of reeducation to do.”
Mike Norman of John Thomas Financial: “Deficits add to the savings and income of the priva sector...then the government spends, it adds to the demand...[the federal debt] is simply an accounting entry on its books.”
CBS’s Harry Smith: “As we're standing here looking at it right now, just if you can step away, was the stimulus big enough?”
Bruce Raynor of Workers United: “The biggest problem in this country is income inequality.”
A caller leaving a message for Sean Hannity: “We are not going to be ignored, you tea-bagger f#%! And now we’re on to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who fear us the most. You guys are no longer in control. Lizzy and Dick Cheney have been silenced and now we are going to destroy and obliterate Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. And guess what? You know what, tea-baggers? You may know where Lance lives but we know where Rush lives; we know where Sean Hannity lives, we know where Lizzy ‘the skank’ Cheney lives and we are not going to go away. We are going to destroy you f&#! a#^$$# fighting back; we are sick of you f&#! a#^$$# you guys are &#%^ and you know what, quite frankly, I can’t wait for Rush Limbaugh to die from a heart attack and I can’t wait for Sean Hannity’s major uh um whatever it’s called, you know, his headpiece to explode. Those two guys are dead; dead in the water; we are going to destroy them.”
Dolores Huerta: “Our tema, our theme will be: Republicans hate Latinos, OK? Republicans hate Latinos.”
Chris Matthews: “You know, sometimes I really support the President in a lot of his views, in fact all of them almost. But I have to tell you, Michael, if he doesn't get rid of that damn teleprompter, it's like an eye test. He's just reading words now.” (I will quote liberals when they say something intelligent).
Speaking of which, the AP seems to have finally figured out the TEA party movement: “Is the tea party the new Republican Party? ...the tea party has taken hold in the Grand Old Party, unseating lawmakers, capturing nominations for open seats and forcing Republicans to recalibrate both their campaign strategy and issues agenda. Out is talk of delivering federal dollars back home; in is talk of fiscal discipline.”
Conservatives:
“The left wants us to demonize the TEA party because of a few nutcases but is quick to warn us not to condemn Muslims because of a few nutcases.” An email to O’Reilly from memory.
Rand Paul: “The mood of the country is, that President Obama is wrong about most of the issues of the day. They don’t really understand why you vilify people who make over $200,000/year because those to the people who hire you; those are the people who create the jobs.”
Tom DeLay: “Only Democrats think that tax cuts are a spending program.”
C.L. Jackson: “That’s what threw the Black people off; they abandoned salvation for integration.”
Monica Crowley: “Look, the Tea Party has an issue with the content of Obama's policies, not the color of his skin, and I find it amazing that the NAACP would waste its time on nonexistent racism in the Tea Party when there are so many problems that still plague the black community like black on black violence, like fatherlessness, like education and drugs and guns in the inner cities. And so it seems to me to be a straw man that the NAACP set up because they are less willing to really confront all of those vexing problems in the black community.”
“The lowest unemployment rate for Obama was the day he took office,” said Ann Coulter (quoted from memory).
Hizbullah has an arsenal of approximately 15,000 rockets amassed on Lebanon's border with Israel
16 lies by Obama in 7 minutes for his state of the union address (all on video):
http://www.breitbart.tv/16-lies-in-7-minutes-state-of-the-union-video-breakdown/
Great Videos on Islam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib9rofXQl6w (The 3 things you need to know about Isalm)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkMolLriAkQ
Colonel Allen West gives a straight answer about Islam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkGQmCZjJ0k
I had not seen this gal before, but she is apparently well-read and knows her stuff (and, she angers some Muslims) (I find myself disagreeing with her on almost everything else, however):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb1c9oLgWPw
Just in case you wonder what a politician looks like without a teleprompter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns5W1dAk_T0
A good CNN report on government spy cams:
http://www.infowars.com/spy-satellite-used-on-u-s-citizens-all-americans-should-have-great-pride/
In case you want to get up and dance, the Great Deceiver:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-6rICvfdb8
Woman calls up Sean Hannity, and lets go with a little hate:
http://www.hannity.com/videos?uri=channels/400391/1012314
Ed Schultz thinks he could pull together 300,000 people in the Washington D.C. He could get all of the unions; it is not a big deal.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/msnbc-host-vows-he-could-draw-throngs-to-dc-like-beck/
Alvin Greene proves that he is white:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiMk4K6_VZQ (this video made me a little afraid, as I actually agreed with 2 of Greene’s answers)
Anderson Cooper actually does a good job:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6s4qpmjJUE
Okay, maybe not a must-watch, but if you find it interesting, the dentist ad for Hillary Clinton for president in 2012 with discussion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY0a7whvb5U
Michelle Obama on doctors writing prescriptions for fat kids (along side the promises of her husband):
Kagan, as Solicitor General, making an argument in the court, about banning books:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBqdKKKRrrg
Obama on amnesty in 2004:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMD7rjlHKFQ
Monica Crowley on the McLaughlin Group (just in case you think those blond babes on FoxNews are just window dressing):
“I’m Superman, idiot!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIzHgv5Pj48
1) FHA and tax policies have always encouraged home ownership, so what is the difference between governmental policies now and their policies 20 years ago? The key is personal integrity. In the past, even though the government did help us to some degree to purchase a home (usually allowing a lower down payment and giving tax advantages), this was all tied to personal integrity. A person still had to save up a considerable amount of money; they had to have excellent credit; in many cases, they needed family assistance (as I did). Furthermore, FHA thoroughly checked a person’s employment history, looking for stability in his particular field and at the job where he is at this point. This insured that a person was economically capable of fulfilling the terms of the loan. However, in the subprime market, which is based upon FNMA and FHLMC policies, all 3 legs of the stool were removed. A person no longer had to have to good credit, they did not have to have verifiable income or a verifiable job history; and government often gave them a down payment. So the mortgage meltdown was a foregone conclusion that nearly any intelligent person could have foreseen (and many did).
2) In the Koran, we read: "and [they] deceived and Allah deceived and Allah is the best of deceivers" (Sura 3:54). I find this to be quite interesting, as Satan does not like to hide himself. That is, he does not like to perform great works, and yet, no one know that it is him. So, Allah, in the Koran, is the greatest of deceivers (and Satan is called the Father of Lies in the Bible). Muslims are allowed to deceive those they believe to be heathen. In fact, It is not only allowed, but a part of their doctrine.
3) A talkradio guy made the point that, had the twin towers been rebuilt by this time, a few stories higher (so as to include the memorial), then the Ground Zero Mosque would mean nothing. No one would be concerned, because the Twin Towers would completely overshadow any mosque. Bloomberg could have probably brought the city together by simply making the determination that, the mosque construction would begin the day the construction on the Twin Towers ended.
4) Here is what we need to demand of a Republican House: “Submit only balanced budgets where the military is not cut; and reduce Congressional salaries by 10%, as a part of the budget as a gesture of fiscal responsibility.”
5) Bill O’Reilly asks if there is one liberal journalist out there who could have gotten as many people to show up to a rally as Glenn Beck did.
GDP for the past 4 quarters:
5%
3.7%
2.4%
1.6%
The official unemployment now is 9.6%
1 in 6 Americans now receive government aid.
Car sales are down 21% this year.
7.7% of all hate crimes in the United States are committed against Muslims in 2008.
65.7% of all U.S. hate crimes were committed against Jews.
40% of Los Angeles Unified School District kids will graduate from high school. The overall U.S. dropout rate is around 25%.
Los Angeles Unified School District—the one which built $576 billion dollar school—is facing a $640 million shortfall this year. Congress seems to think what we need is more oversight for businesses.
CBS News Poll:
17% judge our economy to be very good or fairly good
83% see our economy as very bad or fairly bad
Gallup:
On a general ballot,
51% would vote Republican
41% would vote Democrat (which is the largest lead in Gallup’s polling history on this question, which goes back to 1942).
NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts combined for a dubious record last week: the average of 18.7 million people who watched one of the three shows last week was the smallest audience those three telecasts have reached collectively on record, since the infancy of television, Nielsen said.
Did you know this?
Political ads for Democrats, espousing conservative values and opinions which are to the right of most Republicans, and expressing love for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney (and/or disgust for Pelosi, Reid and Obama). One would not have to stray very far from what is really happening now.
Chris Matthews, host of Hardball, who has seemed to have a little man-crush on Obama from the very beginning, finally urged Obama to get rid of his teleprompters.
Obviously, in the upcoming election, Democrats will focus on 2 strategies: to try to look and sound like Republicans and Washington outsiders; and they will look to attack individuals for character faults, actions in the distance past, or for pausing too long during a debate. The news outlets will take every opportunity to help them along.
Republicans will nationalize the elections and profess typical Republican values (pro-freedom, pro-business, small government).
Larry Sabato predicts 47 net seats to change hands in the House, which will give the Republicans a solid majority. Dick Morris is on record for several weeks now for saying that both the House and Senate will change hands this November. In fact, Morris now says that this will be the largest shifting of House seats in U.S. history (the record was set in 1922 when 74 net seats went to the Democrats).
I agree with Morris (depending upon what happens in the next 2 months). However, unlike Clinton, Obama is unable to adjust, change gears, or change his philosophy. Clinton, although a liberal, would rather be popular than liberal. Obama would rather be a far left liberal than popular; therefore, he will be at war with Congress for 2 years after the elections, continually blaming Republicans for their obstructionism.
I have said all along, that Obama is disinterested in foreign affairs. I cite his Iraq speech this past week as proof of that.
Also, it was not a difficult call to predict that Obama would not use the words surge or victory in his Iraq speech. However, I was uncertain about whether he would mention Bush (I leaned against him mentioning Bush; or at least giving him any credit for anything). Obama did mentioned President Bush, but without giving him any credit.
Turn the page (with regards to Iraq) = after proclaiming this recovery summer, I sure as hell will not say we have been victorious in Iraq
Come, let us reason together....
We need to take in more money, as we have more and more people being supported by fewer and fewer people. This is a ponzi scheme, often used to buy votes, and due to fail, but it is highly doubtful that we could ever repeal it.
Obviously, we cannot break the contract of the government with the people, so those who are 50 and older must be given social security as agreed to.
The age of retirement needs to be changed to 65 at the lowest and this needs to be transitioned up to 75–80 over the next few decades.
We need to move from present-day workers supporting retired workers to a true retirement system, where the money actually goes into a lock box of sorts. Benefits need to be a function of deposits.
Most of these ideas are being kicked around right now. However, I have one very new and brilliant idea:
It ought to be clear that we need to have more money deposited into social security and medicare, because the money going into these programs is not enough. Here is the trick: we need to double or triple the intake of social security; however, the additional amounts may be directed toward consumer-controlled investments., subject to the typical IRA rules and regulations. These accounts would always be under the control of the consumer (who may gie this over to a fund manager). So the person investing in social security could choose to give all of his investments over to the government; or he could choose to personally guide where the new amounts would go to.
We retain some semblance of the nanny state, which becomes a little more nannier. However, for some, they will be able to guide the direction of their investments themselves, and have complete control over this money (taking government out of this part of the equation).
Five Steps President Obama Can Take To Help Our Economy Create Jobs
by House Republican Leader John Boehner
1. Stop Job-Killing Tax Hikes on Families and Small Businesses. "Boehner to Obama: Don't raise taxes. . The Minority Leader called on Obama to work with his party to stop the coming tax hike scheduled to take place in January, when Bush-era tax breaks expire." (The Hill) "Among other challenges he issued the president, Boehner said `President Obama should announce he will not carry out his plan to impose job-killing tax hikes on families and small businesses.'" (ABC News) "Boehner said that proposal puts the government `in the position of picking winners and losers and pitting taxpayer against taxpayer.' `Raising taxes on families and small businesses during a recession is a recipe for disaster - both for our economy and for the deficit,' he said." (CBS News)
2. Veto Job-Killing `Lame Duck' Legislation. "The Ohio Republican recommended that Obama pledge to veto any `job killing' legislation passed by Congress during a lame-duck session, including any cap-and-trade energy legislation or `card check' bills." (Roll Call) "`President Obama should announce that he will veto any job-killing bills sent to his desk by a lame-duck Congress - including `card check,' a national energy tax, and any other tax increases on families and small businesses,' he said." (McClatchy Newspapers)
3. Call on Congressional Democrats to Stop Obstructing Efforts to Repeal Harmful ObamaCare `1099 Mandate.' "Boehner also said the president should, as he put it, `call on Democratic Leaders in Congress to stop obstructing Republicans' attempts to repeal the new health care law's job-killing '1099 mandate.'" (Chicago Tribune) "`What is the point of making employers and entrepreneurs spend $17 billion to send all this paperwork to Washington, where it's going to cost about $10 billion to log it in and file it away?' Boehner asked." (Roll Call)
4. Cut Spending To Create Jobs. "Boehner Calls on Obama to Commit to `Aggressive Spending Reduction.'" (Roll Call) "[Boehner] called on the Obama Administration to send Congress an aggressive spending reduction package. `I'm not afraid to tell you there's no money left,' Boehner said. `In fact, we're broke.'" (TIME)
5. Ask for - and Accept - the Resignations of Secretary Geithner and Larry Summers, the Head of the National Economic Council. "Boehner: Obama must fire entire economic team. Saying Washington is hampered by `endless spending sprees, entangled tax structures and bureaucracy run amok,' the top House Republican on Tuesday . said the president must break with the economic team that, 19 months into his tenure, has failed to lower the unemployment rate." (The Washington Times) "Boehner pointed to the resignation of Christina Romer as chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, who announced her decision to step down shortly after Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, resigned. `We have been told that the president's economic team is `exhausted' -- already, his budget director and his chief economist have moved on or are about to. Clearly, they see the writing on the wall, and the president should too,' Boehner said." (ABC News)
From:
http://gopleader.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=204035
By Michael O. Leavitt
Despite the report from Medicare's trustees this month that the hospital insurance trust fund will not be depleted until 2029, 12 years later than was predicted just last year, Medicare is no better off than it was a year ago.
The administration credits Medicare's seemingly healthier financial outlook to changes made by the new health-care law. In fact, the legislation has weakened the program. Worse, its changes create the perception of progress, making it more difficult to pursue the reforms that would put Medicare on sound financial footing so future generations of seniors will benefit.
The problem begins with double counting. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the health law will reduce Medicare spending by about $450 billion over 10 years. But all of those savings, plus massive tax increases, are used in the new law to pay for an expansion of Medicaid and a new entitlement program to subsidize insurance premiums for low-income households.
The Medicare cuts can be used to improve the government's capacity to finance benefits in the future or to pay for another entitlement. But they can't be used for both -- a point the CBO and Medicare's actuaries made in their cost estimates. On paper, the Medicare trust fund appears to have additional reserves because of government accounting peculiarities. But Congress has already committed those funds elsewhere.
Then there is the nature of the cuts. The administration recently penned a taxpayer-subsidized mailer for seniors touting the benefits the health law is to provide. Not mentioned are the deep cuts to Medicare Advantage, the private insurance component of Medicare, that will reduce benefits for the average enrollee by $800 per year later this decade.
Further, the new law imposes about a half-percentage-point cut every year in the annual increases in Medicare payment rates for hospitals and other institutional providers of care. Those increases are meant to cover inflation in the costs of providing services. Over time, the compounding effect of the cuts will be so large that the program's chief actuary says they are unlikely to be sustained. He estimates that if these cuts are implemented, 15 percent of the nation's hospitals would have to stop seeing Medicare patients. Despite all the talk of "delivery system reform," these cuts would be applied without regard to quality or performance. Every hospital and nursing home would experience reductions, no matter how well or badly they treat their patients.
We know full well that this kind of arbitrary cost-cutting in Medicare doesn't work. Since 1989, Congress has tried to put a lid on total fees paid to physicians. The use of physician services has soared under Medicare's fee-for-service arrangements. The automatic formula has tried to offset the higher costs with lower fees, across the board. But the cuts are so draconian that they drive physicians out of the program and reduce beneficiaries' access to care. The result is a bipartisan rush to undo the cuts every year. Why would we expect a different result from arbitrary cost-cutting in the new health law?
The administration has also pointed to the Independent Payment Advisory Board as a "game changer" for Medicare and the broader health system. The 15-member board is charged with finding savings in Medicare to keep spending growth below fixed targets, starting in 2015. Its recommendations will take effect automatically unless overruled in a new law.
Although Congress handed off substantial power to the board, lawmakers did so by removing its potency. The board can change only Medicare's payment rates for services and products (and it can't touch hospitals until 2020). The board can't change the nature of the Medicare entitlement or try to impose more market-based discipline on the program. That means the only way it can hit the budget targets is with reductions in reimbursement rates for those taking care of patients. That approach never works to control costs because the volume of services used is left unchecked. This undermines quality by penalizing high and low performers alike.
The fundamental problem is that Medicare's dominant fee-for-service structure rewards volume, not quality or value. Over the past quarter-century, Medicare administrators -- appointed by both political parties -- have tried to leverage the government's purchasing power to get more value from what is spent on behalf of seniors. Those efforts have not succeeded in altering the program's unsustainable course. The Medicare bureaucracy, even with the Independent Payment Advisory Board attached to it, does not have the capacity to engineer a more efficient health delivery system through complicated payment regulations.
What's needed is a new vision for Medicare. Instead of micromanaging prices, the federal government should provide oversight of a marketplace in which cost-conscious seniors choose among competing insurance and delivery system options. That's how the new drug benefit works, and costs have come in much lower than expected because genuine price competition drives down costs much more than any payment regulation can.
What Congress passed this spring is the illusion of Medicare reform. It does not ease cost pressures but papers over them with unsustainable price controls. It will end in disappointment, just as every other such effort has.
From:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082605261.html
The writer was secretary of health and human services and a member of the Medicare Board of Trustees from 2005 to 2009.
By James Freeman
Pundits will debate whether the crowd at Glenn Beck's Saturday rally in Washington was the largest in recent political history, but it was certainly among the most impressive.
Mr. Beck is a television host and radio broadcaster with a checkered past and a penchant for incendiary remarks. But if he's judged by the quality of people of all colors that he attracted to the Lincoln Memorial, his stock can't help but rise.
Jason Riley discusses Glenn Beck's rally at the Lincoln Memorial.
One would not be able to find a more polite crowd at a political convention, certainly not at a professional sporting event, probably not even at an opera. In fact, judging by the behavior of the attendees following the event, you'd have a tough time finding churches in which people display more patience as others make their way to the exits.
This army of well-mannered folks that marched into Washington seemed comprised mainly of people who had once marched in the U.S. Army or other military branch, or at least had a family member who had. Perhaps that's not surprising, given that the event was a fund-raiser for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides scholarships to the children of elite troops killed in the performance of their duty. The day was largely devoted to expressions of gratitude for the sacrifices of U.S. soldiers, for great men of American history like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and for God.
But it didn't end there. Dave Roever, a Vietnam veteran, offered a closing prayer in which he thanked the Lord for the president and for the Congress. Despite the unpopularity of the latter two, no booing or catcalls could be heard.
Perhaps feeling defensive about how they would be portrayed in media reports, various attendees wore t-shirts noting that they were "Not violent" or "Non-violent." For other participants, there was no need for an explicit message. Relaxed young parents felt comfortable enough to push toddlers in strollers through the crowded areas along the memorial's reflecting pool.
Not only was the rally akin to a "huge church picnic" (in one Journal reporter's description), but one had to wonder if the over-achievers in this crowd actually left the area in better shape than they found it.
After the event, walking from the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool through Constitution Gardens, this reporter scanned 360 degrees and could not see a scrap of trash anywhere. Participants and volunteers had collected all their refuse and left it piled neatly in bags around the public garbage cans. Near Constitution Avenue, I did encounter one stray piece of paper-but too old and faded to have been left that day.
Given the huge representation of military families at the event, maybe it's not surprising the grounds were left ship-shape. A principal theme of the day was that attendees should restore the country by making improvements in their own lives-be the change you wish to see in the world, as Gandhi once put it.
Most of the participants were strictly amateurs in the business of activism. For many, it was their first appearance at a public demonstration. Their strikingly mild-mannered nature might inspire even Mr. Beck to acknowledge that in a crowd estimated at 300,000, the craziest person at the event might have been the one with the microphone. While he admits that he's part entertainer and prone to over-the-top comments, his followers appear to be sincerely responding to his message that Americans need to cling to their best traditions. (Mr. Beck's program appears on the Fox News Channel, which is owned by News Corp., which also owns this newspaper.)
The conservative Mr. Beck's ability to draw this many people to Washington may suggest enormous gains for Republicans come the fall. But the GOP shouldn't expect voters to simply hand them a congressional majority without making them earn it. If pregame chatter and off-season optimism translated into victory, the New York Jets and the Washington Redskins would meet in the Super Bowl every year.
Between Saturday's crowd in Washington and the tea partiers agitating for limited government, we may be witnessing the rebuilding of the Reagan coalition, the "fusion" of religious and economic conservatives that political theorist Frank Meyer once endorsed. Reagan always believed that the Republican Party was the natural home for this movement, but GOP leaders in Washington need to prove they are worthy of it.
From:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703369704575461633570826898.html
Our distracted commander in chief
By Charles Krauthammer
Many have charged that President Obama's decision to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan 10 months from now is hampering our war effort. But now it's official. In a stunning statement last week, Marine Corps Commandant James Conway admitted that the July 2011 date is "probably giving our enemy sustenance."
A remarkably bold charge for an active military officer. It stops just short of suggesting aiding and abetting the enemy. Yet the observation is obvious: It is surely harder to prevail in a war that hinges on the allegiance of the locals when they hear the U.S. president talk of beginning a withdrawal that will ultimately leave them to the mercies of the Taliban.
How did Obama come to this decision? "Our Afghan policy was focused as much as anything on domestic politics," an Obama adviser told the New York Times' Peter Baker. "He would not risk losing the moderate to centrist Democrats in the middle of health insurance reform and he viewed that legislation as the make-or-break legislation for his administration."
If this is true, then Obama's military leadership can only be called scandalous. During the past week, 22 Americans were killed over a four-day period in Afghanistan. This is not a place about which decisions should be made in order to placate members of Congress, pass health care and thereby maintain a president's political standing. This is a place about which a president should make decisions to best succeed in the military mission he himself has set out.
But Obama sees his wartime duties as a threat to his domestic agenda. These wars are a distraction, unwanted interference with his true vocation -- transforming America.
Such an impression could only have been reinforced when, given the opportunity in his Oval Office address this week to dispel the widespread perception in Afghanistan that America is leaving, Obama doubled down on his ambivalence. After giving a nod to the pace of troop reductions being conditions-based, he declared with his characteristic "but make no mistake" that "this transition will begin -- because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people's."
These are the words of a man who wants out. Most emphatically from Iraq, where Obama has long made clear that his objective is simply ending combat operations by an arbitrary deadline -- despite the fact that a new government has not been formed and all our hard-won success hangs in the balance -- in order to address the more paramount concern: keeping a campaign promise. Time to "turn the page" and turn America elsewhere.
At first you'd think that turning is to Afghanistan. But Obama added nothing to his previously stated Afghan policy while emphatically reiterating July 2011 as the beginning of the end, or more diplomatically, of the "transition."
Well then, at least you'd expect some vision of his larger foreign policy. After all, this was his first Oval Office address on the subject. What is the meaning, if any, of the Iraq and Afghan wars? And what of the clouds that are forming beyond those theaters: the drone-war escalation in Pakistan, the rise of al-Qaeda in Yemen, the danger of Somalia falling to al-Shabab, and the threat of renewed civil war in Islamist Sudan as a referendum on independence for southern Christians and animists approaches?
This was the stage for Obama to explain what follows the now-abolished Global War on Terror. Where does America stand on the spreading threats to stability, decency and U.S. interests from the Horn of Africa to the Hindu Kush?
On this, not a word. Instead, Obama made a strange and clumsy segue into a pep talk on the economy. Rebuilding it, he declared, "must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as president." This in a speech ostensibly about the two wars he is directing. He could not have made more clear where his priorities lie, and how much he sees foreign policy -- war policy -- as subordinate to his domestic ambitions.
Unfortunately, what for Obama is a distraction is life or death for U.S. troops now on patrol in Kandahar province. Some presidents may not like being wartime leaders. But they don't get to decide. History does. Obama needs to accept the role. It's not just the U.S. military, as Baker reports, that is "worried he is not fully invested in the cause." Our allies, too, are experiencing doubt. And our enemies are drawing sustenance.
From:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/02/AR2010090203991.html
If Conservative Media Reported Events Like The New York Times Does: Obama's Oval Office Address on the Iraq War
by Jeffrey Jena
WASHINGTON - Ten of thousands of people tuned in to hear a broadcast organized by the handlers of President Obama, a liberal politician and former community organizer. The self aggrandizing speech took place from a site where Abraham Lincoln once worked some 150 years ago.
The address, which was stiffly read from a teleprompter, was advertised as an announcement of the end of combat operations in Iraq but featured a lengthy sales pitch for Mr. Obama's failing economic and legislative agenda.
The broadcast, which was listened to by a predominantly white audience, failed to mention several facts, among them that Mr. Obama, a former cocaine abuser, had not supported the so called "surge" in Iraq which military experts regard as the key to our success in that country. This is understandable since Mr. Obama, who once bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, has little experience in foreign affairs. It is also well know that Mr. Obama, who still smokes, and many in his government had not supported the surge and predicted its failure. Mr. Obama, who many believe is a Muslim, also failed to mention that this troop drawdown and the surge were instituted by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Mr. Obama had promised in his presidential campaign to have all troops home within a year of his taking office, left behind 50,000 American "support" soldiers. Among them are a reported 2400 special forces who are allegedly tasked to kill random Iraqis who are suspected of being terrorists.
Sources inside the White House report that after the address sycophants gathered around the President and congratulated him on a job well done.
From:
Why No Amount of Reporting Can Hurt Sarah Palin
The former Alaska governor is insulated from the media in a way that other politicians can only dream about.
From Newsweek Magazine
Vanity Fair has released not one, but two damning articles investigating the woman and the brand that is Sarah Palin. But even the magazine admits that the reporting will not damage a woman whose credibility seems "incidental," it says, to fact.
Michael Joseph Gross's stories, headlined "Sarah Palin: the Sound and the Fury" and "Sarah Palin's Shopping Spree: Yes, There's More ..." are filled with the kind of detail that sets the political press frothing (with outrage or glee, depending on the outlet). She's a bad tipper, he reports; she abuses staff and throws things; she is vengeful, perhaps "unhinged"; her aides are amateurish and vindictive; she displays signs of paranoia. Gross found, he says, a "sad and moldering strangeness" as soon as he looked under the surface of her world.
But he adds that despite the fact that she openly says things that aren't true, "falsehoods never damage Palin's credibility with her admirers, because information and ideology are incidental to this relationship. Palin owes her power to identity politics, pitched with moralistic topspin."
Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more conventional politician surviving the claims that Gross makes. He systematically undermines the very aspects of her life that her image is built on: family, God, empowering women, children, and affinity for everyday folks.
He interviews bellhops who claim that she tips terribly. He reports that she and Todd have fights so vicious that they throw canned goods at each other, and that their marriage is often miserable. She supposedly uses her looks to get past what is described as "a horrible temper," and Gross even describes push-up bras as a way for her to get what she wants. Her finances are opaque, he says. She doesn't really hunt or fish-when she made Fox News' Greta Van Susteren moose chili for a TV special, Gross reports, Todd had to phone friends to get the meat. Her children were not consulted on her decision to take the vice presidential nomination in 2008-McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt broke the news to them.
Another scandal from the 2008 election, in which she was reported to have bought hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of clothes on the Republican National Committee's dime is brought up again, too-she even bought underwear, Gross says, and tried to keep many items when she was asked to return them.
Palin, who, Gross reports, has adopted the North Star as an unofficial emblem, inspires secrecy on the level of the Mafia. People fear that if they reveal information about her, she will air what he calls her favorite threat: "I have the power to ruin you."
It is hard to know whether what Gross reports is true-many of his assertions are based on opinions, and anonymous ones at that. But more baseless accusations have hampered politicians-just ask Barack Obama about his religion.
Politics, Porn, and ... Palin? Artist Jonathan Yeo discusses why former Alaska governor and ex-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is a great subject for a portrait made out of cut-up pieces of pornography. The portrait was listed for $50,000 and sold in early August
Palin is insulated in ways that other public figures can only dream of. Her supporters defend her like so many lionesses surrounding a cub. When we made an initial error in this post-we erroneously claimed that Conservatives4Palin, a blog dedicated to her, hadn't even mentioned the Vanity Fair article-C4P posted an immediate riposte pointing out that it had addressed the piece as soon as it had gone up, and calling me "a far-left radical" and "a total extremist." It continues a campaign against what it calls the Vanity Fair "hit piece."
Palin herself avoids rigorous journalistic interviews, and will probably use Fox News to claim further attacks by the "lamestream media." Her chances for a rumored run for the White House in 2012, it seems, remain unchanged.
From:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/01/why-no-amount-of-reporting-can-damage-sarah-palin.html
1 in 6 Americans now receives government aid:
http://www.businessinsider.com/one-in-six-americans-now-receives-government-aid-2010-8
Climate Change Lies (this just came out):
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/196642
Overwhelmingly White Media Criticize Conservative Rallies as 'Overwhelmingly White' (as FoxNews pointed out, anti-war, feminist and many other demonstrations are overwhelmingly white as well):
Ground Zero Mosque developer:
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/08/30/who-is-the-man-behind-the-ground-zero-mosque/
Haaretz . Com says Muslim leaders are seriously talking about abandoning the Ground Zero Mosque plans:
It’s the spending, stupid:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/its-the-spending-stupid/?singlepage=true
Alphabet media sees a 'Mixed Picture,' 'Mixed Bag' and 'Silver Lining' in Rising Unemployment Rate
Andrew McCarthy reviews book about radical Saul Alinsky:
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/-Organized--crime-6271
The U.S. and angry violent Muslims need a marriage counselor:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2010-ground-zero-imam-al-qaeda-and-america-like-married-couple/
Jimmy Breslin’s incoherent Harper’s Magazine article:
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/09/hbc-90007573
John Cusack’s death tweet:
Background on Hureta:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,600643,00.html
The AP starts to catch on to the TEA party:
New Normal: America in Decline
RUSH: Mort Th'Zuckerman is back with another piece of writing, this time in the Wall Street Journal about the regime. His piece today is entitled: "The End of American Optimism," which he defines in the first paragraph. This is fascinating to see what Mort Th'Zuckerman considers to be optimistic. Listen to this opener: "Our brief national encounter with optimism is now well and truly over. We have had the greatest fiscal and monetary stimulus in modern times. We have had a whole series of programs to pay people to buy cars, purchase homes, pay off their mortgages, weatherize their homes, and install solar paneling on their roofs. Yet the recovery remains feeble and the aftershocks of the post-bubble credit collapse are ongoing."
We tried all this optimistic stuff and it didn't work? Whether that's what he means or not, this is an incredible paragraph: "Our brief national encounter with optimism is now well and truly over. We have had the greatest fiscal and monetary stimulus in modern times. We have had a whole series of programs to pay people to buy cars, purchase homes, pay off their mortgages, weatherize their homes, and install solar paneling on their roofs," all to stimulate the economy. None of it worked. It remains feeble. The aftershocks of the post-bubble credit collapse are ongoing. "We are at least 2.5 million jobs short of getting back to the unemployment rate of under 8% promised by the Obama administration. Concern grows that we are looking at a double-dip recession and hovering on the brink of a destructive deflation. Things are bad enough for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to have characterized the economic outlook late last month as 'unusually uncertain.' Are we at the end of the post-World War II period of growth? Tons of money have been shoveled in to rescue reckless banks and fill the huge hole in the economy, but nothing is working the way it normally had in all our previous crises."
Really? Has this kinda stimulus worked in the past to revive an economy? I'm not aware of that. I know the Keynesians believe it has, but World War II was not Keynesian stimulus. Any rate, "Rather, we are in what a number of economists are referring to as the 'new normal.' This is a much slower-growing economy that, recent surveys have revealed, is causing many Americans to distance themselves from the long-held assumption that their children will have it better than they." Well, once again, ladies and gentlemen, it's up to me to properly define the term, the new normal. According to Mort Th'Zuckerman and all of these economists he's referring to, the new normal means, "You know what? The salad days are over. The idea that your kids are going to do better than you, look, we had our run, we really gave it our best shot, but that can't go on, we just can't sustain, we can't lead the world economically, can't go on. The new normal is you better expect things to get worse. Don't expect to get a job in the next two to three years, gonna take at least that long to get down to 8% unemployment. Really there's not a whole lot of to look forward to." That's the new normal. That's what they say it is.
Can I tell you what the new normal is? What do you think, Dawn? You're nodding. What do you think the new normal is? No idea? Well, you were nodding at me as you were all knowing. Snerdley? I love doing this, folks, ask people: what do you think the new normal really is? What is it? I'll tell you what the new normal is. No, the new normal is simply a construction designed to save Obama and the Democrats from any association with this economic collapse. Calling this a new normal is simply saying, "Hey, this is not the result of any Democrat policy. This is not the result of Obamanomics, no. This is just America. And by golly by gosh, Obama's doing the best he can with it, but he's only got so much to work with. The new normal, it is what it is. This is not the result of bad economic policy. This is not the fault of Obama." The new normal is defining the Obama depression down. This is ridiculous. And you as a citizen ought not settle for the idea that this is America going forward, that this is the new normal, 'cause I'm telling you right now, it's not. All this, quote, unquote, new normal is an excuse. It's giving Obama and the regime a pass. We've gone from optimism to opticism. And opticism, the optics, how it looks, ah, it's just the new normal.
Anybody who is optimistic at Obama's stimulus program, those are the people that need to be cast away. Those are the people that need to be ignored. These Keynesians, oh, yeah, this is the way, they said. This is what we have to do. This will create jobs, shovel-ready, all that rotgut. We now know 20 months, it's all a bust, all the bailouts, all the stimuli have failed, and so now what we have is a new normal, yeah. This is it, folks, get used to it, this is the new America, in decline. And it's just coincidental that it happened when the Obama regime took office. To give you an idea of how poorly Keynesian economics worked, the stock market never reached its 1929 peak until 1954. Now, let me put this in perspective for you. We tried Keynesian stimulus policy, FDR, the New Deal. That's gonna bring us out of the 1929 depression. Guess what? We didn't reach stock market peaks that were existed in '29 until 1954. It only took 25 years to get back to where we were in 1929 with Keynesian stimuli. So the new normal means if you're not happy, tough toenails. If you're not happy, lower your expectations, 'cause this is it, baby. The new normal is designed to get you to give up. The new normal is a creation to get you to go ahead and accept mediocrity in your country.
RUSH: The new normal. Let me define it for you further. The new normal is a $7 million yacht with no state taxes for John F. Kerry, the haughty senator who once served in Vietnam. The new normal is a new beachfront mansion and a host of private planes for Algore. The new normal is a super wedding for Chelsea Clinton. The new normal is 30 luxury rooms at a five-star European resort for Moochelle Obama. But the new normal for us is to tighten our belts and to accept excrement sandwiches, some days with mustard and some days not. The new normal is no expectations. The new normal is: "Get real. Get with it. This is your lot in life." So when Mort Th'Zuckerman and the rest of these people write about the new normal, these so-called economists that he quotes, ask yourself: Where do we go to get the old normal back?
I'll tell you, the first place we go to get the old normal back is the ballot box. That's going to be in November. Have you noticed the Democrat Party does not stand up for this country? They just don't -- and in fact not only do they not stand up for the country, any chance they get to join in criticism of this country, they get in line. They race to be the first to speak! Let me just put it out there. In the middle of wars the Democrat Party undermines our armed forces. Iraq, anybody? Harry Reid famously said, "This war is lost," when our brave soldiers were fighting on the battlefields of Iraq. The Democrat Party does not believe we should secure our border. The Democrat Party does not believe we should enforce federal immigration law.
When it comes to zoning at Ground Zero, they stand with an imam who refuses to denounce Hamas -- and then they have the gall to tell us, "This is what America is all about." Well, America is not about losing wars. America is not about a nation in decline with no great expectations for the future. America is not about giving up. America is not about opening the borders to virtually anybody who wants to get into the country and corrupt it for the sake of empowering one corrupt political party. That's not what America is all about. Notice all of the perversion, all of the corruption, all of the outrageousness that the Democrats stand up and say, "This is what America's about," and it's not.
The Democrat Party is not about what America is about, and that's the big problem that we face. The Democrat Party arguably, you could say that they were -- and remember, it was just week. (laughing) It was just last week our good friends at The Politico with a big story on how offbeat Republican candidates are. Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee. How kooky, weird, and oddball Republican candidates are. In the meantime, the new normal is a bunch of anti-America -- or America's wrong, blame-America-first -- Democrats is what America is like all about.
[Rush was on vacation this week]
The End of American Optimism:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703960004575427332237529948.html
Since there are some links you may want to go back to from time-to-time, I am going to begin a list of them here. This will be a list to which I will add links each week.
Mostly a liberal blogger, who says vicious things about most conservatives; and yet, says something sensible, e.g. posting many of the things which the healthcare bill does to us.
Conservative news site (many of the stories include videos):
Muslim hope:
http://www.muslimhope.com/index.html
Anti-Obama sites:
http://howobamagotelected.com/
http://www.impeachobamacampaign.com/
International news, mostly about Israel and the Middle East:
News headlines sites (with links):
http://www.thedeadpelican.com/
Business blog and news:
And I have begun to sort out these links:
News and Opinions
Conservative News/Opinion Sites
The Daily Caller
Sweetness and Light
Flopping Aces:
News busters:
Right wing news:
CNS News:
Pajamas Media:
Right Wing News:
Scared Monkeys (somewhat of a conservative newsy site):
Conservative News Source:
David’ Horowitz’s NewsReal:
Pamela Geller’s conservative website:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/
The news sites and the alternative news media:
Andrew Breithbart’s websites:
http://biggovernment.breitbart.com/
Conservative Websites:
http://www.theodoresworld.net/
http://www.rockiesghostriders.com/
www.coalitionoftheswilling.net
A conservative worldview:
http://www.divineviewpoint.com/sane/
http://www.theamericanright.com/forums/index.php
Liberal News Sites
Democrat/Liberal news site:
News
CNS News:
News Organization (I mention them because I have seen 2 honest stories on their website, which shocked and surprised me):
Business News/Economy News
Investors Business Daily:
IBD editorials:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/IBDEditorials.aspx
Great business and political news:
Quick News
Even though this group leans left, if you need to know what happened each day, and you are a busy person, here is where you can find the day’s news given in 100 seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tpmtv
Republican
Back to the basics for the Republican party:
http://www.republicanbasics.com/
Republican Stop Obamacare site:
http://www.nrcc.org/codered/main.php
North Suburban Republican Forum:
http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.org/
Politics
You Decide Politics (it appears conservative to me):
http://www.youdecidepolitics.com/
The Left
From the left:
Far left websites:
Weatherman Underground 1969 “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
http://www.archive.org/details/YouDontNeedAWeathermanToKnowWhichWayTheWindBlows_925 (PDF, Kindle and other formats)
http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/weather/weatherman_document.txt (Simple online text)
Insane, leftist blogs:
http://teabaggersrcoming.blogspot.com/
http://poorsquinky.com/politics/all.html
Media
Media Research Center
http://www.mrc.org/public/default.aspx
Conservative Blogs
Mike’s America
http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/
Dick Morris:
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/
David Limbaugh (great columns this week)
Texas Fred (blog and news):
Conservative Blogs:
http://atimetochoose.wordpress.com/
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/*/index
The top 100 conservative sites:
Sensible blogger Burt Folsom:
Janine Turner’s website (I’m serious; and the website is serious too). This is if you have an interest in real American history:
http://constitutingamerica.org/
Conservative news/opinion site:
The Left Coast Rebel:
http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/
Good conservative blogs:
http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/
http://faultlineusa.blogspot.com/
http://makenolaw.org/ (the Free Speech blog)
http://www.baltimorereporter.com/
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/
The Romantic Poet’s Webblog:
http://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/
Brain Shavings (common sense from the Buckeye State):
Green Hell blog:
Daniel Hannan’s blog:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/danielhannan/
Conservative blog:
Richard O’Leary’s websites:
http://www.eccentrix.com/members/beacon/
Freedom Works:
Yankee Phil’s Blogspot:
http://yankeephil.blogspot.com/
Excellent list of Blogs on the bottom, right-hand side of this page:
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/
Babes
And simply because I like cute, intelligent babes:
Liberty Chick:
Dee Dee’s political blog:
http://somosrepublicans.com/author/deedee/
The Latina Freedom Fighter:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LatinaFreedomFighter
Ann Althouse ("Crusty conservative coating, creamy hippie love chick center.")
Judith Miller is one of the moderate and fairly level-headed voices for FoxNews:
A mixed bag of blogs and news sites
Left and right opinions with an international flair:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/
This is an odd blog; conservativism, bikinis and whatever else posted by either a P.I. or the brother of a P.I.:
http://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/
More out-there blogs and sites
Angry White Dude (okay, maybe we conservatives are angry?):
Mofo Politics (a very anti-Obama site):
Info Wars, because there is a war on for your mind (this site may be a little crazy??):
The Magic Negro Watch (this is peppered with obscenities and angry conservative rhetoric):
http://magicnegrowatch.blogspot.com/
Okay, maybe this guy is racist:
Media
Glenn Beck’s shows online:
http://www.watchglennbeck.com/
News busted all shows:
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/search.aspx?q=newsbusted&t=videos
Joe Dan Media (great vids and music):
http://www.youtube.com/user/JoeDanMedia
The Patriot’s Network (important videos; the latest):
PolitiZoid on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/politizoid
Reason TV
This guy posts some excellent vids:
http://www.youtube.com/user/PaulWilliamsWorld
HipHop Republicans:
http://www.hiphoprepublican.blogspot.com/
Our Corrupt Media
Topics
(alphabetical order)
Bailouts
Bailout recipients:
http://bailout.propublica.org/main/list/index
Eye on the bailout (this is fantastic!):
http://bailout.propublica.org/
The bailout map:
http://bailout.propublica.org/main/map/index
From:
Border
Do you want to watch what is happening on our border? These are actual videos of observations cams along the border:
http://borderinvasionpics.com/
Secure the Border:
Capitalism
Liberty Works (conservative, economic site):
Capitalism Magazine:
http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/
Communism
45 Goals of Communists in order to take over the United States (circa 1963):
http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm
How this correlates to the goals of the ACLU:
Congress
No matter what your political stripe, you will like this; evaluate your Congressman or Senator on the issues:
http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm
http://www.cagw.org/government-affairs/ratings/2008/ratings-database.html
http://www.cagw.org/reports/pig-book/2009/pork-database.html
The Economy/Economics
Bush “Tax Cut” myths and fallacies:
http://libertyworks.com/category/obamanomics/bush-tax-cut-myths-fallacies/
A debt clock and a lot of articles on the debt:
Recovery (dot) gov (where our money is being spent):
http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx
A collection of articles by Michelle Malkin about Obama’s war against jobs:
http://michellemalkin.com/category/politics/obama-jobs-death-toll/
If you have a set of liberal friends, email them one chart a week from here (go to the individual chart, and then choose download and format):
AC/DC economics (start with the oldest lessons first; economics in 60 second bites):
http://www.youtube.com/user/ACDCLeadership#p/a
Economist and talk show host Walter E. Williams:
The conservative plan to get us out of this financial mess:
The Freedom Project (most a conservative news and opinion site which appears to concentrate on matters financial)
http://www.freedomproject.org/
Bankrupting America, with great videos and maps:
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/
This appears to be a daily pork report, apparently as pork in Washington bills is discovered, it gets posted at Tom Coburg’s website:
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=WashingtonWaste
Weekly poll, asking you to identify what we ought to cut in governmental spending:
http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/
Global Warming/Climate Change
This is an interesting site; it seems to be devoted to the debate of climate change:
http://www.climatedebatedaily.com/
Global Warming headlines:
http://www.dericalorraine.com/
Dr. Roy Spencer on climate change:
Not Evil, Just Wrong video on Global Warming
http://www.letfreedomwork.com/
http://www.taskforcefreedom.com/council.htm
Global Warming Hoax:
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/news.php
Global Warming Site:
Global Warming sites:
http://ilovecarbondioxide.com/
35 inconvenient truths about Al Gore’s film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5J7JNfLYco
http://www.noteviljustwrong.com/trailer
Wall Street Journal’s articles on Climate Change:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704007804574574101605007432.html
Michael Crichton on global warming as a religion:
http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
This man questions global warming:
http://themigrantmind.blogspot.com/
Healthcare
This is indispensable: the Wall Street Journal’s guide to Obama-care (all of their pertinent articles arranged by date—send one a day to your liberal friends):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574441193211542788.html
Republican healthcare plan:
http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare
Health Care:
http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/
Betsy McCaughey’s Health Care Site:
http://www.defendyourhealthcare.us/home.html
Obamacare Watch:
http://www.obamacarewatch.org/
This looks to be a good source of information on the health care bill (s):
Obamacare class action suit (as of today, joining in on the suit costs you whatever you want to donate, if I understand the form correctly):
http://www.van4congress.org/contact/obamacare-class-action/
Islam
Islam:
Jihad Watch
Answering Muslims (a Christian site):
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/
Muslim demographics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaZT73MrYvM
Muslim Demographics (this is outstanding):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU
Muslim deception:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNZQ5D8IwfI
A Muslim apologetic site (they will write out letters to express your feelings, and all you have to do is sign them, and they will send them on):
http://www.faithfulamerica.org/
Celebrity Jihad (no, really).
Legal
The Alliance Defense Fund:
http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/
Liberty Counsel, which stands up against the A.C.L.U.
ACLU founders:
http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/stokjok/Founders.html
Military
Here is an interesting military site:
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/
This is the link which caught my eye from there:
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=169400
The real story of the surge:
http://www.understandingthesurge.org/
National Security
Keep America Safe:
http://www.keepamericasafe.com/
Race Relations
A little history of Republicans and African-Americans:
http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com/blog/
Oil Spill
Since this will be with us for a long time, the timeline of the BP gulf oil spill:
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/05/obamas-katrina-illustrated-timeline.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/bp-gulf-oil-spill-timeline.php
This is cool: a continuous timeline of the spill, with the daily info and the expansion of the oil, and the response:
http://www.esri.com/services/disaster-response/gulf-oil-spill-2010/timeline-advanced.html
Cool Sites
Weasel Zippers scours the internet for great stuff:
The 100 most hated conservatives:
http://media.glennbeck.com/docs/100americans-pg1.pdf
Still to Classify
Army Ranger Michael Behenna sentenced to 25 years in prison for 25 years for shooting Al Qaeda operative
http://defendmichael.wordpress.com/
Maybe the White House does not need to hold press conferences? It releases exclusive articles daily right here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-and-releases
If you want to see 1984 style-rhetoric and tactics, see:
Project World Awareness:
http://projectworldawareness.com/
Bookworm room
This is quite helpful; it is a list of all leftist groups, with links to background information on each of these groups (when I checked, 879 groups were listed). This is a fantastic resource.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/summary.asp?object=Organization&category=
Commentary Magazine:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/
Family Security Matters (families and national security):
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/
America’s Right
Emerging Corruption (founded by an ACORN whistle blowe:
http://emergingcorruption.com/
In case you need to reference this, here are the photos of all those on the JournoList:
http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=29858
A place where you may find news no one else is carrying:
http://www.lookingattheleft.com/
News Website to get the Headlines and very brief coverage:
National Institute for Labor Relations Research
Independent American:
http://www.independentamerican.org/
If you want to be scared or depressed:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
Are you tired of all the unfocused news and lame talking heads yelling at one another? Just grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and see what is really going on in the world:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/video
It is not broken, but the White House wants to control it: the internet:
http://nointernettakeover.com/
John T. Reed comments on current events:
http://johntreed.com/headline.html
Conservative New Media (it is so-so; I must admit to getting tired of seeing the interviewer high-fiving Carly Fiorina 3 or 4 times during an interview):
http://conservativenewmedia.com/
Ann Coulter’s site:
Allen West for Congress:
http://allenwestforcongress.com/issues/
Their homepage:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/default.asp
Wall Builders:
http://www.wallbuilders.com/default.asp
One of the more radical people from the right, calling for the impeachment of Obama:
The Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a free enterprise site (there are several videos on the flat tax):
http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/
The Tax Foundation:
Compare your state with other states with regards to state taxes:
http://taxfoundation.org/files/f&f_booklet_20100326.pdf
Political news and commentary from the Louisiana Political News Wire:
This is a pretty radical site which alleges that Obama is a Marxist hell-bent in taking over our country:
1982 interview with Larry Grathwohl on Ayers' plan for American re-education camps and the need to kill millions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWMIwziGrAQ
Another babebolicious conservative (Kim Priestap):
http://politics.upnorthmommy.com/
Stop Spending our Future:
http://stopspendingourfuture.org/
DeeDee also blogs at:
http://somosrepublicans.com/author/deedee/
Somos Republicans:
In case you want to see how other conservatives are thinking,
Zomblog:
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/
Conservative news site:
http://www.liberalwhoppers.com/
http://conservativeamericannews.com/
Here’s an interesting new site (new to me):
http://www.overcomingbias.com/
This is actually a whole list of stories about the side-effects of Obamacare (e.g., Obamacare may be fatal to your health savings account; Medical devices tax will cost jobs; young will pay higher insurance rates, etc.): Send one-a-day of each story to your favorite liberal friends:
Here is an interesting blog, but, it is not all conservative stuff:
http://afrocityblog.wordpress.com/
These are some very good comics:
http://hopenchangecartoons.blogspot.com/
Helps for liberals to call conservative talk shows:
Sarah Palin’s facebook notes:
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=24718773587
Media Research Center:
http://www.mrc.org/public/default.aspx
Must read articles of the day:
The Big Picture:
http://www.bigpicweblog.com/exp/index.php
Talk of Liberty
Lux Libertas
Conservative website:
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/
Excellent articles on economics:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/ (Excellent video on the Department of Agriculture posted)
Your daily cartoon:
This is a news site which I just discovered; they gave 3 minute coverage to Obama’s healthcare summit and seemed to give a pretty decent overall view of it, without slanting one way or the other:
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/
(The segment was:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU-evdGu1Sk )
I have glanced through their website and it seems to be quite professional and reasonable. They have apparently been around since 1942.
An online journal of opinions:
http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/
American Civic Literacy:
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/
The Dallas TEA Party Organization (with some pretty good vids):
America people’s healthcare summit online:
http://healthtransformation.net/
This is fantastic; Florida (the Sunshine State) is now putting its state budget online:
http://transparencyflorida.gov
New conservative website:
http://www.theconservativelion.com
Conservative website:
Suzanne Somers s supposed to be older than Bill O’Reilly? He interviewed her this week, and she looked, well, hot. She is big into vitamins and human growth hormones.
http://www.suzannesomers.com/Default.aspx
The latest Climate news:
Obama cartoons:
http://obamacartoon.blogspot.com/
Education link:
http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/
News from 2100:
How you can get your piece of the stimulus pie:
http://www.economicstimuluspackageinfo.com/
Always excellent articles:
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/
The National Journal, which is a political journal (which, at first glance, seems to be pretty even-handed):
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/
Conservative blog: Dan Cleary, political insomniac:
http://dancleary.typepad.com/dan_cleary/
Stand by Liberty:
And I am hoping that most people see this as non-partisan: Citizens Against Government Waste:
Lower taxes, smaller government, more freedom:
Citizens Against Government Waste:
Conservative website featuring stories of the day:
http://www.lonelyconservative.com/
Christian Blog:
http://wisdomknowledge.wordpress.com/
News feed/blog:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/
News site:
Note sure yet about this one:
Conservative news and opinion:
http://bijenkorf.wordpress.com/
Conservative versus liberal viewpoints:
http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/other/conservative-vs-liberal-beliefs/
The Best Graph page (for those of us who love graphs):
http://midknightgraphs.blogspot.com/
The Architecture of Political Power (an online book):
Recommended foreign news site:
This website reveals a lot of information about politicians and their relationship to money. You can find out, among other things, how many earmarks that Harry Reid has been responsible for in any given year; or how much an individual Congressman’s wealth has increased or decreased since taking office.
http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php
Kevin Jackson’s [conservative black] website:
Notes from the front lines (in Iraq):
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/
Remembering 9/11:
http://www.realamericanstories.com/
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball site:
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/
The current Obama czar roster:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26779.html
Blue Dog Democrats:
http://www.house.gov/melancon/BlueDogs/Member%20Page.html
Undercover video and audio for planned parenthood:
The Complete Czar list (which I think is updated as needed):
http://theshowlive.info/?p=572
This is an outstanding website which tells the truth about Obama-care and about what the mainstream media is hiding from you:
http://www.obamacaretruth.org/
Politico.com is a fairly neutral site (or, at the very worst, just a little left of center). They have very good informative videos at:
http://www.politico.com/multimedia/
Great commentary:
My own website:
Congressional voting records:
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/
On Obama (if you have not visited this site, you need to check it out). He is selling a DVD on this site as well called Media Malpractice; I have not viewed it yet, except pieces which I have seen played on tv and on the internet. It looks pretty good to me.
http://howobamagotelected.com/
The psychology of homosexuality:
International News:
http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/
The Patriot Post:
Obama timeline:
http://exemployee.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/a-timeline-of-barack-obamas-political-career/
Tax professor’s blog:
I hate the media...
Palin TV (see her interviews unedited):
Liberal filter for FoxNews: News Hounds (motto:
We watch FOX so you don't have to). Be clear on this; they do not want you to watch FoxNews.
Asharq Alawsat Mid-eastern news site: