glenn beck

“Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” –The Eleventh Commandment, Ronald Reagan.

Glenn beck is a sideshow. As evidenced by message boards, twitter and facebook feeds as well as numerous columns and news segments this week, Glenn Beck is the now loudest cartoon clown in modern politics. (Momentarily, Beck is greasing up Michael Moore’s head to remove the honorary crown for this illustrious title, held by Moore since 2003).

On his radio show last week, the comedian-turned Thomas Paine aspirant “begged” his fans to, “look for the words ‘social justice, or ‘economic justice,’ on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can!” Beck went on: “Social justice and economic justice. . . . are code words [for Communism and Socialism].”

My infrequent experiences with Glenn Beck’s shows (on radio and television) invariably leave me with the same dilemma: while I agree with most of his conclusions, I cringe at nearly all of his arguments. I’ll put it another way. It is not enough to preach that the answer to the problem in your mind is four, when only a minority of the people listening have a subjective understanding that you are working with two added to two.

First off, the modern Democratic Party is without doubt Socialist. To take a page from the Pope of “Global Climate, non-Static, Eventual Event Happening,” Al the Gore, the science has spoken and the debate is over: Democrats are Socialists.

Indeed, this Party’s answer to every social problem is this: Government. They are expanding the federal government’s regulatory role, expanding the debt limit and using public dollars to buy up and invest in private industries. They are manipulating and conniving evermore citizens onto the public dole through works projects, endless new government jobs created by endless new bureaus, and by expanding federal welfare through the creation of insanely expensive and unmanageable new SOCIAL entitlements. Soon enough, they shall be increasing the tax burden in order to pay for this government banquet.

You will not have a choice about the increasing tax burden, nor shall Obama. This is how you pay for government largesse. Without exception, the central planners in Socialist systems incrementally increase their regulatory authority over the marketplace as they strive to plan the ideal economic landscape for everyone. Without exception, the central planners fail to explain that what is best for everyone is serfdom: at a cost of, only, the product of all of your labor, the planners shall provide “equality.” For modern liberals, “social equality” is one Hell of a drug.

The Environmental Protection Agency shall have a regulatory role on par with that of the Internal Revenue Service once Cap and Trade is passed. Your home, as well as the appliances therein, shall be ‘yours’ in name only. An omnibus health care plan shall be the ultimate in Socialist coercion. Your medical decisions shall be between you and 7,000 new health boards. The drugs and treatments you will have access to shall be subject to federal rationing policies, and innovation shall slow.

These are not opinions. I defy anyone to argue that the new health program is not grounded in Socialist economic philosophy. I defy anyone to assert that rationing shall not occur, that spending shall be kept under control or that access to care shall increase.

That being said, Glen Beck’s boobery of the first order has, like usual, done little more than feed the flames of our malcontented brethren. Now Keith Olberman can add Beck to his Worst Person in the World list and bring on three or four liberal Christians to bash crazy, heartless Conservatives. The substance behind Beck’s claim notwithstanding, Beck ought to know as well as anyone that Democrats don’t argue substance to begin with. Let alone when you provide them with a month’s worth of fodder.

Thus, as a rule, I avoid terms like “Nazi,” even where I might find an apt comparison.

Last week, Sean Penn wildly raved that the American press should be jailed for calling Hugo Chavez a dictator. I’ve come to expect that liberal entertainers—our contemporary answer to Court Jesters—will take every possible chance to rape the hand that feeds them: i.e., the First Amendment. “Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it,” said Penn. “And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”

Now, one could effortlessly retort, “Yea. . . . Hitler was elected too, skippy. Guess that makes him a man of the people, no?” But I can already hear the squealing response: “Are you saying Chavez is like Hitler!?” Or worse, “Are you calling Sean Penn a Nazi?!”

Although the name “Nazi” (or maybe just good old “Fascist”) wouldn’t be totally out of line here considering that Herr Penn just single-handedly obliterated Freedom of Speech, I was actually just calling him an idiot. (By the way, can we say enough with taking celebrity commentary on law, science, politics, or any topic requiring a brain, seriously? I am almost positive Ferdinand and Isabella did not summon the Court Jesters before heading for the New World or declaring war on France. Why must the Polis be continually berated with the gibberish of sycophantic cocaine addicts?)

I could say Obama is much like Hitler: both men are Socialists, elected on a message of hope, change, egalitarian populism, and social reform. Still, shouldn’t I be aware that everyone is going to think “genocide” when I bring Hitler into the conversation? Indeed, maybe I’ll avoid that one.

But Glen Beck preaches to the Conservative choir. So he flashes images of Marx, while turning on the red lights and sinister music, as he scarily talks about Obama and the Democrats. He knows what his audience wants to hear, and he knows his audience knows where he is coming from. They can sense the, otherwise, logical argument leading to Beck’s claim that Barak Obama is a Socialist.

Unfortunately, non-Conservatives never get that argument. Rather, they witness silly theatrics and straw men, then change the channel in disgust. This is no way to change hearts and minds. Isolationism is no way to win elections.

I can’t blame liberal Christians for being immediately turned off by Beck’s remarks. However, Glenn Beck is right, in substance (trust me, its in there).

First, social justice was not the foundational message of Christ. Salvation is what Christ brought. Even all that is theologically consistent with the message of Christ remains of secondary value to His act of being crucified for the salvation of our immortal souls.

Second, there is no question that Christians ought to be concerned with “social justice,” insofar as Christ preached a Gospel of caring for the poor and the sick. We are called to be stewards of the Earth and its resources. To the extent that the Earth is divided up among us, it would be wrong to horde and deny these resources in the face of the poor and the meek. The ownership of property is only good insofar as it ensures the benefit of many. A farmer can produce food for a whole community. It would be wrong for him to produce the food and throw it away; or to produce it and charge unreasonable sums. (Luckily, in a free market, there are many farmers to keep one another honest, and selling at fair prices. We can also expect the good Christian farmers to give to the poor at no cost.)

There is no question that this mission of social justice is often distorted, by Christians and non-Christians. I will refrain from explicating the many instances of Christian groups misusing Christian ethics in the name of some very anti-Christian social missions.

Instead, I’ll examine the following passages:

All that believed were together, and had all things in common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. (Acts 2:44-45)

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. (Acts 4:34-37)

These and other passages are regularly cited by Progressive Christians in support of big government taxation and welfare. Am I obtuse for not seeing the connection? Indeed, did Paul demand that Barnabas give all that he had to the Church, or threaten penalties if he refused? I am aghast. Do my liberal Christian friends consider the Church to be one with the state?

What about this passage:

Thou Shall Not Steal. (The Seventh Commandment)

Not only does this forbid the unjust and unreasonable taking of another person’s property (the product of their labor) it presupposes the notion of private property. The Bible is bursting with examples of property ownership, freedom from slavery, freedom from oppression, respect for life, and voluntary sacrifice and donation on behalf of the poor and meek. Would Christ have loved the woman in the temple who quietly gave her donation more, had she been compelled to give a fixed amount to the Roman government for the purpose of an inefficient welfare program?

Taxation is not donation; a government welfare program does not satisfy our Christian obligation to care for the meek. Let’s say a government official was assigned to enter my home each day and take money to pay for my groceries and the local police and fire. Let’s say he decided one day he was going to take $10 extra to pay for the groceries of the woman across the street. Let’s say I had no choice, and the administrative overhead cost $3. Do I say this was a very Christian act of the government official? It certainly wasn’t my Christian act: I’m being compelled at the force of law, not compassion.

Moreover, to the extent that the centrally planned welfare programs of the Great Society have, arguably, had a direct casual effect on destroying the family, with corresponding increases in drug use, violent crime, divorce and abortion, no, I don’t suppose Christ would be thrilled by Socialism.

The farmer can produce food for his whole community. But should the farmer allow a mob of homeless people to ravage his farm? Should he be allowed to charge a reasonable sum for his labor? Should a central planning authority have the power to tell him what to farm, how much to farm, how much he can keep, and how much he must give?

Communism and Socialism are theologically inconsistent with Christian ethics. Glenn Beck is right. But condescending to liberal Christians and bouncing around like a cartoon clown will not change a single mind.

the state of the union

That was not a “Joe Wilson” moment.

It is a convention that the Congress invites the president to deliver the State of the Union before a joint session of both houses. No Constitutional obligation requires the Congress to invite the president, and nothing requires the president to deliver a speech. Indeed, the Constitution requires that the president,

“shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Presidents Georg Washington and John Adams senior both delivered yearly addresses. Presidents Thomas Jefferson [1801-1809] through William Howard Taft [1913 - 1917] delivered their addresses in writing. Woodrow Wilson reestablished the formal speech. President Truman brought it to television and President Johnson brought it to primetime.

But we Americans have come to appreciate the great symbolisms this moment has acquired.

For instance, another convention is the invitation of the Supreme Court. Justice Bryer was the only Justice in attendance at several addresses given by President Clinton, and in 1986 no justice attended—the only time. This year, six justices were gracious to attend.

By convention, these justices sit politely, quietly dressed in their robes representing the judicial branch of government. It should not take a history nerd to be impressed by this moment—and in America, how lucky we are to get a moment like these each year.

The president—our president—submits his agenda to the legislature, calling on it for aid and advice. The president enforces the law, but he still needs the Congress to give him the go ahead. And in this scene—a little bit partisan, a little bit intense, but always, ideally, amicable—the Court gives no input. It is a marvelous representation of the American government. The Court has no agenda and no bias as to what the law shall be or how it shall be enforced: they simply referee when called to do so.

At the State of the Union, they represent what must remain steadfast, unwavering and immune from politics in the American government: justice and the Rule of Law.

Pollyannaish? Not at all. To be certain, those nine Justices are men and women, they are lawyers, and they are Americans. They vote, they take sides, they go to Church and Synagogue for guidance and they pay taxes. But in their roles as Justices, they are blind and take the greatest care to hold sacred the Rule of Law.

They don’t always succeed in their execution; I’ll be the first to admit this.

But the State of the Union is an American moment. It is not the time to obliterate conventions and institutions for political shock value. At this moment, it does not matter that we didn’t like the potential political impact of a Supreme Court decision.

In fact, in a ninety minute speech before 50 million Americans, jam-packed with a year’s worth of legislative proposals, there is simply no room to parse the details of each decision. Not seriously, anyway. President Obama dedicated a moment—two maybe three minutes—to a 180 page decision, stuffed with case law, reasoning and analysis.

It is entirely within the president’s role to criticize and politicize Court decisions. He would not be alone: four Justices dissented in Citizens United.

This is simply not done at the State of the Union. This is a setting where the Justices are present, but, by convention, not even able to respond. Surely, the president could have alluded to the decision and advocated a campaign finance reform for the new Congressional session. That would have been fair and entirely appropriate. But to essentially suggest that the Court had violated the Constitution by going recklessly against precedent, as if for some ulterior political motive, is uncalled for.

Moreover, Obama utterly misrepresented the decision by declaring that it would open the floodgates to foreign corporations’ contributing to U.S. elections. “Not true,” Justice Alito muttered. And it is not. Quite simply, this is not true. Federal law forbids foreign donations—corporate or individual—from being contributed to U.S. elections (state, local or federal). They cannot even give money to U.S. subsidiaries for the purpose of donating to campaigns. Furthermore, the majority in Citizens United expressly states that foreign donations are unaltered by the ruling.

This leads one to believe that either the president does not know the law or that he was intentionally misrepresenting the law for political gain: he got a standing ovation from House and Senate Democrats. What a populous chord he was striking, attacking big-business by slapping around the Court!

Indeed, given that the law was passed in 1996, it is somewhat baffling that so many Congressmen stood and applauded. Many of them had to have been in Congress in 1996. Surely both Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Biden were. (In fairness, President Obama was finishing his third year of elementary school at about this time).

So in the last week, many in the media and Congress have had the audacity to deride Justice Alito for breaking convention by muttering those words. Of course he did—the president had just annihilated the convention.

It has been said this was Alito’s “Joe Wilson” moment. But Justice Alito is undeniably right that the president’s remark was untrue. Actually, with regard to accuracy, Joe Wilson was not even a Joe Wilson moment: he was right too. The difference is, Joe Wilson was disrespecting the president; whereas, Samuel Alito had just been disrespected by the president. Justices Kennedy and Roberts might have been class acts for not responding to the false attack against their majority decision, but who can blame Justice Alito for muttering?

In adlibbing the line “with all due deference to the separation of power,” as if it mitigated the fact that he was proceeding to join with half of one branch of government in lambasting 5/9th of another branch a government, President Obama indicated that his direct public attack of the Court was unprecedented. Otherwise, why add this line? Would he have presumed, otherwise, that people would consider that publically attacking the judicial branch at the State of the Union might infringe on the doctrine? He would have been right.

In a word, we cannot become cynical about these institutions and conventions. The man who occupies the house that Washington built should wise up to that. He is still my president, but sometimes the man holding the office is a real . . . .

george bush is now, permanently, the source of all our problems

We are not entitled to our own facts.  Fortunately for left wingers, we are entitled to our own spin.

To listen to Obama, one would think that Scott Brown won in the liberal fiefdom of Marxachusetts because they were fatigued by the “last eight years” of Bush.

“The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office is what swept me into office,” he said. “People are angry and they’re frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened over the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

So, liberal Massachusetts voted for a Republican because they were tired of Bush?  What else has happened in the last eight years?  What could he possibly be referring to besides our erstwhile president whose been out of office for a year?

To listen to Howard Dean, one would think that because the 80% of Obama’s Massachusetts votes who stayed home were upset that there was no public option in the Senate bill, Brown’s victory was really a declaration that many voters wanted a public option.

So, they voted for the one choice out of two who was clearly and openly opposed to, not only a public option, but a universal health care bill in general.  Say, didn’t Coakley support a public option?

To listen to Frau Pelosi, if you can stomach it, one would think that the voters of Massachusetts were not voting against Obamacare because they already have state health care coverage—it being the inference that they clearly enjoy it very much—and moreover, we cannot expect the fate of health care reform to rest solely on the desires of one state.

That’s an interesting take on representative government.  Ought the senators of states who have state health care remain home and not vote?  Does this mean that John Kerry will not be voting, henceforth?  Well I’m all for that Madame Speaker, indeed.

Senator Feinstein was more tempered.  To wit, she advocated that Democrats go slower.  “People do not understand,” she said.  Health care reform is “so big, it’s beyond their comprehension.”

In Feinstein, we find the archetype of all left-wing spin:  hubristic self delusion.

In a word, Democrats just didn’t do a good enough job of telling us how awesome they are.  In the future, they must strive for even more awesomeness.

Still, numbers have a funny way of compelling the logical inferences which the Left tries desperately to avoid.  Brown won by nearly 6%, closing a 30 point+ deficit in less than one month—on the back of a campaign declaring him the “41st vote.”  He won 67% of the vote in one Massachusetts district which Obama carried 53-46 in 2008—the same margin which Obama won by nationally.  That district handed an extra 21% to the Republican candidate just a year after Obama’s inauguration.

Brown won 20% of Democrats, 18% of Obama’s 2008 votes and 70% of Independents.  Obama carried Massachusetts by 62% overall.  Couple these results with the statewide elections in both New Jersey and Virginia, both carried by Obama, and the message becomes clear.

But there’s more.  This seat was held by John F. Kennedy and later Ted Kennedy for more than fifty years.  Ted Kennedy was arguably the safest and most easily re-electable politician from either party in the entire nation for decades.  He was, moreover, the Senate’s champion of universal health care since the 1970’s.  Alas, it’s not Teddy’s seat anymore.

Massachusetts turned out with 50% of registered voters—higher than most presidential election turn-outs.  For what?  Because they really-really wanted a public option as Howard Dean would have us believe?

Pelsoi would have us believe that since Massachusetts already has universal health care they must like it and therefore could not have been voting against Obamacare.

Yet, we know health care mattered to them.  In fact, 52% of Massachusetts voters opposed health care reform and 42% said they voted for Brown for the specific purpose of thwarting Obamacare.  And was it not obvious to all why Brown was referring to himself as the 41st vote?

Or maybe, as Senator Feinstein would have us believe, people just didn’t understand how great health care reform was going to be.

I don’t understand this though—was there some kind of media black out on the topic?

Let’s see:  President Obama gave more than fifty speeches, made hundreds of comments, held a primetime nationally televised speech before a joint session of Congress, and held another primetime press conference which derailed into a colloquium on the president’s racial musings (Whitey and those stupid cops).  Congressmen and senators held numerous town hall meetings throughout the summer—to be sure, derailed by protestors.

Aha!  A K-street misinformation campaign—that’s what confused Americans.

Americans are so simple that the complex and nuanced health care reform flew over their little heads, allowing those vile naysayers and K-Street lobbyists to stymie debate and influence the dimwitted proletariat.

That’s an interesting position in that it is brilliantly ass-brained:  exactly what an arrogant left-winger needs to excuse the glorious rejection of their unwieldy social agenda.

First, how is that when 52% of the country votes for Obama it is an earth shattering, glass-ceiling breaking orgasm of inspiration; yet, when America rejects his health care agenda by a similar margin it could only be because Americans are dim and easily misled about comprehensive health care reform?  After all, health care reform was supposedly part of his election mandate.

Second, who was hindering debate over health care?  It seems to me that a filibuster prolongs debate while it is cloture which ends debate.  It would also seem that holding partisan, closed-door debates on the bill and rebuking opponents as Nazis and K-Street Lobbyists would stifle debate as well.   Left-wing media hounds called whole groups of citizen-protesters “tea-baggers.”  Albeit, I would not doubt their intimate knowledge of the practice.

Third, who was spreading misinformation, and whose misinformation was the most widely disseminated?  Aside from Sarah Palin’s comment about ‘death panels,’ I can think of no specific fact held up by Conservatives which average voters—such as those who went to the polls on Tuesday—accepted as true, but was arguably not true.  That rationing shall result from this bill is debatable—easily proven, but debatable and, thus , not what I would even call “misinformation.”

Hyperbole Palin’s statement was; misinformation it was not.

Will Obamacare be a government take-over of the health care system?  Yes, of course it will.  Will a public option put private business out of business and cause government to be the only health care option.  Yes.  Will taxes increase and Medicare be cut?  Yes.  Will it be more expensive than Obama is telling us?  Ask the CBO.  Has Obama and company repeatedly advocated single payer health care, thus creating the perception that his bill is no more than a Trojan horse—call it an “incremental” step—toward single payer care?  Yes, youtube it.

Now, for my favorite pieces of misinformation (lies):  (1) that there are 45 million uninsured; (2) that America ranks 37th in overall health care world wide; and (3) that the reason health care is so expensive is because evil insurance companies and drug companies are making obscene profits (2-3%, the same as most industries) in an “unregulated” market.

Obama has spent nearly a year spreading these and other “facts” which are easily disproved:  not arguably disprovable, easily disprovable.

America saw through it—again.  For at least the fourth time in American history, the American people have rejected a federal overhaul of health care and a national health care regime.  Each time it began with high polling numbers, invariably due to the question presented to them being:  “Do you want health care reform which will make it cheaper and more accessible?”  (Personally, I always say “N-O!” to that one).   And invariably, once the details of the reform are released, broad opposition ensues.

But left-wingers tell us it’s because we were too stupid to understand how awesome they and their agenda are.  Well, I am certainly seeing a pattern of stupidity, but not among the American people.

Young Liberals.

Equality California, a prominent LGBT political action group, has issued a petition urging President Obama to file a brief in the Federal Court challenge to Proposition 8, declaring his support for the overturning of Proposition 8 as an unconstitutional state law. The same petition declares it unacceptable that President Obama failed to forcibly speak out against the recent vote in Maine, where for the 31st time, State citizens have defined marriage as between men and women.

I’m not particularly interested in marriage as a political issue. I am nevertheless fascinated in the constant attempt to recruit President Obama in this battle. Donald Trump and Miss California accurately described President Obama’s professed position on the topic as being in agreement with those who voted in favor of Propisition 8; as well as with the opinions expressed by Miss Prejean.

Interestingly, the Minority supporters of Proposition 8 largely mirrored President Obama’s own Minority supporters: Blacks and Hispanics overwhelmingly favored (a) Proposition 8 and (b) President Obama. President Obama’s historic campaign even spiked Minority turn out across the country last year – where 4 states passed some variation on what may be described as State versions of the Defense of Marriage Act. (That of course was the federal act signed by famed LGBT activist, Bill Clinton, which defined marriage as between men and women).

One could argue that President Obama’s own candidacy caused Proposition 8 to pass by a narrow margin of 52-48, insofar as, Blacks (1) turned out en mass to (2) vote 9-1 for Obama while (3) voting for Proposition 8 by 7-3.

Indeed, this recruitment of Obama by the Gay Rights crowd is truly fascinating, if only to extent that great joy is derived from watching naive liberals find out that, while there is a Santa Clause, he has turned out to be a self-involved street pimp.

Barack Obama’s professed position on marriage is no different from George W. Bush’s, John McCain’s or Carrie Prejean’s. Yet, did Equality California ever initiate a petition requesting the aid of President Bush in their fight to promote gay marriage?

In fairness, it is quite likely that President Obama has intentionally misrepresented his position out of political pragmatism. In other words, he’s a stand up guy. Thus, we are left with two alternative conclusions with respect to Equality California’s perception of President Obama: (a) complete and utter naivete or (b) full recognition of the fact that President Obama does not mean what he says to most people.

Perhaps there is a fair amount of the latter, but I think the protests on Universities of California illustrates that the former is a more likely conclusion.

Statistically, young people lean liberal, voted for President Obama, and support all manner of government spending: universal health care, more taxes for education, more taxes for entitlements, taxes on carbon dioxide and other, em, pollutants…. to pay for green energy.

The state of California has been the playground of liberals for some 40 years now. Our legislature, which passes our budgets and manages our public funds, has been Democrat in both houses, almost uninterrupted, since the late sixties. We now have a $21 billion budget gap. Cause and effect, perchance?

California is unique in that our citizens can vote directly on foolish state bond measure. But this only indicates that there are at least enough foolish California voters who are routinely convinced that the government deserves more of their money to pay for “the public welfare”: i.e., young college students.

Last year, these college students supported President Obama, or as I like to think of him: the most expensive decision this country has ever made. Statistically, they will surely support whomever the Democratic candidate is in California’s gubernatorial election next year.

Now, as a result of California’s mismanagement of the public funds (largely to be blamed on the Legislature) and runaway spending, choices are being made: slash the budget or raise taxes? Raise taxes, cut programs or raise UC tuition?

So, the UC Regents raised tuition: 32% (or about $2,500 per student per year). UCLA students promptly marched across the campus while students at my Alma Mater, UC Berkeley, barricaded themselves inside Wheeler auditorium. Action was taken immediately: 3,800 citations. “There’s the Man for ya! With his oppressive, eh, citations! We’ll win this war yet.”

But do these foolish children not realize that they voted for “The Man”? A part of me wonders what stepping, perhaps just one foot, inside the minds of left-leaning college students would be like.

For instance, what were their opinions on the Tea Party protesters, whom their sexually frustrated heroes Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow and John Stewart referred to as “Tea Baggers?” (This is important, because it’s telling that the first mention of a “Tea Party” strangely evinces images of genitalia being inserted into people’s mouths, rather than, say, the founding of our country. I’m certainly relieved that the UC’s did not produce the sick, dimwitted minds of Olberman and Maddow. I don’t, however, know what’s going on up there at Maddow’s Alma Mater, Stanford).

The “Tea Baggers,” in the minds of most Useful Idiots, were little more than under-educated, gun toting White Christians who didn’t want to pay taxes. (Historically, what was it that occasioned the other time such a group came together of late…?).

The “Tea Baggers” were indeed heartless: here, we have people “dying in the streets!” without health care, and those “Faux-News-Halibutron-K Street-Bush-Tea Baggers” are just concerned about taxes and government spending!

Yet, as soon as the tiniest effect of government largess is felt in the checkbooks of 18-23 year old UC students, we’re supposed to bear state-wide demonstrations, the interruption of classes and, potentially, the damaging of public property? This reaches the very height of arrogance and egotism. It’s like watching hungry Romans demand more bread and becoming obstinate when asked to pay up.

Young people like this (mainly college students) suffer from a level of naivete which makes the case, quite brilliantly, that the voting age should be raised to forty. (Yes, I would be more than willing to give my vote up for another 15 years to keep these fools from making anymore political decisions).

These kids are screaming at the smallest fragment of bark on a tree, too stupid to realize that there is a forest around them engulfed in flames. By the time they see the fire, they’ll expect the arsonists to put it out.

Render unto Czar the economy, energy, cars, green jobs, AIDS, climate change, war, terrorism, faith based initiative, regulatory policy, safe and drug free schools……………….

Given that there are officially more Czar’s in President Obama’s shadow-Cabinet than can be claimed for the entire three hundred and seventy year period between the reign of Ivan the Terrible and the October Revolution, the U.S.A. can once again affirm the scientific fact that we are No. 1!

While many presidential advisers are not given the official title of Czar-dom, estimates have put Obama’s total between thirty-four and forty-four (http://kingston.house.gov/UploadedFiles/BKAC.pdf). By comparison, Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) puts the tallies for George W. Bush at fourteen czars and Ronald Reagan at three in eight years, respectively. Others have placed Bush’s much higher.

For the years between 1547 and 1917, I counted twenty-four Russian Tsars and four Empresses.

Now, there’s nothing brand-new about the metaphorical ‘Czar’ in American history.

When Judge Kenesaw Landis was appointed Commissioner of Baseball in the wake of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, this ‘Czar’ terminology was applied by some newspapers.

Later, President Franklin Roosevelt created about a dozen czars to oversee a variety of newly established bureaucracies, such as the Director of the Office of Censorship and the War Food Administrator and other brainchildren of fascism. These were, in turn, informally referred to as the Censorship Czar and the Food Czar, respectively.

After Roosevelt, such positions were less common. Succeeding presidents sparingly appointed advisers to oversee pet-projects and advise them on critical matters. It was not until President Nixon, who appointed a Drug Czar and an Energy Czar, that a president officially used the term “Czar.”

President Carter appointed two Inflation Czars. Unfortunately, these Czars seemed to have misunderstood the objective they were charged with, hence giving America the worst inflation since the Civil War.

President Clinton, who memorably ended illegal immigration, AIDS and climate change, expanded the use of Czars beyond Roosevelt’s dreams, creating a Border Czar, an AIDS Czar and a Climate Czar.

But it was under George W. Bush when the number of Czars truly ballooned. Bush had a Health Czar for the World Trade Center, or as we Americans warmly referred to him, the Special coordinator to respond to health effects of September 11 attacks, World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program.

So far, Czars have generally been one of two things, and always two other things.

First, they are always symbolic posts established to give Americans the temporary perception that the federal government is working hard on an important issue. Second, they are always soon forgotten by Americans, nonetheless continuing to bloat an ever-growing Byzantine system, concurrently robbing the tax-payers blind.

They are either un-approved Lords of a vast network of shadow executive programs, or they are initially un-approved Lords of a vast network of shadow executive programs but soon-to-be permanently established, Senatorially-approved federal bureaucrats.

Nixon’s Energy Czar became the Director of the Department of Energy under Carter; the position is now simply the Secretary of Energy. George W. Bush recently established the Homeland Security Czar, which quickly morphed into the Secretary of Homeland Security.

So, can we expect a Department of Faith Based Initiatives? Would it be suprising? George W. Bush created the 15th Cabinet position of the Federal government just six years ago. Fifteen. Never mind that George Washington did alright with four. My word, how did he manage without a Secretary of Housing and Urban Development? Did they just live in back-water mud-huts?

At the very least, turning these Czars into Senate-approved cabinet-level positions would at least bring to end the Executive’s ever dazzling tango-with-Totalitarianism, as our “living” Constitution is placed on life support.

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution reads that “[The President] . . . . shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.”

Just how “inferior” are these Czars? How much power do they have? How big are their budgets?

No doubt, these Czars pose serious Constitutional questions. It is, moreover, high time American citizens quit abdicating their place in serious Constitutional debates in exchange for bread and circuses.

One Congressman has decided to finally do something about this, and he should be applauded. Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) has introduced legislation (http://kingston.house.gov/UploadedFiles/KINGST_039_xml.pdf) that would withhold funding from all Czars until they are Senatorially-approved.

Still the more recent, and albeit important, debate has been in relation to the ideologies held by the particular characters (and that’s a pretty friendly way of describing them) whom Obama has been appointing.

By the grace of God, Emperor, Autocrat and Czar of Green Jobs and, yay, all unholy realms thus related: Van Jones.

Van Jones, former Green Jobs Czar, resigned in disgrace a few weeks ago after it was revealed that he is a Marxist, 9/11 denying, envrio-fascist lunatic. Or as they used to call Fred Astaire: a triple threat.

Jones signed not one, but four petitions demanding an investigation of President Bush for his involvement with the planning of 9/11.

Jones also crusaded for Mumia Abdul-Jamal, a former Black Panther and convicted cop killer, by helping Jamal fight off his death sentence.

Nevertheless, I think we’ve all heard quite enough about the eminent Star Jones… I mean Czar Jones. What does Cass Sunstein think?

By the grace of God, Emperor and Grand Duchy on the Left Hand Side, Regulatory Czar: Cass Sunstein.

Cass Sunstein, confirmed by the Senate as President Obama’s Regulatory Czar, thinks animals have a right to sue humans in courts of law. Sunstein is on tape quoting Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who said “the day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hands of tyranny.” According to Sunstein, “a full grown horse or dog is a more rational and conversable animal” than a week or month old baby. I hear Frederic Nietzsche enjoyed a good dialogue over tea and scones with horses himself. Tell us about his philosophical musing. Please, more wisdom, oh sage!

At least we are finally able to extract the route logic behind why these people think abortion on demand is tolerable: unlike with dogs, you just can’t converse with babies.

Ps, for those who enjoy the kind of priorities which Bentham’s Utilitarian philosophy espouses, please see Europe circa 1933 to 1945.

By the grace of God, Emperor and Autocrat of Schools, Sire, Liege and pagan Lord: Kevin Jennings.

There is the Head of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, Kevin Jennings. Jennings believes that a key to safe and drug free schools is hate crimes legislations for gay and lesbian students. Jennings founded the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network in the early 1990’s. Although Jennings submitted the idea of hate crimes legislation to foster safe schools, in 1995 he admitted that the safe-schools stuff was mere rhetoric and that GLSEN really just “threw [the] opponents on the defensive, and stole their best line of attack.”

Jennings wrote about the introduction of diversity policies that mandate gay lesbian and transgender themes being brought into school curriculum.

Can any one rationally describe the virtue of such themes being introduced in school curriculum?

“Ok class! Today’s plan shall include one hour of civics, thirty minutes of algebra, followed by your fifteen minute play break and then forty-five minutes of LGBT studies.”

This is not a social, religious, moral or political debate. This cannot be confused with the issue of gay marriage or gay rights. This is an agenda posed to teach about social and sexual relationships better explained by parents. Radicals like Jennings, however, have convinced themselves that parents have no right to socialize their own children in the ways they see fit. Any attempt to block a LGBT curriculum would surely be met with cries of “homophobia.”

It also turns out that Jennings is a prolific writer. In yet another book he describes an incident which occurred while he taught at the Concord Academy in Massachusetts, in which a fifteen year old student came to him and described having sexual relations with an older man. Rather than reporting this act of statutory rape to authorities as a teacher is legally obligated to in most states (well, maybe not in Massachusetts), Jennings merely asked if the boy used a condom. I give you, our Safe and Drug Free Schools Czar.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Once merely a narrative, icing over the bio of the high cherub of change, Obama’s associations with crazed and deranged acquaintances has by now morphed into a veritable Vagina Monologue for Marxist nut jobs.

Never mind his whimsical soothsayer, Reverend Jeremiah Rasputin, Obama’s shadow cabinet makes Wright look moderate. Never mind that a few Marxists popped up along on the campaign trail, they now occupy valued positions in the Obama White House (senior adviser Valerie Jarrett once described Van Jones as someone who Obama “has been watching since he’s been active out of Oakland.”).

I would ask all of us to simply remember President Obama’s request of us: “Judge me by the people with whom I surround myself.”

You bet your ass we will.

manufactured outrage, indeed

I have a theory. Humor me. After watching footage of a cancer survivor speak before Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee at a town hall in California today and watching as Lee openly took out her cell phone as the cancer survivor spoke, I concluded that the US Congress has been disproportionately stricken by Attention Deficit Disorder and are urgently in need of Ritalin. Unfortunately, on a Congressional salary, a gal like Lee can barely afford her hefty dose of Hallucinogenic drugs, let alone Ritalin, to boot.

Lee’s aloofness to the public outrage certainly explains Congress’ paranoid response to the Health Care protesters who have been greeting them at town hall after town hall. It couldn’t by any means be real outrage, could it?

Just the other day I opened my Twitter feed to find that even the BBC is now asking whether the Health Care Reform protesters are part of a “manufactured” “conspiracy.”

First, it is trite to even discuss the infinite, blatant and documented examples of extreme-leftists planting protesters at public events; of leftists shouting down public speakers they disagree with; and of leftists ‘organizing’ to protest.

Second, to say that the Republicans are behind all this is laughable. With the party of Bush-McCain in disarray, the Conservative, Independent, and Libertarian movements momentously and vocally lashing out at the US government’s march toward Socialism, the Republican Party can only wish it could claim credit.

Third, I should state upfront that the BBC article by Jonathan Beale was one of the fairer takes on the subject I’ve seen yet.

Nevertheless, I still find the concept of dissecting the motives behind town hall protesters in and of itself rather specious – conspiratorial, one might say. Ultimately, unless these protesters are insincere in their beliefs, who cares who organized them? Why are people so concerned about this?

Indeed, it seems that the moment the Speaker of the House, others in Congress, and the White House itself all began spreading the rumor that these protesters are just “manufactured” protesters planted by special interests, various news outlets simply ran with it.

A few days ago for instance, an unsettled Nancy Pelosi mentioned seeing mobs of protesters “carrying Swastikas and symbols like that.”

Curious, I Googled “health-care-protesters-swastika” and came across a single photo of a protester. The protester is holding up a sign with a Swastika on it and “? Obama” written underneath. Of course, Frau Pelosi surely felt that the inclusion of a red line – the universal symbol for opposition – drawn across the Swastika is contextually insignificant to the point being raised:  these protesters are simply ‘uncivil’ Swastika-flashing ‘mobs’ destroying political discourse and dialogue and lions and tigers and bears oh my!

So, anyone listening to Pelosi’s disconcerted ramblings about unspecified protesters with Swastikas would think your local Neo-Nazis had turned out in force to protest Health Care Reform. In reality (a place that Pelosi rarely makes it to these days), the one protester I’ve seen carried an anti-Swastika, clearly communicating (a) that Obama is nazi-esque and (b) that Nazism is bad.

Perhaps “(a)” is an extreme position, but let’s keep in mind the all important “(b).” This much, at least, I can concede to the approximately eighty-three billion protesters we have been seen carrying effigies of George W. Bush plastered with every imaginable reference to Nazism – yes, including a Swastika or two. Yes, their mental faculties notwithstanding, I can at least concede that these protesters didn’t seem to prefer Nazism.

Thankfully, the Speaker toned down her criticism of the protesters: now she simply calls them “Un-American” in her official press release.

Barbara Boxer (no, she really hasn’t earned, nor does she deserve the title “Senator”) provided a pointless anecdote to NBC news about the last time she’d seen protesters so “well dressed.” She said that in 2000, when Al Gore asked her to come to Florida, she was told to ‘go back to California.’ Unabashed, the fierce lioness said ‘your hero Ronald Regan’ is from California, and they all quieted down.

I seem to have missed or forgotten that soaring example of rhetorical savoir-faire during the course of Gore’s thirty-five day coup d’état. I firstly doubt very much that it ever happened; yet, if it did, I doubt that it caused any protesters to eat their words. Charles Manson, Scott Peterson and Grey Davis are also Californians. Certainly, having shared a state with one’s favorite former president seems an unlikely criterion for making it into one’s heart.

Now, the upshot of Boxer’s drug-induced babble is this: the Health Care protesters, like the 2000 election protesters, are just a well funded, well connected, ‘well dressed’ mob who doesn’t represent America. They are just members of a vast, wealthy, organized conspiracy, planted by insurance companies.

Being that she is a fabulously wealthy millionairess, who has spent the better part of thirty years soaking up tax money as a cradle-to-grave-politician, I shan’t doubt Boxer’s keen ability to spot fine and expensive clothing. However, the clips and photos of protesters I’m seeing are looking rather Wall-Mart-chic these days.

Is it Boxer’s belief that average Americans – people likely to show up to protest a town hall meeting on an expensive and increasingly unpopular bill – would sloppily shuffle into a town hall meeting with their Congressman wearing their filthiest peasant rags?

Perhaps she’s just unaware of the new USA Today/Gallup poll showing that a majority of people over fifty, and of people with existing Health Care, and of seniors (many of whom are already on Medicare) are opposed to government run health care. These are citizens who generally work, earn money, pay their taxes and take an interest in civics. I’ll go out a limb and assume they typically shower and dust off their polo shirts and blouses from time to time, “Ma’am.”

These well-dressed mobs are clearly the result of all that “fishy” information being disseminated. As a public service, White House Communications Director for Health Care Reform, Linda Douglas, posted this message on an official White House blog:

“There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

Now, I’m not one of those who would go so far as to say that President Obama is compiling an enemies list, but let’s stay here for just a moment. First, its very likely, any email sent to the White House is archived in a database and investigated – even if the FBI doesn’t show up at your door.

Second, while I certainly doubt that Douglas was attempting to silence political opposition, maybe advising people to report all casual conversations they’re having with friends, neighbors and colleagues if the content of those conversations seems “fishy,” at least has the flavor of a Totalitarian thought-control policy, no?

This statement can still be read at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/facts-are-stubborn-things/

Rather than asking us to report suspicious conversations to the White House so they can respond email-by-email, Obama could just speak directly to the American people and convince those of us who aren’t so stupid as to think universal Health Care will be deficit neutral – you know, like those crazy folks at the Congressional Budget Office, who are now foretelling of unavoidable deficits in the proposed program reaching the low twelve digits within the first decade.

Well, yesterday, he did just that in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

First question.

Q: ‘I’m a senior citizen I have a wonderful government run healthcare plan called Medicare. I like it. Its affordable. Its reasonable. No one tells me what to do, I just go to my doctor, my hospital, I get care . . . . you’ve been striving for bipartisanship . . . .

(Really?)

. . . . my question is, if the Republicans actively refuse to participate in a reasonable way with reasonable proposals, isn’t it time to just say we’re going to pass what people need and what they want without the Republicans.’

Sure, I mean, that’s a fair and evenhanded point. Obviously this was just your average Joe the Plumber Six-pack off the street at Obama’s town hall. Nothing like those dreadful town halls we’ve been seeing – full of planted protesters and manufactured outrage.

A little later, an angel-faced, starry-eyed eleven year old pixie of a girl warmed our hearts and dulled our senses with this question:

Q: ‘I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care, how do kids know what is true, and why do people want a new system that can help more of us?’

What a sharp little princess. Why would people – get this – why would people want to create a ‘system’ that helps more people? I’ve been as confused as she on this point. Prey tell my für? Mr. Obama, you’re not one of these crazy guys – these, these guys who likes to help people all the time, are you? What a crazy concept. That’s just crazy!

I wonder. Could it be that this well-informed little girl inherited her smarts from her dear old mom, Manning Hall, a coordinator for Massachusetts Women for Obama during the 2008 election?

Yes, the Boston Globe is now reporting that little Julia’s mommy was a campaign fund raiser – a community organizer of sorts – who has actually met with Michelle Obama, the Obama daughters and Vice President Biden during the campaign.

I give you a manufactured, well-organized town hall brimming with planted questions, compliments of the Community Organizer in Chief.

Yet, the President’s finest hour surely came with:

Q: ‘How can a private company compete against the government?’

A: “I think private insurance should be able to compete . . . . if you think about it, uh, ya’know UPS and Fedex are doin’ just fine. Right? No, they are, it’s the Post Office that’s always havin’ problems.”

Huh. You know, that’s exactly the best analogy someone could give in making the case for government run health care. Phew, that certainly cleared up all the “fishy” misconceptions I had.

With his credibility on Health Care hemorrhaging, Obama’s response to broad, bipartisan public outrage is to ‘manufacture’ his own friendly town hall – totally unrepresentative of what’s occurring in dozens of town halls across the country – in which he gives few details, plays with numbers (giving wishful, at best, estimates about cost-control measures that are totally contrary to the non-partisan CBO) and playing with facts, in the end amounting to little more than a, “Trust me folks, I got this one!”

Even before this shameless spectacle occurred, Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote a slam-dunk of an article in the Wall Street Journal of Obama’s tone-deafness to this public outrage.

She wrote that, “[Obama] seems unable to grasp . . . . [t]hat Americans don’t take well, for instance, to bullying, especially of the moralizing kind, implicit in those speeches on health care for everybody. Neither do they wish to be taken where they don’t know they want to go and being told it’s good for them.”

Well, in fairness to Obama, at least he turned his Black Berry on vibrate during his town hall. Are you listening Sheila Jackson Lee? Didn’t think so.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342653428074782.html

diversions

I hope that Bud Light sufficiently washed down those unhealthy soon-to-be-taxed peanuts, those pricey cigarettes he raised taxes on 250% and the bitter taste of his own foot.

I’m a bit enchanted, you see – full of mirth, I tell you.

Yet, as the Cherub in Chief finally embarks on his long awaited and spectacularly orchestrated fall to earth, I’m left torn over which diversion aimed at shielding this blindingly glorious sight, indeed born on the Sun-speckled rays of Heaven above, shall go down as my favorite.

Nearly two weeks ago polling trends placed President Obama’s overall job approval below 50% for the first time.

Thankfully, at least while this brief but memorable Honeymoon lasted, Obama did treat his Lady Liberty to a Latin-flavored apology tour, bought dozens of shiny new automobile [plants] and a new house (for everyone who couldn’t afford to pay their mortgage). He sure knows how to treat a gal.

Currently, 39% of America strongly disapproves (compared with 31% strongly approving) of the president’s performance.

If one thinks it is only natural to fall so swiftly let’s recall some historical examples to gauge the novelty of a drop from 69% to 49% in just shy of his first seven months.

Often considered among the worst presidents of all time, Richard Nixon started out with a 59% approval in January of 1969, shot up to 69% by the year’s end and remained above 50% until early 1971. He spent 1971 bordering the 50% mark, shooting up to the high 50’s for 1972, and winning reelection by the biggest popular vote in American history, reaching his precipice of 69% just before Watergate broke in 1974.

Gerry Ford, of course, dropped swiftly from a post-Nixon resignation high of 70%, falling below 50% in the span of four months. (Of course, pardoning a guy who is considered among the worst presidents of all time probably didn’t sit well with America).

George H.W. Bush typically sat in the 60’s throughout his presidency, falling below 50% as the recession kicked and the ‘No New Taxes’ promise was broke in late 1991. (Also significant is the fact that his party had already controlled the White house for nearly eleven years at this point – and still, the nation approved).

Even Carter lasted a full year, holding solidly above 50% until January of 1978. (I know, I know, everyone was pretty stoned in 1978 – but even copious milkshakes can only distract and appease the senses for so long).

Bill Clinton, on the other hand, beginning with an approval rating of 56% plummeted to 37% in less than six months after taking office.

I don’t understand it, I mean, was there some kind of monstrously oversized government program being stomped down our throats around this time? Did it come packaged in red tape, bureaucracy and a vomit-colored pantsuit?

(Of course, one thing Obama learned from Clinton’s little soiree into Universal Marxism: get Hillary the hell out of the country and off the TV if we’re going to get this thing done already!)

Diversion the first: Beer Summit.

A couple weeks ago, at the close of a nauseating 50-minute press conference on the Health Care Reform bill, comprised of approximately one and half thirty-minute responses by the president, Mr. Obama was asked about the recent arrest of a Black Studies professor from Harvard University.

‘What does it say about race relations in America?’

Briefly, here are the greatest hits of that exchange: “I don’t know all the facts . . . . I’m sure there [was] some exchange of words . . . . I don’t know, having not been there, what role race played in this . . . . but the Cambridge police acted stupidly [and] there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped disproportionately in this country”

We all know the outcome. Professor Gates was uncooperative, asked whether he was being asked for identification by the police because he was a “Black man in America!”

Yes, and dagnamit, with a Black Mayor, Black Governor, Black President, and a Black Studies degree, can’t a Black man get a break in Cambridge Massachusetts?! That, and I would just die if I could get some of those tasty clams from Nantucket.

One arresting officer (another Black man in America) came to the defense of the commanding officer on the scene, saying that Sgt. Crawley acted reasonably while Gates acted rather strangely.

Obama was seen as race bating. (No, not Obama, not my Obama!) White House Press Secretary Glib brilliantly added that of course the arresting officers would all stick together inasmuch as the “fraternal order” of police all voted for McCain.

Alienating and politicizing all the police in America as a lobby – a fraternal order, no less – in bed with John McCain? Ok. Sure.

In response to the backlash, the president, uh, said, uh, “there are some who say that as president, uh, I shouldn’t have stepped into this at all because it’s a local issue. Uh, I have to tell you that, uh – that thing – that part of it, I disagree with. Um. The fact that this has become such a big issue I think is indicative of the fact that, ya know, uh, race is still a troubling aspect of our society. Uh, whether I were Black or White, uh, I think that, uh, me commenting on this, uh, and hopefully contributing to constructive as opposed to, uh, negative understanding about the issue is, uh, part of my portfolio.”

Uh, ok. Quite clearly and manifestly obvious to nearly everyone, his comments contributed to “uh negative” understanding of the issue. Also, given that he so uncharacteristically paraded his race around the East Wing declaring himself testament to the racial progress we have made, what was this crap two days later about “whether I were Black or White?”

I mean, would one call such an issue part of his “portfolio” whether he were black or white? Or is it fair to assume that Obama was answering this question, not from his role as Commander in Chief, but from the role as disillusioned Black man. . . . in America.

And the “fact that it became such a big issue” is likely more indicative of the fact that most Americans own TV sets, thus were able to watch the President of the United States go on national television and insinuate that a local cop he’d never met is a racist, insofar as he is a cop and therefore racist.

Now, I have no doubt that the police officers in Cambridge overreacted, as many police officers are wont to – regardless of there being an irrational Black Studies professor with a chip on his shoulder trying to get arrested, for the sheer anecdotal quality such an arrest would have on his meaningless and wasted career.

Of course, while that’s for me as a private citizen to speculate about, its probably for the leader of the free world to decline to reflect upon and get back to Health Care Reform.

Diversion the second: Clinton in Korea.

We’re now to believe former President Clinton parachuted into North Korea in a “surprise-Boo!” effort to free the imprisoned American journalists.

First, while we’re always gladdened to hear Americans making it home and out of harms’ away from abroad, this was public relations at its most mind-spinning.

The deal for their release was already made before Clinton even showed up.

Clinton was sent for the sole purpose of causing us all to ‘oh’ and ‘aw’ over the last ‘liberal-lion’ to sit in the White House. It was part of a more than eight-year long effort to reshape and recast this sociopathic molester into a facilitator of world peace.

The deal was already made, and, what’s more, it is beneath an American president (in or out of office) to be meeting with dictators who have been openly hostile to America and who just imprisoned two American civilians for over 140 days.

Let’s also not forget Bill’s last dealings with the Koreans. The 1994 non-proliferation treaty, intended to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapon’s programs in exchange for allowing them to build nuclear plants, allowed them to escape the radar and continue with their nuclear program – a program which they’ve chosen to test in the vicinity of Hawaii on our Independence Day. Way to go Bill.

Diversion the third: the Health Care protesters

In dozens of town hall meetings on the Health Care reform bill, protesters have been interrupting Democratic Senators and Congressmen, with one protester, in a more memorable incident, declaring the bill a ‘bureaucratic nightmare.’

The White House is now informing members of the courtier press that these protestors have indeed been planted by lobbyists.

Just a second, are they trying to say that lobbying groups actually plant protesters at events, and that, moreover, some protestors get unruly and shout down speakers at public events?

Oh, that’s right – this is just what we call the chief tactic of militant leftists waged on non-leftist political candidates and University speakers for the last five decades.

Anyhow, a couple of things come to mind.

First, a Quinnipiac University poll shows 52% of Americans disapproving of Obama’s handling of Health Care, compared with 39% approving. This is sort of like saying ‘pro-lifers are a fringe terrorist cell’ when in fact 51% of the country self-identifies as prolife.

I don’t believe for a second people are being bussed in to protest for insurance companies.

In any event, even if they were planted: so what? It doesn’t change 52% disapproval. It also doesn’t make these people any less genuinely outraged.

Unfortunately, pride blinds the arrogant in their quest to rule people’s lives. When irreligious, egotistical leftists who worship at the shrine of secularism hold a religious view, such as that all people must have government healthcare, it becomes justifiable to drown out opposition and to force your agenda by every means necessary. Dissenters just need to be converted, that’s all.

So, diversions become useful.

And what about this little trillion-dollar Frankenstein monster?

Universal Health Care has been tossed around since the 1950’s. We know the talking points: health care is expensive because (a) evil insurance companies making profits; (b) high salaries for insurance CEOs and doctors; etc. By contrast, we’re told the federal government can bring down these costs by creating a public option to force competition for lower prices.

Of course, Medicare ought to stand as our example of the profligate inefficiency of the federal government in its attempt to provide medical care for seniors.

Medicare has proven totally unable to control costs, and most Medicare patients are finding out that their out of pocket expenses are growing. Administrative costs are also higher for Medicare patients. Medicare places no catastrophic limit on out-of-pocket expenses, as private insurance does.

Stands to reason why half of Medicare recipients also have private, supplemental insurance.

It’s also, obviously, insane to suggest, as Mr. Obama has, that the 200 million insured Americans would keep their current insurance.

Obama even subtly admitted as much in his press conference a few weeks ago: “if you found out your neighbor got the same car for . . . . less” you’d want the same deal. Yes, yes you would.

“If there’s a blue pill and a red pill” why not pay for the cheaper one? Sure. And what’s more, whichever one was good enough for Keanu Reeves is good enough for America!

Ultimately, the so called public “option” would charge lower premiums, attract all the patients, force providers to participate, pay providers less, drive many providers and private plans out of business, ultimately leaving the bill for inefficient, low-quality healthcare on the middle class.

In the end: a single-payer government health care plan with less providers, longer waits and less capital to invest in technology and innovation. Physicians will be forced to accept lower payments and thus lower income, or find new employment: thus, facilitating a decrease in incentive to enter the healthcare profession.

And now that we’re all ‘in it together’ the fed becomes the mediator and final arbiter of intimate medical decisions – as they are in all federally controlled agencies.

Not to mention, further government entanglement in biological and medical issues which are the subject of moral and ethical debates. The fight to keep tax-funded abortions out of ObamaCare may have been won in 2009, but wait and see what the revolving political powers will bring in years ahead.

Thankfully, none of the many diversions have worked long enough to get our minds off the magnificent catastrophe that is ObamaCare,

Still, I simply can’t pick which of these diversions from Obama’s fall from grace delighted me the most in these last weeks. It truly is a tough call – like picking which of your own children is your favorite. It’s time like these when a man just wishes he could have his waffle and eat it to.

george tiller and the waning credibility of the new york times

I am repulsed. It would take some work to parse David Barstow’s column in the New York Times, “An Abortion Battle, Fought to the Death,” and pull out all the fawning adjectives used to describe slain abortion doctor, George Tiller. “Savvy,” “warrior,” “defiant;” he even had a “sense of mission.”

Attached to the article is a picture of men (all men, including a priest and a man holding a crucifix) praying with clasped hands, with another of women (all women) with hands clasped in protest. Such is the image of the abortion debate we are asked to believe: white Christian men versus women. The issue thus framed is one of women’s rights.

Barstow even writes, “Employees said Dr. Tiller did not have moral qualms about his work, in part because he defined it as saving women’s lives and giving them freedom to determine their futures.” Tiller himself once bragged that, “We have helped correct some of the results of rape and incest. We have helped battered women escape to a safer life. . . We have helped women and families struggle to save their unwell, unborn child a lifetime of pain.”

It is a perverse mind that thinks the result of rape can be “corrected” let alone that such is corrected by an abortion. It is a deranged individual who thinks an “unwell” unborn child is “saved” from life by summary termination. Indeed, let us not be lulled by such high sounding rhetoric. “Unwell” simply means a child with disabilities. Approximately 92% of unborn children in the U.S. and England diagnosed with down-syndrome have been aborted over the last twenty years.

Why, if only “Christian conservatives” would stop “demoralizing” and “outmuscling” abortion defenders, even more unborn down-syndrome babies could get some justice. For so long we have looked for a cure to down-syndrome, yet no further should we have looked than to Tiller’s Abortuary.

Barstow relished in bitter-delight that Tiller gave his employees plaques that read “freedom fighters.” A “warrior” who fought to the end, he was.

Now let me say that it is unnecessary for reasonable people to have any debate over whether a cold blood murder is morally wrong. Tiller’s assassin is obviously unclear on the meaning of “pro-life.” But so is Barstow.

In fact, “pro-life” is seen nowhere in his front page article. “Anti-abortion” is used often. Yet “pro-abortion,” we are often told, is a mischaracterization of men like Tiller. They aren’t “pro” abortion; no one is “pro” abortion.

I beg to differ. Tiller performed tens of thousands of abortions in his long career. He didn’t advocate a reduction in the number of women seeking abortion as President Obama, who is “personally opposed” to abortion, purports to: at $6,000 a pop, abortion was his bread and butter. Abortion was not a last resort procedure in Tiller’s mind as more moderate pro-choicers feel it should be: abortion saves women’s lives, according to his former employees.

From what? Financial troubles? Social stigma? The prison of motherhood?

Perhaps they are “correcting” a rape? Perhaps from a statutory rape in the case of the legion pregnant teenage girls being, at best, ditched by their older boyfriends; and, at worst, abused by discrete older men: men who, but for opponents of parental notification laws, ought to be exposed, prosecuted and kept from repeat offensives.

Perhaps he was protecting us all from more un-fathered Black babies who are being terminated at a rate of three-to-one over White babies. Well, to be fair, at $6,000 per abortion, Tiller was probably catering to a slightly different class in Wichita. It’s Planned Parenthood who has set up 80% of their facilities in heavily Black neighborhoods. And it’s Planned Parenthood who makes no qualms about accepting donations for the express purpose of “lower[ing] the number of Black people,” as the pro-life student group from UCLA exposed.

If you haven’t heard, that UCLA group conducted phone calls to multiple planned parenthoods in which they asked if they could make donations for the express purpose of aborting Black babies. Their donations were readily accepted. One girl even posed as a fourteen year old and went into a Planned Parenthood to ask for counseling. She told the nurses her boyfriend was in his late twenties. The nurses at best pretended they didn’t hear her; and more often recommended that she not tell anyone.

Of course, after about an hour of attempting numerous search combinations, combing the New York Times website for this incident (which certainly made the news), I came up short. So far, it appears that the Times never paid this sting much attention. Instead what I found was an article by Robert Mackey about how Bill O’Reilly of Fox News has been mean to George Tiller these last couple years, and musing over whether all the mean rhetoric leveled against Tiller led to his death.

“As Dr. Tiller’s killing inevitably becomes part of the war of words over abortion rights in the United States, it is worth asking if heated rhetoric, like that invoking mass murder and jihad, does help to create a climate in which violent attacks, like the one in Kansas, become more likely.”

Bartow cites the words of one representative from the National Organization of Women who demands that the attacks on abortion doctors be treated like “domestic terrorism.” After all, four have been slain since Roe v Wade was decided in 1971.

I wonder, do the words and rhetoric of pro-choice politicians help to “create a climate” in which abortions, likes the thousands happening every day, become more likely? Did President Obama’s address to Planned Parenthood plant the seed of abortion in the minds of young girls “punished” with pregnancy? Did the great abortion rights “warrior” George Tiller’s “defiant” words play any role in the thousands of abortions he gleefully performed?

These cartoon characters from the extreme left have effectively raped the Times of all credibility on issues like abortion.

Firstly, fifty-one percent of Americans, according to Gallup, now identify as pro-life. That’s one hell of a terrorist cell.

Less than twenty percent (a high estimate) support the kind of abortion Tiller was famous for: late term abortions. Twenty to twenty-five percent support no form of abortions. The rest, in between, believe abortion should be restricted, not used as birth control, and limited to cases of rape or to save the life of the mother. This means that even though fifty-one percent self-identify as pro-life, more than seventy-five percent oppose abortion as birth control and late term abortions.

Of course, the number of abortions performed to save a mother’s life or to “correct” a rape account for less than one percent of all the abortions performed. So, seventy-five percent of Americans (crossing all political ideologies), at minimum, oppose more than 99% of all the abortions being performed.

Most women cite youth, financial problems, that the father left, that they want to finish college, that they aren’t ready (the number one reason), or that they fear a social stigma. If one feels an unborn child is a human life possessed of intrinsic moral worth, these reasons, at the very least, do not amount to just causes for the destruction of life. Most people are seriously examining this moral dilemma. That is, all but the fringe left, George Tiller, his assassin and the New York Times.

uganda: week 1

It’s best to come to a place like Uganda without any notions of what to expect.

For starters, I booked the wrong flight and showed up a day later than the Pepperdine group. I also forgot to secure a hotel room for the twelve hour layover in Dubai. (I was later informed by Henry, a court registrar, that I would be the last one to make it to Heaven. Well, given my flight and hotel blunders, I’m just about getting use to doing things the hard way.).

In the Dubai airport, I enjoyed five dollar Starbucks coffee (funny, it tasted the same as two dollar Starbucks coffee.). No refills sir. I also met Asif, a Persian fellow who lived in Johannesburg, studied law at the Ohio (a Buckeye, he happily informed) and now works as a CPA at the U.N. World Food Bank. He was on his way to Rome, where his office is based. We talked about law, his teenage sons, young people in America, American education, foreign affairs, and of the Persian perspective on American policy in the Middle East. Of Kampala, a place where Asif had once been stationed with the U.N., he only warned that I should avoid the dangerous boda-bodas (motorbikes.). Too late Asif. But he was delighted about Pepperdine’s internship program, and shared my excitement for engaging with a young and evolving legal system.

In Entebe, Uganda, there was no terminal connecting the plane to the airport, and so I was immediately struck by the moist air. Inside, I had to fill out a Swine flu information card, and quickly got the feeling that Ugandans aren’t big on waiting in orderly lines. Thankfully, Fred and Pricilla redeemed my first impression of Ugandans. Pricilla asked me if I needed a cab. I told her I needed to get a hold of my group. Pricilla offered her phone, dialed the phone numbers which I had frantically scribbled on an envelop and waited for me. Of course, Pricilla probably wanted my cab-business. But I have certainly never had an American cab driver offer his own cell phone. Pricilla was gracious.

She turned me over to Fred who drove me to Kampala. Fred pointed out the president’s mansion, Lake Victoria, a local brick factory and some other points of local interest. I listened and watched the sharp colors of landscape dance about behind the open markets and stores along the road. It was only two-lanes, but Fred and the other drivers didn’t let this get in their ways. Driving on the wrong side, carving out third lanes, dodging boda-bodas and pedestrians within a hair’s breadth, Ugandan drivers make L.A. streets seem like bumper cars. I white-knuckled the hand-grasp above and prayed for a safe ride – notwithstanding the small issue of now being last in line to Heaven, I prayed indeed.

Fred and I also managed a nice chat during our death-defying ride. I could tell he was proud of Uganda when he pointed out the president’s mansion and spoke of the local sites. Odd as it might seem to point out to a tourist, I caught on that the brick factory must have been a source of steady jobs for Ugandans. Justice Kiryabwire of the commercial court later stressed Uganda’s commitment to the spread of economic infrastructure and facilitating market activity. The loss of a single dollar, he said, meant all the difference to the average Ugandan’s daily life. And so it is important that the courts keep a firm and steady hand over the enforcement of contracts. It is important to quality of life of people like Fred and others that jobs remain stable, and that local commerce thrives.

Fred told me that Ugandans are free to move and go wherever they want, implying a great change from the Uganda of twenty years ago – the Uganda that most Westerns still have in mind. It’s best to come without any notions of what to expect.

“Uganda is free,” Fred proudly declared. To which I replied with excitement that I would be looking forward to working for his courts.

pope benedict and pius the great

Several weeks ago, an impassioned debate was sparked over the appropriateness of the Pope’s bearing a crucifix at the Western Wall. This week he finally made that appearance. Not surprisingly, the reviews were highly critical.

His speech was described as ‘restrained’ and ‘cold’ by an Israeli newspaper. Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin was outraged that he delivered an historical speech, even though ‘he was a part of them.’

When John Paul II spoke at the Western Wall he called for God’s forgiveness for the suffering of the Jewish people. Benedict mentioned the pain and suffering of the Jewish people, and the horror of the Holocaust. He called for peace in the Middle East. But for some, this was not good enough. Apparently, there was some expectation among Jewish leaders that Benedict would be apologizing insofar as he is, both, a Christian and a German raised in the Hitler Youth.

The Hitler Youth was a compuslory paramilitary troop. German boys above ten were required to join by the end of the war. Pope Benedict was fourteen years old when he joined. During the Cold War, nearly every West German leader was a former member of the group – possibly there was some coorelation between the facts that the group was COMPULSORY and that EVERY male in Germany was a former a member. The Pope is a member of this aging generation. They don’t owe a special apology to anyone for having been forced, by a murderous tyrant, into a paramilitary troop as boys and teenagers.

Christians in general do not owe an apology for the Holocaust. So often we hear of the six million Jews killed in the concentraion camps. This is true. And it is true that the Jewish community of Europe felt the greatest proportional impact of the Holocaust. More than sixty, perhaps as much as eighty percent of European Jews were killed. But what groups do we suppose comprised the other six to ten million who were killed in the camps? Is it often mentioned that Catholic clergymen were primary targets of the Nazis? Such as one Maximillian Kolbe who voluntarily martyred himself for a Jew at Auschwitz. (The Jew lived to see another fifty years; and Maximillian was sainted.). Do we hear that millions of Christians were slaughtered in the death camps as well?

Of course there is no shortage of propaganda constantly disseminated about the role of Pius XII during the Nazi era. Of course, not more than ten years ago it was discovered that both the Kremlin and Hitler had aims for the pontiff’s assassination, and that both feared his allegiance to the other. Both used the Holy See in various functions of their propaganda. Today, many still believe this propaganda, despite the fact that the Nazis and the Communists shared no greater or more formative enemy than the Holy See.

There is talk of Hitler’s “Catholicism.” Hitler was a mysticist with a demonic world view, who believed in his own authority. He was not like a Christian monarch of old Europe deriving his authority from the Holy See. While he may have occasionally paid lipservice to Catholicism in public (as any good tyrannical propagandist would in a nation full of Catholics), no reasonable person thinks for a minute that Adolf Hitler was a devout Catholic. The whole Nazi government was, quite obviously, inherently un-Christian. And yet, the allegations are pervasive – no matter how nonsensical they remain.

(Who knows. Perhaps when America falls people will be talking about Bill Clinton’s devout Christianity and the theocratic government he ran.)

Pope Pius XII issued thousands of fake Baptismal certificates and visas to European Jews. Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. All tolled, Pius saved more than 800,000 Jews. While 60-75% of Europe’s Jewish population was annihilated by the Nazis, 80% of Italian Jews were spared by Pius’ efforts to shelter, deport, and lie about as many Jews as he could.

And yet while we have Academy Award winning movies about great men like Schindler, saintly men like Pius are called Nazis. And peaceful men like Benedict are called on to apologize.

Three millions Poles were slaughtered – mainly Catholics. Of course, the Polish Pope we just had for twenty five years dedicate great efforts in his pontiff to reconciliation. To building bridges with Jews and Muslims. To solidarity with the people of Europe’s Soviet bloc. Benedict no doubt shares the same mission as John Paul.

But a lot of arrogant Israelis have picked a fight with Benedict out of hatred and prejudice. They think he owes a constant duty to explain himself, and prove that he is not an anti-semite. There is no appeasing them. Benedict could have fallen to his knees at the Western Wall, and it just would not have been fast enough for people like Rivlin.